Beyond CBD: Here come the other cannabinoids, but where ’s the evidence?
In the span of a few years, the component of cannabis called CBD (cannabidiol) went from being a relatively obscure molecule to a healthcare fad that has swept the world, spawning billions in sales, millions of users, CBD workout clothing, pillowcases, hamburgers, ice cream — you name it. The concerns of such a rapid adoption are that enthusiasm might be soaring high above the actual science, and that there are safety issues, such as drug interactions, that are given short shrift in the enthusiasm to treat chronic pain, insomnia, anxiety, and many of the other conditions that CBD is believed to help alleviate.
Cannabis, ...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - March 23, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Peter Grinspoon, MD Tags: Complementary and alternative medicine Drugs and Supplements Fatigue Marijuana Pain Management Source Type: blogs
Nanoparticles On My Mind
By KIM BELLARD
Nanoparticles are everywhere! By that I mean, of course, that there seems to be a lot of news about them lately, particularly in regard to health and healthcare. But, of course, literally they could be anywhere and everywhere, which helps account for their potential, and their potential danger.
Let’s start with one of the more startling developments: a team at the University of Miami’s College of Engineering, led by Professor Sakhrat Khizroev, believes it has figured out a way to use nanoparticles to “talk” to the brain without wires or implants. They use “a novel clas...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 23, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Health Tech Kim Bellard nanoparticles Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 22nd 2021
This article expresses sentiments regarding medical technology and human longevity that we'd all like to see more of in the mainstream media. At some point, it will come to be seen by the average person as basically sensible to work towards minimizing the tide of suffering and death caused aging and age-related disease. It has been, in hindsight, a strange thing to live in a world in which most people were reflexively opposed to that goal.
Death and aging constitute a mystery. Some of us die more quickly. We often ask about it as children, deny it in youth, and reluctantly come to accept it as adults. Aging is uni...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 21, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Racial disparities and early-onset colorectal cancer: A call to action
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of death from cancer in both men and women in the US. Thanks in large part to increased screening of those over age 50 in last decade, overall CRC rates have been falling among the general population. However, the incidence of CRC among younger individuals in the US is rising at an alarming rate. Over the past 20 years, the rate of CRC has increased by 2.2% per year in people under age 50. Hidden within these statistics are the significant disparities in CRC incidence and outcomes that exist for African Americans.
Compared to whites, African Americans have a 20% higher in...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - March 17, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Andrew Chan, MD, MPH Tags: Cancer Digestive Disorders Health care disparities Source Type: blogs
The Popular Science Media Fails to Distinguish Between Potentially High Yield and Probably Low Yield Treatments for Aging
It is of great importance to distinguish, where we can, between promising and poor approaches to the treatment of aging. If only poor approaches are developed, then we'll age, suffer, and die on much the same schedule as our grandparents. In the article here, metformin and senolytics are crammed together side by side, as though the same thing. They are very much not the same thing.
Metformin is almost certainly a poor approach to the treatment of aging. The animal data is terrible, while the human data shows only a modest effect size. Senolytics are most likely a promising approach. The animal data is amazing: robus...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 16, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 15th 2021
In conclusion, PLG attenuates high calcium/phosphate-induced vascular calcification by upregulating P53/PTEN signaling in VSMCs.
Tsimane and Moseten Hunter-Gatherers Exhibit Minimal Levels of Atrial Fibrillation
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2021/03/tsimane-and-moseten-hunter-gatherers-exhibit-minimal-levels-of-atrial-fibrillation/
Epidemiological data for the Tsimane and Moseten populations in Bolivia shows that they suffer very little cardiovascular disease in later life, despite a presumably greater lifetime burden of infectious disease (and consequent inflammation) than is the case for people ...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 14, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
CAR-T Therapy Continues to Perform Well for Patients Unresponsive to Chemotherapy
CAR-T immunotherapy involves equipping T cells extracted from a patient with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR), expanding them in culture, and then reintroducing these genetically engineered T cells into the patient. The artificial receptor allows the T cells to aggressively respond to the patient's cancer, as it is targeted to a cell surface feature that is characteristic of cancer cells. Different cancers have different features, and thus different CARs are used. CAR-T therapies were first trialed for blood cancers, and continue to do well on this front, as noted here.
A CAR T-cell therapy has generated deep, su...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 10, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 1st 2021
This study may have important implications for preventing cell senescence and aging-induced tendinopathy, as well as for the selection of novel therapeutic targets of chronic tendon diseases.
Our results showed that the treatment of bleomycin, a DNA damaging agent, induced rat patellar TSC (PTSC) cellular senescence. The senescence was characterized by an increase in the senescence-associated β-galactosidase activity, as well as senescence-associated changes in cell morphology. On the other hand, rapamycin could extend lifespan in multiple species, including yeast, fruit flies, and mice, by decelerating DNA damage ...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 28, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Phenocopies of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is characterized by hypertrophy of the left ventricle, not related to load. It is a genetically transmitted condition. There are several mimickers of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy which can be called phenocopies of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Conventional form of HCM has been called sarcomeric HCM as it is due to mutations in genes encoding sarcomeric proteins [1].
Here is a small list of phenocopies of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy which is not truly exhaustive:
Fabry disease
Danon disease
PRKAG2 Cardiomyopathy
Pompe disease
Cardiac amyloidosis
Athlete’s heart
Hypertensive heart disease
...
Source: Cardiophile MD - February 24, 2021 Category: Cardiology Authors: Prof. Dr. Johnson Francis Tags: Cardiology Mimickers of HCM Mimickers of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy Mimics of HCM Mimics of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy Source Type: blogs
A Cautious View of Senolytics from the Cancer Research Community
Today's open access publication is an examination of therapy induced senescence in the treatment of cancers, and the role that senolytic therapies might play in cancer therapy. Senolytic therapies selectively destroy senescent cells, which accumulate with age, but are also created in sizable numbers by chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Senescent cells cease replication and begin to generate a potent mix of signals - the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) - that provoke chronic inflammation, disrupt tissue structure and function, and encourage other nearby cells to also become senescent. Cancer treatment shortens...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 23, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Six Reasons Why Cancer is an Emotional Diagnosis Too
By Cynthia Hayes, Author, The Big Ordeal: Understanding and Managing the Psychological Turmoil of Cancer
No matter when you hear the words, “You’ve got cancer,” you are bound to have an emotional reaction. The news is devastating, and the physical challenges that lie ahead are very real. But, unfortunately, that is only half the story. Cancer is an emotional diagnosis too, and our psychological and physical responses to the disease and its treatment are intertwined, coloring the entire experience. Why is cancer so emotional?
We fear we will die
For millennia, cancer has been a death sentence. So even though ...
Source: PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement - February 22, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Cynthia Hayes Tags: featured health and fitness philosophy psychology self-improvement cancer healing illness pickthebrain self improvement Source Type: blogs
New drug development: the case of antibiotics
This article in Clinical Infectious Diseases explains the problem and also why drug companies are not doing enough to develop new classes of antibotics.Antimicrobial resistance is a profound global health threat of the 21st century. The United Kingdom ’s AMR Review estimates that by 2050 as many as 10 million persons a year will die of drug-resistant infections if solutions are not found [1]. The World Bank projects that, without containment of antimicrobial resistance, annual global gross domestic product will decrease by 1%, that is,>$1 trillion annually from 2030, and the hardest hit will be persons in low-income c...
Source: Stayin' Alive - February 19, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 1st 2021
In this study, we characterize age-related phenotypes of human hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). We report increased frequencies of HSC, hematopoetic progenitor cells (HPC), and lineage negative cells in the elderly but a decreased frequency of multi-lymphoid progenitors. Aged human HSCs further exhibited a delay in initiating division ex vivo though without changes in their division kinetics. The activity of the small RhoGTPase Cdc42 was elevated in aged human hematopoietic cells and we identified a positive correlation between Cdc42 activity and the frequency of HSCs upon aging.
The frequency of human HSCs polar fo...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 31, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Confronting Stigma From Opioid Use Diorder in Cancer Care
by Fitzgerald Jones, Ho, Sager, Rosielle and MerlinHave you ever been so distressed by a perspective piece that it kept you up at night? The type of rumination that fills you with so much angst that you have no choice but to act. This is exactly how we felt when we read theAAHPM Quarterly Winter 2020 Let ’s Think About It Again.1 (member paywall)The column, which is structured as a sort of written debate in which two authors argue a clinical question, describes a case of a 45-year-old man with severe substance use disorder (SUD) recently diagnosed with extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer. He was offered aggr...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - January 30, 2021 Category: Palliative Care Tags: ftigerald jones ho merlin rosielle sager Source Type: blogs
