Health News

Scratching Away at the Mystery of Itch

The sensation of feeling itchy is pretty universal, and yet scientists still don’t completely understand the complex processes that give us the urge to scratch.

Itching can be annoying, but like pain, a little bit can be a good thing. Itching can help people learn to avoid dangers such as mosquitoes carrying malaria, or poison ivy. But many people suffer from chronic itch, which has no direct cause and can be a debilitating condition with few options for relief.

“When people hear about itch, they think about a mosquito bite or chicken pox, which is irritating but very temporary,” said Diana Bautista, a cell and developmental biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who wrote an article summarizing our current understanding of itch

Bautista said people often laugh when she tells them she studies itch. But “from a clinical perspective, chronic itch is a really widespread problem, and incredibly difficult to treat,” she told LiveScience.
Itch, or ouch?

Like the feelings of touch, temperature and pain, itching involves a complex system of molecules, cells and circuits reaching from the skin into the brain. Most over-the-counter treatments for itching target histamine, a compound involved in inflammation. But many kinds of itch can’t be treated with antihistamines or other available treatments.

Skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis, systemic conditions including multiple sclerosis, and even some cancers, can all lead to chronic itch, which affects about 10 percent of the world’s population at some point during their lives, Bautista said.

Recent research on itch is revealing its mysterious relationship with pain, according to the paper. For example, scientists have found that the reason scratching an itch offers relief is because scratching causes pain, which suppresses the itch, at least temporarily. They’ve also found that the cells and circuits that transmit pain and itch overlap somewhat.

But although pain can block out itch, some painkillers – such as morphine – can cause itchiness. And some things that cause itch also cause pain, such as capsaicin, the ingredient that makes chili peppers hot.

Scientists now have several theories about this odd connection between pain and itch. One theory suggests the same set of neurons produce an itch when activated slightly, but result in pain when activated fully. Alternatively, different cells might trigger pain and itch signals, but the signals might interact in the spinal cord. There is some evidence for both ideas, Bautista said.

Itching to understand

But itch and pain don’t always go together.

For example, the antimalarial drug chloroquine is known to have a side effect of severe itch. In one recent study, scientists bred mice to have nerves that lacked a receptor that responds to chloroquine. These mice didn’t show signs of itching, but they did have normal responses to pain. The findings suggest these nerve cells are required for itch, but not necessarily for pain, the researchers said.

Many itch receptors found in mice are also found in humans. Often, researchers take molecules known to play a role in chronic itch in humans, and study the effects in mice that lack these molecules.

From this research, scientists have identified some of neurons and signals involved in chronic itch, but the search for treatments continues.

“It’s an exciting time, because there have been a lot of basic discoveries in the last five years,” Bautista said.

Some promising treatment approaches involve targeting receptors on immune cells, which may be somewhat effective against forms of itch that can’t be treated with anti-histamines.

“As we learn more about the system, and which cell types we should target,” Bautista said, “I think we’re going to be able to treat chronic itch more effectively.”

Source: huffington post

Antioxidants speed lung cancer growth: Study

Although some people spend countless dollars on antioxidant supplements to improve their health, many studies have found that these would-be panaceas could actually exacerbate the diseases they claim to prevent.

Now, a team of Swedish scientists has shown that two antioxidants—vitamin E and N-acetylcysteine (NAC)—can fuel the growth of lung cancers in mice. The team also worked out why.

Antioxidants protect cells from chemically unstable molecules called reactive oxygen species (ROS), which can easily react with DNA and cause damage that leads to cancer. But Martin Bergo’s team at the University of Gothenburg showed that antioxidants neutralize ROS in tumors as well as healthy cells. “If we give extra antioxidants in the diet, we’re helping the tumor to reduce radicals that would otherwise block its growth,” Bergo said. “Then it can speed up all it wants.”

The results, published today (January 29) in Science Translational Medicine, are particularly important for people with an increased risk of lung cancer, including smokers or people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD). “There’s no scientific evidence to suggest that these people should take extra antioxidants,” said Bergo. “It may even be harmful”

“They might have a small undiagnosed tumor, and no one knows the frequency of those,” he added. “There’s a possibility that antioxidants would speed up the growth of those tumors.” This word of caution is especially relevant to people with COPD, who often take large amounts of NAC to relieve the build-up of mucus in their airways.

“A warning seems appropriate for everyone who has been seduced to use antioxidants or vitamins on a regular basis, as a preventive measure,” the University of Syndey’s Nico van Zandwijk told The Scientist in an e-mail.

These results fit with those from a long line of human clinical trials, in which antioxidants failed to prevent disease or made things worse. The first of these was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1994, and showed that male smokers who took beta-carotene supplements were more likely to develop and die of lung cancer than those who did not. Other trials found similar results for other antioxidants and other cancers, and some of those studies were even stopped early.

In 2012, the Cochrane Collaboration analyzed the results of 78 earlier trials and, based on the most careful of them, concluded that people who took antioxidant supplements (including both healthy people and those with chronic diseases) were more likely to die prematurely than those who did not.

Few studies had looked at the reasons behind these seemingly paradoxical effects. Bergo’s team, led by graduate student Volkan Sayin, began by feeding NAC and vitamin E to mice with early lung cancers, at doses comparable to those in human multivitamin pills. The mice that ingested the antioxidants developed tumors that were three times bigger, and they died twice as fast.

Sayin then showed that tumors normally have lower levels of ROS than normal tissues. The antioxidants reduced these levels even further, protecting the tumors from DNA damage. They also dramatically reduced the activity of p53—a guardian protein that prevents cancer by detecting damaged DNA and putting the brakes on cell division.

By lifting p53’s suppression, the antioxidants allowed the cancer cells to grow and divide faster than usual. Indeed, when the team abolished p53 entirely, neither NAC nor vitamin E affected the growth of the lung tumors. “P53 is normally inactivated in late-stage lung cancer, so what we’re doing is speeding up the progression of malignancy,” said Bergo.

“This is an extremely striking observation, but not surprising given the rather disappointing outcomes of patients at risk for developing lung cancer who had been treated with various antioxidants,” David Tuveson from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, who was not involved in the work, said in an e-mail. “We should now consider whether people consuming high doses of antioxidants are ironically promoting cancers that they seek to prevent.”

Although Bergo’s team focused on mice in this study, the scientists found the same mechanisms at work in human cells. They also used mice with the same genetic defects as those that cause human lung cancers, and whose tumors look identical to human ones under the microscope.

They are now doing similar experiments in melanomas, leukaemias, and gastrointestinal tumors to see whether the same mechanisms hold true for other types of cancer.

Source: The Scientist

Scientists identify protein that can fight against MERS virus infection

Scientists have identified a protein within the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus that blocks further infection in cells.

Shibo Jiang at Fudan University in Shanghai and his colleagues found that a type of small protein, also known as a peptide, prevents the virus from fusing with human respiratory cells.

MERS-CoV enters into host cell mainly through membrane fusion mechanism and hijack its cellular machinery in order to reproduce.

The peptide, called heptad repeat 2 (HR2P), has “good potential” for development into a future drug against MERS.

So far, HR2P’s effects have only been studied on cells in a lab dish and not yet on animals — the next step in a long process to validate any new drug for safety and effectiveness.

The first case of MERS surfaced in Saudi Arabia April 2012.

It is considered a more virulent but less transmissible cousin of SARS, a so-called coronavirus that erupted in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, nine percent of whom died.

There have been 180 laboratory-confirmed cases of MERS, including 77 deaths, according to a World Health Organisation (WHO) toll issued on Tuesday.

The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Source; Zee news

Breath Test May Detect Signs of Lung Cancer: Study

Examining breath samples from patients with suspicious growths might help determine who needs surgery

Researchers tested the exhaled breath of people with suspicious lung lesions that were detected on CT scans. The breath was tested for levels of four cancer-specific substances, called “carbonyls.”

The breath samples were analyzed using a special device developed at the University of Louisville.

Having elevated levels of three of the four carbonyls was predictive of lung cancer in 95 percent of patients, while having normal levels of these substances was predictive of a noncancerous growth in 80 percent of patients, the researchers found.
Elevated carbonyl levels returned to normal after lung cancer patients had surgery to remove the cancer, according to the study, which was to be presented Tuesday at the Society of Thoracic Surgeons annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.

“Instead of sending patients for invasive biopsy procedures when a suspicious lung mass is identified, our study suggests that exhaled breath could identify which patients” may be referred for immediate surgery, study author Dr. Michael Bousamra, of the University of Louisville, said in a society news release.

This approach offers something new, he said, including “the simplicity of sample collection and ease for the patient.”

The data and conclusions of research presented at medical meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Source: webmd

10 Natural Ways to Ease Depression

If you are suffering from depression or seasonal depression, there are many natural options that can help. Of course, you should always see a doctor as well.

1. Supplement with Vitamin D

This vitamin, which is more accurately termed a hormone, has been recently found to play a role in the number of depressive symptoms experienced. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts studied a group of post-menopausal women for a possible correlation between vitamin D and the symptoms of depression. They found that the lower the levels of vitamin D the women had, the more likely they were to experience symptoms of depression.

2. Eat Complex Carbs

If you’re eating a high protein diet or if your diet lacks whole grains, you may be deficient in the building blocks to make important the important neurotransmitter serotonin in your brain—a natural chemical that helps regulate mood. Add fruits and vegetables, beans, and whole grains to your diet.

3. Skip the Caffeine

Research links caffeinated beverages with suppression of serotonin. By skipping the coffee or tea, you’ll give your brain a better chance to make sufficient serotonin to maintain balanced moods.

4. Boost Your Omega 3s

Finnish researchers found that people who ate fish less than once a week had a 31 percent increase in incidence of mild to moderate depression compared to those who ate fish more often than that. Wild salmon and sardines are good sources of Omega 3s. Excellent vegetarian options include: raw walnuts, walnut oil, ground flaxseeds, and flaxseed oil.

5. Eliminate Alcohol

Alcohol is a depressant. If you’re suffering from depression or prone to this disorder, skip the alcoholic beverage.

6. Take St. John’s Wort

The powerful herb frequently gets a bad rap in the media, largely because pharmaceutical drugs interact with it. Whenever that happens the natural, more cost-effective, and lower-side-effect herb is blamed. But, this herb has been found in numerous studies to be effective against mild to moderate depression. Follow the instructions on the package. And, if you’re taking any pharmaceutical drugs, consult your pharmacist or nutritionist before taking St. John’s Wort. A typical dose for depression is 300 mg three times daily.

7. Add SAM-e

Pronounced “Sammy,” this supplement is widely prescribed for depression in Europe. SAM-e is a naturally-occurring substance found in all living cells. Low levels can play a role in depression. Dozens of animal studies found that SAM-e caused significant results in only a few weeks of supplementation, due to its ability to boost three neurotransmitters: serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine—all of which are involved in mood regulation. A typical dose for depression is 1600 milligrams daily.

8. Get Adequate Magnesium

Magnesium is critical for the production and function of mood-regulating serotonin, yet experts estimate that approximately 80 percent of the population is deficient. Leafy greens and raw, unsalted almonds are good sources of magnesium. Supplementing with 800 mg daily is common for depression.

9. To B or Not to B

When it comes to depression, consider adding a B-complex supplement to your daily diet. Make sure you choose a natural supplement free of artificial colors, flavors, or fillers. A 100 milligram supplement is a commonly prescribed dose for depression sufferers (with 100 MICROgrams of folate and B12).

10. Walk it Off

Research links insufficient exercise with depressive symptoms. While it can be difficult to get motivated to get outdoors during the winter months, it is a valuable mood booster. Try to go for a brisk walk at least three or four times a week.

Source: care2

Unique brain area that makes us human identified

Oxford University researchers have identified an area of the human brain that is known to be intimately involved in some of the most advanced planning and decision-making processes that we think of as being especially human.

“We tend to think that being able to plan into the future, be flexible in our approach and learn from others are things that are particularly impressive about humans. We’ve identified an area of the brain that appears to be uniquely human and is likely to have something to do with these cognitive powers,” senior researcher Professor Matthew Rushworth of Oxford University’s Department of Experimental Psychology said.

MRI imaging of 25 adult volunteers was used to identify key components in the ventrolateral frontal cortex area of the human brain, and how these components were connected up with other brain areas. The results were then compared to equivalent MRI data from 25 macaque monkeys.

This ventrolateral frontal cortex area of the brain is involved in many of the highest aspects of cognition and language, and is only present in humans and other primates.

Some parts are implicated in psychiatric conditions like ADHD, drug addiction or compulsive behaviour disorders.

Language is affected when other parts are damaged after stroke or neurodegenerative disease.

A better understanding of the neural connections and networks involved should help the understanding of changes in the brain that go along with these conditions.

The findings are published in the science journal Neuron.

Source: Business standard

 

Spanking linked to behaviour problems in kids

Decades of research studies have found that spanking can negatively affect kids, researchers said.

Child psychologist George Holden and three colleagues at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, wanted to see if parents’ positive views toward spanking could be reversed if they were made aware of the research.

Researchers used a simple, fast, inexpensive method to briefly expose subjects to short research summaries that detailed spanking’s negative impact.

Carrying out two studies, one with non-parents and one with parents, Holden and his co-authors on the research found that attitudes were significantly altered.

“Parents spank with good intentions – they believe it will promote good behaviour, and they don’t intend to harm the child. But research increasingly indicates that spanking is actually a harmful practice,” said Holden, lead author on the study.

“These studies demonstrate that a brief exposure to research findings can reduce positive corporal punishment attitudes in parents and non-parents,” Holden said.

The researchers believe the study is the first of its kind to find that brief exposure to spanking research can alter people’s views toward spanking.

“If we can educate people about this issue of corporal punishment, these studies show that we can in a very quick way begin changing attitudes,” said Holden.

In the first study, the subjects were 118 non-parent college students divided into two groups: one that actively processed web-based information about spanking research; and one that passively read web summaries.

The summary consisted of several sentences describing the link between spanking and short- and long-term child behaviour problems, including aggressive and delinquent acts, poor quality of parent-child relationships and an increased risk of child physical abuse.

The majority of the participants in the study, 74.6 per cent, thought less favourably of spanking after reading the summary. Unexpectedly, the researchers said, attitude change was significant for both active and passive participants.

A second study replicated the first study, but with 263 parent participants, predominantly white mothers.

After reading brief research statements on the web, 46.7 per cent of the parents changed their attitudes and expressed less approval of spanking, researchers said.

The findings have been published in the international journal of Child Abuse & Neglect.

Source: Post Jargan

High-tech scan a boon for bone marrow cancer patients

Here comes a unique Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan that could improve care for bone marrow cancer patients, says IANS.

The new whole-body, diffusion-weighted MRI scans showed the spread of cancer throughout the bone marrow of patients with myeloma – one of the most common forms of blood cancer – more accurately than standard tests.
The scans also showed whether the patients were responding to cancer treatments, said researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. In the study, 26 patients had whole-body MRI scans before and after treatment.

In 86 percent of cases, experienced doctors trained in imaging were able to correctly identify whether patients responded to treatment. The doctors also correctly identified those patients who weren’t responding to treatment 80 percent of the time.
Using the scanning technique, doctors could pinpoint exactly where the cancer was in the bones, with the results available immediately. Conventional tests include bone marrow biopsies and blood tests but neither shows accurately where the cancer is present in the bones.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to obtain information from all the bones in the entire body for myeloma in one scan without having to rely on individual bone X-rays,” said Nandita deSouza, professor of translational imaging at the Institute of Cancer Research.

“We can look on the screen and see straight away where the cancer is and measure how severe it is. The scan is better than blood tests which don’t tell us in which bones the cancer is located,” she added. “It also reduces the need for uncomfortable biopsies which do not reveal the extent or severity of the disease,” said the study.
“In the future, we hope this new tool would help doctors extend the life of more myeloma patients,” added Faith Davies, member of the Myeloma targeted treatment team at the Institute of Cancer Research and honorary consultant at The Royal Marsden.

Source: The Free Press Journal

Anti-VEGF drugs making a difference in vision, longterm care

eye

A treatment introduced less than 10 years ago has already made a difference in the number of Americans losing their vision and being admitted to nursing homes, according to a new study.

Two Duke University economists looked at Medicare beneficiaries with so-called “wet” macular degeneration and found those diagnosed after the introduction of anti-VEGF drugs were less likely to go blind and less likely to move into long-term care.

“At last we have found a way of managing this horrible and very common disease among the oldest of the old,” said Frank Sloan, who led the new study.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the number one cause of blindness in the U.S. affecting older adults, usually after age 65. Most AMD patients have the dry form of the disease, but about 10 percent have wet AMD, which progresses more quickly than the dry form.

Past treatments weren’t very effective at managing wet AMD, but retinal surgeons began using injections of vascular endothelial growth factor inhibitors, known as anti-VEGF, in the mid 2000s.

Previous clinical research has indicated that anti-VEGF treatments are effective for wet AMD, but Sloan said those types of studies don’t let you see longer-term outcomes or how well the therapy works in a real-world setting.

The researchers used Medicare claims information from 1994 to 2011 to examine the vision outcomes and long-term care facility admissions of wet AMD patients who were treated with older methods or with the new anti-VEGF drugs.

The two most commonly used drugs, ranibizumab (Lucentis) and bevacizumab (Avastin), were introduced for eye therapy in 2006.

The researchers discovered that the use of anti-VEGF therapy reduced vision loss by 41 percent and the onset of severe vision loss and blindness by 46 percent, compared to earlier forms of treatment.

They also found that patients who received anti-VEGF were 19 percent less likely to be admitted to long-term care facilities during a two-year follow-up period compared to those treated before the drugs came into use.

The findings were published in JAMA Ophthalmology.

The new treatments may be changing the way some doctors think about wet AMD.

“We used to say it was better to have the dry form because it tended to be milder and slowly progressive as opposed to the wet AMD, which has a rapid onset and much more severe vision loss,” Dr. Michael Stewart told Reuters Health.

Stewart, who chairs the ophthalmology department at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, was not involved in the new study.

Stewart said results like these actually call into question whether or not that old statement is still true because the anti-VEGF drugs are so effective.

“By and large, we are maintaining good vision in most people that we treat,” Stewart said.

Stewart also says the new drugs have revolutionized the way retinal surgeons approach these patients.

He says that early diagnosis with quick initiation of treatment is the best way of preserving vision. The typical course of treatment is to give an injection of the drug in to the eye, about one time per month, but treatment can be tapered to the patients’ needs.

“Patients and family – and most of us, actually – think of a needle in the eye as one of the worst medical procedures we can imagine,” Stewart said, “but the reality is patients tolerate them very, very well and very few patients actually forgo the treatment because of either imagined or real pain, discomfort and anxiety.”

Source: Reuters

Synthetic organ technology moving forward

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Since 2008, eight patients have successfully undergone procedures in which their badly-damaged tracheas were replaced with man made windpipes.

Now, a Boston-area company is preparing to manufacture the scaffolds used to grow these synthetic organs on a large scale, MIT Technology Review reported.

Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technology (HART) makes synthetic windpipes by growing a patient’s own stem cells on a lab-made scaffold. The company is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to test the system and is currently conducting trials in Russia.

Researchers hope that in the future, this scaffolding technique could be used to grow other organs as well, such as an esophagus, heart valve or kidney. If successful, the technology could help provide a solution to the country’s organ transplant shortage.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates there are 120,000 people on waiting lists for an organ and this number underestimates the actual need, Joseph Vacanti, a surgeon-scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a leader in tissue-engineering research, told MIT Technology Review.

“The only way we are going to meet that real need is to manufacture living organs,” Vacanti, who is not affiliated with HART, said.

Source: Top news today