Researchers have demonstrated how alcohol damages stem cell DNA in a new study, helping to explain why drinking can increase cancer risk[1′. The study was published in the journal Nature on January 3.
There have been multiple cell culture studies looking at how alcohol promotes cancer, but this study used mice to show how alcohol can cause permanent damage to DNA.
Gene therapy is not alone in commanding staggering sums, particularly when it comes to treatments for rare diseases. Soliris, a drug that treats a condition called paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria that attacks red blood cells, can cost up to $700,000 a year, while Elaprase, used in the treatment of Hunter syndrome, costs $500,000 a year.
Spark Therapeutics says ‘responsible price’ for Luxturna gene therapy ensures access for patients with retinal defect.
The technology underpinning the new bionic hand was developed in 2014, but at the time, the equipment necessary to support it was so big the prosthetic limb could not leave the lab.
For Dennis Aabo Sorensen, who lost his hand in 2004 in a firecracker explosion, regaining the experience of touch was “fantastic.” He told CattolicaNews that “being able to feel different textures, understanding whether objects were hard or soft and how I was holding them was just incredible.”
Researchers found that Dennis was able to distinguish between a hard, soft or medium object in 78 percent of cases. In 88 percent of cases, he could correctly describe the size and shape of specific objects such as a baseball, a glass, and a tangerine. Three years later, Almerina has been given the same ability just by carrying a small computer in a backpack.
You might think that being overweight may cause you health problems only until you finally shed those extra pounds, at which point everything will be fine again. It sounds reasonable, but it might be not so easy. According to a new study published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine on December 27, the negative effects of obesity might last even after that extra weight has been lost.
Yes, it appears that being overweight can have lasting consequences that persist long after the weight comes off. Damage to the hematopoietic stem cells can be caused by being overweight, making it all the more reason to try to maintain a healthy weight as part of your personal health and longevity strategy.
We have all seen it, the age-related loss of muscle mass and increasing frailty that generally accompanies advancing age. Recently the World Health Organization classified this age-related muscle wastage as a disease and thus sarcopenia entered official usage to describe it. There are a number of potential causes of sarcopenia and new research suggests that there is a nutritional link between the microbiota and development of the condition.
What is Sarcopenia?
Sarcopenia is the condition that causes the familiar, age-related loss of muscle strength and mass in older people, and it leads to ever-increasing frailty. Frailty makes everyday tasks difficult, affects balance, and can lead to falls, which can be very dangerous for older people.
For the more than 1 million Americans who live with type 1 diabetes, daily insulin injections are literally a matter of life and death. And while there is no cure, a Cornell University-led research team has developed a device that could revolutionize management of the disease.
In Type 1 diabetes, insulin-producing pancreatic cell clusters (islets) are destroyed by the body’s immune system. The research group, led by assistant professor Minglin Ma from the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering, has devised an ingenious method for implanting hundreds of thousands of islet cells into a patient. They are protected by a thin hydrogel coating and, more importantly, the coated cells are attached to a polymer thread and can be removed or replaced easily when they have outlived their usefulness.
Transplantation of stem cell-derived, insulin-producing islet cells is an alternative to insulin therapy, but that requires long-term immunosuppressive drug administration. One well-researched approach to avoid the immune system’s response is to coat and protect the cells in tiny hydrogel capsules, hundreds of microns in diameter. However, these capsules cannot be taken out of the body easily, since they’re not connected to each other, and there are hundreds of thousands of them.
Summary: Biomarkers of aging would be a breakthrough that slashes the time and cost it currently takes to develop lifespan-extension drugs. [Author: Brady Hartman. This article first appeared on the LongevityFacts.com website. ]
Biomarkers of aging would revolutionize the development of lifespan-extension drugs, helping to bring them out of the laboratory and into the clinic in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost. The first scientist to come up with an effective biomarker of aging would produce a true breakthrough for the field of life extension.
Imagine that geroscientists have just developed a miraculous compound called Regulus that promises to extend human lifespans by a significant amount. Unfortunately, the researchers would not have an easy time testing Regulus because humans live a long time. Testing Regulus in mice, would help, but researchers would still have to test the drug’s lifespan-extending effects in humans. Before anti-aging physicians could prescribe Regulus, it would need to undergo an expensive and lengthy clinical trial.
Summary: These breakthroughs in stem cell therapy could potentially rejuvenate our damaged organs with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Moreover, biotech firms are rushing to bring organ-rejuvenating cell therapies to the marketplace. [This article first appeared on the LongevityFacts.com website. Author: Brady Hartman. ]
Recent advances in stem cell therapies could translate into effective treatments for intractable diseases.
Stem cells are the repairmen of our bodies. Unlike our ordinary cells, stem cells can divide without limit and create fresh copies of nearly any tissue type to repair damaged organs. While we have an abundance of these repairmen in our youth, we experience stem cell decline as we age.
Researchers find promising Alzheimer’s treatment with a diabetes drug that ‘significantly reversed memory loss.’
Promising alzheimer’s treatment using diabetes drug.
Scientists announced a drug that ‘significantly reversed memory loss’ in mice with Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers from Lancaster University in the UK say the novel drug – created to treat type 2 diabetes – works through a triple method of action and also add that the medicine could provide substantial improvements in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. The drug combines three growth factors that act in multiple ways to protect the brain from degeneration. The Lancaster University scientists published their study results on January 1 in the journal Brain Research.
