The wonder of your gut: Experts explain why a healthy digestive system can trigger weight loss, fight depression, and ward off Parkinson’s.
By Jasenka Zubcevic and Christopher Martynuik For The Conversation
A new approach to Parkinson’s alters immune cells to favour healing.
As we reported in an article yesterday, researchers are becoming increasingly interested in the potential of changing the ratio of types of macrophages present in the body to facilitate tissue regeneration and healing.
This is a line of research that covers a number of topics, including aging, regeneration, tissue repair, and inflammation. Over the last year or so we have seen a number of publications focusing on altering populations of macrophages to elicit repair and regeneration of tissues, which is a positive sign that things are moving forward.
The balance between different types (known as polarizations) of macrophages is again the subject of another study, which we will discuss today[1]. This time the focus is on Parkinson’s disease and how changing the ratio of macrophage types could be a potential therapy for this devastating age-related disease.
The world’s most populous nation suffers from a shortage of medical practitioners, with the World Health Organisation estimating there are only 1.5 physicians available for every 1,000 people, compared with 2.4 in the US and 2.8 in the UK. That has led to deteriorating work conditions for doctors and radiologists who constantly work overtime to process huge amounts of patient data. As a consequence, the error rate is high.
Alibaba Health unveiled this week its first artificial intelligence service for disease diagnosis, offering hope that advanced technology will alleviate the workload of mainland Chinese physicians in a nation suffering from an acute shortage of doctors.
The AI solution, called Doctor You, can be used for medical image diagnosis of CT scans to identify inflammatory cells in human organs, which can be an early indicator of cancer.
“It will soon serve as an assistant to physicians at a number of hospitals in the country,” said Ke Yan, a vice president with Ali Health, adding that the technology could lower error rates and improve efficiency.
AI is being used for much more than many realize. In fact, particle physicists are currently pushing the limits of our understanding of the universe with the help of these technologies.
Many might associate current artificial intelligence (AI) abilities with advanced gameplay, medical developments, and even driving. But AI is already reaching far beyond even these realms. In fact, AI is now helping particle physicists to discover new subatomic particles.
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Interesting results in mice but don’t jump on the bandwagon yet.
Fisetin is a naturally occurring plant polyphenol from the flavonoid group, similar to quercetin. It is present in many plants, where it acts as a colouring agent. It is also found in many fruits and vegetables, such as strawberries, apples, persimmons, onions, and cucumbers.
It has also been found to be a senolytic compound able to clear senescent cells, at least it does in vitro studies in a petri dish[1]. The clearance of dysfunctional senescent cells is one of the repair based approaches proposed by the SENS Research Foundation to prevent or reverse age-related diseases.
Before you jump on the bandwagon
A new therapy for brain cancer.
A new type of cell that can seek and destroy brain cancer and then dispose of themselves has just been successfully tested in mice. The cells are able to home in on brain tumors and reduce them to between 2 to 5% of their original size[1].
This new approach could potentially give doctors a new weapon against aggressive cancers like brain cancer (glioblastoma), which normally kills in 12–15 months.
Interestingly, it only took the researchers four days to create and deploy these cells in the mice, which is an amazing accomplishment.
For example, in 1994 Calgene won approval to sell the Flavr Savr tomato. To make a Flavr Savr, scientists genetically modified a garden variety tomato with aminoglycoside 3-phosphotransferase II, a compound that kept the fruit from rotting.
The tinkering sabotaged the process that makes tomatoes turn squishy. But the less-squishy tomatoes never did catch on with a skeptical public. The company was later sold to Monsanto.
It changed everything.
With CRISPR, scientists can literally edit organisms, removing the bits that lead to unfavorable outcomes.
A new aging biomarker system has been published and it looks pretty robust.
Chronological age is now generally accepted by academics as being a poor means to identify how a person is aging. Far more useful is a person’s biological age in evaluating how fast someone is aging.
Biological age is assessed using indicators known as aging biomarkers, and as rejuvenation biotechnology draws ever nearer, there is an urgent need for more effective biomarkers. As well as finding effective biomarkers, another challenge in the field of aging research is seeking consensus among academics as to which biomarkers are the best ones to use.
Ok, but why does that matter?
