Prostate cancer runs in Jeff Nelson’s family. His brother, uncle and cousins have all been diagnosed with the disease. When his prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test results jumped to 5.5 from 4 in summer 2018, he knew he had to move quickly.
Jeff Nelson chose UCI Health and an investigative treatment for prostate cancer that uses high-intensity sound waves to destroy only the cancer tissue. He’s glad he did.
The calls started pouring in soon after word spread that Dr. Valerie Taylor was testing fecal microbiota transplantation — transferring poop from one body to another — for bipolar disorder.
The mental health condition is different from depression. It comes with mania, the “up” swings that can make people feel superhuman. “But so many people with depression called wanting to take part in the study we felt we had an obligation to try,” said Taylor, chief of psychiatry at the University of Calgary.
Two years after spearheading the bipolar study, the first of its kind in the world, Taylor has now launched a second study testing fecal transplants in people with depression, as well as a third for depression in people who also have irritable bowel syndrome.
Our diets are overly refined. Eating more whole fruits, especially apples, pears and prunes, can help our digestive health.
The Gates Foundation is partnering with the National Institutes of Health to bring gene-based cures to countries in Africa were HIV and sickle cell disease are the most prevalent.
Ira Pastor, ideaXme exponential health ambassador and founder of Bioquark, interviews Dr Wise Young M.D., Ph.D., the Richard H. Shindell Chair in Neuroscience, Distinguished Professor of Cell Biology & Neuroscience and the Founding Director of the W. M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers University.
If you enjoy this interview please donate to ideaXme here https://radioideaxme.com/contact/.
Spinal Cord Injury
A spinal cord injury (SCI) is defined as any damage to the spinal cord that causes temporary or permanent changes in its function.
Depending on the location and severity of the damage, the symptoms vary, from numbness to paralysis to incontinence. Long term outcomes also vary widely, from full recovery to permanent quadriplegia or paraplegia. Complications can include muscle atrophy, pressure sores, infections, and breathing problems.
Direct medical expenses for spinal cord injuries can run into millions of dollars (not including lost wages and earning potential) and can include: spinal surgery, trauma care (use of a ventilator) rehabilitation (including physical and occupational therapy, speech therapy, and mental health counseling), long-term care, including the costs of in-home aides, medical equipment such as wheelchairs, and medication such as painkillers and antibiotics.
New cellular and molecular processes underlying communication between gut microbes and brain cells have been described for the first time by scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell’s Ithaca campus.
Over the last two decades, scientists have observed a clear link between autoimmune disorders and a variety of psychiatric conditions. For example, people with autoimmune disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), psoriasis and multiple sclerosis may also have depleted gut microbiota and experience anxiety, depression and mood disorders. Genetic risks for autoimmune disorders and psychiatric disorders also appear to be closely related. But precisely how gut health affects brain health has been unknown.
“Our study provides new insight into the mechanisms of how the gut and brain communicate at the molecular level,” said co-senior author Dr. David Artis, director of the Jill Roberts Institute for Research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease, director of the Friedman Center for Nutrition and Inflammation and the Michael Kors Professor of Immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine. “No one yet has understood how IBD and other chronic gastrointestinal conditions influence behavior and mental health. Our study is the beginning of a new way to understand the whole picture.”
Two major U.S. biomedical research funders plan to each put at least $100 million over 4 years toward bringing cutting-edge, gene-based treatments to a part of the world that often struggles to provide access to even basic medicines: sub-Saharan Africa. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced the unusual collaboration to launch clinical trials for gene-based cures for HIV and sickle cell disease within the region in the coming decade.
The ambitious goal is to steer clear of expensive, logistically impractical strategies that require stem cell transplantation, and instead develop simpler, affordable ways of delivering genes or gene-editing drugs that can cure these diseases. “Yes, this is audacious,” NIH Director Francis Collins said during a press teleconference this morning on the project. “But if we don’t put our best minds, resources, and visions together right now, we would not live up to our mandate to bring the best science to those who are suffering.”
After decades of work and setbacks, the traditional gene therapy approach of delivering DNA into the body to replace a defective gene or boost a protein’s production is now reaching the clinic for several diseases, including inherited blindness, neuromuscular disease, and leukemia. Animal studies and some clinical trials have suggested that two diseases prevalent in Africa, HIV and sickle cell disease, can be treated by gene therapies or newer genome-editing tools such as CRISPR.
