Treating COVID-19 in a patient with multiple myeloma
Some readers have recently been asking me about curcumin and Covid-19. Is it good or bad to be taking it if you contract coronavirus? Can it reduce your risk of contracting Covid-19? (See my post on vitamina D, incidentally.) I don’t know.
If I had any answers, believe me, I’d be publishing them…immediately.
Well, it just so happens that this afternoon I read a very interesting Science Daily article that may shed some light on this matter. It discusses the case study of ONE myeloma patient, in Wuhan, who was given an immunosuppressant drug, a monoclonal antibody, called tocilizumab. Here’s the lin...
Source: Margaret's Corner - April 4, 2020 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll curcumin myeloma tocilizumab Source Type: blogs
Vitamin D and coronavirus
I’ve been cautious, very cautious, about writing a post on supplements that might help reduce the risk of being infected with Covid-19, for what I think are obvious reasons!, but this morning I came across an interesting new study by the University of Turin showing that hospitalized coronavirus patients here in Italy have very low levels of vitamin D.
Low levels of vitamin D might also explain why the virus has been killing mostly elderly people here in Italy…
At any rate, this news just got released, so I couldn’t find any articles in English, unfortunately, but you can use Google Translate, if needed. H...
Source: Margaret's Corner - March 27, 2020 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll vitamin D and coronavirus Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 23rd 2020
Fight Aging! publishes news and commentary relevant to the goal of ending all age-related disease, to be achieved by bringing the mechanisms of aging under the control of modern medicine. This weekly newsletter is sent to thousands of interested subscribers. To subscribe or unsubscribe from the newsletter,
please visit:
https://www.fightaging.org/newsletter/
Longevity Industry Consulting Services
Reason, the founder of Fight Aging! and Repair Biotechnologies, offers strategic consulting services to investors, entrepreneurs, and others interested in the longevity industry and its complexities. To find out m...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 22, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
The Two Way Relationship Between Cellular Senescence and Cancer in Bone Marrow
Cells become senescent in response to a variety of circumstances. The vast majority are cases of replicative senescence, somatic cells reaching the Hayflick limit. Cell damage and toxic environments also produce senescence, and senescent cells are also created as a part of the wound healing process. A senescent cell ceases replication and begins to secrete inflammatory and pro-growth signals, altering the nearby extracellular matrix and behavior of surrounding cells - even encouraging them to become senescent as well.
Near all senescent cells last a short time only, as they self-destruct or are removed by the immune...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 20, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Pandemic Fears: What the AIDS Battle Should Teach Us About COVID-19
By ANISH KOKA, MD
As the globe faces a novel, highly transmissible,
lethal virus, I am most struck by a medicine cabinet that is embarrassingly
empty for doctors in this battle. This
means much of the debate centers on mitigation of spread of the virus. Tempers flare over discussions on travel
bans, social distancing, and self quarantines, yet the inescapable fact remains
that the medical community can do little more than support the varying
fractions of patients who progress from mild to severe and life threatening
disease. This isn’t meant to minimize the
massive efforts brought to bear to keep pat...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 12, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: CORVID-19 Health Policy Patients Physicians AIDS Anish Koka AZT coronavirus COVID-19 FDA novel coronavirus Pandemic Source Type: blogs
“ Use of curcumin in multiple myeloma patients intolerant of steroid therapy ”
Conclusion”).
The other 12 patients, however, are stable and doing well, in spite of the fact that some have high-risk cytogenetic and FISH abnormalities.
The combination of curcumin and the other conventional drugs reduced their paraprotein levels by 38%, and plasmacytosis by 59%. How about that?
Anyway, it’s not a difficult read, methinks, so please have a look at the above link…
Thank you, Dr. Golombick! I am so grateful to you and your team for all your tireless work. You give us hope!!! :-) Thank You Thank You Thank You!!!
We need MORE studies like this one! Not 10 years from now…but…NOW!...
Source: Margaret's Corner - February 28, 2020 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll curcumin Golombick myeloma Source Type: blogs
Quick update
Well, quite a lot has happened since I wrote my post on the loss of our Priscilla.
A few days after her death, Stefano came home complaining of a sore throat, which soon turned into a full-blown case of bronchitis: more proof, to me anyway!, of a close association between stress (and, in this case, probably grief as well) and a lowering of the immune defenses.
Anyway, we tried to be careful, but to no avail: on top of everything else, I caught his bronchitis and was sick (againnnnnn!) for about two weeks. This happened in mid January or thereabouts. So, all in all, I was sick/convalescent/sick/convalescent for more than a ...
Source: Margaret's Corner - February 27, 2020 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll coronavirus curcumin myeloma Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 13th 2020
In this study, we investigated the link between AF and senescence markers through the assessment of protein expression in the tissue lysates of human appendages from patients in AF, including paroxysmal (PAF) or permanent AF (PmAF), and in sinus rhythm (SR). The major findings of the study indicated that the progression of AF is strongly related to the human atrial senescence burden as determined by p53 and p16 expression. The stepwise increase of senescence (p53, p16), prothrombotic (TF), and proremodeling (MMP-9) markers observed in the right atrial appendages of patients in SR, PAF, and PmAF points toward multiple inter...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 12, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Suppression of Neuroinflammation as a Treatment for Neurodegenerative Disease
There is a growing focus on inflammation in the brain as an important factor in the progression of neurodegenerative disease. One result is greater thought given to therapeutic strategies involving the suppression of inflammatory signaling, akin to the approaches used to control inflammatory autoimmune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. I would wager that this is probably not as good a strategy as removing senescent glial cells in the brain, and thus removing their sizable contribution to inflammatory signaling, given the animal data in support of that approach, but it will certainly be attempted in the years ahead.
...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 8, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Not Dead Yet
Not even close, doing pretty well actually, though I should post more often. I was diagnosed with myeloma in July, 2003, and according to my math that ' s well over 16 years ago. My family and I go to two different support groups, and I get celebrated as one of the long-timers. I like that, so very preferable to being dead, I think.
I ' ve been on Pomalyst (Pom) since March of 2008, with the exception of one year when the Pom trial ended. Trials of three different experimental regimens failed me then, but Darzalex became approved and the combo of Darzalex, Pom, and dexamethasone (dex) brought my numbers way back down. Even...
Source: Myeloma Hope - December 18, 2019 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: Darzalex dexamethasone light chains PET Pomalyst radiation treatment scapula Source Type: blogs
Let ’ s have some chillies!
I just read a nice bit of news this morning. A new Italian study shows that eating peperoncini, the Italian word for chilli peppers (also spelled chili, with one “l,” mainly in the U.S.), can cut our risk of having a heart attack or stroke by 40%. Yes, by a whopping 40%!!!
Here’s the link to the CNN article about this study: https://cnn.it/36Fatro
It should be noted that other researchers cast a few doubts on the study’s findings, pointing out that perhaps people who eat chillies are also eating more vegetables, as well as other herbs and spices, so it would be difficult to figure out if the purpor...
Source: Margaret's Corner - December 17, 2019 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll chili chili pepper chilli peppers chillies myeloma Source Type: blogs
Curcumin and myeloma: a new patient study
A very small Indonesian study came up with some interesting conclusions about curcumin given to myeloma patients who were also taking melphalan and prednisone (MP): http://bit.ly/348vHwY
The study evaluated two groups of myeloma patients, a control group of 16 patients who took only the MP, and a treatment group consisting of 17 people who also took 8 grams of curcumin in addition to the MP.
After 28 days, as we can read in the study, “There was a significant decrease of NF-KB, VEGF, TNF-?, LDH levels in the treatment group compared with control. There was a decreasing trend of IL-6 levels in the treatment group sig...
Source: Margaret's Corner - November 20, 2019 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll curcumin curcumin and myeloma Source Type: blogs
Treat so-called “ high-risk ” smoldering myeloma … Yes or No?
My (predictable) answer is “NO, absolutely NOT.” Not until you begin having CRAB symptoms. But first things first…
I began writing this post last week, then I just had too many things to do so I didn’t finish my draft. Then, yesterday morning, before going to work, I came across an article by Dr. Brian Durie (I don’t think I need to explain who he is!) making some of the points I had already made in my draft, BUT from the point of view of a world-famous hematologist.
So I decided to cut my draft in half and give you the link to Dr. Durie’s piece: http://bit.ly/2WWwsX9
But, of course, I ...
Source: Margaret's Corner - November 7, 2019 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll HR SMM lenalidomide Source Type: blogs
Dirty dishes
I’ve been interested in this topic ever since, months ago, I watched an interview on CNN with the neuroscientist Matthew Walker. Eight hours of sleep, he says, is what we need. Eight hours of sleep in complete darkness (otherwise our brains won’t release melatonin, something I didn’t know…).
An important point (again, something I didn’t know!): taking naps to catch up on our sleep doesn’t count.
“Unfortunately, says Matthew Walker,” “sleep is not like the bank. You cannot accumulate a debt and then hope to pay it off at a later time.”
And, he added, “Human ...
Source: Margaret's Corner - October 14, 2019 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll sleep deprivation Source Type: blogs
