Acetaminophen Probably Isn't an " Empathy Killer "
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Source: The Neurocritic - May 17, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, April 4th 2016
This study shows for the first time that increasing arterial stiffness is detrimental to the brain, and that increasing stiffness and brain injury begin in early middle life, before we commonly think of prevalent diseases such as atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease or stroke having an impact."
The study also noted that elevated arterial stiffness is the earliest manifestation of systolic hypertension. The large study involved approximately 1,900 diverse participants in the Framingham Heart Study, who underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as well as arterial tonometry. The tests measured the force of art...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 3, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Deriving an Anti-Amyloid Drug from Phage Biochemistry
This article covers the lengthy process of turning a serendipitous discovery, that a particular phage can dissolve the amyloids and other aggregates involved in neurodegenerative conditions, into a drug candidate. It demonstrates well why medical development takes a long time, more than a decade so far in this case even prior to entering the regulatory process. Each step in the process can take years to work through, funding is ever a problem, and there are frequent delays and dead ends.
In 2004, researchers were running an experiment on a group of mice that had been genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer's disease p...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 31, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Arguing a Primary Role for Astrocytes in Neurodegeneration
In the open access paper I'll point out today, the authors provide a high level overview of the evidence that suggests immune cells called astrocytes play a primary role in the progression of age-related neurodegenerative conditions. The immune system of the brain is quite different, somewhat more intricate, and more specialized than its equivalents elsewhere in the body, and those systems are themselves very complex and only partially mapped. The brain is shielded from the sort of haphazard exposure to toxins and pathogens that other tissues must face by the existence of the blood-brain barrier, a shield lining the blood ...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 22, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
MKSAP: 61-year-old man with generalized weakness
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
A 61-year-old man is evaluated for a 10-month history of generalized weakness. He reports no pain or myalgia. History is significant for hypercholesterolemia treated with a stable dose of simvastatin for the past 3 years.
On physical examination, temperature is normal, blood pressure is 138/74 mm Hg, pulse rate is 70/min, and respiration rate is 16/min. BMI is 27. There is symmetric weakness of the arm and thigh muscles with slightly reduced grip and power of the finger flexors. No muscle tenderness is noted. Th...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - February 13, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: mksap Tags: Conditions Neurology Source Type: blogs
A Potential Therapy for ALS
The root cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is unknown in most cases, though there are some genetic associations in a minority of patients that suggest possible lines of investigation. The condition is age-related in the sense that it typically emerges in the 50s and 60s. There is no effective treatment at this time and most patients have a short remaining life span of only a few years following onset. So it is good to see the potential for a treatment, not just for the patients, but also because it should help settle the matter of the cause of the condition, how it can be age-related but also occur in only a sma...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 29, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Evidence for Nuclear Pore Dysfunction in ALS
This article looks at a few recent papers providing initial evidence for nuclear pore dysfunction to be a important contributing cause of at least some forms of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This is perhaps of general interest to those of us following aging research, as nuclear pore proteins in at least some long-lived neurons seem to last as long as we do; they are either never replaced over the length of a human life span, or replaced only very slowly. Nuclear pore structures are responsible for the transport of molecules across the nuclear membrane in cells, and there is speculation that accumulated molecular dam...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 21, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Did the Ice Bucket Challenge really lead to ALS research breakthroughs?
Everyone, it seems, knows about the Ice Bucket Challenge, the viral phenomenon that raised record-breaking sums for the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Association. This feel-good movement was critiqued by many, but no one can claim it was a bad thing: It raised lots of money, the overwhelming majority (96 percent) of which was used to support research or services or education related to this horrible disease. What’s wrong with that?
The problem arises when we indulge the false narrative that these sorts of short-term infusions of money lead to major scientific “breakthroughs.” This absurd argument — that t...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - September 7, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Paul Marantz, MD, MPH Tags: Conditions Neurology Source Type: blogs
Hashtag Advocacy or Slacktivism: How Should We Evaluate the Impact of Social Media Campaigns for Public Health?
by Macey L. Henderson, J.D.
It takes more than a TV news story or a Twitter hashtag campaign to save lives. Last August’s viral ice bucket challenge did more than just improve public health awareness of an issue. Its now been reported to have made a real impact into research for a rare disease, not just for improved public education and awareness.
An estimated 5,000 persons receive a diagnosis of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) each year in the United States, with an estimated prevalence of 12,000 cases according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).… (Source: blog.bioethics.net)
Source: blog.bioethics.net - August 31, 2015 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Bonsai Klugman Tags: Featured Posts Institutions, Centers, Funding Organ Transplant & Donation Research Ethics Science ALS ice bucket challenge research funding social media Source Type: blogs
More on TDP-43 Accumulation in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Scientists have of late been making progress in understanding the role of TDP-43 accumulation in the nerve cell degeneration and death that characterizes amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and some forms of frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Potential drug targets have emerged that may allow better clearing of unwanted TDP-43 through cellular quality control mechanisms, for example. The researchers quoted here have a different approach in mind, however, focusing on the use of other proteins that can perform the vital cellular functions that are disrupted when too much TDP-43 is present, but which are not themselves affected b...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 10, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Targeting an Improvement in Protein Quality Control
A range of research efforts aim at finding ways to improve or enhance the activity of cellular maintenance mechanisms involved in ensuring quality control. Proteins are the building blocks of cell machinery but constantly become damaged or misfolded, which can then cause harm through incorrect function. Thus cells work hard to clear out, break down, and recycle these problem molecules, but all of these mechanisms decline with aging; based on what we know to date, this happens because the repair machinery itself is vulnerable to forms of damage or can be negatively impacted by reactions to damage taking place in other proce...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 30, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
A Dis Eased Life
The following is a guest post by MPR News host Cathy Wurzer.
If you are young and
vital, it will seem odd to suggest that you are actually living with some kind
of dis ease but trust me, you are. If you are a bit older or have elderly
parents, then it is quite likely that there is some kind of physical disease
that has been served up alongside a heaping helping of dis ease.
Disease. Dis-ease.
Confused yet?
You'll note I
separated the "dis" from the "ease." The concept of dis
ease came to Dr. Bruce Kramer, my late friend and co-author of We Know How This Ends: Living while Dying
shortly after he was diagnosed with the...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - July 13, 2015 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Thaddeus Mason Pope Tags: Health Care medical futility blog syndicated Source Type: blogs
Faster Cures and the Costs of Medical Regulation
I think that it's no great surprise that many people see the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and its ilk in other countries as a gargantuan ball and chain dragging down progress. Yet few of these take the fully libertarian position that the FDA should be removed and the demand for safety assurance provided by a marketplace of review and certification organizations. Instead most such advocates argue for a return to the smaller FDA and much less onerous review process that existed in the past. They note that FDA administrators have perverse incentives to block as much progress as possible, and that they have followed t...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 11, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Politics and Legislation Source Type: blogs
Maintaining TDP43 in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Cellular quality control mechanisms and their failure modes are important in aging and many diseases. A large number of distinct mechanisms are involved in keeping cell structures in good condition, clearing damaged or unwanted proteins, and other related tasks. Many of these mechanisms are exceedingly complex and far from fully cataloged or understood. It is expected in the research community that therapies will emerge in the near future based on enhancing quality control processes, but while new discoveries are made on a regular basis, I can't say there has been much material progress towards actual treatments over the d...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 10, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
