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Food and Drug Administration of America has confirmed generating the first vaccine for cancer, which entered into a new era of treatment of cancers all over the world.
This vaccine, under the name of “Provenge” has been generated, aiming at treatment of prostate cancer. The said vaccine has been used during clinical test periods and, compared to placebos, the said vaccine could increase lifetime of patients for four months. This medicine is not regarded as a procedure for treatment or prevention of the respective disease and it is not similar to the vaccines, which have been generated for treatment of measles or Hepatitis. But, it is regarded as a treatment vaccine. It means that the said vaccine may improve immunity system of patients. Ten samples of vaccines have been generated for treatment of cancer so far. However, “Provenge” vaccine is the first sample, which has been confirmed by FDA. Non-confirmation of the said medicine had led to severe objection of patients and investors for about three years. The said vaccine is manufactured for each patient according to an order placed for this purpose. It means that while blood globules of a patient are collected and specific immunity cells are extracted from the said cells accordingly. Then, final cells are injected to the patient for three times within a one-month period. The said vaccines costs 93,000.- Dollars. Common treatment procedures of cancer namely radiotherapy, chemotherapy and even prostatectomy shall cause many damages to patients. Thus, a medicine, which is able to stimulate and to improve natural body immunity system of patients may be regarded a valuable replacement for the said procedures. Extent of side-effects of the said vaccine is too limited including fever, fatigue and pain. According to the report of Pop Science, Provenge Vaccine is used for the patients, who suffering from prostate cancer, with metastasis to their entire body. In 2009, National Cancer Institute of America reported about 192000 new cases of Prostate Cancer. About 27000 patients out of the said cases died due to the said disease.
Vitamin B1 is a vital human nutrient that belongs to the Vitamin B complex. It plays an important role in maintaining a healthy nervous system and improving the cardiovascular functioning of the body.
Vitamin B1 is one of the eight water-soluble vitamins in the B complex family. It helps in the conversion of carbohydrates into glucose, which in turn is used to produce energy for carrying out various bodily functions. Vitamin B1 is also required for the breakdown of fats and protein.
In addition to these health benefits, it maintain the muscle tone along the walls of the digestive tract and promotes the health of the nervous system, skin, hair, eyes, mouth, and liver. It also improves the body’s ability to withstand stress and is often called the “anti-stress” vitamin.
Important Sources of Vitamin B1
Some of the early symptoms of deficiency might include lethargy, irritability, loss of memory, loss of sleep or appetite, weight loss, indigestion or constipation, and calf muscle tenderness. If left untreated these initial symptoms might lead to a more severe form of thiamin deficiency, known as beriberi. This condition is characterized by nerve, heart, and brain abnormalities, but the symptoms might vary in every person and depends on a number of factors. Some more examples are explained below.
Dry Beriberi: This condition might involve nerve and muscle abnormalities, a prickling sensation in the toes, a burning sensation in the feet at night, leg cramps and muscle atrophy.
Wet Beriberi: Common symptoms might include abnormally fast heart beat, fluid retention in the legs, pulmonary edema, and hypotension, which might result in shock and even death.
CerealBrain Abnormalities: In alcoholics, thiamin deficiency might result in brain abnormalities such as Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. Some of its common symptoms include haziness, involuntary eye movements, difficulty in walking and partial paralysis of the eyes among other debilitating symptoms. If ignored, these symptoms could become fatal. Some of the common symptoms of Korsakoff’s psychosis include loss of memory, incoherence and confabulation.
Infantile Beriberi: This variety is commonly seen in newborn children of women already suffering from thiamin deficiency who contract this condition from the mother’s milk. Heart failure, loss of reflexes and aphonia are some of the common symptoms, so be sure to have sufficient levels of vitamin B1 if you are pregnant.
In a new achievement the American scientists have successfully manufactured a new manual system which injects a small ice bell under the skin and in this way it prevents from pain transmission in the patients suffering from arthritis.
The effect of this outpatient treatment which takes less then a few minutes is similar to local anesthetics; however, it has a longer effect.
Now the scientists have began a larger trial by using this method and have tested that on the patients suffering from knee arthritis.
When cartilages at the end of bones are destroyed as the result of abrasion, bones overlap and experience friction causing pain.
One out of each adult suffers from knee arthritis. Treatments for this pain encompass a range of steroid injections and calmatives to surgery and replacement of joints.
This system is called Cryo-Touch system and is a non-surgical approach which removes pharmaceutical need.
This icy treatment is a kind of Cryotherapy in which physicians use very cold temperatures to treat different diseases.
This treatment is used for different skin diseases including freezing of small skin cancers and benign tumors such as wart.
Cryotherapy is also used to treat prostate cancer in which physicians freeze cancer cells.
Researchers have recently used this method for the pain of joints especially in elbow, knee and shoulder.
This modern system that has been approved for use in UK is constituted of three stainless steel needles which are connected to a cylinder containing fluid nitrogen oxide.
These needles are designed to prevent from transmission of this very cold material into tissues which may cause serious injuries in case of contact.
Instead, when the fluid exits from the needle, it will change into gas due to very high pressure. This causes the needle to become very cold and an icy ball is produced on its top. In this system, three needles are used to increase the icy ball volume.
These needles are plunged within a few millimeters under the skin. Then, the system starts and a small icy ball is formed under the skin.
This icy ball damages to the blood vessels that transmit blood to the peripheral nerves around the joint. These nerves cannot send pain signs without any blood source.
Each treatment takes about 5 minutes. The physician lets the icy ball to become warm and then pulls out the needles.
A former human research conducted by the University of Washington with a similar technology showed that this treatment was effective for some patients and its effect remained for eight months.
The pain returns with the growth of new blood vessels and reactivation of nerves. In such case, another injection period may be effective.
A new study reveals that high intake of fruits and vegetables packed with vitamin C will substantially cut the heart attack and early death risk. The researchers examined 100,000 Danish people's intake of fruit and vegetables as well as their DNA.
High Intake of Diet Filled With Vitamin C Reduces Heart Attack, Early Death Risk
"We can see that those with the highest intake of fruit and vegetables have a 15% lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease and a 20% lower risk of early death," said Camilla Kobylecki, medical doctor at the department of clinical biochemistry at Herlev and Gentofte Hospital in Denmark.
Vitamin C helps build connective tissue which supports and connects different types of tissues and organs in the body.
It is also a potent antioxidant which protects cells and biological molecules from the damage which causes many diseases, including cardiovascular disease.
The human body is not able to produce vitamin C, which means that we must get the vitamin from our diet, said the study that appeared in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
"Eating a lot of fruit and vegetables is a natural way of increasing vitamin C blood levels. You can get vitamin C supplements but it is a good idea to get your vitamin C by eating a healthy diet," added Boerge Nordestgaard from University of Copenhagen.
Read more: High Intake of Diet Filled With Vitamin C Reduces Heart Attack, Early Death Risk http://www.medindia.net/news/high-intake-of-diet-filled-with-vitamin-c-reduces-heart-attack-early-death-risk-150841-1.htm#ixzz3fai9amI2
norexia nervosa is a serious eating disorder, affecting over 3 million Americans. New research published in Psychosomatic Medicine suggests that people with this debilitating disease may have very different gut microbial communities than those found in healthy individuals.
Moreover, researchers at the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine speculate that this bacterial imbalance could be linked to some of the psychological symptoms related to the disorder, which has the highest mortality rate of any mental health issue.
The research, led by Ian Carroll, PhD, senior author of the paper and assistant professor of medicine in the UNC Center for Gastrointestinal Biology and Disease, suggests that gut bacteria, the trillions of bacteria that affect digestive health and immunity, could play a prominent role in the symptoms of anorexia nervosa.
It is known that microbial diversity is a sign of better overall health. Previous studies have also suggested that the abundance and diversity of gut microbiota could also affect the so-called "gut-brain axis."
In previous research, scientists took gut microbial communities from an obese person and put them into germ-free mice, which are maintained in sterile conditions and lack intestinal microbiota. The result was a greater weight gain in mice with these bacteria than in germ-free mice that had been colonized with gut microbiota from a lean person. This suggests that gut microbes could mediate weight gain or loss.
In other experiments where gut bacteria were added to germ-free mice, altered behavior resulted, especially in relation to anxiety and stress.
Less diverse microbial communities in those with very low weight
The UNC team wanted to study this relationship further to find out if altering gut microbiota could help patients with anorexia nervosa to maintain weight and stabilize mood over time.
They collected fecal samples from 16 women with anorexia nervosa after they were first admitted into the UNC Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders, and then again on discharge from the center after their weight was restored. The samples were analyzed for composition and diversity of gut microbiota.
They also collected gut microbiota from 12 healthy individuals for comparison.
Susan Kleiman, a graduate student in Carroll's lab and first author of the paper, found significant changes in the gut bacteria populations between admission and discharge.
The samples taken at admission had fewer different types of bacteria, making the intestinal communities much less diverse. On discharge, the microbial diversity had increased but was still significantly less diverse than that of the healthy individuals.
As the microbial communities in patients with anorexia improved during clinical care and weight gain, the moods of patients also improved, suggesting a link between the two.
Learn more about anorexia nervosa
The next question is whether improving microbial abundance and diversity could help relieve symptoms related to the eating disorder.
To help them find out, Carroll and a team of researchers have received a 5-year, $2.5-million grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) to further study the relationship between gut microbiota and anorexia nervosa.
The team will characterize the microbiotas of a large number of people with anorexia nervosa as they enter UNC's clinic and when they are discharged, normally when they reach about 85% of their ideal body weight.
Then they will put those gut bacteria in germ-free mice, to investigate how the microbiota from anorexia nervosa patients affects the biology and behavior of the mice.
If the bacteria have a detrimental effect on the mice, it is possible that cultivating a healthy microbiota could be used in therapy for people with anorexia nervosa.
Carroll says:
"We're not able to say a gut bacterial imbalance causes the symptoms of anorexia nervosa, including associated symptoms, such as anxiety and depression. But the severe limitation of nutritional intake at the center of anorexia nervosa could change the composition of the gut microbial community.
These changes could contribute to the anxiety, depression, and further weight loss of people with the disorder. It's a vicious cycle, and we want to see if we can help patients avoid or reverse that phenomenon."
Treatments for anorexia nervosa need improvement. The process of weight gain and renourishment can be extremely uncomfortable, so that after leaving the hospital, patients often begin to lose weight again and face readmission.
If specific alterations in the microbiota can help decrease the discomfort of renourishment, enable better weight regulation and positively affect behavior, this could lead to better outcomes for patients.
Carroll points out that this will not be "the magic bullet for people with anorexia nervosa," because other important factors are involved. But he believes that if the gut microbiota is associated with a variety of health and brain-related issues, it could make a difference for people with anorexia nervosa.
While anorexia nervosa mostly starts during adolescence, a Spotlight from Medical News Today has previously investigated how eating disorders can affect people of any age.
Higher levels of melatonin, a hormone involved in the sleep-wake cycle, may suggest decreased risk for developing advanced prostate cancer, according to results presented here at the AACR-Prostate Cancer Foundation Conference on Advances in Prostate Cancer Research, held Jan. 18-21.
Melatonin is a hormone that is produced exclusively at night in the dark and is an important output of the circadian rhythm, or the body's inherent 24-hour clock. Many biological processes are regulated by the circadian rhythm, including the sleep-wake cycle. Melatonin may play a role in regulating a range of other hormones that influence certain cancers, including breast and prostate cancers.
"Sleep loss and other factors can influence the amount of melatonin secretion or block it altogether, and health problems associated with low melatonin, disrupted sleep, and/or disruption of the circadian rhythm are broad, including a potential risk factor for cancer," said Sarah C. Markt, M.P.H., doctoral candidate in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. "We found that men who had higher levels of melatonin had a 75 percent reduced risk for developing advanced prostate cancer compared with men who had lower levels of melatonin.
"Our results require replication, but support the public health implication of the importance of maintaining a stable light-dark and sleep-wake cycle," added Markt. "Because melatonin levels are potentially modifiable, further studies of melatonin and prostate cancer risk and progression are warranted."
To investigate the association between urine levels of the main breakdown product of melatonin, 6-sulfatoxymelatonin, and risk of prostate cancer, Markt and colleagues conducted a case-cohort study of 928 Icelandic men from the AGES-Reykjavik cohort between 2002 and 2009. They collected first morning void urine samples at recruitment, and asked the participants to answer a questionnaire about sleep patterns.
The median value of 6-sulfatoxymelatonin in the study participants was 17.14 nanograms per milliliter of urine. Men who reported taking medications for sleep, problems falling asleep, and problems staying asleep had significantly lower 6-sulfatoxymelatonin levels compared with men without sleep problems, according to Markt.
Of the study participants, 111 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer, including 24 with advanced disease. The researchers found that men whose 6-sulfatoxymelatonin levels were higher than the median value had a 75 percent decreased risk for advanced prostate cancer. A 31 percent decreased risk for prostate cancer overall was observed as well, but this finding was not statistically significant.
"Further prospective studies to investigate the interplay between sleep duration, sleep disturbance, and melatonin levels on risk for prostate cancer are needed," said Markt.