Drug Halts Alzheimer ’s Related Tau Damage in Brain
In some people, the brain protein tau collects into toxic tangles that damage brain cells and contribute to diseases such as Alzheimer ’s.By Alzheimer's Reading RoomResearchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found a drug that can lower tau levels and prevent some neurological damage.I thought this information was interesting so I decided to bring this research summary up for all to read.Note: Oligonucleotide treatments have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for two neuromuscular diseases.How to Adapt the Caregiver Brain to Alzheimer's and DementiaSubscribe to the Alzheimer's...
Source: Alzheimer's Reading Room, The - January 27, 2017 Category: Neurology Tags: alzheimer alzheimers drug alzheimers treatment dementia care health help alzheimer's help with dementia care science tau Source Type: blogs
Resilience: ‘T’ain’t What You Do (It’s the Way That You Do It)’
Resilience can mean the ability of a person to solve problems and bounce back from difficult situations. That, at least, is the definition a group of researchers from the University of Washington gave to resilience when they surveyed a cadre of 1,574 people with a range of chronic conditions that included multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, post poliomyelitis syndrome, and spinal cord injury.
The information for this study was collected from mail-in surveys as part of an ongoing study of people as they age with disability.
In their report of the study, published in December 2016 in Archives of Physical Medicine and Reh...
Source: Life with MS - January 20, 2017 Category: Neurology Authors: Trevis Gleason Tags: multiple sclerosis emotions inspiration Living with MS ms community research trevis gleason work Source Type: blogs
Why does this young male with chest pain have a tall R in V1, and lateral Q waves?
This is another post written byBrooks Walsh, with some editing by Smith.CaseA teenage male was brought to the ED with 1 week of a left-sided pleuritic chest pain and cough. He had a modest hypoxia, and a temperature of 99.9. He had no documented cardiac disorders.An ECG was obtained:There is borderline sinus tachycardia. The R waves in V1 are abnormally tall, with R/S ratio greater than 1. There are also deep (though narrow) Q waves in I, aVL, V5, and V6.Why does he have these tall R-waves in right precordial leads and Q-waves in lateral leads? Could he have a previous lateral and posterior myocar...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - January 3, 2017 Category: Cardiology Authors: Steve Smith Source Type: blogs
The Most Exciting Medical Technologies of 2017
It is almost a tradition for me to publish predictions for the coming year. I do not mean to disappoint you this year either, so here you find some thoughts about the top medical technologies of 2017.
2016 was a rich year for medical technology. Virtual Reality. Augmented Reality. Smart algorithms analysing wearable data. Amazing technologies arrived in our lives and on the market almost every day. And it will not stop in the coming year.
The role of a futurist is certainly not making bold predictions about the future. No such big bet has taken humanity forward. Instead, our job is constantly analysing the trends shaping t...
Source: The Medical Futurist - December 15, 2016 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Future of Medicine 3d printing AI artificial intelligence diabetes GC1 genetics Healthcare Innovation nutrigenomics Personalized medicine robotics wearables Source Type: blogs
Data on the Effects of Follistatin Gene Therapy from BioViva
Back in 2015, Elizabeth Parrish underwent telomerase and follistatin gene therapy as a part of forming the startup BioViva: a human safety trial of one person, made public as a way to push the bounds of the current debate over when we should get started on human testing of these technologies. Personally, I agree that there is too much talk, too much unnecessary caution and hand-wringing, and not enough action. Sooner rather than later is better, especially given the large amount of animal data showing safety. Parrish is to be congratulated for forging ahead.
The latter of these two gene therapies is more interesting...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 30, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Sarepta and the Value of Adaptive Clinical Trials
Here ’s a new op-ed from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It speaks directly to today’s FDA approval of Sarepta. Consider what the editor chose to add to my attribution at the bottom of the article:\, “Peter J. Pitts, a former FDA associate commissioner, is the president and co-founder of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest. CMPI receives some funding from biopharmaceutical firms, which could benefit from adaptive trials.” I suggested that he also add that adaptive trials benefit patients. He declined. I wonder what the parents of children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy would say? (Source: drugwonks.com Blog)
Source: drugwonks.com Blog - September 19, 2016 Category: Pharmaceuticals Source Type: blogs
Dispelling Dementia ’s Myths
By Elaine C PereiraAlzheimer's Reading RoomMost of the questions asked of me or other presenters during seminars are meaningful and appropriate. But they also reflect a lack of clarity that still permeates what the general public understands.Quoting someone: “there are no stupid questions.”I ’m grateful to help anyone expand their knowledge and dispel the myths about dementia and Alzheimer’s.Touch and Kindness in Dementia CareSubscribe to the Alzheimer's Reading RoomEmail:The following questions come upfrequently enough that I wanted to share the information to a broader base of readers.1. Do men with dementia/Alzh...
Source: Alzheimer's Reading Room, The - September 10, 2016 Category: Neurology Tags: alzheimer's awareness alzheimer's care Alzheimer's Dementia dementia care dementia help for caregivers help alzheimer's help with dementia care memory care searches related to Alzheimer's Care Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 15th 2016
In conclusion, our results demonstrate that circulating GDF11 levels are reduced in our mouse model of premature aging, which shares most of the symptoms that occur in normal aging. However, GDF11 protein administration is not sufficient to extend longevity in these progeroid mice. Although accelerated-aging mouse models can serve as powerful tools to test and develop anti-aging therapies common to both physiological and pathological aging, the existence of certain differences between the two processes implies that further investigation is still required to determine whether long-term GDF11 administration has a pro-surviva...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 14, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Nampt Overexpression Reduces Age-Related Loss of Exercise Capacity in Mice
NAD, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, plays a central role in energy metabolism, and of late has attracted more attention from researchers who aim to modestly slow aging by adjusting the operation of metabolism. Tinkering with NAD levels though any number of different ways appears to produce some benefits in mice, but these are not sizable outcomes. Essentially this looks only incrementally better for normal animals than the marginal results produced for many forms of dietary supplementation in mouse studies.
Researchers examined the role of NAD precursor molecules on mitochondria by specifically disrupting the ...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 10, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
A Smad7 Gene Therapy to Inhibit Age-Related Muscle Loss is in Development
There are always many ways to influence any specific process in cells and tissues. When it comes to enhanced muscle growth, the most popular approaches so far are myostatin inhibition, such as via gene knockout or the use of antibodies, or increased levels of the myostatin inhibitor follistatin. Both of these have been shown to greatly increase muscle mass in a number of species, and are thus potential treatments to compensate for the loss of muscle mass and strength that occurs over the course of aging. Physical weakness is a large component of age-related frailty, and even partially removing that part of the aging proces...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 28, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
AUF1 Linked to Stem Cell Function and Muscle Regeneration
The stem cells responsible for muscle growth and regeneration are perhaps the best studied of such populations. It seems that most of the new and interesting insights into the nuts and bolts of stem cell biology are coming from this part of the field, in any case. The therapies emerging from research along these lines should include ways to restore the diminished activity of stem cells in older people, with effects most likely similar to present stem cell therapies, but with greater control and selectivity in outcomes. In particular, researchers are very interesting in finding ways to boost muscle growth in older people in...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 22, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, July 11th 2016
In conclusion, hTERT expression strictly limits telomerase activation in most of somatic cells, whereas mTERT expression is detectable in most of mouse tissue cells. The interspecies differences between human and mice suggest an improved mouse line, in which both telomerase regulation and telomere length controls are humanized, would considerably benefit the studies of human aging and cancer using mouse models.
ON CELLULAR REPROGRAMMING AND CELLULAR REJUVENATION
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2016/07/on-cellular-reprogramming-and-cellular-rejuvenation/
The commentary linked below takes a look at some re...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 10, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Loss of β1-integrin and Fibronectin Implicated in Muscle Stem Cell Decline
Researchers are making inroads into the biochemistry of age-related stem cell decline in muscles, the tissue most studied in this part of the field. Here, another protein is added to the list of those that change with age and seem to play an important role in this process, given that researchers can use it to restore the loss of muscle regeneration in old animals:
Muscle stem cells are the primary source of muscle regeneration after injury. These specialized adult stem cells lie dormant in the muscle tissue - off to the side of the individual muscle fibers, which is why they were originally dubbed satellite cells....
Source: Fight Aging! - July 6, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
How Patient Groups Have Begun To Influence The Value And Coverage Debate
In 2015, two issues related to medicine could be relied on to generate headlines: drug pricing and the proliferation of new value frameworks that claimed to define the value and even the price of drugs in seemingly easy-to-understand ways. In none of the high-profile skirmishes on pricing or frameworks was the voice or perspective of patients and patient groups very much in evidence. But that is beginning to change, in an evolution of a broader shift in the role that patients are playing in the research and development (R&D) enterprise.
A New Culture of Engagement
Patients and patient organizations are becoming ever mo...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 10, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Margaret Anderson and Kristin Schneeman Tags: Costs and Spending Health Professionals Organization and Delivery Quality clinical research patient use of evidence venture philanthropy Source Type: blogs
Methodological Miasma not mental dystrophy plagues drug trials
by Arthur Caplan, Ph.D. and Bruce Levin, Ph.D.
The Wall Street Journal and many other media outlets chose to beat on the FDA for its recent decision to deny approval of eteplirsen, a treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy being developed by Sarepta Therapeutics.
Actually it was the FDA’s scientific advisors not the FDA who concluded that there wasn’t sufficient evidence the drug was effective.
Still the WSJ sneered that “Here’s the gist of FDA’s objection: 12 patients are too few, and thus we don’t know if the drug helps boys walk longer or if the results are skewed.… (Source: blog.bioethics.net)
Source: blog.bioethics.net - May 4, 2016 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Bonsai Klugman Tags: Clinical Trials & Studies Featured Posts Media eteplirsen Sarepta Wall Street Journal Source Type: blogs
