Chronic Pain Accelerates Brain Aging, Perhaps via Inflammation
A range of conditions produce chronic pain in muscle and skeletal tissue. While conditions such as osteoathritis are comparatively well understood, the etiology of chronic muscular pain disorders such as myofascial pain syndrome is poorly understood and treatment options are consequently limited. Here, researchers analyze available epidemiological data on knee osteoarthritis, and show that it suggests an inflammatory link between chronic pain and an accelerated pace of degenerative brain aging. Individuals suffering from chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) may face a higher high risk of brain aging. CMP is a leadin...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 2, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Optum: Testing Time for an Invisible Empire
By Jeff Goldsmith Years ago, the largest living thing in the world was thought to be the blue whale. Then someone discovered that the largest living thing in the world was actually the 106 acre, 47 thousand tree Pando aspen grove in central Utah, which genetic testing revealed to be a single organism. With its enormous network of underground roots and symbiotic relationship with a vast ecosystem of fungi, that aspen grove is a great metaphor for UnitedHealth Group. United, whose revenues amount to more than 8% of the US health system, is the largest healthcare enterprise in the world. The root system of UHG is...
Source: The Health Care Blog - April 2, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy Health Tech Jeff Goldsmith Optum PBMs United HealthGroup Source Type: blogs

Interview with Stefany Shaheen: Revolutionizing diabetes care through cell therapies
I had the extraordinary opportunity to chat with Stefany Shaheen, the Chief Strategy Officer of Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI) and BioFab USA, about the transformative potential of cell therapies for individuals living with diabetes. Stefany shared her remarkable journey, insights on cell therapies’ current status, approval challenges, and how the diabetes community can contribute to advancing research in this field. A few months before this discussion with Stefany, I had the opportunity to hear Dean Kamen speak at the recent ...
Source: Scott's Diabetes Blog - April 1, 2024 Category: Endocrinology Authors: Scott K. Johnson Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs

Reversal of Markers of Aging in Cells Following Small Molecule Partial Reprogramming
Partial reprogramming by exposure to Yamanaka factors resets many of the epigenetic changes characteristic of cells in aged tissue. This is a potential approach to the production of future rejuvenation therapies. At present, some research groups are attempting to move away from genetic interventions to find small molecules that can provoke reprogramming. There are some avenues that seem promising. Here, researchers assess the effects of partial reprogramming by small molecules on a range of omics data and functional parameters for cells, finding that the outcomes are much as one would expect for a successful protocol. ...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 1, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, April 1st 2024
This study supports the proposed model that aging-related loss of colonic crypt epithelial cell AMP gene expression can promote increased relative abundances of Gn inflammaging-associated bacteria and gene expression markers of colonic inflammaging. These data may support new targets for aging-related therapies based on intestinal genes and microbiomes. « Back to Top A Skeptical View of the Role of Nuclear DNA Damage in Aging https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2024/03/a-skeptical-view-of-the-role-of-nuclear-dna-damage-in-aging/ It is evident and settled that stochastic nuclear DNA damag...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 31, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

The Long and Tortured History of Alpha-Synuclein and Parkinson ’s Disease
This study tracks the decades-long journey to harness alpha-synuclein as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease. Steven Zecola an activist who tracks Parkinson’s research and was on THCB last month discussing it, offers three key changes needed to overcome the underlying challenges. A Quick Start for Alpha-Synuclein R&D In the mid-1990’s, Parkinson’s patient advocacy groups had become impatient by the absence of any major therapeutic advances in the 25 years since L-dopa had been approved for Parkinson’s disease (PD). The Director of National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) se...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 29, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy Medical Practice Parkinson's Disease Steven Zecola Source Type: blogs

A Skeptical View of the Role of Nuclear DNA Damage in Aging
It is evident and settled that stochastic nuclear DNA damage contributes to cancer. The more of it that you have, the worse your risk. What is still very much debated is whether nuclear DNA damage contributes meaningfully to degenerative aging, and how it does so. Most mutational damage to DNA occurs in regions that are inactive, in cells that have comparatively few divisions remaining before reaching the Hayflick limit. Even if damage alters the function of such a cell, in some non-cancerous way, it is unclear as to how this could amount to a meaningful contribution to loss of tissue function. The one school of tho...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 28, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Brugada Syndrome
Transcript of the video: Brugada Syndrome was described by Brugada brothers in 1992 as right bundle branch block pattern in anterior leads with ST segment elevation and syncope or sudden cardiac death and it was later in 1998, that the genetic basis of the disease was identified, with mutations in sodium channel. Later on, several other mutations have been attributed to cause the ECG pattern in Brugada syndrome. I am always happy to see this ECG of Brugada syndrome sent to me by Professor Josep Brugada, in 2001, for the inaugural issue of the Indian Pacing and Electrophysiology Journal, which I started in 2001. And, this r...
Source: Cardiophile MD - March 28, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: Johnson Francis Tags: General Cardiology Source Type: blogs

Lipid Droplets in Microglia Involved in Alzheimer's Pathology
Microglia are innate immune cells resident in the central nervous system. Microglial dysfunction is clearly a contributing factor in the onset and progression of age-related neurodegenerative conditions, including Alzheimer's disease, as well as the accompanying chronic inflammation of brain tissue. As to why microglia become problematic and inflammatory, there are any number of possible contributing mechanisms to consider. Cellular senescence, mitochondrial dysfunction, reactions to cell debris or the presence of persistent viral infections, and more. In this vein, researchers here discuss excessive lipid accumulation in ...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 27, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Predicting the Order of Arrival of the First Rejuvenation Therapies
It has been going on eight years since I last speculated on the order of arrival of the first rejuvenation therapies. Tempus fugit, and time for an updated version! Eight years is a long enough span of time for the first of those rejuvenation therapies to now exist, albeit in a prototypical form, arguably proven in principle but not concretely. The world progresses but my biases remain much the same: the first rejuvenation therapies to work well enough to merit the name will be based on the SENS vision, that aging is at root caused by a few classes of accumulated cell and tissue damage, and biotechnologies that either repa...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 25, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Estrogen-Related Receptor Agonists as Exercise Mimetic Drugs
Just as the research community is interested in finding pharmaceutical ways to provoke some the beneficial reactions to calorie restriction, there is also considerable effort devoted to the search for drug candidates that can mimic some of the benefits of exercise. If the history of calorie restriction mimetic drug development is any guide, this will be a slow process, and the resulting compounds will produce lesser benefits than actual exercise, as they will only touch on a small subset of the processes involved. Still, there is no shortage of programs in this space, and here is one example. Exercise benefits bot...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 25, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Bonus Features – March 24, 2024 – Data infrastructure investments have 124% ROI, 85% of healthcare workers believe AI can improve the patient experience, plus 28 more stories
This article will be a weekly roundup of interesting stories, product announcements, new hires, partnerships, research studies, awards, sales, and more. Because there’s so much happening out there in healthcare IT we aren’t able to cover in our full articles, we still want to make sure you’re informed of all the latest news, announcements, and stories happening to help you better do your job. News and Surveys More than half (52%) of provider organizations use entirely manual workflows for credentialing and network management, according to a survey from Medallion. A survey from Hakkoda found 92% of healthcare organiz...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 24, 2024 Category: Information Technology Authors: Brian Eastwood Tags: Healthcare IT Ardent Health Services athenahealth Availity Carta Healthcare Christine Gall Collette Health DrFirst DUOS FOLX Health Forbes Gary L. Harton Gattaca Genomics Gene Scheurer Greg Coticchia Greg Sottolano Hakkoda Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 25th 2024
This study also reports the expansion of satellite cells in human muscle with CR. This finding is critical to suggest translational relevance to the rodent data observed for more than a decade. Moreover, the increased expression of the plasminogen receptor Plg-RKT observed on human satellite cells during CR provided additional support for the theory that our rodent model is relevant to human biology. « Back to Top Interesting Insight into the Relationship Between TP53, Telomerase, and Telomere Length https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2024/03/interesting-insight-into-the-relationship-between-t...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 24, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Palpitations and presyncope in a 40-something
Discussion: Putting all of the information together this patient is most likely suffering from arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (AC) better known as ARVC. The medical hx is typical, with sudden onset tachydysrhythmia during physical exertion. It is not uncommon for the initial presentation to be sudden cardiac death (SCD). In fact it is one of the leading causes of SCD in people age less than 40 years. Thus it is very important to identify this disorder. AC is a disease in which myocardium is replaced by fibrofatty tissue. This usually and predominantly affects the RV free wall and apical regions, but it can affect the left v...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - March 24, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: Magnus Nossen Source Type: blogs

A potential discovery of highly fatal SARS coronavirus?
Has a highly fatal SARS coronavirus already been discovered? Maybe yes, but just its report is highly concerning. On January 4, 2024, a letter to the editor was uploaded to a preprint server which gave too few details but described a 100 percent fatal virus in genetically modified mice. The modifications made these mice similar Read more… A potential discovery of highly fatal SARS coronavirus? originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 23, 2024 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Conditions COVID Infectious Disease Source Type: blogs