How will you save this critically ill patient? A fundamental and lifesaving ECG interpretation that everyone must recognize instantly.
Written by Pendell MeyersA woman in her 30s called EMS for acute symptoms including near-syncope, nausea, diaphoresis, and abdominal pain. EMS arrived and found her to appear altered, critically ill, and hypotensive. An ECG was performed:What do you think?Extremely wide complex monomorphic rhythm just over 100 bpm. The QRS is so wide andsinusoidal that the only real possibilities left are hyperkalemia or Na channel blockade. Hyperkalemia is by far more common.Indeed, further history revealed two missed dialysis sessions. And of course on exam she has a dialysis fistula.EMS reportedly gave 4 grams of calcium (unknown w...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - February 22, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: Pendell Source Type: blogs

Whole Roasted Squash With Tomato-Ginger Chickpeas & Za ’atar
I read myself the riot act about 6 months ago, when my cholesterol level reached a new high. My doctor seemed nonplussed, perhaps because my cardiac calcium score was a perfect zero. But I was not happy. Yes, I had lost weight and was exercising, but to be honest, my heart belonged to cheese. And eggs. And ice cream. Something had to change. Breakfast was easy. The whole eggs (which I had been eating almost daily) were replaced by Starbucks Sous Vide Egg whites or oatmeal served with a side of chicken sausage. Lunches were yogurt or soup or vegan bean burritos or salad or tuna or peanut butter. I started snacking on nu...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - February 21, 2024 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Vegetables Butternut Squash Chickpeas vegetarian za'atar Source Type: blogs

Tachycardia and hyperkalemia. What will happen after therapy with 1 gram of Ca gluconate and some bicarbonate?
A 20-something type, 1 diabetic presented by EMS with altered mental status.  Blood pressure was 117/80, pulse 161, Resp 45, SpO2 100 on oxygen.Here is the 12-lead ECG:Wide complex tachycardiaWhat do you think?The providers thought that this wide QRS was purely due to (severe) hyperkalemia.  They treated with 4 ampules (200 mL) of bicarb and 1 gram of calcium gluconate. Note: 1 g of calcium gluconate is insufficient. 1 g of calcium chloride has 3x as much calcium and is indeed a good start.His pulse on the monitor suddenly went down to 140 and another 12-lead ECG was recorded:Sinus tachycardia at a rate...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - February 20, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: Steve Smith Source Type: blogs

Cool Images: Radiant in Red
Happy Valentine’s Day! In place of red roses, we hope you’ll accept a bouquet of beautiful scientific images featuring rich, red hues. Be sure to click all the way through to see the festive protein flowing through your blood! For more scientific photos, illustrations, and videos in all the colors of the rainbow, visit our image and video gallery. .featured { opacity: 1 !important; transform: scale(1) !important; z-index: 1 !important; } .featured a:hover::after { content: "Click to view on NIGMS image gallery"; /*Image hover tool tip*/ background-color: #fff;...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - February 14, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Cells Molecular Structures Cellular Imaging Cool Images Proteins Source Type: blogs

Can we finally say goodbye to opioids? There may be new pain relief on the horizon.
In an article I recently wrote about a new calcium channel-blocking medication that could be effective in treating central chronic pain, I mentioned that medications like lidocaine block sodium channels to prevent the transmission of pain through the peripheral nervous system. I also said that these medications have limited use, usually just in the ER, Read more… Can we finally say goodbye to opioids? There may be new pain relief on the horizon. originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - February 13, 2024 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Meds Pain Management Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 5th 2024
In conclusion, the Immunity and Redox Clocks allow BA quantification in mice and both the ImmunolAge and RedoxAge in mice relate to lifespan. « Back to Top Senolytic CAR T Cell Therapy Improves Health in Aged Mice https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2024/01/senolytic-car-t-cell-therapy-improves-health-in-aged-mice/ To the degree that senescent cells in a tissue exhibit distinctive surface features, one can deploy technologies such as chimeric antigen receptor T cells to selectively destroy them. T cells will destroy whatever cell binds to the chimeric antigen receptor they are equipped w...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 4, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Age-Related Changes in the Prefrontal Cortex Associate with Loss of Memory
Researchers here investigate age-related changes correlating with loss of working memory. They work with mice, but produce results that line up with observations made in other species. How neural circuits function is one distinct way of looking at the brain. Like all such approaches, it is challenging to connect it to other distinct views of the aging brain, such as proteomic or transcriptomic or cell behavior or signaling changes, or the accumulation of specific forms of age-related molecular damage. Measuring one aspect of a complex system is one thing, figuring out how many different aspects fit together into a web of i...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 1, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 22nd 2024
In this study, we found that DMC reduced the SASP level in senescent cells. Furthermore, senescent cells enter irreversible cell cycle arrest, which involves the activation of p53/p21 and Rb/p16. In this study we found that the expression levels of p21 and p16 were decreased after DMC treatment. The downregulation of p21 may be attributed to the decrease of p53. In this study, we found that the mRNA level of p53 was reduced after DMC treatment. Ferroptosis is an iron-dependent cell death process, which is accompanied by iron accumulation. Our previous study reported an important role of FECH, an enzyme inserts ferro...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 21, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Chronic Inflammation and Mitochondrial Dysfunction Interact in the Production of Sarcopenia
Sarcopenia is the name given to the later stages of the characteristic loss of muscle mass and strength that occurs in every individual with aging, eventually leading to weakness and the state of frailty. There are many possible contributing mechanisms, and those mechanisms interact with one another. One important cause is loss of muscle stem cell activity, but this may be driven by any number of other aspects of aging. Another important contribution is dysfunction of neuromuscular junctions, as loss of innervation tends to have a negative impact on tissue maintenance. This again may be driven by any number of causative me...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 18, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Evidence for the Unfolded Protein Response to be Involved in Age-Related Deafness
Researchers have found that deafness-associated gene TMTC4 causes pathology via an excessive increase in the unfolded protein response in sensory hair cells of the inner ear, and loud noise does much the same. This suggests that inhibition of the unfolded protein response in these cells might be a way to slow loss of hearing capacity, or protect against the effects of loud noise and drugs that can harm hair cells. Still, this isn't a path to restoration of hearing capacity. That would require some way to replace lost hair cells and their connections to the brain. Mutations to the TMTC4 gene trigger a molecular dom...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 15, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 15th 2024
In conclusion, FMD cycles have high potential to be effective in increasing the toxicity of a range of therapies against ALL and other blood cancers and should be tested in randomized clinical trials, especially in combination with immunotherapy and low toxicity cancer therapies. In summary, we present a new strategy for improving leukemia treatment by combining FMD with chemotherapy to promote the killing of ALL cells in part by an immune-dependent mechanism. Fasting/FMD has been shown to reduce chemotherapy-associated toxicity in pre-clinical and clinical studies and thus represents a safe and potentially effectiv...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 14, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Chronological Age is Not a Good Component of Patient Risk Assessment
Chronological age is embedded in a great many standardized, widely-used protocols for patient risk assessment. Age-related diseases are, after all, age-related, and this use of chronological age has long seemed a reasonable choice. That said, we are now moving into an era in which novel means of measuring biological age are under development, such as epigenetic clocks. Biological age is the burden of damage and dysfunction resulting from the causative processes of aging. Obviously, this should better reflect the odds of suffering age-related disease. While biological age correlates with chronological age, there is a...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 9, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 1st 2024
Discussion of What is Need to Speed the Pace at which Drugs to Treat Aging Arrive in the Clinic Cellular Senescence in the Aging Brain, a Contributing Cause of Cognitive Decline Reviewing What is Known of the Mechanisms of Taurine Supplementation Relevant to Aging and Metabolism Blunt Thoughts on Calculating the Revealed Value of Human Life A Look Back at 2023: Progress Towards the Treatment of Aging as a Medical Condition Towards Adjustment of the Gut Microbiome to Slow Aging Gene Therapy Enhances Object Recognition Memory in Young and Old Mice Benefits of Sem...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 31, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

A Look Back at 2023: Progress Towards the Treatment of Aging as a Medical Condition
The market has been in the doldrums and it has been a tough year for fundraising, both for non-profits and biotech startups. The conferences have exhibited more of an academic focus as companies tightened belts and postponed investment rounds, while investors stayed home. Not that this halts the flow of hype for some projects, and nor has it slowed media commentary on the longevity industry as it presently stands. A few of the articles in that commmentary are even interesting to read! The field has grown and is more mature now than has ever been the case. Biotech of all forms is a challenging field with a high failure rate...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 29, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Of Interest Source Type: blogs

A young woman with palpitations. What med is she on? With what medication is she non-compliant? What management?
 Written by Pendell MeyersA woman in her 20s with connective tissue disorder and history of aortic root and valve repair presented with palpitations. Here is her triage ECG: What do you think?Atrial flutter with 2:1 conduction. The atrial flutter rate is approximately 200 bpm, with 2:1 AV conduction resulting in ventricular rate almost exactly 100 bpm. The fact that the atrial flutter rate is 200 bpm (rather than more typical adult rate of ~300 bpm) suggests that the patient must have one or both of the following:1) enlarged atria ( " bigger race track " )2) sodium channel blockade ( " slower race car "...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - December 24, 2023 Category: Cardiology Authors: Pendell Source Type: blogs