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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 8, 2015 at 9:05am

This topic always fascinates me... understanding the death dance...another step towards it...
Asphyxia-activated corticocardiac signaling accelerates onset of cardiac arrest
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/04/02/1423936112
Death Brain Signaling Accelerates Demise of the Heart...
What happens in the moments just before death is widely believed to be a slowdown of the body’s systems as the heart stops beating and blood flow ends. For the study, performed in rats, researchers simultaneously examined the heart and brain during experimental asphyxiation and documented an immediate release of more than a dozen neurochemicals, along with an activation of brain-heart connectivity. This new laboratory study by the University of Michigan Medical School reveals a storm of brain activity that erupts as the heart deteriorates and plays a surprising destabilizing role in heart function.

This near-death brain signaling may be targeted to help cardiac arrest patients survive.
Despite the loss of consciousness and absence of signs of life, internally the brain exhibits sustained, organized activity and increased communication with the heart, which one may guess is an effort to save the heart.
However the brain signaling at near-death may, in fact, accelerate cardiac demise, according to the study published in this week’s PNAS Early Edition.

Researchers with backgrounds in engineering, neuroscience, physiology, cardiology, chemistry, and pharmacology looked at the mechanism by which the heart of a healthy person ceases to function within just a few minutes without oxygen.

While the animal study examined asphyxia-induced cardiac arrest, sudden cardiac death can also follow fatal cardiac arrhythmias, ischemic stroke, traumatic brain injury, brain hemorrhage and epilepsy.

Following a steep fall of the heart rate, brain signals strongly synchronized with the heart rhythm, as visualized beat-by-beat using a new technology developed in the Borjigin laboratory called electrocardiomatrix.

According to the study, blocking the brain’s outflow significantly delayed ventricular fibrillation, in which the lower chambers of the heart quiver and the heart cannot pump any blood. It’s the most serious cardiac rhythm disturbance.

The study suggests that a pharmacological blockade of the brain’s electrical connections to the heart during cardiac arrest may improve the chances of survival in cardiac arrest patients.
This new study provides a neurochemical foundation for the surge in brain activity and a brain-heart connectivity that may be targeted to lengthen detectable brain activity.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 8, 2015 at 8:47am

One can develop allergies a few weeks after receiving blood transfusions
'Peanut and fish allergy due to platelet transfusion in a child'
http://www.cmaj.ca/content/early/2015/04/07/cmaj.141407
Although this is rare, an eight year old boy developed allergy toward salmon and peanut butter after the blood transfusion because the donor had these allergies. However, these allergies are short lived and dissipate after some months because the recipients themselves don't produce the allergen antibodies.
The principle behind it is Clinicians purposefully transfer antibodies to give patients protection against infections, so it is not surprising that other antibodies could be transferred and cause ripple effects. Large amounts of immunoglobulin-E (IgE) antibodies remain in blood products even after storage of more than a month. Typically, fresh frozen plasma will contain the largest amount of the antibodies, followed by platelets and then red cells because all three blood components contain plasma, which can contain antibodies.
Multiple events must come together for a patient to have this rare allergic reaction. First, the blood donor must have high levels of IgE antibodies—those that react against allergens. Second, a substantial amount of blood product must be given to the patient. Then, in order to detect the new allergy, the patient would have to be exposed to the specific allergen the antibodies would react against within a few months of receiving the transfusion. That window is tight, because passively acquired antibodies will naturally fade after a few months and the transient allergy will disappear. IgE is estimated to have a half-life of just a few hours or days, but once it enters the body and binds to cells, it can remain detectable for weeks or months and cause allergic reactions

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 7, 2015 at 8:34am

Changing human DNA permanently... well science is moving faster than ethics can catch it...

Scientists around the world are anticipating the results of a Chinese study that would mark the first time DNA in a human embryo has been modified in a way that would carry into future generations.

Although the embryos would be for study only, and not intended for implantation, the research would mark a significant milestone: the first time human DNA had been altered so substantially that it would change the “germ line” — the eggs or sperm of any child produced from the embryo.

Theoretically that could allow parents in the not-too-distant future to essentially clean their own eggs and sperm of undesired genes — such as ones known to cause cancer — and prevent those genes from being passed on to grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Genetics research is already improving medicine, for example, informing women if they are more likely to develop breast or ovarian cancer. Scientists can sequence the human genome and parse it, find out where it goes wrong, and use that information to prevent, treat and even cure certain diseases, with implications for everything from autism to ALS.

But there’s a big difference between gene therapy — a growing field of largely clinical research that uses genes in treatment — and altering the germ line. That’s because current gene therapies make “somatic” changes to DNA, or ones that don’t affect eggs and sperm or embryos.

There are about 2,000 gene-therapy studies underway around the world. One clinical trial is seeking to turn off the genes that make the body susceptible to the HIV virus. Another pending trial out of the University of Alberta seeks to alter genes in men to stop the progression of a degenerative eye disease that leaves sufferers legally blind by middle age.

Germ-line research does get into deeper questions of eugenics, especially with spectrum disorders. We’ve got to take a deep breath because we’re about to alter the human genetic code in a way that it’s never been altered before.

However, some scientists say the fear about this kind of research is the one like we had in 1970's 'test tube babies'. Now the thing has become common. The same thing will happen to this one too.

Well...wait and watch

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 7, 2015 at 7:07am

A new exciting approach to cancer treatment : personalised cancer vaccines
Two of the most promising recent approaches to cancer treatment are immunotherapy, which harnesses the body’s own immune system to fight cancer, and personalised medicine, which involves therapeutics that are targeted to the genome of a particular patient and that patient’s cancer.

Now scientists have combined those two strategies to create a novel treatment: a vaccine developed for a single patient that triggers an immune system attack that is laser-focused on that patient’s tumours.
In the very first human trial testing this approach, the personalised vaccines successfully activated an immune response in three patients with melanoma.

The research is in its earliest stages - it’s too soon to say if the treatment actually improved survival in the patients or whether it will work in others at all. Still, scientists are excited about the idea and the proof-of-concept results, which were published in the journal Science on April 2.
In cancer, each tumour is unique, which is one reason that they can be so hard to treat. In this new approach, scientists have used that to their advantage. The broken genes that make a tumour grow out of control "can also be targeted by the immune system to control malignancies," researchers from the Netherlands Cancer Institute and Washington University School of Medicine explained.
To create the personalised treatments, scientists determined the unique genetic make-up of each patient’s melanoma tumours, which had been surgically removed. They then identified special targets, called neoantigens, on the surface of each patient’s cancer cells. Using those targets, they developed a personalised vaccine for each patient that would hopefully encourage their immune system to attack these specific neoantigens on that patient’s cancer cells.

Selecting those unique-to-the-tumour targets "helps to minimise adverse events or side effects," explained Elaine Mardis, a study co-author and researcher at the Genome Institute at the Washington University School of Medicine, on a call with reporters. The immune response triggered by the personalised vaccines is designed to behave more like a sniper than a bomb - using the neoantigens as "flags" so it can specifically taking out the cancerous cells.

Still, the process is complicated: developing each vaccine took the research team about three months - too long to wait for many cancer patients. They’re hoping a timeline of four to six weeks will become possible as they refine the process.

Even at this early and uncertain stage, scientists are encouraged by this approach because there’s a chance it could prove effective in patients who don’t respond to existing treatments. And while the trial was in melanoma, the researchers are eager to try it out on other cancers that are associated with carcinogens, like bladder, lung, and colorectal cancers.
A dendritic cell vaccine increases the breadth and diversity of melanoma neoantigen-specific T cells

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/04/01/science.aaa3828

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 5, 2015 at 11:17am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 4, 2015 at 6:27am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 3, 2015 at 9:36am

High-fat dairy products linked to reduced type 2 diabetes risk
Consumption of high-fat yogurt and cheese are linked to a reduction in the risk of type 2 diabetes by as much as a fifth, according to new research from Lund University in Sweden. High meat consumption, on the other hand, is linked to a higher risk. The findings, which have been published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, are in line with previous studies of eating habits that indicated a link between high consumption of dairy products and a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes.

However, the new study indicates that it is high-fat dairy products specifically that are associated with reduced risk.

“Those who ate the most high-fat dairy products had a 23 per cent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who ate the least. High meat consumption was linked to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes regardless of the fat content of the meat”, said Ulrika Ericson, who conducted the study.
The researchers studied the eating habits of 27 000 individuals aged 45 to 74. The participants took part in the Malmö Diet and Cancer study in the early 1990s, in which they provided details of their eating habits. Twenty years on, over ten per cent – 2 860 people – had developed type 2 diabetes.

The aim of the study has been to clarify the significance of fat in food for the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Instead of focusing on the total intake of saturated fat, the researchers looked at different sources of saturated fat.

Both meat and dairy products contain saturated fat, but certain saturated fatty acids are particularly common in dairy products. This difference could be one of the reasons why most studies show that those who eat meat are at higher risk of type 2 diabetes, whereas those who eat a lot of dairy products appear to have a lower risk.

“When we investigated the consumption of saturated fatty acids that are slightly more common in dairy products than in meat, we observed a link with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes. However, we have not ruled out the possibility that other components of dairy products such as yoghurt and cheese may have contributed to our results. We have taken into account many dietary and lifestyle factors in our analysis, such as fermentation, calcium, vitamin D and physical activity. However, there may be other factors that we have not been able to measure that are shared by those who eat large quantities of high-fat dairy products. Moreover, different food components can interact with each other. For example, in one study, saturated fat in cheese appeared to have less of a cholesterol-raising effect than saturated fat in butter.

“Our results suggest that we should not focus solely on fat, but rather consider what foods we eat. Many foodstuffs contain different components that are harmful or beneficial to health, and it is the overall balance that is important.”
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2015/04/01/ajcn.114.103010

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 2, 2015 at 10:11am

Loneliness might drive elders to physicians more frequently according to a study:
Experiences of loneliness and social isolation can lead to increased health care use among older adults, according to new research from the University of Georgia College of Public Health. The study, published online in the American Journal of Public Health, found that the frequency of physician visits was particularly influenced by chronic loneliness—and suggests that the identification and targeting of interventions for lonely elders may significantly decrease physician visits and health care costs.
Loneliness as a Public Health Issue: The Impact of Loneliness on Health Care Utilization Among Older Adults

http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302427

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 2, 2015 at 10:08am

Shift to LGB identity in early adulthood tied to depressive symptoms
People whose sexual identity changed toward same-sex attraction in early adulthood reported more symptoms of depression in a nationwide survey than those whose sexual orientations did not change or changed in the opposite direction, according to a new study by a University of Illinois at Chicago sociologist.

“Sexual Orientation Identity Change and Depressive Symptoms: A Longitudinal Analysis,” published in the current issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, found that gay, lesbian and bisexual people who initially identified as heterosexual or who had not reported same-sex romantic attraction or relationships were more likely to experience depressive symptoms than others.

Individuals who reported stable sexual identities throughout the survey period – whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, or heterosexual – had no change in depressive symptoms over time. Similarly, individuals who reported identities that were less same-sex-oriented did not experience increases in depression.
The findings suggest that a sexual identity change toward same-sex attraction may continue to be a stressful life event.
Sexual Orientation Identity Change and Depressive Symptoms
A Longitudinal Analysis
http://hsb.sagepub.com/content/56/1/37

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 2, 2015 at 7:37am

People say body odour is one of the most annoying things they face. Now science is providing a solution to the problem of body odour: Sweaty people around the world may one day sing the praises of science now.

Researchers in England have made a groundbreaking genetic discovery about bacteria called Staphylococcus hominis. They are some of the bacteria that live in your underarm microbiome. They make body odor smell less than pleasant by breaking down naturally secreted molecules that are in sweat.
The scientists -- Daniel Bawdon and Gavin Thomas of York, along with Gordon James and Diana Cox of Unilever, which makes personal care products -- presented their research this week at the Society for General Microbiology's annual conference in Birmingham, England.
They've identified the genes encoding the proteins responsible for producing free thioalcohols, an important component of what makes people stinky when they sweat. It's part of the reason unwashed gym clothes smell worse on a second day. These bacteria have had a longer time to lunch on sweat and produce more thioalcohols.

One gene the researchers found was not just in Staphylococcus hominis, but also in two other Staphylococcus species that produce thioalcohols. It turns out you only need a tiny number of these bacteria to create an "extremely smelly amount" of this odor, often described as having an oniony smell or the smell of rotten eggs, according to the researchers. They may now know what path to travel to stop this chemical process from happening.
Good hygiene helps only little. Your genes can also play a big role in how good or bad you smell. In fact some people, no matter how much they shower, still smell bad. These individuals have a larger amount of "bad" bacteria.

The approach now is to replace the "bad" bacteria that produce the smell with "good" bacteria. And it worked in lab conditions.

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