Confronting colon cancer: a daughter ’ s regretful journey
My mother. 63 years old. Colon cancer. She first noticed rectal bleeding. She made excuses. Maybe it’s hemorrhoids. She put her physician on a pedestal. He said, “You’re too young to die,” and there was no need for further tests. Her daughters, both RNs (one an ICU nurse, the other an anesthetist), pleaded with her Read more… Confronting colon cancer: a daughter’s regretful journey originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 6, 2024 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Conditions Gastroenterology Oncology/Hematology Source Type: blogs

SOX17 Allows Early Stage Colon Cancer to Evade the Immune System
Researchers here report on work that identifies SOX17 inhibition as a potential way to attack colon cancer in its early stages. Any successful cancer must have adopted one or more ways to suppress the immune system in order to grow past the earliest stages of a few cancerous cells. Interfering in those suppression mechanisms is a potential basis for therapy, as the researchers demonstrated here. Whether or not this line of work will make much further depends on whether an economically viable approach to SOX17 inhibition can be found, and whether or not it is a good target for many other forms of cancer. Colon canc...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 14, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

RISE-ing Stars From Northern Arizona University
Chantel Tsosie at her college graduation, wearing her Tribe’s formal, traditional rug dress that her grandmother made. Credit: Courtesy of Chantel Tsosie. “Science is for everyone. It’s in everything. It exists in cultures everywhere,” says Chantel Tsosie, a master’s student in the NIGMS-supported Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) program at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff. The program aims to prepare a diverse group of students for research careers through culturally relevant support, hands-on research experiences, and a tailored curriculum. Chantel started her bachelor’...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - January 10, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Profiles Training 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

Fight Aging! Newsletter, November 6th 2023
This study aimed to gather valuable insights from pharmaceutical experts and healthcare practitioners regarding the potential and challenges of translating senolytic drugs for treatment of vascular aging-related disorders. This study employed a qualitative approach by conducting in-depth interviews with healthcare practitioners and pharmaceutical experts. Participants were selected through purposeful sampling. Thematic analysis was used to identify themes from the interview transcripts. A total of six individuals were interviewed, with three being pharmaceutical experts and the remaining three healthcare practitioners. ...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 5, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Combining CAR-T Therapy with Tumor-Seeking Bacteria
T cells engineered to express a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) aggressively attack other cells bearing surface markers that match that receptor. This approach is expensive, as it requires engineering cells taken from a patient, and developing CARs specific to each cancer subtype, but has so far proven effective against a number of forms of cancer. Not all cancers are consistent in markers expressed by cancer cells, however, and many cancers exhibit rapid evolution of tumor cell characteristics - only a marginal slowing of progress is achieved when much of the cancer can quickly become immune to a therapeutic approach. ...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 19, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, July 24th 2023
In this study, we tested the hypothesis that periodontal disease (PD) as a source of infection alters inflammatory activation and Aβ phagocytosis by the microglial cells. Experimental PD was induced using ligatures in C57BL/6 mice for 1, 10, 20, and 30 days to assess the progression of PD. Animals without ligatures were used as controls. Ligature placement caused progressive periodontal disease and bone resorption that was already significant on day 1 post-ligation and continued to increase until day 30. The severity of periodontal disease increased the frequency of activated microglia in the brains on day 30 by 36...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 23, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Reviewing What is Known of the Biochemistry of Klotho Relevant to Effects on Life Span
Increased klotho expression increases longevity in mice, while reduced klotho expression accelerates aging. The most well studied effects of klotho on organ function involve the kidney and brain, where in both cases it appears protective via a number of different mechanisms. Unfortunately, klotho expression declines with age. Whether treating humans with therapies that increase levels of klotho will produce effects that are as large as those observed in mice remains to be seen. Programs that might lead to treatments remain at a preclinical stage of development, though recently advanced to the point of testing in non-human ...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 21, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, June 12th 2023
In this study, we investigated the effect of NXP032 on neurovascular stabilization through the changes of PECAM-1, PDGFR-β, ZO-1, laminin, and glial cells involved in maintaining the integrity of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in aged mice. NXP032 was orally administered daily for 8 weeks. Compared to young mice and NXP032-treated mice, 20-month-old mice displayed cognitive impairments in Y-maze and passive avoidance tests. NXP032 treatment contributed to reducing the BBB damage by attenuating the fragmentation of microvessels and reducing PDGFR-β, ZO-1, and laminin expression, thereby mitigating astrocytes and microglia ...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 11, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

How modern lifestyle changes are disrupting our immune systems
In addition to a steep increase in prevalence, in recent decades, we have seen an evolution in the ways our immune system misbehaves: eosinophilic esophagitis, mast cell disorders, and early onset colon cancer, among many others. This data alone should remind us that we are an ever-evolving species. With our rapidly changing lifestyle over the Read more… How modern lifestyle changes are disrupting our immune systems originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - June 9, 2023 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Conditions Allergies & Immunology Source Type: blogs

Surveying Laboratory Tests From a Health IT Perspective
We read that “70% of today’s medical decisions depend on laboratory test results,” according to the CDC. This three-part series looks at modern tests from a health IT perspective. How can we make them more accurate and delivery faster results? Which ones can we move into the home? How do we eliminate wasteful, unnecessary tests? This first article offer an overview of tests and their context. Overview of Testing Gerry Miller, founder and CEO of Cloudticity, classifies the value of a test by several factors: How easy is the test to acquire? How complex is the test to administer? How much does it cost? Most im...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - June 7, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT Interoperability CDC CLIA Cloudicity Direct to Consumer Lab Testing Dr. Yair Lewis Epstein Becker Green Gerry Miller Healthcare Interoperability IVD Laboratories Labs Navina Robert Hearn Sand Source Type: blogs

The Gut Microbiome Differs in Characteristic Ways in Patients with Precancerous Colon Polyps
The gut microbiome changes with age, the relative abundance of microbial populations shifting in ways that appear connected to chronic inflammation and dysfunction of the intestinal epithelium and intestinal barrier function. Cancer of the colon is an important cause of human mortality, and there is some hope that finding ways to prevent or reverse gut microbiome aging, such as via fecal microbiota transplant from young individuals, will go some way to minimizing colon cancer incidence. Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in the U.S., and rates of colorectal cancer are rising amon...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 7, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Intratumoral Bacteria as an Injectable Anti-Cancer Treatment
Scientists at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Ishikawa, Japan have developed an anti-cancer treatment that consists of bacteria that are naturally found inside some tumors. Isolating and then injecting these bacteria into existing tumors appears to provoke a strong immune response that can lead to tumor destruction, without the need for advanced techniques such as bacterial genetic engineering or complex drug delivery. The concept of using bacteria to target tumors is not new, but typically it is studied in the context of using the bacteria to deliver a drug or using genetically engineered bacteri...
Source: Medgadget - May 19, 2023 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Medicine Oncology JAIST Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, April 17th 2023
In conclusion, oral NR altered the gut microbiota in rats and mice, but not in humans. In addition, NR attenuated body fat mass gain in rats, and increased fat and energy absorption in the HFD context. Glycine Supplementation as a Methionine Restriction Mimetic https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2023/04/glycine-supplementation-as-a-methionine-restriction-mimetic/ Supplementation with the non-essential amino acid glycine has been shown to modestly slow aging in short-lived laboratory species. In today's open access review paper, researchers note glycine supplementation as essentially a calorie restricti...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 16, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs