Tag: 1/10/21

Categories : Diseases, Syndromes and ConditionsTags :

HIV Drugs Could Stop Macular Degeneration

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A new study has found that there is a buildup of damaging DNA in the eyes of patients with geographic atrophy, an untreatable, poorly understood form of age-related macular degeneration that leads to blindness. Based on this, the researchers believe it may be possible to treat the condition with HIV drugs, or even simpler ones.

Dr Jayakrishna Ambati and colleagues had previously discovered that the harmful DNA, known as Alu cDNA, was manufactured in the cytoplasm. This represents the first time toxic Alu cDNA accumulation has been confirmed in patients in any disease.

“Although we’ve known that geographic atrophy expands over time, we didn’t know how or why,” said Dr Ambati, of UVA’s Department of Ophthalmology and Center for Advanced Vision Science. “Our finding in human eyes that the levels of toxic Alu cDNA are highest at the leading edge of the geographic atrophy lesion provides strong evidence that it is responsible for this expansion over time that leads to vision loss.”

Geographic atrophy is an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration, which ultimately destroys vital cells in the retina, resulting in blindness.

Dr Ambati, a leading expert in macular degeneration, and colleagues found that this destruction is brought about by the buildup of Alu DNA. As Alu DNA accumulates in the eye, it triggers harmful inflammation via the inflammasome. The researchers discovered the mechanism involving a previously unknown structural facet of Alu that triggers the immune response that destroys the retinal cells.

HIV drugs called nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, or NRTIs, could treat this; tests in lab mice suggest these drugs, or safer derivatives known as Kamuvudines, could block the harmful inflammation and protect against retinal cell death.

“Over the last two decades, dozens of clinical trials for geographic atrophy that have targeted other pathways have failed,” Dr Ambati said. “These findings from patient eyes provide a strong impetus for a new direction.”

Dr Ambati says his latest findings support clinical trials testing the drugs in patients with macular degeneration. A prior study of health insurance databases with over 100 million patients found that people taking NRTIs were almost 40% less likely to develop dry macular degeneration.

“Our findings from human eyes show that these toxic molecules, which activate the inflammasome, are most abundant precisely in the area of greatest disease activity,” Dr  Ambati said. “We are very hopeful that a clinical trial of Kamuvudines will be launched soon in geographic atrophy so that we can potentially offer a treatment for this devastating condition.” 

The findings were published in Science Advances.

Source: University of Virginia

Categories : COVIDTags :

New Drug Molnupiravir Halves COVID Hospitalisation Risk

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Merck today announced that their investigational oral antiviral drug molnupiravir significantly reduced the risk of hospitalisation or death in a Phase III trial in at risk patients with mild-to-moderate COVID. 

Interim analysis showed that molnupiravir reduced the risk of hospitalisation or death by approximately 50%; 7.3% of patients randomised to receive molnupiravir were either hospitalised or died through Day 29 following randomisation, compared with 14.1% of placebo-treated patients. Through Day 29, no deaths were reported in patients who received molnupiravir, as compared to 8 deaths in patients who received placebo. Study recruitment is being stopped early due to these positive results, and the company plans to submit an application for Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) to the U.S. FDA as soon as possible.

Molnupiravir is an oral form of a potent ribonucleoside analog that inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2. Molnupiravir has been shown to be active in several preclinical models of SARS-CoV-2, including for prophylaxis, treatment, and prevention of transmission. 

All 775 patients had laboratory-confirmed mild-to-moderate COVID, with symptom onset within 5 days of study randomization and were required to have at least one risk factor associated with poor disease outcome at study entry. Across all key subgroups, molnupiravir reduced the risk of hospitalisation and/or death; efficacy was unaffected by timing of symptom onset or underlying risk factor. Additionally, based on the participants with available viral sequencing data (approximately 40% of participants), molnupiravir demonstrated consistent efficacy across viral variants Gamma, Delta, and Mu.

The incidence of any adverse event was comparable in the molnupiravir and placebo groups, as was incidence of drug-related adverse events, and the drug was well tolerated.

In addition, molnupiravir is being evaluated for post-exposure prophylaxis in MOVe-AHEAD, a global, multicenter, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase III study, which is evaluating the efficacy and safety of molnupiravir in preventing the spread of COVID within households. 

Source: Merck

Categories : PaediatricsTags :

Mothers’ Touch Synchronises Brainwaves and Heart With Babies

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A new study found that when mothers had close physical contact and played with their babies, their brain activity and heart rhythms synchronised.

Touch is fundamental to interpersonal communication, and was not until recently it was not known how affectionate touch and physical contact affect the brain activity and heart rhythms of mothers and babies. Developmental psychologists Trinh Nguyen and Stefanie Höhl from the University of Vienna have investigated this question in a study published in NeuroImage. 

Affectionate touch and bodily contact create social connections and can reduce stress. This effect has been observed in romantic couples, linked to a mutual alignment of brain activity and heart rhythms.  Since touch is a fundamental mode of communication between caregiver and infant, Trinh Nguyen, Stefanie Höhl and US colleagues sought to find out whether proximity and touch also contribute to the attunement of brain and heart rhythms between mother and baby.

In the new study, four to six-month-old babies played and watched videos together with their mothers. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to measure brain activity while electrocardiography (ECG) was used to simultaneously assess the heart rhythms of mother and baby. With fNIRS, changes in oxygen saturation are recorded in the outermost layer of the brain – here in particular in the frontal brain. Activation in this region is associated with mutual emotional attunement, attentiveness and self-regulation. These processes are particularly relevant for social interactions and develop during the first years.

The results showed that mother-baby pairs mutually adjusted their brain activity, especially when they touched each other. Mutual neural adjustment occurred when the mother held the baby close to her body and both watched a video together, and when they played together face-to-face and the mother lovingly touched the baby. The new study shows that touch plays a fundamental role in the early adaptation of brain activity between mothers and infants. An adaptation of heart rhythms was also shown when mother and baby played together, but it was independent of touch. In the case of the heartbeat, a mutual adaptation was particularly evident when babies signalled discomfort, which was presumably transmitted to the mothers.

The researchers next want to investigate how this mutual attunement in brain activity and heart rhythms affects long term development, particularly the later relationship between mother and child, as well as children’s language development.

Source: University of Vienna

Categories : Cardiovascular DiseaseTags :

Exercise Reduces Sleep Apnoea and Improves Brain Function

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In a small study, researchers found that exercise could help reduce sleep apnoea symptoms and improve brain function.

Sleep apnoea is characterised by loud snoring and disrupted breathing and is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and cognitive decline. It is typically treated with continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, which is uncomfortable for patients and often not adhered to. 

“Exercise training appears to be an attractive and adjunctive (add-on) non-pharmacological treatment,” said lead investigator Linda Massako Ueno-Pardi, an associate professor at the School of Arts, Science and Humanities at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. She also is a research collaborator at the university’s Heart Institute and Institute of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine.

Sleep apnoea is more common in men than women and becomes more prevalent as people age.  According to a scientific statement by the American Heart Association, between 40% and 80% of people with cardiovascular disease have sleep apnoea. Cigarette smoking and type 2 diabetes are among the risk factors for sleep apnoea, as well as obesity, which narrows the airway when sleeping.

People with sleep apnoea have been shown to experience a decrease in brain glucose metabolism, which can impair cognitive function. The researchers sought to find out whether exercise could help correct that, building on a small 2019 study where aerobic activity improved brain glucose metabolism and executive functioning in Alzheimer’s patients.

The new study recruited 47 adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnoea. Half did 60 minutes of supervised exercise three times a week for six months, and the other half were a control group.

Participants in both groups were given a series of tests to measure exercise capacity, brain glucose metabolism and cognitive function, including attention and executive function. Obstructive sleep apnoea symptom severity was measured, such as hypoxia.

At the end of six months, those in the exercise group showed an increased capacity for exercise; improvements in brain glucose metabolism; sleep apnoea symptom reduction; and a boost in cognitive function, including a 32% improvement in attention and executive function. The control group experienced no changes except a decline in brain glucose metabolism.

A “significant reduction” seen in the exercise group’s body fat may have improved sleep apnoea severity by decreasing body fat, especially around the airways.

Source: American Heart Association

Categories : GeneticsTags :

Briefly Quitting Cannabis Can Reduce its Genetic Effects in Sperm

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While cannabis use may impact some autism-linked genes in men’s sperm, briefly quitting cannabis over time may significantly lower many of those effects, according to a new study.

This study, published online in Environmental Epigenetics, followed several other studies at Duke University that linked cannabis use to epigenetic changes (alteration of expression without changing genes) present in sperm, including genes in early development.

This new study aimed to find out if cannabis abstinence could reduce such epigenetic changes. The results showed marijuana users who stopped using cannabis for 77 days produced sperm lacking most of the significant changes found when the men were actively using cannabis.
Study author Susan Murphy, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Duke University School of Medicine, said the results may suggest that marijuana abstinence could result in washout of sperm with the drug’s epigenetic effects. More research is needed for lingering epigenetic effects after abstinence, but there are immediate implications for some.

“Stopping cannabis use for as long as possible – at least for a 74-day period before trying to conceive – would be a good idea,” she said. “If someone is really serious about that, I would say to stop cannabis use for as long as possible prior to conception – meaning multiple spermatogenic cycles.”

“Is it going to fix everything? Probably not,” Prof Murphy said. “We know there are other epigenetic changes that emerged in the ‘after’ sample that we don’t understand yet – and some of those changes are troubling, like an enrichment of other genes related to autism. But it does appear that the things that were the most severely affected in the ‘before’ sample seem to be mitigated by the abstinence period in the ‘after’ samples.”

The study took a baseline sperm sample from marijuana users and non-marijuana users, then followed both groups as the marijuana-using group abstained from cannabis for 77 days – a period spanning the average time it takes for a sperm to mature, which is 74 days. Researchers collected a second sample from both groups after the 77-day period.

During baseline tests, the marijuana-consuming group produced sperm with changes in line with previous studies, which showed altered epigenetic information, including changes in genes linked to early development and neurodevelopmental disorders. With a 77-day abstinence period, this same group was able to produce sperm that had far less altered epigenetic information at the same genes.

The post-abstinence sample was also much more in line with the samples produced by the non-cannabis-using control group.

Prof Murphy says further research is needed to see if the remaining epigenetic changes observed in the sperm of cannabis consumers, when they abstain, carry over into development after fertilisation.

“We don’t know yet whether the alterations that we’re seeing are at genes that have a stable characteristic,” she said, “or if they are in genes that get reprogrammed and really are going to be of no consequence to the child.”

In any case, Prof Murphy says this work is not about legalisation, rather about giving people the power to make informed decisions for themselves.

“I think that we deserve to know what the biological consequences are so that if you are planning to have a child, or even for your own health, you can make an informed decision about whether you want to use it and when, and that’s not really an option right now because we don’t know what it does,” Prof Murphy said.

Source: Duke University

Categories : COVIDTags :

SA Presses UK Over Travel Restrictions as Lockdown Eases

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Image by Quicknews

As the country gets back to Level 1 lockdown, pressure is mounting on the UK to revise its travel restrictions for SA.

The drop to Level 1 was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday, September 30. The restrictions include a midnight to 4am curfew, and restaurants to close at 11pm. Alcohol sales are likewise permitted until 11pm, and large events of up to 750 people indoors and 2000 people outdoors can be held.

This is accompanied by a renewed vaccine drive, to reach a goal of vaccinating 70% of the adult population by year end, President Ramaphosa announced.

“To reach our goal we need to administer an additional 16 million vaccine doses this year, which amounts to around 250 000 first dose vaccinations every single workday of every week until mid-December,” he said.

Meanwhile, President Ramaphosa is hopeful that SA will be taken off of the UK’s ‘red list’, which means travellers travelling or returning to the UK must quarantine for ten days in a government-designated hotel at a cost of over £2000 (R40 500). The tourist industry, which has lost half a million jobs, is pressing for SA to be removed from the UK’s red list in time for the festive season, which sees many British travellers coming to enjoy the summer here.

Former UK cabinet minister Peter Hain this week also called on the UK to release SA from its travel red list, calling it a “ludicrous” decision, as it was not backed up by science.

“SA has a low infection rate: just a tenth of the infections in the UK and a similarly low fraction compared with much of Europe.  It has only one variant in circulation, exactly the same variant as in the UK, Delta,” Hain said in a statement on Thursday.

Ramaphosa said that spoke with UK prime minister Boris Johnson on Thursday, and was hopeful of a “positive outcome” in a few days.

“Our greatest priority now is to ensure that the economy recovers as quickly as possible so that we can create jobs and help businesses to get back on their feet,” he said.

Source: BusinessTech