Fight Aging! Newsletter, May 2nd 2022
In this study, we tested the therapeutic potential of VHHASC and a newly generated VHH against murine ASC (VHHmASC) to target ASC specks in vitro and in vivo. We show that pre-incubation of extracellular ASC specks with VHHASC abrogated their inflammatory functions in vitro. Recombinant VHHASC rapidly disassembled pre-formed ASC specks and thus inhibited their ability to seed the nucleation of soluble ASC. Notably, VHHASC required prior cytosolic access to prevent inflammasome activation within cells, but it was effective against extracellular ASC specks released following caspase-1-dependent loss of membrane integrity, an...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 1, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Mcl-1 Inhibitors as a Novel Class of Senolytic
Researchers working with prostate cancer cells here show that senescent cancer cells depend upon Mcl-1 to prevent programmed cell death, a novel target with existing drugs that may prove useful as general purpose senolytics, able to clear senescent cells from tissues. Cancers are highly varied, and this would have to be tested against the more usual types of senescent cell present in the aged body. Even if only applicable in the context of some cancers, however, this is still a useful discovery. Cancer survivors have a significantly reduced life expectancy in large part because they suffer a greatly increased burden of cel...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 29, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Medications That Can Cause Depression
There is nothing more frustrating than when the cure is part of the problem. Because depression is prevalent in patients with physical disorders like cancer, stroke, and heart disease, medications often interact with each other, complicating treatment. To appropriately manage depression, you and your physician need to evaluate all medications involved and make sure they aren’t cancelling each other out.
A review in the journal Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience a while back highlighted certain medications that can cause depression. The following are medications to watch out for.
Medications to Treat Seizures and Parkinso...
Source: World of Psychology - March 31, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Therese J. Borchard Tags: Depression Medications Drug Interactions Mood Disorder Source Type: blogs
African American men respond better to treatments for advanced prostate cancer in clinical trials
Racial differences have long been evident in prostate cancer statistics. In particular, African American men are diagnosed with prostate cancer more often than white men, and they’re also nearly twice as likely to die of the disease.
But new research also shows that African American men who receive the most advanced treatments for late-stage prostate cancer can live at least as long — or even longer — than their Caucasian counterparts.
Why is this the case? Scientists are searching for an explanation. “The fact that African American men have better survival is of huge research interest,” said Dr. Stephen Freedlan...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - March 26, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Living With Prostate Cancer Men's Health Prostate Health Prostate Knowledge Treatments HPK Source Type: blogs
Last Month in Oncology with Dr. Bishal Gyawali
By BISHAL GYAWALI MD
Long list of news in lung cancer
September was an important month in oncology—especially for lung cancer. The World Conference in Lung Cancer (WCLC) 2018 gave us some important practice-changing results, also leading to four NEJM publications. The trial with most public health impact is unfortunately not published yet. It’s the NELSON trial that randomised more than 15000 asymptomatic people at high risk of lung cancer to either CT-based screening for lung cancer or to no screening and found a significant reduction in lung cancer mortality rates among the screened cohort compared with the contr...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 4, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Research Bishal Gyawali Breast cancer Cancer drugs Clinical Trials health spending immunotherapy Lung cancer Oncology pembrolizumab Source Type: blogs
Newer drugs are improving survival for men with metastatic prostate cancer
This study provides important information that men with advanced forms of prostate cancer are now living longer than they once did, sometimes years longer. Those of us who have been treating prostate cancer for decades appreciate this study’s fundamental finding that the improved longevity from newer cancer drugs is considerable.”
The post Newer drugs are improving survival for men with metastatic prostate cancer appeared first on Harvard Health Blog. (Source: Harvard Health Blog)
Source: Harvard Health Blog - January 31, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Cancer Health Men's Health Prostate Health Source Type: blogs
Gold Nanoshells Ferry Chemo Drugs Into Cancer Cells to Spare Rest of Body
By combining cross sections of a macrophage cell from the x-, y-, and z-axes, researchers could examine how nanoshell-drug complexes (red) distributed inside cells after a 24-hour period of incubation. A dye was used to distinguish the cell nucleus (blue). (Image by O. Neumann/Rice University)
Researchers at Rice and Northwestern universities engineered a way of encapsulating toxic chemo agents inside of gold nanoshells that deliver and deposit their contents only inside neoplastic cells. Reported on in the latest Early Edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study involved getting docetaxe...
Source: Medgadget - November 9, 2017 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: Nanomedicine Oncology Source Type: blogs
Why a case report being circulated by advocates doesn't show that the ketogenic diet combats cancer
In conclusion, this combined metabolic approach appears effective in treating advanced TNBC, given this patient’s complete response with a good quality of life.Now, there is one thing that is interesting here. The doses of chemotherapy used were considerably lower thanwhat is usually used, with doses decreased by at least half or more. Does this mean anything? Who knows? cPR rates for TNBC have been reported to range from 20-35%. It could mean the regimen made the chemotherapy more effective, or it could mean that this woman just happened to have a particularly chemosensitive tumor. Even if we take this case report at fa...
Source: Respectful Insolence - October 4, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: oracknows Source Type: blogs
Why a case report being circulated by advocates doesn't show that the ketogenic diet combats cancer
In conclusion, this combined metabolic approach appears effective in treating advanced TNBC, given this patient’s complete response with a good quality of life.Now, there is one thing that is interesting here. The doses of chemotherapy used were considerably lower thanwhat is usually used, with doses decreased by at least half or more. Does this mean anything? Who knows? cPR rates for TNBC have been reported to range from 20-35%. It could mean the regimen made the chemotherapy more effective, or it could mean that this woman just happened to have a particularly chemosensitive tumor. Even if we take this case report at fa...
Source: Respectful Insolence - October 4, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: oracknows Source Type: blogs
Cancer patients can ’t afford care
Lost in the debate on “Trumpcare” versus “Obamacare” is the proper consideration of the factors driving increasing health care costs. In cancer, the pharmaceutical industry plays a major role setting drug prices that exceed reasonable returns on research and development. The economics of treatment were again apparent during the plenary session of the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in June, aka the cancer community’s Super Bowl. Two years ago, Dr. Leonard Saltz of Memorial Sloan Kettering implored us to pay attention to the cost of drugs being presented, emphasizing during the plenary session...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - July 28, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/syed-m-ahmed" rel="tag" > Syed M. Ahmed, MD, PhD < /a > Tags: Physician Cancer Source Type: blogs
Magnet-Powered Implant Releases Drugs in Controlled Fashion
Researchers at the University of British Columbia have developed an implantable device designed to release a drug when triggered by an external magnet. The amount of the drug that’s the implant ejects into the body can be controlled by using different strength magnets. Such technology may be of particular use in treating localized conditions to prevent the drug from spreading too easily through the rest of the body.
The device consists of a sponge made from silicone that has a coating made from magnetic carbonyl iron particles. A drug in liquid form is injected into the implant, which absorbs it and keeps it secure. ...
Source: Medgadget - February 16, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: Medicine Oncology Source Type: blogs
Why reform needs to start at cancer care
Recently, the clinically positive results from the CLEOPATRA oncology trial were released, showing that pertuzumab, when added to docetaxel and trastuzumab as first-line chemotherapy, produces an average survival benefit of 15.7 months in HER2 positive breast cancer patients.
That good news notwithstanding, the authors calculated that Genentech’s price for adding pertuzumab to gain one quality adjusted life year is a breathtaking $713,219. In dry academic language, the authors dropped a bombshell conclusion. “The addition of pertuzumab to a standard regimen … for treatment of metastatic HER2-overexpressing breast can...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - October 29, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Brian Klepper, PhD Tags: Meds Cancer Source Type: blogs
Top stories in health and medicine, June 3, 2014
From MedPage Today:
A ‘Home Run’ in Prostate Cancer Tx. Overall survival in metastatic prostate cancer improved by more than a year when patients received docetaxel at the start of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), according to trial results that oncologists here called “unprecedented.”
Early Palliation in Ca Patients Eases Caregiver Burden. Early palliative treatment for advanced cancer patients appeared to benefit their caregivers, who experienced lower rates of depression and better quality of life.
Real-Time Monitoring Cuts Cardiac Cath Radiation. A radiation detector that emits audible beep...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - June 3, 2014 Category: Journals (General) Authors: MedPage Today Tags: News Cancer Heart Source Type: blogs
In An Era Of Bold New Cancer Treatments An Older Drug Shows Real Promise For Advanced Prostate Cancer
The annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology here in Chicago is a place where many commercial interests jostle for attention to make their latest promising therapy the star of the show. But this weekend, a standard widely available generic drug stole the show by producing incredible results in improving survival for men with advanced prostate cancer. And that has some of us asking, "Why did it take so long to find out?
The drug is docetaxel, which for decades has been used to treat a number of cancers, including prostate cancers. We have known for some time that it is helpful in the treatment of men who...
Source: Dr. Len's Cancer Blog - June 2, 2014 Category: Cancer Authors: Dr. Len Tags: Cancer Care Medications Prostate Cancer Treatment Source Type: blogs
ICG Europe starts w/ "Omics & the future of man" & sticks to men the rest of the time
Fun. Another day. Another YAMMGM (yet another mostly male genomics meeting). This one is the International Conference on Genomics Europe 2013. I have copied the program as it is now here and then highlighted the men and women as far as I can tell. And, well, it is not very balanced. It starts off, ironically, with "Omics and the future of man" and then stays on both omics and alas, men, for most of the meeting. The first woman does not talk until 5 pm on the first day. Nothing against BGI per se. But they seem to be repeat offenders in having meetings with mostly male s...
Source: The Tree of Life - May 14, 2013 Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Jonathan Eisen Source Type: blogs
