CAR-T Therapy Continues to Perform Well for Patients Unresponsive to Chemotherapy
CAR-T immunotherapy involves equipping T cells extracted from a patient with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR), expanding them in culture, and then reintroducing these genetically engineered T cells into the patient. The artificial receptor allows the T cells to aggressively respond to the patient's cancer, as it is targeted to a cell surface feature that is characteristic of cancer cells. Different cancers have different features, and thus different CARs are used. CAR-T therapies were first trialed for blood cancers, and continue to do well on this front, as noted here.
A CAR T-cell therapy has generated deep, su...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 10, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 8th 2021
Conclusion
Coupled with the animal data, and the existing human trial data for safety, the results here suggests that someone should run a formal, controlled trial of flagellin immunization in older people, 65 and over. The goal would be to see whether (a) this sort of outcome holds up in a larger group of people, and (b) there is a meaningful impact on chronic inflammation and other parameters of health that are known to be affected by the aging of the gut microbiome.
The Role of Reactive Oxygen Species in Aging is Complex
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2021/03/the-role-of-reactive-oxygen-species-in-a...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 7, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
The SREBP Pathway is a Mechanism by which Cancers Subvert Regulatory T Cells
Cancers subvert the immune system in a variety of ways, such as in order to aid growth, or suppress the immune response normally triggered by the presence of cancerous cells. Regulatory T cells are involved in halting the immune response after it is has done its job, and in preventing autoimmunity, in which the immune system attacks the body. This role is abused in cancerous tissue in order to protect the cancer from the immune system. Researchers here identify some of the controlling biochemistry that makes regulatory T cells behave differently in this scenario. The mechanism appears distinct enough, operating only in can...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 3, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Six Reasons Why Cancer is an Emotional Diagnosis Too
By Cynthia Hayes, Author, The Big Ordeal: Understanding and Managing the Psychological Turmoil of Cancer
No matter when you hear the words, “You’ve got cancer,” you are bound to have an emotional reaction. The news is devastating, and the physical challenges that lie ahead are very real. But, unfortunately, that is only half the story. Cancer is an emotional diagnosis too, and our psychological and physical responses to the disease and its treatment are intertwined, coloring the entire experience. Why is cancer so emotional?
We fear we will die
For millennia, cancer has been a death sentence. So even though ...
Source: PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement - February 22, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Cynthia Hayes Tags: featured health and fitness philosophy psychology self-improvement cancer healing illness pickthebrain self improvement Source Type: blogs
Can dust mite allergy be treated with a pill?
It’s something people don’t like to think about, but it’s a fact that dust mites are all around us. These mites are microscopic relatives of spiders and ticks who live off of skin cells that we shed. It is almost impossible to eradicate them, and even the cleanest home has dust mites. Though dust mites do not bite us or cause rashes, they are a common cause of year-round allergy symptoms such as runny nose, itchy eyes, and sneezing. People with dust mite allergy have a persistently itchy nose even when not physically around dusty objects.
A recent study has shown that a new way of treating dust mite allergy is ef...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - February 10, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Anna R. Wolfson, MD Tags: Allergies Drugs and Supplements Health Source Type: blogs
Stomach Cancer Stage 4 Treatment
Stomach cancer stage 4 is a complex diagnosis. It is the stage of cancer that requires specific treatment options.
Is surgery an option for patients with stomach cancer stage 4?
Stage 4 stomach cancer is characterized by rapid tumor growth, metastasizing to regional lymph nodes and distant organs (liver, bones, pancreas, less often lungs). With the development of metastases in other organs, characteristic symptoms occur such as jaundice and liver failure with liver damage, ascites with metastases in the peritoneum, bowel obstruction with metastases in the small intestine, etc.
Therefore, at the advanced stages, ga...
Source: PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement - January 22, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Booking Health Tags: health and fitness self-improvement cancer stomach cancer treatment Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 4th 2021
The objective of this study is to quantify the overall and cancer type-specific risks of subsequent primary cancers (SPCs) among adult-onset cancer survivors by first primary cancer (FPC) types and sex. Among 1,537,101 survivors (mean age, 60.4 years; 48.8% women), 156,442 SPC cases and 88,818 SPC deaths occurred during 11,197,890 person-years of follow-up (mean, 7.3 years). Among men, the overall risk of developing any SPCs was statistically significantly higher for 18 of the 30 FPC types, and risk of dying from any SPCs was statistically significantly higher for 27 of 30 FPC types as compared with risks in the general po...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 3, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
A Look Back at 2020: Progress Towards the Treatment of Aging as a Medical Condition
While I suspect that COVID-19 will feature prominently in most retrospectives on 2020, I'll say only a little on it. The data on mortality by year end, if taken at face value, continues to suggest that the outcome will fall at the higher end of the early estimates of a pandemic three to six times worse than a bad influenza year, ten times worse than a normal influenza year. The people who die are near entirely the old, the co-morbid, and the immunocompromised. They die because they are suffering the damage and dysfunction of aging. Yet the societal conversation and the actions of policy makers ignore this.
There is ...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 31, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Of Interest Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, December 28th 2020
In conclusion, our study demonstrated that the molecular processes of aging are relatively subtle in their progress, and the aging process of every tissue depends on the tissue's specialized function and environment. Hence, individual gene or process alone cannot be described as the key of aging in the whole organism.
Mouse Age Matters: How Age Affects the Murine Plasma Metabolome
A large part of metabolomics research relies on experiments involving mouse models, which are usually 6 to 20 weeks of age. However, in this age range mice undergo dramatic developmental changes. Even small age differences may l...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 27, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
A Review of Senolytics Biotech Companies
Here I'll point out a very high level review of the present senolytics biotech companies. These companies are all quite young, focused on various means of selectively destroying the senescent cells that accumulate with age. Animal data from mice shows that these cells are an important contributing cause of aging and age-related disease, as clearing them reverses the progression many aspects of aging and age-related diseases, while also extending life span. Senescent cells exhibit the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), producing a mix of molecules that provoke chronic inflammation and tissue dysfunction. The ...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 22, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Artificial Attachments for Immune Cells Help Kill Tumors
We present a synthetic method for functionalizing the surface of natural killer (NK) cells with a supramolecular aptamer‐based polyvalent antibody mimic (PAM). The PAM is synthesized on the cell surface through nucleic acid assembly and hybridization. The data show that PAM has superiority over its monovalent counterpart in powering NKs to bind to cancer cells, and that PAM‐engineered NK cells exhibit the capability of killing cancer cells more effectively. Notably, aptamers can, in principle, be discovered against any cell receptors; moreover, the aptamers can be replaced by any other ligands when developing a PAM. Th...
Source: Medgadget - December 16, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Materials Medicine Nanomedicine Oncology Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, December 14th 2020
In conclusion, aging alters the cerebral vasculature to impair mitochondrial function and mitophagy and increase IL-6 levels. These alterations may impair BBB integrity and potentially reduce cerebrovascular health with aging.
Senescent Cells Fail to Maintain Proteostasis
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2020/12/senescent-cells-fail-to-maintain-proteostasis/
Given the newfound consensus in the research community regarding the importance of senescent cells to degenerative aging, it isn't surprising to see a great deal more fundamental research into the biochemistry of cellular senescence now taking pl...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 13, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Continuing to Search for a Point of Intervention in Alzheimer's Disease at which Removing Amyloid- β Will Work
The dominant view of Alzheimer's disease remains the amyloid cascade hypothesis: amyloid-β accumulates over time in the brain, which generates immune dysfunction, inflammation, and finally tau aggregation that kills large numbers of brain cells. After a great deal of work and expense, the research and development community has produced a number of immunotherapies capable of reducing levels of amyloid-β in the brain. Unfortunately, these treatments don't appear to do all that much to improve the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease in patients. There is certainly no clear and evident gain in function across the board, and even...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 10, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
My Benjamin Hartman Story
“I need intravenous Beefsteak,” I texted my forever-Beefsteak date Ben Hartman, who others called Benjie or Bean or sometimes Boozey, and who I called Kryptonite or sometimes Sushi Ben. “See you there at 6:30,” he texted back. Since meeting in 2014, we each accommodated the other when it came to Beefsteak — a fast-casual restaurant near George Washington University that served paleo-friendly fare before paleo was cool and offered outdoor seating long before covid-19. My gcalendar archive shows that we made seven Beefsteak dates in advance, though that’s a fraction of our total as most stemmed fro m mi...
Source: cancerslayerblog - December 5, 2020 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: death life lessons Source Type: blogs
