Sexually transmitted infections are on the rise: Should you worry?
In 2018, the number of bacterial sexually transmitted infections (STIs) reported in the United States reached an all-time high. This is worrisome for many reasons. Having an STI can raise risks for HIV, infertility, pregnancy complications, and infant death. Fortunately, all of these outcomes can be avoided if people receive appropriate treatment.
What are STIs?
STIs are illnesses caused by microorganisms passed between people during sex. An STI can affect anyone who is exposed to it. Syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia are the most common bacterial infections. Trichomoniasis, a protozoan infection, is also diagnosed freque...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - December 11, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Eric A. Meyerowitz, MD Tags: Adolescent health HIV Men's Health Relationships Sexual Conditions Women's Health Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, December 9th 2019
Fight Aging! publishes news and commentary relevant to the goal of ending all age-related disease, to be achieved by bringing the mechanisms of aging under the control of modern medicine. This weekly newsletter is sent to thousands of interested subscribers. To subscribe or unsubscribe from the newsletter,
please visit:
https://www.fightaging.org/newsletter/
Longevity Industry Consulting Services
Reason, the founder of Fight Aging! and Repair Biotechnologies, offers strategic consulting services to investors, entrepreneurs, and others interested in the longevity industry and its complexities. To find out m...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 8, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, November 25th 2019
This study demonstrates for the first time that senescent cells secrete functional LTs, significantly contributing to the LTs pool known to cause or exacerbate idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
Against Senolytics
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2019/11/against-senolytics/
There is no consensus in science that is so strong as to have no heretics. So here we have an interview with a naysayer on the matter of senolytic treatments, who argues that the loss of senescent cells in aged tissues will cause more harm to long-term health than the damage they will do by remaining. To be clear, I think this to be a...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 24, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Vaccination and Antiviral Therapies Targeting CMV as an Approach to Reducing Immunosenescence
Today's open access paper discusses possible approaches to the treatment of immunosenescence, the age-related decline in effectiveness of the immune system. Unfortunately it is largely a tour of compensatory treatments, ways to force the cells of the immune system into greater or more useful activity without addressing any of the underlying causes of immunosenescence. Many of these methodologies have serious side-effects, are disruptive of normal immune function and overall health, and cannot be applied for the long term. Checkpoint inhibition, or the delivery of recombinant IL-7, for example, both of which are used as sho...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 20, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
HPV and cancer: The underappreciated connection
Did you know that a viral infection can lead to a number of different types of cancer? If that comes as a surprise to you, you’re not alone. In fact, according to a new study, many people have no idea that a common viral infection called human papilloma virus (HPV) can cause cancer of the genitals, anus, mouth, and throat, as well as cervical cancer.
Viral infections and cancer
The connection between certain viral infections and cancer has been recognized for many years. Some of the most well-established examples include hepatitis C, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and human papillomavirus (HPV). One thing these viru...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - November 8, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Adolescent health Cancer Infectious diseases Men's Health Sexual Conditions Vaccines Women's Health Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, November 4th 2019
In this study, we hypothesized that moderately and chronically reducing ACh could attenuate the deleterious effects of aging on NMJs and skeletal muscles. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed NMJs and muscle fibers from heterozygous transgenic mice with reduced expression of the vesicular ACh transporter (VAChT), VKDHet mice, which present with approximately 30% less synaptic ACh compared to control mice.
Because ACh is constitutively decreased in VKDHet, we first analyzed developing NMJs and muscle fibers. We found no obvious morphological or molecular differences between NMJs and muscle fibers of VKDHet and contro...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 3, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Cool Images: A Colorful —and Halloween-Inspired—Collection
Transformations aren’t just for people or pets around Halloween. Scientific images also can look different than you might expect, depending on how they’re photographed. Check out these tricky-looking images and learn more about the science behind them.
Credit: Nilay Taneja, Vanderbilt University, and Dylan T. Burnette, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Do you have a hunch about what this image is? Perhaps something to do with dry leaves? It’s a human fibroblast cell undergoing cell division, or cytokinesis, into two daughter cells. Cytokinesis is essential for the growth and development...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - October 31, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Cells Biofilms Cellular Imaging Cool Images Source Type: blogs
A Perspective on Longevity Biotech Investment from James Peyer of Kronos BioVentures
James Peyer, formerly of Apollo Ventures and now at the larger Kronos BioVentures, has a range of interesting views on the new and growing longevity biotechnology industry. Apollo Ventures was one of the earlier longevity-focused funds to emerge from the comparatively small community of scientists, patient advocates, and investors enthusiastic to accelerate progress towards the treatment of aging as a medical condition. The presentation here was given earlier this year at the Ending Age-Related Diseases conference organized by the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation.
In the matter of creating new medical therapies, t...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 30, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs
On the RISE: Joshua and Caleb Marceau Use NIGMS Grant to Jump-Start Their Research Careers
A college degree was far from the minds of Joshua and Caleb Marceau growing up on a small farm on the Flathead Indian Reservation in rural northwestern Montana. Their world centered on powwows, tending cattle and chicken, fishing in streams, and working the 20-acre ranch their parents own. Despite their innate love of learning and science, the idea of applying to and paying for college seemed out of reach. Then, opportunities provided through NIGMS, mentors, and scholarships led them from a local tribal college to advanced degrees in biomedical science. Today, both Joshua and Caleb are Ph.D.-level scientists working to imp...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - October 23, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Infectious Diseases Scientific Process Training Source Type: blogs
20 Medical Technology Advances: Medicine in the Future – Part II.
Nanorobots swimming in blood vessels, in silico clinical trials instead of experimenting with drugs on animals and people, remote brain surgeries with the help of 5G networks – the second part of our shortlist on some astonishing ideas and innovations that could give us a glimpse into the future of medicine is ready for you to digest. Here, we’re going beyond the first part with medical tricorders, the CRISPR/Cas-9 gene-editing method, and other futuristic medical technologies to watch for.
11) In silico clinical trials against testing drugs on animals
As technologies transform every aspect of healthcare,...
Source: The Medical Futurist - October 23, 2019 Category: Information Technology Authors: berci.mesko Tags: Artificial Intelligence E-Patients Future of Medicine Future of Pharma Genomics Health Sensors & Trackers 3d printing AI bioprinting blockchain clinical trials CRISPR digital digital health drug development genetics Innovat Source Type: blogs
Nanoparticles for RNA Vaccine Delivery Help Stop Melanoma Tumor Growth
RNA vaccines are a promising way to harness the immune system to fight cancers and infections. Some are currently in clinical trials, but the technology is still in its early stages. A major impediment to the effectiveness of RNA vaccines is the difficulty in getting them into the correct immune cells to produce the desired proteins and guaranteeing that the immune system will respond with sufficient force.
To help with this, chemists at MIT have created a range of lipid nanoparticles that can be used as delivery vesicles for RNA vaccines. These nanoparticles have already been shown to improve target protein production ...
Source: Medgadget - October 1, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Medicine Nanomedicine Oncology Public Health Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, September 16th 2019
In this study, researchers studied 438,952 participants in the UK Biobank, who had a total of 24,980 major coronary events - defined as the first occurrence of non-fatal heart attack, ischaemic stroke, or death due to coronary heart disease. They used an approach called Mendelian randomisation, which uses naturally occurring genetic differences to randomly divide the participants into groups, mimicking the effects of running a clinical trial.
People with genes associated with lower blood pressure, lower LDL cholesterol, and a combination of both were put into different groups, and compared against those without thes...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 15, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Everyone Is Having the Wrong Healthcare Debate
By STEVEN MERAHN, MD
In 1807, in an effort to spite the British and French for shipping interference (and forced recruitment of American citizens into military service), the United States Congress passed an Embargo Act, effectively shutting down trade with these two countries. Britain and France quickly found other trading partners; the US, then limited in our capacity to sell products outside our borders, was left with a devastated economy and a gaping hole in our face. It took only weeks before Congress passed a loophole; they repealed the act within 15 months of its passing. It was a great lesson in unintended co...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 16, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Health Policy Politics Uncategorized Health care debate Health Care Reform Steven Merahn universal healthcare Source Type: blogs
Suitable Antigens can Attract T Helper Cells that Act to Promote Blood Vessel Regrowth
The immune system is deeply involved in the intricate, complex processes of tissue regeneration, and the research community has much left to catalog of the countless interactions that take place between immune cells and other cell populations during regeneration. One interesting discovery is that a subclass of T helper cells can encourage growth of blood vessels. Thus, given a way of attracting and retaining the appropriate T helper cells in a tissue suffering ischemia, it may be possible to encourage sufficient regrowth of blood vessels to treat conditions involving inadequate blood flow, such as critical limb ischemia. R...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 15, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 12th 2019
We examined 9293 individuals from the Copenhagen General Population Study using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy measurements of total cholesterol, free- and esterified cholesterol, triglycerides, phospholipids, and particle concentration. Fourteen subclasses of decreasing size and their lipid constituents were analysed: six subclasses were very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL), one intermediate-density lipoprotein (IDL), three low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and four subclasses were high-density lipoprotein (HDL). Remnant lipoproteins were VLDL and IDL combined.
Mean nonfasting cholesterol concentration was 72â...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 11, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
