Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts

Monday 30 December 2019

The Past Year Has Brought Many Discoveries In The Study Of Diabetes

The Past Year Has Brought Many Discoveries In The Study Of Diabetes.
Even as the omen of diabetes continues to grow, scientists have made significant discoveries in the over year that might one broad daylight lead to ways to stop the blood sugar plague in its tracks. That's some good news as World Diabetes Day is observed this Sunday. Created in 1991 as a dive project between the International Diabetes Federation and the World Health Organization to bring about more attention to the public health threat of diabetes, World Diabetes Day was officially recognized by the United Nations in 2007.

One of the more intoxicating findings in type 1 diabetes research this year came from the lab of Dr Pere Santamaria at University of Calgary, where researchers developed a vaccine that successfully reversed diabetes in mice. What's more, the vaccine was able to quarry only those vaccinated cells that were top for destroying the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. "The hope is that this work will translate to humans," said Dr Richard Insel, manager scientific officer for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. "And what's rousing is that they've opened up some pathways we didn't even know were there".

The other avenue of sort 1 research that Insel said has progressed significantly this year is in beta chamber function. Pedro Herrera, at the University of Geneva Medical School, and his team found that the adult pancreas can literally regenerate alpha cells into functioning beta cells. Other researchers, according to Insel, have been able to reprogram other cells in the body into beta cells, such as the acinar cells in the pancreas and cells in the liver.

This category of stall manipulation is called reprogramming, a different and less complex process than creating induced pluripotent quell cells, so there are fewer potential problems with the process. Another exciting development that came to consummation this past year was in type 1 diabetes management. The first closed wind artificial pancreas system was officially tested, and while there's still a long way to go in the regulatory process, Insel said there have been "very positive results".

Unfortunately, not all diabetes news this past year was encomiastic news. One of the biggest stories in type 2 diabetes was the US Food and Drug Administration's firmness to restrict the sale of the type 2 diabetes medication rosiglitazone (Avandia) into the middle concerns that the drug might increase the risk of cardiovascular complications. The manufacturer of Avandia, GlaxoSmithKline, was also ordered to get an unlimited review of clinical trials run by the company.

Sunday 15 December 2019

Ecstasy In The Service Of Medicine

Ecstasy In The Service Of Medicine.
The recreational dose known as heaven on earth may have a medicinal role to play in helping people who have trouble connecting to others socially, budding research suggests. In a study involving a small group of fit people, investigators found that the drug - also known as MDMA - prompted heightened feelings of friendliness, playfulness and love, and induced a lowering of the minder that might have therapeutic uses for improving venereal interactions. Yet the closeness it sparks might not be result in deep and lasting connections.

The findings "suggest that MDMA enhances sociability, but does not irresistibly increase empathy," noted study author Gillinder Bedi, an subsidiary professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University and a research scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York City. The study, funded by the US National Institute on Drug Abuse and conducted at the Human Behavioral Pharmacology Laboratory at the University of Chicago, was published in the Dec 15 2010 proclamation of Biological Psychiatry.

In July, another burn the midnight oil reported that MDMA might be worthwhile in treating post-traumatic pain disorder (PTSD), based on the drug's appearing boosting of the ability to cope with grief by helping to control fears without numbing mobile vulgus emotionally. MDMA is part of a family of so-called "club drugs," which are popular with some teens and junior at all night dances or "raves".

These drugs, which are often used in combination with alcohol, have potentially life-threatening effects, according to the US National Institute on Drug Abuse. The newest mull over explored the clobber of MDMA on 21 healthy volunteers, nine women and 12 men old 18 to 38. All said they had taken MDMA for recreational purposes at least twice in their lives.

They were randomly assigned to inherit either a low or moderate dose of MDMA, methamphetamine or a sugar crank during four sessions in about a three-week period. Each session lasted at least 4,5 hours, or until all possessions of the drug had worn off. During that time, participants stayed in a laboratory testing room, and collective interaction was limited to contact with a research assistant who helped supply cognitive exams.

Sunday 8 December 2019

Incidence Of Lung Cancer In Black Men Is Higher Than The National Average

Incidence Of Lung Cancer In Black Men Is Higher Than The National Average.
Despite above-named findings to the contrary, unfamiliar inspect indicates that black patients with non-small cell lung are as likely to harbor a specific anomaly in tumors as white patients. This means that black patients should be at least as likely as white patients to improve from highly effective therapies that target the mutation, such as the drug known as erlotinib, the researchers said. "This ruminate on has immediate implications for patient management," Ramsi Haddad, kingpin of the Laboratory of Translational Oncogenomics at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, said in a tidings release from the American Association for Cancer Research.

The mutation involves the epidermal tumour factor receptor (EGFR) protein, which is seen in abnormally high numbers on the surface of cancer cells and associated with cancer spread. EGFR mutations swell the tumor's sensitivity to certain medications designed to shrivel tumors and slow progress of the disease, previous research has found. "Patients with EGFR mutations have a much better prophecy and respond better to erlotinib than those who do not," explained Haddad, who is also an assistant professor at Wayne State University School of Medicine.

Haddad and his colleagues were scheduled to distribute their findings Tuesday in Denver at the American Association for Cancer Research International Conference on Molecular Diagnostics in Cancer Therapeutic Development. The researchers mucroniform out that sombre men in particular have a higher than so so incidence of lung cancer. In addition, when diagnosed, black patients generally expression worse outcomes than white patients. Prior research, the scientists said, suggested that this imparity in prognosis might be driven by a lower occurrence of EGFR mutations among black patients.

Tuesday 3 December 2019

New Biochemical Technology For The Treatment Of Diabetes

New Biochemical Technology For The Treatment Of Diabetes.
A original bioengineered, microscopic organ dubbed the BioHub might one day offer people with variety 1 diabetes freedom from their disease. In its final stages, the BioHub would mimic a pancreas and work as a home for transplanted islet cells, providing them with oxygen until they could establish their own blood supply. Islet cells restrain beta cells, which are the cells that produce the hormone insulin. Insulin helps the body metabolize the carbohydrates found in foods so they can be in use as fuel for the body's cells. The BioHub also would give suppression of the immune system that would be confined to the area around the islet cells, or it's viable each islet cell might be encapsulated to protect it against the autoimmune attack that causes type 1 diabetes.

The beginning step, however, is to load islet cells into the BioHub and transplant it into an region of the abdomen known as the omentum. These trials are expected to begin within the next year or year and a half, said Dr Luca Inverardi, legate director of translational research at the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami, where the BioHub is being developed.

Dr Camillo Ricordi, the guide of the institute, said the stick out is very exciting. "We're assembling all the pieces of the puzzle to replace the pancreas. Initially, we have to go in stages, and clinically examine the components of the BioHub. The first step is to test the scaffold assembly that will stir like a regular islet cell transplant".

The Diabetes Research Institute already successfully treats genre 1 diabetes with islet cell transplants into the liver. In type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease, the body's invulnerable system mistakenly attacks and destroys the beta cells contained within islet cells. This means someone with exemplar 1 diabetes can no longer put on the insulin they need to get sugar (glucose) to the body's cells, so they must replace the lost insulin.

This can be done only through multiple regular injections or with an insulin pump via a tiny tube inserted under the lamina and changed every few days. Although islet cell transplantation has been very successful in treating type 1 diabetes, the underlying autoimmune fitness is still there. Because transplanted cells come from cadaver donors, common people who have islet cell transplants must take immune-suppressing drugs to prevent rejection of the revitalized cells.

This puts people at risk of developing complications from the medication, and, over time, the protected system destroys the new islet cells. Because of these issues, islet cell transplantation is largely reserved for people whose diabetes is very difficult to control or who no longer have an awareness of potentially iffy low blood-sugar levels. Julia Greenstein, vice president of Cure Therapies for JDRF (formerly the Juvenile Diabetes Research Institute), said the risks of islet apartment transplantation currently overbalance the benefits for healthy people with type 1 diabetes.

Friday 16 March 2018

Nutritional Supplements Affect The Body In Different Ways

Nutritional Supplements Affect The Body In Different Ways.
With three unripe studies determination that a daily multivitamin won't help boost the regular American's health, the experts behind the research are urging people to abandon use of the supplements. The studies found that popping a ordinary multivitamin didn't ward off heart problems or memory loss, and wasn't tied to a longer human span. The studies, published in the Dec 17, 2013 conclusion of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, found that multivitamin and mineral supplements did not work any better in these respects than placebo pills. Dietary supplements are a multibillion-dollar commerce in the United States, and multivitamins tale for nearly half of all vitamin sales, according to the US Office of Dietary Supplements.

But a growing body of evidence suggests that multivitamins come forward little or nothing in the way of health benefits, and some studies suggest that high doses of inevitable vitamins might cause harm. As a result, the authors behind the new research said, it's tempo for most people to stop taking them. "We believe that it's clear that vitamins are not working," said Dr Eliseo Guallar, a professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In a strongly worded think-piece on the three studies, Guallar and his co-authors urged consumers to hinder spending money on multivitamins. Even a representatives of the vitamin industry asked kinsmen to temper their hopes about dietary supplements. "We all need to manage our expectations about why we're taking multivitamins," Duffy MacKay, evil president of scientific and regulatory affairs for the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a work group that represents supplement manufacturers, said in a prepared statement.

So "Research shows that the two vital reasons people take multivitamins are for overall health and wellness and to fill in nutrient gaps. Science still demonstrates that multivitamins exert oneself for those purposes, and that alone provides reason for common man to take a multivitamin". However it's not clear that taking supplements to fill gaps in a less-than-perfect chamber really translates into any kind of health boost.

Friday 20 October 2017

The Number Of People With Dementia Increases

The Number Of People With Dementia Increases.
The tons of hoi polloi worldwide living with dementia could more than triple by 2050, a new report reveals. Currently, an estimated 44 million males and females worldwide have dementia. That number is expected to go as far as 76 million in 2030 and 135 million by 2050. Those estimates come from an Alzheimer's Disease International (ADI) procedure brief for the upcoming G8 Dementia Summit in London, England.

The projected thousand of people with dementia in 2050 is now 17 percent higher than ADI estimated in the 2009 World Alzheimer Report. The further policy brief also predicts a swerve in the worldwide distribution of dementia cases, from the richest nations to middle- and low-income countries. By 2050, 71 percent of men and women with dementia will live in middle- and low-income nations, according to the experts.

Saturday 2 September 2017

Gene Therapy Is Promising For The Treatment Of HIV

Gene Therapy Is Promising For The Treatment Of HIV.
Researchers surface they've moved a footstep closer to treating HIV patients with gene remedy that could potentially one day keep the AIDS-causing virus at bay. The study, published in the June 16 outgoing of the journal Science Translational Medicine, only looked at one step of the gene psychotherapy process, and there's no guarantee that genetically manipulating a patient's own cells will be successor or work better than existing drug therapies. Still, "we demonstrated that we could make this happen," said learn lead author David L DiGiusto, a biologist and immunologist at City of Hope, a medical centre and research center in Duarte, Calif.

And the research took place in people, not in investigation tubes. Scientists are considering gene therapy as a treatment for a variety of diseases, including cancer. One make advances involves inserting engineered genes into the body to change its response to illness. In the redesigned study, researchers genetically manipulated blood cells to resist HIV and inserted them into four HIV-positive patients who had lymphoma, a blood cancer.

The patients' strong blood cells had been stored earlier and were being transplanted to premium the lymphoma. Ideally, the cells would multiply and fight off HIV infection. In that case, "the virus has nowhere to grow, no style to expand in the patient". At this ahead point in the research process, however, the goal was to see if the implanted cells would survive. They did, extant in the bloodstreams of the subjects for two years.

Tuesday 1 August 2017

American Children Receive 24 Vaccines Before The Age Of 2

American Children Receive 24 Vaccines Before The Age Of 2.
The established vaccine record for young children in the United States is harmless and effective, a new review says. The report, issued Wednesday by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) at the beg of the US Department of Health and Human Services, is the first to look at the unimpaired vaccine schedule as opposed to just individual vaccines. The current vaccine schedule entails 24 vaccines given before the length of existence of 2, averaging one to five shots during a single doctor visit.

So "The body found no evidence that the childhood immunization schedule is not safe," said Ada Sue Hinshaw, bench of the committee that produced the report and dean of the Graduate School of Nursing at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD. "The averment repeatedly points to the healthfulness benefits of the schedule, including preventing children and their communities from life-threatening diseases," added Hinshaw, who spoke at a Wednesday announcement conference to introduce the report.

The series of vaccines are designed to mind against a range of diseases, including measles, mumps, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, meningitis and hepatitis. However, some expressed reservations about the report.

And "The IOM Committee has done a shapely operation outlining core parental concerns about the safety of the US child vaccine plan and identifying the large knowledge gaps that cause parents to continue to ask doctors questions they can't answer," said Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), a nonprofit organizing "advocating for the formation of vaccine safety and versed consent protections in the public health system". But "The most shocking part of this shot is that the committee could only identify fewer than 40 studies published in the past 10 years that addressed the ongoing 0-6-year-old child vaccine schedule.

Friday 8 July 2016

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) Occurs More Frequently In Boys Than In Girls

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) Occurs More Frequently In Boys Than In Girls.
Experts have covet known that swift infant passing syndrome (SIDS) is more common in boys than girls, but a new study suggests that gender differences in levels of wakefulness are not to blame. In fact, the researchers found that infant boys are more simply aroused from nap than girls. "Since the incidence of SIDS is increased in male infants, we had expected the virile infants to be more difficult to arouse from sleep and to have fewer full arousals than the female infants," major author Rosemary SC Horne, a senior research fellow at the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, said in a flash release.

And "In fact, we found the opposite when infants were younger at two to four weeks of age, and we were surprised to judge that any differences between the male and female infants were resolved by the discretion of two to three months, which is the most vulnerable age for SIDS". About 60 percent of infants who give up the ghost from SIDS are male.

In the study, published in the Aug 1, 2010 issuance of Sleep, the Australian team tested 50 healthy infants by blowing a puffery of air into their nostrils in order to wake them from sleep. At two to four weeks of age, the pertinacity of the puff of air needed to arouse the infants was much lower in males than in females. This reformation was no longer significant by ages two to three months, when SIDS risk peaks.

Friday 13 May 2016

Marijuana Affects The Index IQ

Marijuana Affects The Index IQ.
A unfamiliar analysis challenges former research that suggested teens put their long-term brainpower in danger when they smoke marijuana heavily. Instead, the study indicated that the earlier findings could have been thrown off by another factor - the effect of inadequacy on IQ. The author of the new analysis, Ole Rogeberg, cautioned that his theory may not hold much water. "Or, it may say out that it explains a lot," said Rogeberg, a research economist at the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research in Oslo, Norway.

The authors of the inaugural study responded to a solicit for comment with a joint statement saying they stand by their findings. "While Dr Rogeberg's ideas are interesting, they are not supported by our data," wrote researchers Terrie Moffitt, Avshalom Caspi and Madeline Meier. Moffitt and Caspi are nature professors at Duke University, while Meier is a postdoctoral allied there.

Their study, published in August in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, attracted media acclaim because it suggested that smoking spare tyre has more than short-term effects on how people think. Based on an examination of mental tests given to more than 1000 New Zealanders when they were 13 and 38, the Duke researchers found that those who heavily second-hand marijuana as teens lost an average of eight IQ points over that time period.

It didn't seem to puzzle if the teens later cut back on smoking pot or stopped using it entirely. In the pithy term, people who use marijuana have memory problems and trouble focusing, research has shown. So, why wouldn't users have problems for years?