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Gut damage identified as cause of vaccine failure malnutrition

Apr 24, 2016

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Malnutrition in children is a global issue � in children it defined as children becoming stunted or abnormally short for their age. As per an estimate, even if every nutritional measure known to be helpful were applied to every child in the world, global malnutrition would be decreased by only a third. A new research from the University Of Virginia School Of Medicine, the University of Vermont and the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research in Bangladesh explains why it is so. It says infection in the gut causes severe damages and hence, food alone cannot sort the issue of malnutrition. In order to be effective, nutritional therapy must include measures to prevent or treat the damage to the gut of infants. �The findings of the study have been published online in the journal EBiomedicine.

As a part of the research, the researchers enrolled children at birth and their parents from an urban slum in Dhaka, Bangladesh for the last four years. These children were visited in their homes twice a week; they received free medical care and were observed for the development of malnutrition. Despite vaccination, free medical care and nutritional counseling and care, stunting increased from 9.5 percent at enrollment to 27.6 percent at 1 year of age. This confirms a long known fact – malnutrition is extraordinarily difficult to prevent or treat.

Caitlin Naylor, PhD, who conducted this research as part of her PhD dissertation research remarked that the fact that the infants became malnourished despite the best efforts showed what a difficult problem this is to solve. One can size the challenge by the fact that nearly one in four children in the study developed malnutrition by their first birthday. That made the researchers suspect that food was not being properly digested by the children who were becoming stunted. Bill Petri, MD, PhD, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health at UVA said that they knew that the children’s intestines were being repeatedly infected, on a near daily basis, which was not the case in infants in Charlottesville as they are rarely infected and do not suffer from malnutrition. Hence, it was decided that the next step would be to see if damage to their gut from infection was causing malnutrition. The team in Bangladesh did the same tests on the children there that are done in children in the U.S. suffering from inflammatory bowel disease. Nearly every child had abnormal results, indicating their guts were damaged.

Rashidul Haque, MD, PhD, director of the field study in Bangladesh opined that children living in poverty have problems not only with nutrition but with vaccination. Oral vaccines to eradicate polio and life-saving rotavirus vaccines are substantially less effective in these children. Since these two vaccines immunize the intestine, it was decided to test if children with the worst gut damage also suffered from vaccine failure. That exactly was found to the case which demonstrates that a damaged gut caused both malnutrition and oral vaccine failure.

The study shows a new way to treat and combat malnutrition. Prevention of intestinal infections is one such approach, and this could be accomplished by improving sanitation, or targeted vaccination or treatment of infections that are most likely to cause damage.

Petri said that the next thing to work on now is to find out if some infections are much more dangerous for the health of the child’s gut, and to understand how these infections are transmitted in order to prevent them. Naylor added that the health of the mother predicts whether a 1-year-old child is malnourished. Maternal nutritional supplementation and prenatal care provides another opportunity for intervention. It was found that the longer that the child suffered from inflammation, the worse was their nutrition, which suggests that the body’s immune response is at the heart of malnutrition and a target for prevention.

References:

https://news.virginia.edu/content/discovery-offers-new-way-boost-nutrition-infants-low-income-countries

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-12-gut-vaccine-failure-malnutrition.html

Gene editing technique improves vision in rats with inherited blindness

Apr 23, 2016

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A Cedars-Sinai study has revealed that a research team at the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute has discovered a new technique that has the potential to treat inherited diseases by removing genetic defects has been shown for the first time to hinder retinal degeneration in rats with a type of inherited blindness.

The focus of the researchers was on inherited retinitis pigmentosa – a degenerative eye disease with no known cure that can lead to blindness. �A technique called CRISPR/Cas9 was used by the researchers to remove a genetic mutation that causes the blindness disease. �The technique CRISPR/Cas9 (CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat, the type of DNA sequences involved in this process) is adapted from a strategy used by bacteria to fight invading viruses. The study was carried out in mice, however the finding are significant as they have potential implication sin humans as well. The details of the study findings were published recently in the journal Molecular Therapy.

Shaomei Wang, MD, PhD, a research scientist in the institute’s Eye Program and associate professor of Biomedical Sciences and the study's senior author remarked that their data show that with further development, it may be possible to use this gene-editing technique to treat inherited retinitis pigmentosa in patients.

As per the National Institutes of Health, retinitis pigmentosa is a class of diseases characterized by night blindness in the early stages, atrophy and pigment changes in the retina, constriction of the visual field and eventual blindness. It affects about 1 in 4,000 people in the U.S. and Europe and is one of the most common inherited diseases of the retina.

The technique – CRISPR/Cas9 has been in use by genetic researchers for less than five years and in this time, it has transformed the science of genome editing by making the process easier, more dependable and less expensive.

Bacteria are capable of disabling invading virus by deploying a unique system. Inspired from this system the researchers adapted the technique used in the study. The bacteria first copy part of the invader’s genetic code into a special sequence of ribonucleic acid (RNA), which acts a messenger to carry out the code’s instructions. When the virus returns, the RNA binds to a protein called Cas9, and guides it to the matching gene in the virus, where the protein disables the gene.

The researchers modified the system and programed Cas9 to turn selected genes on or off, or rewrite the genetic code. They designed the CRISPR/Cas9 system to remove a mutated gene that causes photoreceptor cell loss in the eye. This system was injected into young laboratory rat's model with a type of inherited retinitis pigmentosa known as autosomal dominant, which involves this mutated gene. It was seen that even after a single injection, the rats were able to see better compared with controls, as measured by optomotor reflex, which involves turning the head in response to moving stripes of varying degrees of brightness.

Improvement in the effectiveness and consistency of these results can be done by modifying elements of the CRISPR/Cas9 system and using new viral delivery techniques remarked Clive Svendsen, PhD, a co-author on the study. He is also of the opinion that after more research a reliable genome editing system can be developed which may provide a means to correct a wide range of inherited diseases in patients.

Svendsen who is also a director of the Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute and the Kerry and Simone Vickar Family Foundation Distinguished Chair in Regenerative Medicine remarked that it is the first time CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing has been used to prevent vision loss in a living animal. It is a truly remarkable result and paves the way for more exciting studies and translation to the clinic in the future.

References:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-01-gene-technique-vision-rats-inherited.html

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160108134514.htm

Forgetting Is Key to Learning

Apr 22, 2016

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A new research by researchers from the University of Glasgow’s Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology has found that such forgetting is a key part of learning. The study was published recently in Current Biology and it states that our inability to hold onto new memories is essential to the brain’s learning process.

The researchers were of the opinion that ‘memory instability’ � which prevents us from holding onto new memories � was vital to the brain’s ability to transfer experiences and skills to new situations. Also, those memories that were stable prevented knowledge transfer. This finding translates to this fact – forgetting your experience is essential to transfer skills from one job to another.

As a part of the study, participants were made to learn one memory task at 9 am which was quickly followed by another. A retest was carried out 12 hours later on the initial memory task. The word-list was a repeating sequence of 12 simple words; while the skilled action was a new sequence of movements like one do when punching in PIN to get cash from an ATM. The researchers found that learning transferred from actions to words, and vice versa, like learning a list of words helped participants learn a new skilled action. The information exchanged was not just a simple transferring of knowledge of each situation � it was on a higher abstract level.

Professor Edwin Robertson, from the Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, remarked that an unstable memory prevents learning from being solely linked to one task; instead, it lets learning to be applied flexibly. He further added that their work shows that an unstable memory is vital to the mechanism for learning transfer.

In this study, link between an unstable memory and transfer of learning to a different type of memory task was tested. The researchers employed techniques to measure how learning in one task transferred to and thus improved learning in a subsequent task. The transfer of knowledge from a motor skill to a word list task and, vice versa, was a high-level relationship between elements.

As the study and the participants' training progressed across three practice blocks, significant improvement in motor skills was noted by the researchers in the participants in cases where the initial word list and subsequent motor sequence shared a similar structure. Other methods were also used by the researchers to stabilise or consolidate participant's memories. In such instances or cases it was found that no memory transfer happened between different tasks.

Professor Robertson remarked that their study has identified an important function of memory instability. He said that stabilized memories act as a deterrent and prevented transfer to the subsequent memory task. That means that the transfer of learning across diverse tasks is due to a ‘high-level representation’ that can only be formed when a memory is unstable.

The study seem to suggest that an unstable memory provides a window of opportunity for communication between memories, which eventually leads to the construction of a high-level memory representation, which allows the transfer of knowledge between memory tasks.

The findings of this study are significant as they explain a lot of other things. It not only shows that there is a link between memory instability and the creation of high level abstract memory representations, it also throws light on the similarity in key areas of the brain, like the brain areas critical to memory instability and for the creation of memory knowledge framework in particular.

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References:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-12-key.html

https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_437758_en.html

For first time, neurotransmitter in the brain linked with autistic behavior

Apr 21, 2016

2014

In a new research, Harvard scientists for the first time have found link between a specific neurotransmitter in the brain and autistic behavior. The discovery is significant as it is likely to offer valuable new insights into understanding, diagnosing and even treating autism. The details of the study were published in a recent paper in Current Biology.

For this study, the research team led by Caroline Robertson, a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows used a visual test known to prompt different reactions in autistic and normal brains. The test results show that those differences are associated with a breakdown in the signaling pathway used by GABA, one of the brain’s chief inhibitory neurotransmitters.

Robertson remarked that it is the first instance when a neurotransmitter in the brain has been linked to autistic behavior in humans. In animal models it has been shown that the GABA signaling pathway plays a role in autism, but there was no evidence that it can cause autistic differences in humans.

Autism is a disorder characterized by a condition when all the sensory input comes flooding in at once. Hence, the researchers thought that an inhibitory neurotransmitter was important fit with the clinical observations. Also, autistic people suffer from seizures – there is 20 to 25 percent co-morbidity between autism and epilepsy – and it was suspected seizures are runaway excitation in the brain.

In order to find that evidence, Robertson and colleagues chose the binocular rivalry as it is an easily replicable test that produced consistently different results in those with and without autism. Typically, when seen from each eye the brain has two slightly different images � an average is created out of the two for the single image we see every day. But, the binocular rivalry test forces each eye is take in very different images, with surprising results.

The end result is that one image is just suppressed entirely from visual awareness for a short period remarked Robertson. However, eventually the neurons that are forcing that inhibitory signal get tired, and it will switch until only the first image is seen. As that process repeats, the two images will rock back and forth. She explained that an average normal person might rock back and forth between the two images every three seconds; an autistic person might take twice as long. It takes them longer to switch between the two images.

As a part of the study, a brain imaging technique called magnetic resonance spectroscopy was applied to measure the levels of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. The researchers found that autistic people show normal levels of excitatory neurotransmitters, but their GABA was far lower than expected.

Robertson said that while it is not that there’s no GABA in the brain, but there’s some step along that pathway that’s broken. Fixing that pathway is the challenge. To explain further she added that there are two forms of GABA receptors, A and B, and the GABA A receptor can take multiple forms. This test may be used to look at the effectiveness of drugs to give a better idea about which of those receptors isn’t working properly, but it’s very complex.

Right now there is no way to diagnose autism in kids who cannot speak. However, before children talk, they see. So, this type of visual task can be used to screen children and see if there’s something imbalanced in their brain. Robertson cautioned that understanding the signaling pathway for GABA won’t be a cure-all for autism. There are many other molecules in the brain, and many of them can play a role in autism in some way. While the scope of this study is to look at the GABA story, but to screen the autistic brain, other possible pathways also need to be explored.

References:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-12-neurotransmitter-brain-linked-autistic-behavior.html

https://consumer.healthday.com/cognitive-health-information-26/autism-news-51/autism-neurotransmitter-harvard-release-batch-2449-706297.html

After menopause, vulvovaginal troubles are common and linked with other pelvic problems

Apr 20, 2016

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A study published online in the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS) have revealed that post menopause, more than half of women may experience vulvovaginal symptoms that can have a big impact on their lifestyle, emotions, and sex life. These symptoms tend to travel with other pelvic troubles, like prolapse and urinary and bowel problems. Even though many women are suffering from it, they aren’t getting the needed help says the study.

358 women of the ages of 55 and above from primary care offices and senior centers were recruited by the researchers from Dartmouth, Yale, and the Connecticut Healthcare System to answer questions about common symptoms after menopause. The questionnaires had questions about not only about symptoms such as vaginal and vulvar dryness and irritation and their impact, but also about other menopause symptoms, other pelvic problems such as urinary urgency and urinary and fecal incontinence. Information about if they had seen a gynecologist, and what sort of treatment they had received was also sought.

The study, scheduled to be the April 2016 print edition of Menopause, was supported by grants from the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center at Yale University School of Medicine and an award from the National Institutes on Aging.

Vulvar and vaginal problems like itching, burning, stinging, pain, irritation, dryness, discharge, or odor were very common. Almost 51% of the participating women said they had one or more of these and that the symptoms also had a significant impact on their lives. About forty percent of them said the symptoms posed emotional problems, and 33% said they had an impact on their lifestyle. Three quarters of the women who had an active sexual life among the participating women said the symptoms posed problems in their sex lives.

These postmenopausal problems are given a new name called – genitourinary syndrome of menopause” or GSM. Despite all these symptoms and the problems they cause, nearly a third of the women with symptoms (33%) had not seen a gynecologist in the last two years. What's more – almost 83% of them were not getting the standard GSM treatment, which is low-dose estrogen in the vagina through creams, pills, or rings.

NAMS Executive Director JoAnn V. Pinkerton, MD, NCMP remarked that this study demonstrates that there is an unmet need for postmenopausal women to have regular gynecologic visits. They must be aware of the vaginal and urinary health problems and must be proactive in seeking FDA approved safe and effective therapies to their problems. Women need to tell their healthcare providers about their genitourinary symptoms, and providers need to ask. The boxed warnings on the low-dose intravaginal estrogen therapies for GSM may have made providers reluctant to prescribe them and women to use them.

Dr. Pinkerton said that the boxed warnings prompt a level of fear that is out of step with these low-dose, local estrogen products. In fact, experts from NAMS and leaders from other scientific organizations have requested FDA to remove these warnings from the label information. The NAMS experts stressed that providers should exercise caution and evaluate the uterus if women develop bleeding as well as advising women to discuss the use of low-dose intravaginal estrogen with their oncologist if they have had cancer.

Dr. Pinkerton added that in order to diagnose these problems a pelvic exam and evaluation of the vaginal and vulvar tissues to look for atrophy, prolapse, or infection is needed. Safe and effective therapies are available and include not only the first-line, low-dose vaginal estrogen creams, tablets, or rings, but also ospemiphene, the new oral selective estrogen receptor modulator or SERM that treats painful intercourse.

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References:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-12-menopause-vulvovaginal-common-linked-pelvic.html

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/303826.php

Anti-inflammatory drug and gut bacteria have a dynamic interplay, according to study

Apr 19, 2016

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An animal study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has found that a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) changed the composition and diversity of gut microbes as a result of which how the drug is broken down changed and hindered its effectiveness.

It is known that gut bacteria that comprises the gastrointestinal microbiome have a significant role to play in the metabolism of most chemicals humans ingest. To be precise, gut bacteria are involved in the digestion of over 30 U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drugs. This is one of the motivating factors behind studies of microbe-driven breakdown of clinically important drugs. The findings of the study were published this month in the journal eLife.

Interactions between gut bugs in mice and the NSAID indomethacin (similar to ibuprofen and naproxen) inhibit the action of cyclooxygenases (COX) -1 and -2. NSAIDs block these COX enzymes and reduce fatty acids called prostaglandins in the body revealed Xue Liang, PhD, first author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of senior author Garret A FitzGerald, MD, chair of the department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics and director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics. He added that because of this characteristic of NSAIDs, they reduce inflammation, pain, and fever. But, prostaglandins are also known to protect stomach lining cells and promote blood clotting and since they are reduced, NSAIDs can give rise to ulcers and bleeding in the stomach.

As a part of the study, the team of researchers tested indomethacin in mice at clinically relevant doses during both acute and chronic exposure. It was found that both doses suppressed production of prostaglandins and caused damage to the small intestine of the mice, similar to the upper and lower gastrointestinal complications induced by NSAIDs in humans. Increased permeability, ulceration, bleeding, and perforation in the intestinal tract were some of the damage induced.

When deep gene sequencing of gut microbiota was done, it was found that exposure to both doses of indomethacin in animal experiments shifted the composition of intestinal bacteria towards a pro-inflammatory structure. It led to the expansion of Peptococcaceae species and Erysipelotrichaceae species in the gut microbiota, as well as the underrepresentation of the S24-7 species in fecal microbiota.

To further the study, the researchers had to test the impact of intestinal microbes on the metabolism of indomethacin. For this the team used antibiotics to deplete the microbiota and then compared metabolism in treated and control mice. It was found that the antibiotic suppression of intestinal bacteria significantly reduced activity by the bacteria enzyme ?-glucuronidase. Indomethacin reabsorption into the circulation was reduced due to the absence of the enzyme and it resulted in increased elimination, a shortened half-life, and reduced exposure to the drug. All this resulted in reduction of the drug's ability to suppress pro-inflammatory prostaglandins.

Liang opined that there are considerable individual differences in the composition of the gut bacteria in humans due to age, diet, time of day, etc., and a result their responses to indomethacin can be varying.� He further added that the drug-microbe interactions in this study provide clear-cut candidate mediators of individualized drug responses to be studied in the future.

In the next leg of their study, the researchers are keen on investigating whether gut microbiota composition would be differently influenced by COX-1- or COX-2-specific inhibition, as COX-2 inhibitors show less gastrointestinal complications. They also aim to find whether taking this NSAID at different times of day might lead to higher efficacy and less side effects in animal models and eventually in humans. Other areas to explore include finding if alterations in gut microbiota composition are a driver or a passenger in gastrointestinal ailments, after the ingestion of indomethacin.

References:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-01-anti-inflammatory-drug-gut-bacteria-dynamic.html

https://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/news/anti-inflammatory-drug-and-gut-bacteria-have-dynamic-interplay-according-penn-animal-study

Breastfeeding Babies Protected Against HIV from Their HIV+ Mothers with 12 Months of Antiretroviral Drug Treatment

Apr 18, 2016

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In a new study conducted by Professor Philippe Van de Perre, INSERM, Montpellier, France, and colleagues has revealed that feeding babies with up to 12 months of liquid formula HIV drugs, while breastfeeding with their HIV-positive mothers, is effective in protecting the babies from infection. The study covered four countries in Africa; it included the 6-12 month period after birth which was not covered in previous research and the results of the study were published in �The Lancet'.

Even though breastfeeding has been recommended for up to 12 months after birth, there was a lack of assessment for strategies to prevent postnatal mother-to-child transmission of HIV-1 in Africa. In fact, strategy like directly protecting infants through prophylaxis with special child formulations of HIV drugs was never assessed past 6 months of breastfeeding. This new study aimed to compare the efficacy and safety of infant prophylaxis with two drug regimens (lamivudine or lopinavir-ritonavir) to prevent postnatal HIV-1 transmission during up to 50 weeks of breastfeeding.

Four sites in Burkina Faso, South Africa, Uganda, and Zambia were chosen for a randomized controlled trial in children born to HIV-infected mothers. As per the guidelines that existed when the trial took place (CD4 count >350 cells per ?L), these mothers were yet eligible for antiretroviral therapy.

As a part of the study, HIV-negative breastfed infants aged 7 days were randomly selected to receive either lopinavir-ritonavir or lamivudine (pediatric liquid formulations, twice a day) up to 1 week after complete cessation of breastfeeding or at the final visit at week 50. Participants and study physicians were not made aware of the treatment allocation.

During the period of November, 2009, and May, 2012, 1273 infants were enrolled and 1236 were analysed. Of the 615 assigned to lopinavir-ritonavir, 8 were diagnosed with HIV infection and of 621 assigned to lamivudine, 9 were found to be infected. Analysis showed that infection rates did not differ between the two drug regimens.

The authors were of the opinion that about half of the postnatal HIV-1 infections in both groups occurred after 6 months of breastfeeding, even though HIV exposure was much reduced during this period as many women stopping breastfeeding before 50 weeks. This finding justifies the extension of infant pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) until the end of HIV exposure.

Also, on further analysis of the data it was found that most of the HIV infections in the babies in both groups happened not because of the failure of the drug to protect the baby, but because of lack of adherence to the study drug. The authors also added that there is an need for more research for more palatable oral pediatric formulations and long-acting injectable drugs. The data suggest that rates of HIV infection when the drug was taken fell to 0�2% for the lopinavir-ritonavir group and 0�8% in the lamivudine group, respectively.

It was concluded by the authors that infant PrEP is an effective and safe alternative to prevent postnatal HIV-1 transmission for mothers who are not ready or prepared to embark on long-term ART. They also added that the strategy of adding infant PrEP in breastfed babies whose mothers are taking ART need to be assessed. The crux of the matter is that at population level, in countries where universal maternal ART cannot be implemented as recommended by WHO, infant PrEP with either lopinavir-ritonavir, lamivudine, or nevirapine for the whole duration of breastfeeding is definitely recommended

To sum up, the data in this study reveals that infant ART prophylaxis substantially decreases the breastfeeding risk of transmitting HIV, works at a scale greater than previously studied, and is effective and safe.

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References:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-11-breastfeeding-babies-hiv-mothers-months.html

https://scifeeds.com/news/breastfeeding-babies-protected-against-hiv-from-their-hiv-mothers-with-12-months-of-antiretroviral-drug-treatment/

A Cultural Revolution in the Study of the Gut Microbiome

Apr 17, 2016

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Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease affecting gut microbiome impacts an estimated 1,000,000 Americans. If not managed early it can lead to life-threatening complications. Abnormal immune responses trigger these diseases, however issues relating to gut microbiome, intestinal epithelial cells, immune components and the gut’s rhythmic peristalsis motions can also exacerbate symptoms. Since, it is practically difficult to replicate the human gut microenvironment in the laboratory; scientists were at a loss in developing new therapies for treating IBDs.

In a first of its kind development, a team at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University co-led by Wyss Institute Founding Director Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., and Wyss Core Faculty member James Collins, Ph.D., has leveraged the Institute’s proprietary human-organs-on-chips technology to microengineer a model of human intestinal inflammation and bacterial overgrowth in a human-gut-on-a-chip. It will aid scientists to analyze how normal gut microbes and pathogenic bacteria contribute to immune responses. It will also help in investigating IBD mechanisms in a controlled model that recapitulates human intestinal physiology. The report was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal.

As per the report, the Wyss team has been able to show that the human gut-on-a-chip’s unique ability to co-culture intestinal cells with living microbes from the normal gut microbiome for up to two weeks, thereby allowing breakthrough insights into how the microbial communities flourishing inside our GI tracts contribute to human health and disease.

Hyun Jung Kim, Ph.D., former Wyss Technology Development Fellow and first author on the study said that till date it has been impossible to determine how exactly factors like abnormal interactions between gut microbes, intestinal epithelial cells and the immune system contribute to the development of intestinal bowel disease. The human gut-on-a-chip technology will be a game changer as it provides an ideal microenvironment for mimicking the natural conditions of the human intestines in a small-scaled, controllable in vitro platform.

Ingber remarked that the discovery of the microbiome and its significance represents a huge paradigm shift in our understanding of human health. Use of traditional culture methods and even more sophisticated organoid cultures have prevented the microbiome from being studied beyond a day or two. With the human gut-on-a-chip technology, not only the normal gut microbiome can be cultured for extended times, it will also help in analyzing contributions of pathogens and various other factors in triggering and proliferating IBDs.

Collins, a Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said that there is much to be learned about IBD, as well as how antibiotics impact the microbiome. This technology is significant as it enables one to study in an isolated and controlled manner the complexity of the microbiome and the role different microbial species play in health and disease.

With the help of this technology it has been found that four small proteins that stimulate inflammation (called cytokines) work in tandem to trigger inflammatory immune responses that damage and irritate the bowel. Scientists can now explore the option of treating IBDs by “blocking” these cytokine proteins. The Wyss team also found that absence of peristaltic movement can lead to rampant overgrowth of bacteria completely independent of changes in fluid flow. This explains why some patients with IBD and other conditions develop bacterial overgrowth.

The Wyss team is of the opinion that the human gut-on-a-chip technology also holds promise for the field of precision medicine, where a patient’s own cells and gut microbiota could one day be cultured inside a gut-on-a-chip for testing different therapies and identifying an individualized treatment strategy.

Ingber said that with the help of this technology they hope to gain a much deeper understanding of underlying pathophysiological mechanisms that will hopefully lead to the development of novel and more effective therapies.

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References:

www.wyss.harvard.edu/viewpressrelease/233/

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-12-cultural-revolution-gut-microbiome.html

Positive Personality Traits May Protect Police at High Risk for PTSD

Apr 10, 2016

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It is seen that police officers who are repeatedly exposed traumatic experiences like natural disaster suffer from the symptoms of post-traumatic stress�disorder (PTSD). A new study that studied police officers in the New Orleans area during and after the occurrence of Hurricane Katrina concluded that positive personal traits like resilience, satisfaction with life and a grateful disposition may help shield police officers from symptoms of (PTSD) not only in the aftermath of a disaster but for years to come.

The study was published online in a special edition of the journal Stress and Health in December with the title – “Positive Psychological Factors are associated with Lower PTSD Symptoms in Police Officers: Post Hurricane Katrina.

Researcher John Violanti, PhD, professor of epidemiology and environmental health at the University at Buffalo and an internationally known expert on police stress said that in their study it was observed that the symptoms of PTSD were significantly less in police officers that exhibited the positive personality traits like resilience, satisfaction with life and gratitude. He added that this observation also hold true among officers who did not work during the hurricane. They were however, excluded from the study.

Violanti opined that the reason why this study is significant is that it helps us in understanding how positive factors are associated with reduced PTSD symptoms, and �thus can aid us is forming treatment modalities for PTSD.

For the study, the researchers received a grant from �The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) which is also a part of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Violanti along with various NIOSH researchers are the authors of the research.

According to the authors there are many factors that influence the severity of the symptoms like severity of the disaster, degree of exposure, personal losses and even how one behaved during the event. The police officers, who worked after Hurricane Katrina happened, faced a number of physical and psychological challenges. They had challenging tasks at hand to carry out like – crowd control, looting control, rescuing victims in flooded areas, body retrieval. In many cases, they faced open hostility from the citizens even they were trying to help them.

Statistics show that as many as 50 percent of the population in the United States has experienced at least one traumatic event involving actual or threatened death, serious injury or other terrifying situations. Violanti remarked that about 5 to 6 percent of these people eventually develop PTSD while others cope pretty well. He added that police officers typically face more traumatic incidences than the general public and hence PTSD is more likely among them. About 10 to 19 percent of police officers develop PTSD.

Through this study, the researchers tried to find out if personal qualities found to protect the general public from the symptoms of PTSD also lessened its symptoms in this high-risk population.

The positive qualities that were considered included resilience, satisfaction with life, post-traumatic personal growth, grateful disposition, prosocial behaviors and other qualities. Of the 114 participants in the study, 84 were male and 30 female who worked in the New Orleans area as officers during and after Hurricane Katrina. Violanti remarked that it was seen that an experience of posttraumatic personal growth did not appear to mitigate PTSD in the study participants while the other three traits in considered did.

He also offered some further insights of the study which showed a decrease in the resilience score as the level of alcohol intake increased in the officers. The scores of gratitude were highest among African American officers, followed closely by Caucasians, with the lowest scores reported by Hispanic, Native American and Japanese officers. Those officers who had high and very high life satisfaction were seen to have fewer PTSD symptoms.

The authors concluded that further longitudinal research is needed to assess how protective factors can protect or reduce the occurrence of negative conditions that result when exposed to traumatic events.

References

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-01-positive-personality-traits-police-high.html �

https://www.sciencenewsline.com/summary/2015010622430059.html

How to tighten skin

Apr 9, 2016

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When we lose weight, and here we're talking about A LOT of weight, our skin sometimes becomes loose and wobbly. The reason is our skin is an incredibly elastic living organ. You heard us. It is comprised of cells and happens to be very flexible.

Therefore, when we lose weight very quickly, the skin needs time to adjust to the new body shape. This is a slow process and can take up to a year or so to become tight. So, the first thing to do when you notice loose skin is to NOT PANIC. Yes! The skin will eventually adjust to the body shape, therefore, there is no need to worry yourself. However, since the natural way of skin tightening is pretty slow and can get on one's nerves, here are a couple of things that you can do in order to fasten things up a little:

Don't Lose Weight Too Quickly:

I think this one's pretty obvious if you have read the previous paragraph. Excessive amount of exercise and tons of crash diets can certainly help you in losing weight in a month, but all this won't give your skin enough time to tighten up a little. The best way is to schedule your weight loss in a way that you lose about 1-2 pounds (or 0.5-1 kg) a week. This schedule is not only healthy for you in the long run, but will also let your skin adjust to your body type peacefully.

Take Care of Your Skin:

Taking care of the skin is very important. Daily exfoliation will help in removing the dead skin cells and will also increase blood circulation. If you can, try to have a hot bath with sea salts and minerals, this will improve your skin tone. You can also find some really good skin tightening creams that have ingredients like aloe vera, yeast extract, soy protein, hyaluronic acid, vitamin A, vitamin E and vitamin C, etc. These ingredients can help in increasing the collagen and elastin formation in the skin and can also help in hydrating the skin.

Whatever you do to your skin, just make sure you stay away from harsh detergents like sulfates in shampoos and soaps and also limit your exposure to very hot and chlorinated water. All these things lead to decrease in elasticity of your skin and that would be the last thing you would want right now.

Eat Properly:

Last but not the least, eat properly. You are what you eat and if you want to have a skin that is fresh and elastic, you need to make sure that you consume enough elastin and collagen. Increase the intake of protein rich foods such as milk, cheese, nuts, seeds, fish, tofu and anything that contains collagen and elastin-forming components.

A Quick Note:

If all this doesn't work, then what should you do?

If you just got fat and then lost weight, then these tips might work you. However, in cases, where you have carried a hundred or more pounds for years, then there is a possibility that all this might not work for you. In that case, you might have to go for a surgery. But, we would advise to first try out all these tips before jumping to the decision of having a surgery.

References

https://allwomenstalk.com/how-to-tighten-loose-skin-after-weight-loss

https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/health-fitness/healthy-eating/how-to-tighten-loose-skin-after-weight-loss

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