Category Archives: BiomedNews

BiomedNews, stem cell research, stem cells

A new way to guide stem cells to become what’s needed

One of the toughest challenges to meeting the many exciting goals scientists have set is getting stem cells to grow into precisely the types of cells needed for the particular illness or condition. Now a researcher has discovered a way to do just that and is waiting for a patent to be granted.

This Rutgers professor Ki-Bum Lee and colleagues at Rutgers and Kyoto University in Japan have invented a platform they call NanoScript. It represents a breakthrough  in the area of gene expression. The way genes express themselves encodes information in a gene specifically to direct how a protein molecule gets assembled. That process is integral to developing tissue through stem cell therapeutics. Stem cells divide and replenish other cells, serving as an almost unlimited internal repair system.

Anything we can do to speed human knowledge along this extraordinary and exciting pathway to better healing and health is very welcome. Let’s hope – as often happens when a patent is involved – they don’t charge too much of an arm and a leg to get to the end-products.

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BiomedNews, health dangers

Sun exposure = nitric oxide = lower risk of obesity/diabetes

Well, I’m glad to read about this recent study saying sun exposure may play a role in preventing obesity and diabetes. They used mice, and those little guys are covered with fur and don’t spend a lot of time in the sun. But in many ways their bodies operate a lot like ours, so the study conclusions can reasonably be expected to apply to humans in some way. But a lot more study is needed to confirm the theory behind this experiment.

The mice were given a high-fat diet to trigger the beginnings of diabetes and obesity. One set of mice got vitamin D supplements, and the other set got a cream with nitric oxide rubbed on them. The vitamin D group did get fat and start developing diabetes, while the nitric oxide group did not.

Moderate sun exposure gives us a dose of good vitamin D, so maybe the sudden shortages of vitamin D everyone is having may be related to the no-sun policy. And vitamin D is also apparently not the only thing the sun does for us. It also gives us extra nitric oxide. By complying with the stern warnings about no sun, we might be denying ourselves – and our kids – the very real benefits of sunshine.

A little sun is good for you? Yep. Like that babies generally love sleeping on their stomachs – and aren’t meant to grow up with flat heads from sleeping on their backs all the time – this one just makes sense. I hope they’ll replicate these results soon and people can start throwing away those 35+ level sunscreens.

 

BiomedNews

New DNA test detects colorectal cancer earlier

Have you had one? Worse yet, two or more colonoscopies? Although most doctors will put you out for the procedure itself, the test carries its own risks – anesthesia reaction, bleeding from biopsy, perforation of the colon. And the preliminary cleansing ritual is a test of one’s capacity to endure the humiliation of deliberating imbibing nasty-tasting substances for the express purpose of irritating your stomach and bowels.

Now a new DNA test can detect potential colorectal cancers earlier than fecal occult tests alone – and I hope that with negative results, perhaps make some colonoscopies unnecessary. Called the Cologuard test, it detects hemoglobin and mutant DNA in cells sloughed into stool by cancers and adenomatous polyps. The test is so well-thought-of that it achieved a first: approved by the FDA and proposed as a test to be covered by Medicare on the same day.

“…DNA test detected 92% of colon cancers and 42% of advanced adenomas, as compared with 74% and 24% for FIT. The fecal occult blood test did have a higher specificity, correctly ruling out colon lesions 95% of the time versus 87% for the DNA test.

“The CMS proposal calls for coverage of the DNA test once every 3 years for beneficiaries who meet specific criteria: ages 50 to 85, asymptomatic (including negative FIT or guaiac fecal occult blood test), and average risk of colorectal cancer.”

Talk to your doctor about whether this test might be useful for you.

BiomedNews

Poor, non-white, less-educated tend not to get full HPV vaccine protection

Even though the HPV vaccine is said to be extremely effective, almost 40% of young women who start the three-dose inoculation program never complete the series, according to results published in the journal Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics (HV&I).

The study found that minority backgrounds, low income, and low education were associated with non-completion. Why? A team of researchers, led by Dr. Abbey Berenson from the University of Texas Medical Branch, studied the possible reasons using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a cross-sectional telephone health survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Based on data from 2008-2010, about 25% of the 2,700 respondents, who ranged in age from 18-26, initiated HPV vaccination. While being poor, less-educated and non-white were strong negative influences, a predictor for higher vaccine series completion was whether the woman had had a routine medical check-up during the previous year.

HPV vaccine is said to be a highly effective vaccines, and one of only two vaccines (along with hepatitis B) that have been shown to prevent an infection that can result in cancer, as well as morbidity and mortality. HPV vaccines Cervarix (types 16 and 18) and Gardasil (types 6, 11, 16 and 18) are recommended for girls 11-12 years of age and may be given from age 9-26. Some evidence says they are effective in protecting against precancerous lesions and genital warts and are even effective for men.

The hope is that knowing why the vaccine series is not being completed will help health authorities address the issues and increase the rate of completed vaccinations. And this study’s findings may have applicability for many other preventive health measures.

But the evidence is not universally favorable for the efficacy and safety of HPV vaccinations. So do your own research before deciding.

* Read the full OPEN ACCESS article online:
https://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/vaccines/article/29633/?nocache=1453069716 *Note: Landes Bioscience is now part of the Taylor & Francis Group, pubishers of this information.

 

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BiomedNews, stem cell research, stem cells

Stem cells help heart attack & heart failure

English: Human bone marrow.
English: Human bone marrow. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Imagine a substance your doctor could inject directly into your heart soon after you have a heart attack that will prevent and/or repair some of the damage that heart attacks usually involve? AND thus possibly prevent you from  developing heart failure as a result of the attack?

Yep. They’ve done it in a recent study with 40 patients in Japan – half got a protein drip called G-CSF and the rest a saline solution (placebo).

…researchers from the Gunma Prefectural Cardiovascular Center in Maebashi, Japan, have found that a protein called G-CSF—when injected into the hearts of patients who recently suffered an attack—can actually spur a type of bone marrow stem cells to migrate to the heart and curb the spread of cellular death that normally takes place.

Clinical trials are in the works to confirm these dramatic preliminary promises.

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BiomedNews, stem cell research, stem cells

Harvard stem cell study promises personalized treatments

Personalized Medicine
Personalized Medicine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Scientists have for some time been able to reproduce pieces of human organs on chips. Now in a new study they’ve been able to use a patient’s stem cells to reproduce in the lab chunks of functioning tissue from a human being with a specific disease.

In this case, a team of experts from multiple disciplines “modeled the cardiovascular disease Barth syndrome, a rare X-linked cardiac disorder caused by mutation of a single gene called Tafazzin, or TAZ. The disorder, which is currently untreatable, primarily appears in boys, and is associated with a number of symptoms affecting heart and skeletal muscle function.”

The disease in this case results in very weak contractions of the heart muscle. The hope is that they may also eventually be able to model functioning tissue from patients with other diseases that produce other functional problems.

Why would they want to create functioning yet diseased human tissue outside a human being? The answer is that they can then experiment with and test all kinds of drugs and other treatments that they might not want to use directly on an actual living, breathing human being. In this scenario they were able to inject a genetic product that corrected the contractile problem right there in the lab.

While the article doesn’t say this, I’m thinking it could also mean in the long run fewer animals used for experimentation. And it could lead to shorter times before promising therapies can get to clinical trials.

A brave new world, indeed.

 

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BiomedNews, stem cell research, stem cells

Stem cells from fat used to regenerate bone

English: Fat Stem Cells
English: Fat Stem Cells (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bone injuries and osteoporosis have long been the target of research for better treatments. Now a team of California researchers has discovered a way to use stem cells from fat tissue to regenerate bone.

The new approach overcomes some of the major obstacles of using regular mesenchymal stromal stem cells (MSC). MSCs require a two- to three-week period of culturing outside the body, which introduces greater possibility of infection and increases the risk of cancer cells developing before the stem cells can be used.

The new method of harvesting and purifying stem cells from adipose tissue produces what are known as perivascular stem cells (PSC). PSCs are localized around all the body’s veins and arteries and form part of the natural regenerative system. At the same time researchers identified a new growth factor NELL-1 that “potently amplifies the ability of PSC to form bone and vascular structures.”

Applications for the new method include treating bone loss due both to post-menopause in women and to aging in both men and women.

Can’t wait to see this get to clinical trial.

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BiomedNews

New guidelines suggest fewer blood pressure meds – and the fight is on

A multidisciplinary panel of medical experts agreed recently to raise the blood pressure limits for people over 60 and people with kidney disease. Instead of 140/90 the new top limit is 150/90 for people over 60.  For people with diabetes or kidney disease it’s changed from 130/80 to 140/90. The result is your doctor has more leeway for diagnosing you as an individual.

Yes, it says raise the limit. Shocking, eh? The trend, as seen so clearly with the cholesterol meds, has been to keep lowering the “desired” limit – and thus end up forcing more and more people to take medications. Wonder what happened here?

English: A jar for keeping medical leeches, on...
English: A jar for keeping medical leeches, on display in Bedford Museum. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But, hey, the fight is not over. Five of the panel’s 20 experts dissented. That is, they disagreed with the majority, just as happens with our Supreme Court. Only the thing is, when judges dissent, the majority decision becomes law anyway. That doesn’t happen in medicine.

Rather than the majority ruling settling the issue in the medical world, the opinions of the minority nay-sayers become the news story instead. Witness the article in the March, 2014 issue of the AARP Bulletin. It focuses on the dire warnings of the dissenters who claim that changing the guidelines will nullify the advances that have occurred in lowering risks.

The result is that patients have little clarity about where they really stand. Which is why it is so very important to find a doctor you respect, who sees you as an individual human being and who respects you for your own “medical mind.”  (see my other posts on using your medical mind).

Just remember. At one time doctors were certain that applying leeches to the patient’s skin was a cure for sickness. And – unlike the occasional pharmaceutical purveyor – the leeches weren’t offering any incentives for the doctors to use them.

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BiomedNews

Doctor’s physical exam still best diagnostic tool for heart failure prognosis

Shown is the back of a female patient with a d...
Shown is the back of a female patient with a doctor who is using a stethoscope to listen to her lungs. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s great to know that what a doctor can hear/feel in the physical exam of a patient with advanced heart failure is the best predictor of how well that patient will fare.

Despite the development of continually more sophisticated diagnostic tools, it’s comforting to know that the best guide to a patient’s prognosis is the doctor’s careful listening to and observation of four important indicators: 1) distended jugular venous distention, 2) a third heart sound, 3) rales (crackles) in the lungs, and 4) peripheral edema (swelling in the legs and ankles).

I am grateful that most doctors have some training in how to present bad news to a patient. As one of their duties, that’s gotta suck. But the hope is that patient and doctor have developed a respectful, caring relationship along the way.

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BiomedNews

New way to tell heart failure prognosis

Heart Failure causes more damage than you think
Heart Failure causes more damage than you think (Photo credit: Novartis AG)

Just a quickie on a new method for determining prognosis for heart failure patients. This study shows that measuring how the heart metabolizes energy can give docs a better way to predict who’s going to have a rough time of it and who will do better with heart failure.

Using a non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique, researchers at Johns Hopkins found they could predict clinical outcomes for heart failure very well – independent of the patient’s symptoms or the actual pumping strength of the heart.

“Having a more precise way to determine a patient’s risk would enable us to identify high-risk people earlier and tailor their treatments more specifically,” according to Robert Weiss, senior author of the study.

“And with a new target – impaired energy metabolism – we can also open the door to developing and testing new therapies for heart failure.”

Wonder how this correlates with the new studies indicating exercise that’s more strenuous (relatively speaking) looks to be beneficial for heart failure patients. Does more vigorous exercise improve the heart’s ability to metabolize energy? Sounds good to me.

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