Scientists discover new way of overcoming human stem cell rejection

Human embryonic stem cells have the capacity to differentiate into a variety of cell types, making them a valuable source of transplantable tissue for the treatment of numerous diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease and diabetes.

But there’s one major issue: Embryonic stem cells are often rejected by the human immune system.

Now, researchers from the University of California San Diego may have found an effective way to prevent this rejection in humans. Utilizing a novel humanized mouse model, the scientists have revealed a unique combination of immune suppressing molecules that stop the immune system from attacking the injected stem cells – without shutting the system down completely.

This discovery could ultimately help resolve some of the major problems currently limiting the use of embryonic stem cells for certain conditions, paving the way for the development of more effective human stem cell therapies.

“This is a generic way of immune suppression, so it could potentially be applied not just for stem cells therapies, but for organ transplants as well,” Yang Xu, a professor of biology at UC San Diego and lead author of the study, told FoxNews.com. “It can be very broad.”

Embryonic stem cells are different from the other cells in a patient’s body, making them “allogenic.” This means the immune system will recognize them as foreign agents and attack them.

One way of overcoming this rejection problem is to give patients immunosuppressant drugs, which suppress the entire immune system. While short term use of immunosuppressants has been successful for many organ transplants, embryonic stem cell therapies for chronic diseases require long term use of these drugs – which can often be very toxic and increase the risk of cancer.

“In order for the patient to really use this therapy, they have to decide: Do they want a lifelong use of immunosuppressant drugs, or are they willing to live with the symptoms of their disease,” Xu said.

Source: news.nom

Woman’s tragic death witnessed by family on laptop

A nurse in a Michigan hospital kissed the patient’s forehead. More than 6,000 miles away, Sanaz Nezami’s family in Iran watched on a laptop computer and wept.

Nezami, a vibrant 27-year-old woman who could speak three languages, wanted to pursue an advanced degree in engineering at Michigan Technological University. Instead, she was brain dead just a few weeks after unpacking her bags, the victim of a fatal beating by her new husband, according to police.

Technology allowed family in Iran to watch her final hours. The family’s faith in the hospital staff led to consent for an extraordinary donation: Nezami’s heart, lungs and other life-saving organs were transplanted to seven people in the U.S., a remarkable gift that occurs in less than 1% of all cases.

“We wanted God to perform a miracle and bring Sanaz back to life,” her sister, Sara Nezami, said in a phone interview from Tehran. “But this is a miracle. Sanaz gave her life in order to give life.”

A nurse who took care of Sanaz Nezami said the experience was “eye-opening” for hospital staff.

“The family was willing to trust us to know she wasn’t coming back,” Kim Grutt said.

In August, Nezami married Nima Nassiri in Turkey and lived with him temporarily in the Los Angeles area, where he was born and raised. Her sister said the two met over the Internet.

Nezami, a native of Tehran, had a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a master’s in French translation. She wanted a doctorate degree in environmental engineering.

On Dec. 7, she asked her sister to proofread some English-to-Persian translation she was doing on the side.

“I was shocked,” Sara Nezami said. “Sanaz was a very precise girl, but she omitted some lines. I asked, ‘Are you OK?’ She told me there was no problem.”

The next day, Sanaz Nezami was rushed to a hospital with severe head injuries and was transferred to Marquette General Hospital. Police believe she was assaulted by her husband, who has been charged with second-degree murder. His attorney, David Gemignani, declined to comment.

“Her brain was so swollen and so damaged, there was no longer any blood flow,” explained Gail Brandly, who supervises nurses at the hospital.

No one knew anything about Nezami, so Brandly ran her name through Google. Suddenly, the stranger who couldn’t speak for herself came alive through a résumé posted online.

After about 24 hours, the hospital reached relatives in Iran. Immediate travel to the U.S. was impractical due to visa requirements, so a laptop was set up so the family could see Nezami on life support and talk to nurses and doctors over Yahoo Messenger.

“It isn’t something we’ve done in the past. It’s not every day we’re dealing with family members so far-flung,” said Dave Edwards, spokesman for the hospital.

At one point, Grutt was asked to stroke Nezami’s head and kiss her forehead.

Nezami was buried Dec. 18 in a local cemetery. As a light snow fell, the hospital’s chaplain, the Rev. Leon Jarvis, read Muslim prayers over the casket while about 20 people, mostly nurses and others who cared for her, watched.

Source: detroit free press

Japan’s population declines by record 244,000 in 2013

The number of Japanese births hit a record low in 2013 while the death rate was the highest since the end of World War II, according to health ministry estimates.

Ministry officials determined the nation’s population fell by a record 244,000 for the year by deducting the number of births from the number of deaths.

“The trend of population decline will likely continue for a substantially long period of time,” a ministry official said.

It is the seventh consecutive year Japan has experienced a decrease in its population.

According to the estimates released on Dec. 31, the number of babies born in 2013 fell by 6,000 from the previous year to 1,031,000, the lowest number since such statistics became available in 1899. The ministry cited the decline in the number of women still in their childbearing years.

Meanwhile, 1,275,000 people–up 19,000 from the previous year–died in 2013, reflecting the aging of Japanese society.

The Japanese population declined for the first time in 2005. In 2006, the country saw a short-lived increase, but it has been falling steadily since 2007.

The fertility rate–the number of children a woman is expected to give birth to in her lifetime–was 1.41 in 2012. The ministry estimated that figure remains unchanged for 2013.

The statistics also showed that 663,000 couples married and 231,000 divorced in 2013.

Source: Asia and Japan watch

Relapse of ‘cured’ HIV patients spurs AIDS science on

Scientists seeking a cure for AIDS say they have been inspired, not crushed, by a major setback in which two HIV positive patients believed to have been cured found the virus re-invading their bodies once more.

True, the news hit hard last month that the so-called “Boston patients” – two men who received bone marrow transplants that appeared to rid them completely of the AIDS-causing virus – had relapsed and gone back onto antiretroviral treatment.

But experts say the disappointment could lay the basis for important leaps forward in the search for a cure.

“It’s a setback for the patients, of course, but an advance for the field because the field has now gained a lot more knowledge,” said Steven Deeks, a professor and HIV expert at the University of California, San Francisco.

He and other experts say the primary practical message is that current tests designed to detect even very low levels of HIV present in the body are simply not sensitive enough.

As well as having the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the Boston patients both also had a type of blood cancer called lymphoma, for which they were treated using bone marrow transplants – one man in 2008 and the other in 2010.

They continued taking the antiretroviral AIDS drugs, but eight months after each patient’s transplant, doctors found they could not detect any sign of HIV in their blood.

In the early part of 2013, both patients decided to stop taking their AIDS drugs and both appeared to remain HIV-free – prompting their doctors, Timothy Henrich and Daniel Kuritzkes from Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, to announce at a conference in July that they may have been cured.

Yet in December came news that one of the men had begun to show signs of an HIV rebound by August, while the second patient had a relapse in November.

Henrich said the virus’ comeback underlined how ingenious HIV can be in finding hiding places in the body to evade attack efforts by the immune system and by drug treatment.

“Through this research we have discovered the HIV reservoir is deeper and more persistent than previously known and that our current standards of probing for HIV may not be sufficient,” he said, adding that both patients were “currently in good health” and back on antiretroviral therapy.

INSPIRATION

Barely a decade ago, few HIV scientists would have dared put the words HIV and cure in the same sentence. Yet some intriguing and inspiring cases in recent years mean many now believe it is just a question of time before a cure is found.

First was the now famous case of Timothy Ray Brown, the so-called “Berlin patient,” whose HIV was eradicated by a complex treatment for leukemia in 2007 involving the destruction of his immune system and a stem cell transplant from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that resists HIV infection.

Such an elaborate, expensive and life-threatening procedure could never be used as a broad-spectrum approach for the world’s 34 million HIV patients. But the results in Brown focused scientific attention on a genetic mutation known as ‘CCR5 delta 32’ as a target for possible gene therapy treatment.

Then last March, French scientists who followed 14 HIV-positive people known as the “Visconti patients”, who were treated very swiftly with HIV drugs but then stopped treatment, said that even after seven years off therapy, they were still showing no signs of the virus rebounding.

That announcement came only weeks after news of the “functional cure” of an HIV-positive baby in Mississippi who received antiretroviral treatment for 18 months from the day she was born. By the time she was two this appeared to have stopped the virus replicating and spreading.

A “functional cure” is when HIV is reduced to such low levels that it is kept at bay even without treatment, though the virus can still be detected in the body.

Sharon Lewin, an HIV expert at Monash University in Australia, said all these developments, as well as the setback suffered by the Boston patients, inspired scientists to investigate many different approaches in the search for a cure.

“We’ve learnt many things here – and one of the most important is that a tiny, tiny amount of virus can get the whole thing going again,” she told Reuters. “It’s a clear message that we need better ways to pick up the virus.”

Scientists are now more convinced than ever that a two-pronged approach which aims to firmly suppress the virus while bolstering the immune system provides the best way forward.

“We need to attack in two ways – reduce the virus to very low levels and also to boost the immune response. We can’t do one without the other,” said Lewin.

“So we still have to think of other creative ways to control HIV. And it’s still early days… before we can say which approach is likely to be the winner.”

Source: orlando sentinel

Study Finds Texting, Dialing Dangerous While Driving, Talking Less So

A sophisticated, real-world study confirms that dialing, texting or reaching for a cellphone while driving raises the risk of a crash or near-miss, especially for younger drivers. But the research also produced a surprise: Simply talking on the phone did not prove dangerous, as it has in other studies.

This one did not distinguish between handheld and hands-free devices — a major weakness.

And even though talking doesn’t require drivers to take their eyes off the road, it’s hard to talk on a phone without first reaching for it or dialing a number —things that raise the risk of a crash, researchers note.

Earlier work with simulators, test-tracks and cellphone records suggests that risky driving increases when people are on cellphones, especially teens. The 15-to-20-year-old age group accounts for 6 percent of all drivers but 10 percent of traffic deaths and 14 percent of police-reported crashes with injuries.

For the new study, researchers at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute installed video cameras, global positioning systems, lane trackers, gadgets to measure speed and acceleration, and other sensors in the cars of 42 newly licensed drivers 16 or 17 years old, and 109 adults with an average of 20 years behind the wheel.

The risk of a crash or near-miss among young drivers increased more than sevenfold if they were dialing or reaching for a cellphone and fourfold if they were sending or receiving a text message. The risk also rose if they were reaching for something other than a phone, looking at a roadside object or eating.

Among older drivers, only dialing a cellphone increased the chances of a crash or near miss. However, that study began before texting became more common, so researchers don’t know if it is as dangerous for them as it is for teens.

Engaging in distractions increased as time went on among novice drivers but not among experienced ones.

The National Institutes of Health and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration paid for the research. Results are in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

David Strayer, a University of Utah scientist who has done research on this topic, said the findings that merely talking on a phone while driving was not dangerous is “completely at odds with what we found.”

The study methods and tools may have underestimated risks because video cameras capture wandering eyes but can’t measure cognitive distraction, he said.

“You don’t swerve so much when you’re talking on a cellphone; you just might run through a red light,” and sensors would not necessarily pick up anything amiss unless a crash occurred, Strayer said.

As for texting, “we all agree that things like taking your eyes off the road are dangerous,” he said.

At least 12 states ban the use of hand-held cellphones while driving and 41 ban text messaging. All cellphone use is banned by 37 states for novice or teen drivers, says the National Conference of State Legislatures, citing information from the Governor’s Highway Safety Administration.

Source: NBC Bay area

Medicaid expansion increased visits to emergency rooms

People newly enrolled in a health insurance program for the poor were more likely to visit the emergency department for care than people who remained uninsured, Boston-area researchers have found, providing the best evidence to date that the national Medicaid expansion that began this week is unlikely to lead to a decline in costly emergency services.

The study was published online Thursday by the journal Science, just as millions of Americans have become newly eligible for Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Some politicians have suggested that people who were uninsured and didn’t have a regular doctor or put off basic treatment until their condition became serious, would, once they had coverage, get the primary care they needed to avoid trips to the emergency department.

Previous research on what happened to ER usage in Massachusetts, which expanded its Medicaid program and mandated that most residents have health insurance in 2006, have reached conflicting conclusions. But the new study, of about 25,000 low-income adults randomly selected in 2008 to enroll in Oregon’s Medicaid program, found that the newly insured increased their use of all types of medical care, including prescription drugs, hospital stays, and outpatient visits. Emergency department visits were no exception.

Over an 18-month period, about 42 percent of the new Medicaid enrollees visited the emergency department. In the same period, about 35 percent of those who did not receive Medicaid visited the emergency department.

“Basic economic theory is, if you lower the price, people use it more,” said Amy Finkelstein, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist and a senior author on the paper.

It was not a foregone conclusion in this case, however, that reducing the cost of an emergency room visit would increase use, she said, because the cost of a visit to a primary care doctor and of preventive services that may have helped them avoid the emergency room also decreased with insurance coverage.

Yet, emergency department use among those on Medicaid increased during businesses hours, nights, and weekends. While there was no increase in visits classified as non-preventable emergencies, there was an increase for visits deemed preventable or treatable by a primary care doctor.

A 2011 study found that overall emergency department visits increased in Massachusetts in the two years after the state expanded insurance coverage under the 2006 state health care law, though visits for “low severity” problems declined slightly. Dr. Peter Smulowitz, an emergency physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and lead author on that study, said he and colleagues have more recently reviewed emergency department use across Massachusetts and found a small increase in pockets of the state that had seen the largest gains in insurance coverage. The study is pending publication.

Data published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2011, however, found that ER usage was already increasing in Massachusetts and nearby states before the expansion of health insurance coverage here, and that the law did not change the trend in Massachusetts when compared to the other states.

The Oregon study is unique in that it is a randomized controlled study, considered the gold standard in medical research but rarely feasible in health policy research. The state of Oregon created a valuable study scenario when, because the state had money only for a small expansion of the program, it held a lottery for Medicaid coverage, providing insurance to some people and leaving others uninsured.

Past work by principal investigators Finkelstein and Katherine Baicker, a professor of health economics at Harvard School of Public Health, and their colleagues at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge has found that the lottery winners were more likely to report feeling better about their mental and physical health and had less financial strain, including fewer bills sent to collection. But there was no improvement in key health factors, such as blood pressure or blood sugar levels, as compared with the uninsured.

With the latest study, Baicker said, the body of research out of Oregon has disproved both the worst and best predictions for Medicaid — that it is an expensive program that does little to improve access to care and overall health, or alternatively, that it is a money-saving program that clearly improves health. The results are far more nuanced.

“Policymakers should make decisions based on this evidence that the program has real costs. It’s not free,” she said. “And, it has real benefits. Beneficiaries are clearly better off.”

Source: the boston globe

Jahi McMath family, hospital to meet for settlement talks

A federal magistrate has ordered settlement talks between attorneys for Children’s Hospital Oakland and the family of a 13-year-old girl who has been declared brain dead.

U.S. Magistrate Donna Ryu will meet in her Oakland courtroom Friday with both sides in hopes of brokering a deal in the ongoing legal fight over Jahi McMath. A separate hearing has been scheduled Friday before Judge Evelio Grillo of Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland.

Jahi’s family has accused the hospital of denying the girl a tracheostomy tube that is required to transfer her to another site, as well as withholding the insertion of a feeding tube that will provide her nutrition. They maintain that she is not dead because her heart is still beating and she is hooked up to a ventilator.

Hospital representatives have said that they’ve never objected to the girl receiving a tracheostomy but would not allow the procedure done in its hospital or performed by its staff because of the ethical and legal issues related to operating on a deceased person.

The hospital’s doctors declared Jahi dead on Dec. 12, three days after she underwent a tonsillectomy that resulted in complications.

The hospital would arrange for Jahi to be moved to another site for the procedure, or for long-term care, but has not heard from any facility, doctor or medical transport service regarding her case, hospital spokesman Sam Singer said.

Christopher Dolan, attorney for Jahi’s family, has filed requests in three separate courts seeking orders to force the hospital to insert tracheostomy and feeding tubes, but judges have declined to do so.

In court papers filed in federal court Thursday, Dolan again asked for an order for the tubes to be inserted.

“At this point, Jahi has not had nutrition for nearly three weeks,” he wrote. “She is in desperate need of a tracheostomy tube and a gastric tube.. This court should grant plaintiff the relief to allow for Jahi’s transport.”

Grillo has issued a restraining order that prevents the hospital from disconnecting Jahi from a ventilator until at least 5 p.m. Tuesday.

At 1 p.m. on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong in Oakland is expected to hear arguments about possible violations of Jahi’s civil rights, and the rights of families – not doctors, lawyers or politicians – to determine a loved one’s death, based on their religious or personal beliefs.

Source: SF gate

5 New Things to Do with Avocado

Creamy, delicious avocados are a healthy way to add tons of nutrients and flavor to your meals, from breakfast to dessert. Full of monounsaturated fat, fiber, and vitamins, this versatile super fruit can be used in so many ways, both in and out of the kitchen, as these recipes prove.

1. Avocado and Smoked Salmon on Toast:
Streamline your morning routine with this quick breakfast. It provides healthy fats from the avocado, protein from the smoked salmon, and tons of flavor from the tamari and lemon.

Serves: 2

Ingredients:
2 slices gluten-free bread
1 ripe avocado, halved
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 dash tamari soy sauce
Pepper
2 slices smoked salmon

Directions:
Toast bread. In a small bowl, use a fork to mash avocado with lemon juice, tamari, and pepper to taste. Spread avocado mixture on toast and top with salmon.

Nutrition score per serving: 297 calories, 16g fat (2g saturated), 31g carbs, 9g protein, 8g fiber, 420mg sodium, 4g sugars

2. Simple Avocado Quinoa Salad

Combine quinoa, kale, and of course avocado for a super salad. This makes a perfect side dish or lunch for a summer picnic.

Serves: 4

Ingredients:
3 cups cooked quinoa, cooled
1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
1 Fuji apple, thinly sliced into half moons
2 cups purple or Lacinato kale leaves, chopped into ribbons
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons honey
1 pinch sea salt
1 avocado, cubed
1/4 cup crumbled feta or chevre (optional)

Directions:
1. In a large salad bowl, toss quinoa, onions, apple, and kale to combine.
2. Drizzle in lemon juice, oil, honey, and salt, and toss to coat well.
3. Gently fold in avocado and feta, if using. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Nutrition score per serving: 293 calories, 16g fat (2g saturated), 35g carbs, 6g protein, 7g fiber, 72mg calcium, 97mg sodium

3. Avocado Chocolate Smoothie

This smoothie was inspired by my friend Kim Barnouin, author of Skinny Bitch. Ever since I had an avocado chocolate mousse at one of her dinner parties, I can’t get enough of the unique, delicious combination.

Serves: 2

Ingredients:
1 ripe avocado, peeled and pitted
2 tablespoons dark unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons agave nectar
1 frozen banana
1 cup ice
1 cup unsweetened almond milk

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Serve immediately.

Nutrition score per serving: 306 calories, 17g fat (3g saturated), 42g carbs, 4g protein, 11g fiber, 124mg calcium, 101mg sodium, 24g sugars

The enzymes and oils in avocado can help restore moisture in dry skin. Grab a good book, a cup of tea, and relax while these all-natural beauty treatments work their magic.

4. Candice’s Sweet Avo-Honey Mask: In a small bowl, use a fork to mash 1/4 avocado. Stir in 2 teaspoons honey and apply to your face with clean hands. After 10 minutes, rinse off with warm water.

Candice’s 20-Minute Miracle Mask: In a small bowl, use a fork to mash 1/4 avocado. Stir in 1 tablespoon egg whites and 1/2 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil, mixing until very creamy. Apply to your face with clean hands. After 20 minutes, rinse off with warm water.

This smoothie was inspired by my friend Kim Barnouin, author of Skinny Bitch. Ever since I had an avocado chocolate mousse at one of her dinner parties, I can’t get enough of the unique, delicious combination.

Serves: 2

Ingredients:
1 ripe avocado, peeled and pitted
2 tablespoons dark unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons agave nectar
1 frozen banana
1 cup ice
1 cup unsweetened almond milk

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Serve immediately.

Nutrition score per serving: 306 calories, 17g fat (3g saturated), 42g carbs, 4g protein, 11g fiber, 124mg calcium, 101mg sodium, 24g sugars

The enzymes and oils in avocado can help restore moisture in dry skin. Grab a good book, a cup of tea, and relax while these all-natural beauty treatments work their magic.

Source: shape

 

GMO-free Cheerios coming soon to grocery shelves

General Mills says some Cheerios made without genetically modified ingredients will start appearing on shelves soon.

The Minneapolis-based company said Thursday that it has been manufacturing its original-flavor Cheerios without GMOs for the past several weeks in response to consumer demand. It did not specify exactly when those boxes would be on sale.

Original Cheerios will now be labeled as “Not Made With Genetically Modified Ingredients,” although that it is not an official certification. The labels will also note that trace amounts of GMO ingredients could be present due to the manufacturing process, said Mike Siemienas, a company spokesman.

The change does not apply to any other Cheerios flavors, such as Apple Cinnamon Cheerios or Multi Grain Cheerios.

“We were able to do this with original Cheerios because the main ingredients are oats,” said Siemienas, noting that there are no genetically modified oats. The company is primarily switching the cornstarch and sugar to make the original Cheerios free of GMOs, he said.

The change comes after the group Green America started a campaign called GMO Inside asking General Mills to make Cheerios GMO-free. The group noted in a statement that its campaign prompted fans to flood the Cheerios page on Facebook with comments on the topic.

Todd Larsen, Green America’s corporate responsibility director, said in a statement that the move is “an important victory in getting GMOs out of our food supply and an important first step for General Mills.”

As for other varieties of Cheerios, Siemienas said they are harder to make GMO-free because they are made with ingredients such as corn.

There has been little scientific evidence showing that foods grown from engineered ingredients are less safe than their conventional counterparts. But consumers have expressed concerns about the long-term impact they could have.

Source: One news story

Low oxygen bad for breast cancer patients

Breast cancer cells, when exposed to low oxygen conditions, trigger the production of two proteins that make the cancer cells spread fast — making the patient’s condition worse, a new paper has contended.

Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University reached the conclusion that low oxygen conditions, frequently present in breast cancers, facilitates the production of RhoA and ROCK1 proteins that, in turn, endow the cancer cells with the ability to move.

“High levels of RhoA and ROCK1 were known to worsen outcomes for breast cancer patients by endowing cancer cells with the ability to move, but the trigger for their production was a mystery,” said Gregg Semenza, Professor of Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University.

The researchers found that women with high levels of RhoA or ROCK1, and especially those women with high levels of both, were more likely to die of breast cancer than those with low levels.

“We now know that the production of these proteins increases dramatically when breast cancer cells are exposed to low oxygen conditions,” said the paper, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

With the multiplying of tumour cells, the interior of the tumour begins to run out of oxygen simply because they are not being supplied by blood vessels.

“The lack of oxygen activates the hypoxia-inducible factors, which are master control proteins that switch on many genes that help cells adapt to the scarcity of oxygen,” explained Semenza.

Hypoxia refers to a condition in which the body or a part of the body is deprived of adequate supply of oxygen.

Hypoxia-inducible factors also turn on genes that help cancer cells escape from the oxygen-starved tumour by invading blood vessels, through which they spread to other parts of the body, the paper added.

Here is a breather, though.

“We have successfully decreased the mobility of breast cancer cells in the lab by using genetic tricks to knock the hypoxia-inducible factors down,” said Daniele Gilkes, lead author of the paper.

“Now that we understand the mechanism at play, we hope that clinical trials will be performed to test whether drugs that inhibit hypoxia-inducible factors will have the double effect of blocking production of RhoA and ROCK1 and preventing metastases in women with breast cancer,” Gilkes added.

Source: Pak tribune