Day: October 12, 2022

Categories : Obstetrics & GynaecologyTags : Leave a comment

Diet Could Contribute to Menstrual Pain in Adolescent Girls

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Andriyko Podilnyk on Unsplash

Despite the fact that dysmenorrhoea is the leading cause of school absences for adolescent girls, few girls seek treatment. A review suggests that diet may be a key contributor, specifically diets high in meat, oil, sugar, salt, and coffee, which have been shown to cause inflammation. Results will be presented during The North American Menopause Society (NAMS) Annual Meeting in Atlanta, October 12-15, 2022.

Roughly 90% of adolescent girls experience menstrual pain. Most use over-the-counter medicine to manage the pain, with limited improvement. Evidence has highlighted that diets high in omega-3 fatty acids and low in processed foods, oil, and sugar reduce inflammation, a key contributor to menstrual pain.

This analysis was designed to study the effect of diet on menstrual pain and identify which foods contribute to it and which can reduce it. Research was conducted through a literature review that found multiple studies that examined dietary patterns that resulted in menstrual pain. In general terms, these studies found that diets high in omega-6 fatty acids promote inflammation and foods high in omega-3 fatty acids reduce it. The muscles in the uterus contract because of prostaglandins, which are active in inflammatory responses. When measuring the Dietary Inflammatory Index, it was found that those on a vegan diet (that excluded animal fat) had the lowest rates of inflammation.

“Researching the effects of diet on menstrual pain started as a search to remedy the pain I personally experienced; I wanted to understand the science behind the association. Learning about different foods that increase and decrease inflammation, which subsequently increase or reduce menstrual pain, revealed that diet is one of the many contributors to health outcomes that is often overlooked. I am hopeful that this research can help those who menstruate reduce the pain they experience and shed light on the importance of holistic treatment options,” said Serah Sannoh, lead author of the poster presentation from Rutgers University.

“Since menstrual pain is a leading cause of school absenteeism for adolescent girls, it’s important to explore options that can minimise the pain. Something like diet modification could be a relatively simple solution that could provide substantial relief for them,” said Dr Stephanie Faubion, NAMS medical director.

Source: EurekAlert!

Categories : Injury & Trauma PaediatricsTags : Leave a comment

e-Scooter Injuries among Children on The Increase

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Standing electric scooters, typically termed e-scooters, have been increasing in popularity over the past decade. According to a new research abstract presented during the 2022 American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference & Exhibition, e-scooter injuries among children are becoming much more common and increasingly severe.

The authors found hundreds of e-scooter injuries in the US between 2011-2020. The rate of hospital admittance for patients increased from fewer than 1 out of every 20 e-scooter injuries in 2011 to 1 out of every 8 requiring admittance into a hospital for care in 2020.

“The number of annual e-scooter injuries has increased from 2011 to 2020, likely due in some part to the rise in popularity of rideshare e-scooter apps,” said lead author Harrison Hayward, MD, Emergency Medicine fellow at Children’s National Hospital. “Our study has characterised the spectrum of injuries that occur in children, which helps emergency room doctors prepare for taking care of them and helps parents and families to practice better safety.”

Researchers examined a national database of paediatric e-scooter injuries that were seen in emergency departments at over 100 US hospitals from 2011–2020 to find out what kinds of injuries children were sustaining and if any trends existed. Over 10% of all patients had a head injury, including a concussion, skull fractures, and internal bleeding. The most common injuries were arm fractures (27%), followed by minor abrasions (22%) and lacerations needing stitches (17%). The average age was 11.1 years and 59% of patients were male. Admittance to a hospital rose from 4.2% in 2011 to 12.9% in 2020.

“Parents whose children are riding e-scooters need to know how best to be safe. To that end, helmets are a must, since over 10% of the reported cases were head injuries,” said Dr Hayward. “Children should absolutely be wearing helmets while riding an e-scooter. Research has broadly demonstrated that helmets save lives for bicycle riders, and we should think similarly about e-scooters.”

Source: American Academy of Pediatrics

Categories : CancerTags : Leave a comment

Mix-and-matching Old Drugs for Cheaper Bowel Cancer Treatment

On By ModernMedia
Female scientist in laboratory
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Using old medicines in new combinations shows promise for treating bowel cancer, a group of University of Auckland researchers has found. They published their findings in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics.

“While there have been advances in treatments for this disease in recent years, the development of new medicines is expensive and time-consuming,” lead researcher Professor Peter Shepherd explained. “As a possible solution to this problem, our group has been investigating whether using old drugs in new ways could provide a faster and cheaper way of treating this disease.”

The scientists investigated several cancer drugs that are coming off patent soon. When they combined two such drugs, they found greatly enhanced overall effectiveness in treating bowel, or colorectal, cancer in their lab-based studies.

Developments in our understanding of how cancers function have paved the way for this research, Prof Shepherd said.

“In recent years, research has led to a rapid increase in our understanding of how colorectal cancer develops. In particular, some sub-types of the disease rely on the development of small blood vessels and on proteins called BRAF and beta-catenin.

“The research group identified existing drugs that target these and investigated the possibility that combining them could have powerful anti-cancer effects.”

Their studies have shown strong promise for two older drugs. One is an anticancer drug called axitinib. The other is pyrvinium, a low-cost drug that was developed in the 1960s to treat threadworm, which the researchers believe could be reformulated for use in cancer treatment. In one set of studies, the researchers found that the efficacy of another older drug targeting BRAF, called vemurafenib, could be greatly enhanced by adding axitinib. Axitinib works by reducing the growth of small blood vessels.

Both these drugs are used in other contexts to treat other types of cancer and will soon be off patent and so the cost of using them in treatment will drop greatly, Prof Shepherd said.

In a second set of studies, the group found evidence that pyrvinium, which targets beta-catenin, could also increase the efficacy of vemurafenib.

Dr Khanh Tran who performed most of the experiments said, “This work suggests that existing drugs might be able to be repurposed to treat this type of cancer which could significantly reduce the cost of such therapy.”

Dr Tran added, “Since the drugs we used are already in use for other purposes, it makes it much easier to develop clinical trials to see how the findings of our studies will actually translate to improved outcomes for patients with this disease.”

Source: University of Auckland

Categories : AgeingTags : Leave a comment

The Emerging Link between Polypharmacy and Dementia

On By ModernMedia
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According to new research published in the journal Aging and Disease, people with dementia are likely to have taken more than three medications for other health conditions in the five years directly before their diagnosis.

The study is the first to provide an in-depth exploration of the links between evolving polypharmacy and a dementia diagnosis. Researchers analysed the records of more than 33 000 dementia patients in Wales between 1990 to 2015.

Experts in e-health used machine learning techniques to identify potentially damaging patterns in a patient’s medicine usage, and how these patterns evolve in the run-up to diagnosis.

They found that in the 20 years leading up to them being diagnosed, the proportion of patients taking three or more medications rose from 5.5% (for the period 16 to 20 years prior to diagnosis) to 82.16% among those less than five years from a diagnosis.

Researchers also found that as the development towards dementia progressed, the patterns of polypharmacy shifted from being clearly distinct to being more closely associated with particular medical conditions.

And of those closest to their diagnosis, almost two-thirds (66.55%) were found to be taking multiple medicines for a combination of respiratory or urinary infections, arthropathies and rheumatism, and cardio-vascular disease. A further 22% of patients were found to be taking medicines for infections, arthropathies and rheumatism, cardio-metabolic disease and depression.

The study was supported by the Health Data Research UK and conducted by an international team of researchers from the University of Plymouth, Aptuit (an Evotec company), Swansea University Medical School, and the University of Oxford.

Study leader Professor Shangming Zhou at the University of Plymouth said: “Given the rise in dementia cases internationally, the need to understand how patterns of polypharmacy evolve before and after a dementia diagnosis are important for devising a safe treatment programme for each patient. Our aim in this study was to help doctors find ways to prescribe multiple items of dementia medication safely and without reducing their effectiveness. The use of machine learning has been vital in helping us understand how these patterns develop, and our hope is we can now use this knowledge to treat patients.”

It has previously been established that when multiple types of preventative medication are being prescribed, the benefits of the drugs may be reduced and the chances of harm from drug interaction and side effects increased.

Those requiring hospital treatment who are taking multiple medications are also known to have a higher likelihood of re-admission within three months after being discharged.

Source: EurekAlert!

Categories : Cardiovascular DiseaseTags : Leave a comment

Could Metformin be Used to Treat Atrial Fibrillation?

On By ModernMedia
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Cleveland Clinic researchers have identified metformin as a possible treatment for atrial fibrillation (AF). In the study, published in Cell Reports Medicine, researchers used advanced computation and genetic sequencing to determine that metformin’s targets overlap significantly with genes that are dysregulated in AF.

“Finding drugs or procedures to treat atrial fibrillation is difficult because of potential serious side effects,” said Mina Chung, MD, senior study author. “There is a significant need for new treatments for atrial fibrillation as there have been no new drugs approved in more than a decade.”

“It’s not that we’ve found a new drug target where it takes 20 years to test this in individuals,” said Jessica Castrillon Lal, first author and graduate student.

“We can cut off 10+ years in the drug development pipeline. We already have the information there. We just have to test it in a very computationally efficient way, such as artificial intelligence technology,” said Feixiong Cheng, PhD, co-senior study author.

The analysis found metformin targeted 30 genes associated with AF, with direct effects on gene expression for eight. Eight other candidate drugs surfaced in the analysis, but further testing and patient data review identified metformin as the most promising candidate.

Castrillon Lal conducts research in Dr Cheng’s lab, which uses network medicine approaches to find candidate drugs for repurposing, creating vast networks of molecular interactions. For this study, researchers narrowed down a list of 2800 FDA-approved treatments by analysing three data sources: a map of interactions between proteins called an “interactome”; a network of genes associated with atrial fibrillation; and each medicine’s molecular or genetic targets.

Atrial fibrillation is the most common type of heart arrhythmia in the world and can lead to complications, including stroke and heart failure. Treatments have been primarily directed toward trying to prevent the arrhythmia using drugs targeting the electrical system, including ion channels in the heart, or using catheter ablation to isolate the pulmonary veins where initiating beats of atrial fibrillation occur.

However, side effects, limited success and potential complications can limit these approaches.

Source: Cleveland Clinic