Underfunding Research Of Female Health Leaves Huge Amounts Of Money On The Table
“Did you know that at least one-third of women have lower back pain before their periods every month, and yet, nobody seems to fully understand why?” – asked a Medical Futurist team member a little while ago. The question led to a discussion about the differences in research, funding and understanding of male-only and female-only health issues, and consequently, to this article. It is a well-known fact that some diseases or conditions dominantly affect one gender or the other. There are the trivial ones, like prostate cancer or ovarian, cervical, uterine cancers. But there is a long list of diseases and condit...
Source: The Medical Futurist - May 12, 2022 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andrea Koncz Tags: TMF Future of Medicine Healthcare Policy Medical Education women female health under-reseached gender gap in healthcare Source Type: blogs

Cryoablation for Treatment of Heavy Menstrual Bleeding: Interview with Ric Cote, CEO of Channel Medsystems
Channel Medsystems, a medtech company based in California, created the Cerene cryotherapy device for the treatment of heavy menstrual bleeding. Heavy menstrual bleeding can affect quality of life for many women, and the condition can be associated with abdominal pain, cramping, and tiredness.     The Cerene technology aims to provide an effective treatment for heavy menstrual bleeding, a procedure which can be performed in a doctor’s surgery in just a few minutes, and which does not require general anesthesia. The procedure involves the insertion of the device into the uterus, where cryoablation of the endometrial ...
Source: Medgadget - May 2, 2022 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Exclusive Ob/Gyn Reproductive Medicine Surgery Source Type: blogs

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

The Merits of Late Life Suppression of Growth Hormone Signaling
The longest lived mice are those in which growth hormone or growth hormone receptor are knocked out, a gain of 70% or so in life span. They exhibit dwarfism, like the human population with the analogous inherited Laron syndrome, caused by a loss-of-function mutation in growth hormone receptor. The Laron syndrome population may be somewhat more resistant to some age-related diseases, that data still to be rigorously confirmed, but do not appear to live any longer than the rest of us. Studies on growth hormone metabolism and longevity conducted in mice should be read with that in mind, particularly when used to advocate ther...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 27, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, April 25th 2022
We examined central genetic and environmental lifespan regulators (putative anti-aging interventions, PAAIs; the following PAAIs were examined: mTOR loss-of-function, loss-of-function in growth hormone signaling, dietary restriction) for a possible countering of the signs and symptoms of aging. Importantly, in our study design, we included young treated groups of animals, subjected to PAAIs prior to the onset of detectable age-dependent phenotypic change. In parallel to our studies in mice, we assessed genetic variants for their effects on age-sensitive phenotypes in humans. We observed that, surprisingly, many PAAI...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 24, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Do Methods Known to Slow Aging Actually Slow Aging?
We examined central genetic and environmental lifespan regulators (putative anti-aging interventions, PAAIs; the following PAAIs were examined: mTOR loss-of-function, loss-of-function in growth hormone signaling, dietary restriction) for a possible countering of the signs and symptoms of aging. Importantly, in our study design, we included young treated groups of animals, subjected to PAAIs prior to the onset of detectable age-dependent phenotypic change. In parallel to our studies in mice, we assessed genetic variants for their effects on age-sensitive phenotypes in humans. We observed that, surprisingly, many PAAI...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 22, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

FGF21 is Required for Protein Restriction to Extend Life in Mice
In today's open access research, scientists demonstrate that mice lacking FGF21 do not benefit from protein restriction, a dietary intervention that usually produces slowed aging and extended life span in that species. FGF21 has been the subject of a fair amount of attention from the research community in the context of aging in recent years, attention drawn to this gene because it is upregulated by the practice of calorie restriction, as well as by protein restriction. Artificially increasing FGF21 expression via genetic engineering has been shown to extend life in mice. Like many aspects of cellular biochemistry a...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 20, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

B Cells Reduce Inflammation by Secreting Acetylcholine in the Bone Marrow
The immune system is a very complex, self-regulating system. In youth, it becomes inflamed in response to injury or pathogens, and that inflamed state is resolved once the immediate need is met. There are many pathways to rousing the immune system to inflammation, and some of these malfunction or are inappropriately stimulated in later life as a result of molecular damage, excess visceral fat tissue, senescent cell signaling, and so forth. This leads to chronic inflammation, overwhelming the equally diverse set mechanisms that are responsible for resolving inflammation after it has served its purpose. Inflammation i...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 19, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Flu Is Making Comeback. Here ’s What We Can Do About It
Jeffrey A. SingerAfter being nearly absent in 2020 and 2021, influenza cases are making a comeback. In fact, cases are up ‐​tickingunusually late in the year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)reported on April 15 that the majority of cases are H3N2, “antigenically different from the vaccine reference viruses.” This explains why the latest flu vaccine is only16 percent effective in reducing the chances of a moderate to severe infection. As of April 15, the CDC reported at least 4.3 million flu illnesses, 42,000 hospitalizations, and 2,500 deaths from the flu.Public health experts attribu...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 18, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, April 18th 2022
In conclusion, our results suggest that SAH extends lifespan by inducing MetR or mimicking its downstream effects. Since the lifespan-extending effects of SAH are conserved in yeast and nematodes, and MetR extends the lifespan of many species, exposure to SAH is expected to have multiple benefits across evolutionary boundaries. Our findings offer the enticing possibility that in humans the benefits of a MetR diet can be achieved by promoting Met reduction with SAH. The use of endogenous metabolites, such as SAH, is considered safer than drugs and other substances, suggesting that it may be one of the most feasible ways to ...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 17, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Dopaminergenic Neurons Regulate Longevity in Flies
An interesting commentary here notes the extended life span in flies that results from the upregulation of the Mask gene in dopaminergenic neurons only. This is accompanied by extended reproductive life span as well, indicating an overall improvement in health along with extended life. In short-lived species there are many examples of this sort of single gene alteration that results in overall improvement, demonstrating that the processes of evolution do not optimize for life span. Should we expect to find analogous single gene alterations in humans? That question is complicated by the fact that long-lived species such as ...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 15, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

In Other Words: Some Antagonists Are Heroes
Many of us learned in English class that an antagonist is a person or thing that a hero fights. But in biomedical science, an antagonist is a molecule that binds to a cellular receptor to prevent a response, such as a muscle contraction or hormone release. Antagonists can be important medical treatments, like the antagonist naloxone—also known as Narcan —that can reverse an opioid overdose. Credit: NIGMS; Yekaterina Kadyshevskaya, The Scripps Research Institute. The two main types of antagonists—competitive and noncompetitive—are named for their relationships to agonists, which are molecules th...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - April 13, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacology In Other Words Medicines Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 21st 2022
This study was the first to examine how these networks interact with physical activity and fitness to impact how the brain functions. "This paper is exciting because it gives us some evidence that when people whose brain networks aren't functioning optimally engage in physical activity, we see improvement in their executive function and their independence. Maybe just take the stairs on the way to work. Stand up and walk around a little bit more. That's where you get the most bang for your buck, not crazy, high-intensity exercise." Variations in Biological Age Across Organs in Younger Individuals https:/...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 20, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

The (sort of, partial) Father mRNA Vaccines Who Now Spreads Vaccine Misinformation (Part 2)
By DAVID WARMFLASH, MD This is part 2 of David Warmlash’s takedown of Robert W. Malone’s appearance (transcript) on the Rogan podcast. Part 1 is here Menstruation and Fertility Much more than the line about reproductive damage in the Wisconsin News clip that we used to open the story, Malone used the Rogan interview to dive more deeply into the topic, starting with:  …there’s a huge number of dysmenorrhea and menometrorrhagia… By that, he meant excessive menstrual cramping and very heavy, often irregular, bleeding, which he followed up with: …they DENY it… Judging by other parts ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 18, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: COVID-19 Health Policy antivaxxer COVID-19 vaccine David Warmflash Joe Rogan Robert Malone Source Type: blogs

Variations in Biological Age Across Organs in Younger Individuals
Systems of measuring biological age are multiplying rapidly. There are many ways of going about this, from epigenetic clocks to weighted combinations of simple measures such as grip strength. Researchers here build their own assessments for the purpose of looking at aging in younger adults, 20s to 40s, a part of aging that is not well studied at all. The interesting outcome is that there appears to be a significant variation in assessed biological age between different organs and systems in the body. It is a little early to talk about why this arises, whether an artifact of the tools used, or reflects some underlying truth...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 18, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs