Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 6th 2020
Conclusion
A great deal of progress is being made in the matter of treating aging: in advocacy, in funding, in the research and development. It can never be enough, and it can never be fast enough, given the enormous cost in suffering and lost lives. The longevity industry is really only just getting started in the grand scheme of things: it looks vast to those of us who followed the slow, halting progress in aging research that was the state of things a decade or two ago. But it is still tiny compared to the rest of the medical industry, and it remains the case that there is a great deal of work yet to be done at all...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 5, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
A Look Back at 2019: Progress Towards the Treatment of Aging as a Medical Condition
Conclusion
A great deal of progress is being made in the matter of treating aging: in advocacy, in funding, in the research and development. It can never be enough, and it can never be fast enough, given the enormous cost in suffering and lost lives. The longevity industry is really only just getting started in the grand scheme of things: it looks vast to those of us who followed the slow, halting progress in aging research that was the state of things a decade or two ago. But it is still tiny compared to the rest of the medical industry, and it remains the case that there is a great deal of work yet to be done at all...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 31, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Of Interest Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, December 30th 2019
This study presents the effects of berberine (BBR) on the aging process resulting in a promising extension of lifespan in model organisms. BBR extended the replicative lifespan, improved the morphology, and boosted rejuvenation markers of replicative senescence in human fetal lung diploid fibroblasts. BBR also rescued senescent cells with late population doubling (PD). Furthermore, the senescence-associated β-galactosidase (SA-β-gal)-positive cell rates of late PD cells grown in the BBR-containing medium were ~72% lower than those of control cells, and its morphology resembled that of young cells. Mechanistically, BBR im...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 29, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Berberine as an mTOR Inhibitor that Reduces Generation of Senescent Cells and Extends Life Span in Mice
This study presents the effects of berberine (BBR) on the aging process resulting in a promising extension of lifespan in model organisms. BBR extended the replicative lifespan, improved the morphology, and boosted rejuvenation markers of replicative senescence in human fetal lung diploid fibroblasts. BBR also rescued senescent cells with late population doubling (PD). Furthermore, the senescence-associated β-galactosidase (SA-β-gal)-positive cell rates of late PD cells grown in the BBR-containing medium were ~72% lower than those of control cells, and its morphology resembled that of young cells. Mechanistically, BBR im...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 26, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
16 fold higher risk of cancer with peripartum cardiomyopathy
German cancer registry (Robert-Koch-Institute) data has shown a 16 fold risk of cancer in those with peripartum cardiomyopathy [1]. According to the report 21 of 236 patients had cancer, of which 12 had cancer diagnosed before peripartum cardiomyopathy. 11 of them had cardiotoxic chemotherapy. Of these, 17% fully recovered cardiac function compared to 55% of peripartum cardiomyopathy patients without cancer. Of the 10 patients who developed cancer after peripartum cardiomyopathy, 80% had left ventricular ejection fraction of 50% or more after cancer therapy. Authors mention that the high prevalence could be due to geneti...
Source: Cardiophile MD - December 23, 2019 Category: Cardiology Authors: Prof. Dr. Johnson Francis Tags: Cardio Oncology Source Type: blogs
“ Chasing My Cure ” : A Book Review
By CHADI NABHAN, MD, MBA, FACP
Have you
thought about your own mortality?
Who hasn’t,
given the frequency of seeing death and grief depicted in the media or through
real life encounters with friends, relatives, neighbors, or patients? These
incidents trigger uncomfortable and sometimes uneasy thoughts of how we might
personally deal with potential illness and disease. The same thoughts are soon
displaced by the busyness of living.
Despite
dealing with the death of his mother from a brain tumor, we learn David
Fajgenbaum was healthy, living life to its fullest, and a future doctor in the
making. He may hav...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 16, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Medical Practice Patients Physicians Book Review Chadi Nabhan Chasing My Cure Chasing My Cure book review David Fajgenbaum Mortality Outspoken Oncology Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, December 16th 2019
This study shows that CA are released from periventricular and subpial regions to the cerebrospinal fluid and are present in the cervical lymph nodes, into which cerebrospinal fluid drains through the meningeal lymphatic system. We also show that CA can be phagocytosed by macrophages. We conclude that CA can act as containers that remove waste products from the brain and may be involved in a mechanism that cleans the brain. Moreover, we postulate that CA may contribute in some autoimmune brain diseases, exporting brain substances that interact with the immune system, and hypothesize that CA may contain brain markers that m...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 15, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
A Survey of Existing Literature on Senescent Cell Burden by Age and Tissue in Humans
Cells enter a state of senescence in response to reaching the Hayflick limit, or to a toxic environment, or potentially cancerous mutational damage. Near all senescent cells self-destruct, or are destroyed by the immune system. Some linger, however, and when present in even comparatively small numbers relative to normal cells, these senescent cells cause considerable harm via their inflammatory secretions. Thus the targeted destruction of senescent cells via senolytic therapies has been shown to extend healthy life and reverse numerous aspects of aging in mice. Human trials of senolytic treatments are presently underway, a...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 11, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Cancer Survivors have Double the Risk of Suffering a Later Stroke
We present a contemporary analysis of risk of fatal stroke among more than 7.5 million cancer patients and report that stroke risk varies as a function of disease site, age, gender, marital status, and time after diagnosis. The risk of stroke among cancer patients is two times that of the general population and rises with longer follow-up time. The relative risk of fatal stroke, versus the general population, is highest in those with cancers of the brain and gastrointestinal tract. The plurality of strokes occurs in patients older than 40 years of age with cancers of the prostate, breast, and colorectum. Patients of any ag...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 9, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Top 10 Technologies We Are Excited About
We cover a lot of news and announcements about digital health technologies to provide context for you. Even within The Medical Futurist team, there are favorite technologies and trends. And we thought it would be time to share the technologies we’re excited about! With advancements in exoskeleton technology, A.I.’s ever-increasing importance in healthcare and technologies like 5G and quantum computing soon going mainstream, there’s much to be excited about! Without further ado, let’s jump in!
1. Quantum Computing: faster, cheaper and safer
Late last month, Google claimed “quantum supremacy” and made the c...
Source: The Medical Futurist - December 3, 2019 Category: Information Technology Authors: Prans Tags: Future of Medicine digital health Healthcare technology digital technology Source Type: blogs
How to talk to children about the serious illness of a loved one
It’s an inescapable truth: sometimes hard, bad things happen in life — including that sometimes parents, or other important people in a child’s life, get very sick.
It’s natural to want to shield a child from news like this, but that’s not a good idea. Children pick up on more than people realize — and can sometimes imagine things to be even worse than they are. Also, it’s important to help children gain the understanding and skills they need to weather a loved one’s illness, as well as to weather the inevitable difficult times in their future.
Talking to a child about serious illness: the first steps
Every...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - December 2, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Claire McCarthy, MD Tags: Adolescent health Children's Health Parenting Relationships Source Type: blogs
The Digital Health Future of Oncology
It’s in the early morning of April 15th, 2030 that when looking at your smart mirror, the latter beeps a warning notification: that new mole on your chin should be checked by your dermatologist. That was to be expected. After all your genetic test revealed that you possess a mutation in the CDKN2A gene. But you also get the recommendation to have your esophagus and stomach checked as your connected smart scale registered a noticeable drop in weight and this mutation also carries an increased risk of gastrointestinal (GI) tract cancer.
With such increased awareness and early stage diagnosis methods, will the cancer de...
Source: The Medical Futurist - November 26, 2019 Category: Information Technology Authors: Prans Tags: Future of Medicine Personalized Medicine cancer digital health cancer treatment digital technology oncology cancer research cancer care digital health technologies Source Type: blogs
Darolutamide approved for nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer
Sometimes after finishing prostate cancer treatment, men get an unwelcome surprise: their prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels creep higher, suggesting tumors too small to be seen lurk somewhere in the body. This leads to several options. Doctors can continue to monitor a man’s condition with imaging scans. Or, given the anxiety associated with rising PSA, they might try to lower the levels with chemically “castrating” drugs that inhibit testosterone, a hormone that makes prostate tumors grow faster.
Following that treatment, called androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), PSA generally declines and may become undetecta...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - November 22, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Health Living With Prostate Cancer Treatments HPK Source Type: blogs
Suffering from “chemo brain”? There’s hope and many things you can do
Some of the most common symptoms experienced by cancer patients are memory problems, difficulties with multitasking, and reduced attention and concentration. Historically, cancer patients with these symptoms were often diagnosed with depression. Research over the past decade has revealed that many cancer patients experience such symptoms as a consequence of specific damage to the brain caused by either their tumor or their treatment.
While radiation to the brain has long been linked to causing cognitive difficulties, the effects of chemotherapy on brain structure and function have only recently been discovered. We now know...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - November 20, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Jorg Dietrich, MD, PhD Tags: Brain and cognitive health Cancer Memory Radiation Source Type: blogs
Chemo-Loaded Nanoparticles Piggyback on Red Blood Cells to Treat Lung Cancer
Scientists at Harvard’s Wyss Institute have developed a technique to deliver chemotherapy to the lungs using red blood cells. The method involves binding chemotherapy-loaded nanoparticles to red blood cells, which are then injected into the bloodstream. Once the red blood cells reach the lungs they have to squeeze through the small capillaries and the resulting shear force removes the nanoparticles, which can then enter cells within the lungs. The researchers hope that the technique could help treat lung metastases with increased efficacy and reduced side-effects, compared with conventional chemotherapy.
Tiny E...
Source: Medgadget - November 14, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Materials Medicine Nanomedicine Oncology Source Type: blogs
