Tag: Imperial College London

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News on Health & Science

Sea Cucumber ‘New Malaria Weapon’

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Sea cucumbers could provide a potential new weapon to block transmission of the malaria parasite, a study suggests.

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…Sea cucumbers live on the ocean floor

The slug-like creature produces a protein, lectin, which impairs development of the parasites.

An international team genetically engineered mosquitoes – which carry the malaria parasite – to produce the same protein in their gut when feeding.

The PLoS Pathogens study found the protein disrupted development of the parasites inside the insects’ stomach.

Malaria causes severe illness in 500 million people worldwide each year, and kills more than one million.

It is estimated that 40% of the world’s population are at risk of the disease.

To stimulate the mosquitoes to produce lectin, the researchers fused part of the gene from the sea cucumber which produces the protein with a gene from the insect.

The results showed that the technique was effective against several of the parasites which cause malaria.

Lectin is poisonous to the parasites when they are still in an early stage of development called an ookinete.

Usually, the ookinetes migrate through the mosquito’s stomach wall, and produce thousands of daughter cells which invade the salivary glands, and infect a human when the mosquito takes a blood meal.

But when exposed to lectin the ookinetes are killed before they can start their deadly journey.

Work left

Researcher Professor Bob Sinden, from Imperial College London, said: “These results are very promising and show that genetically engineering mosquitoes in this way has a clear impact on the parasites’ ability to multiply inside the mosquito host.”

However, he said much more work still had to be done before the technique could be used to curb the spread of malaria.

“Although the sea cucumber protein significantly reduced the number of parasites in mosquitoes, it did not totally remove them from all insects.

“At the current stage of development, the genetically modified mosquitoes would remain dangerous to humans.

“Ultimately, one aim of our field is to find a way of genetically engineering mosquitoes so that the malaria parasite cannot develop inside them.”

Professor Sanjeev Krishna, an expert in malaria at St George’s Hospital Medical School, London, said new treatments for malaria were vital, as there was some sign that the parasites which cause the disease were developing resistance to the current artemisinin drugs.

He said: “This is a very important first step in developing a potential new way to control this infection.”

Dr Ron Behrens, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the technique showed promise in theory – but he warned that introducing genetically modified mosquitoes could be fraught with practical difficulties.

“You would have to get the modified version to become the predominant species, and that has never been done in any setting before,” he said.

Sources :BBC NEWS ( 23rd. Dec’07)

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Health Alert

Smoking Damages Lung Cells

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Researchers have revealed that an unexplored mechanism can help explain how forms of oxidative stress, such as exposure to cigarette smoke, damage cells in the lungs.

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Toxins in cigarette smoke, they show, open unpaired hemichannels-small portholes in the cell surface-that can, with very little provocation, turn into major breaches in the cell’s integrity, leading to rapid cell death.

This discovery by researchers from the University of Chicago, the University of California at San Diego and the University of California at Los Angeles, suggests new ways to prevent smoking-related cellular damage and possibly to put the brakes on other diseases tied to oxidative stress, including atherosclerosis, neurodegenerative diseases and even senescence.

“Opening hemichannels allows stressful, often toxic, stimuli to flow directly into cells, overwhelming the delicate and carefully maintained balance within and triggering the signals that induce cell death,” said study author Ratneshwar Lal, PhD, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago.

“We were surprised to find out how little it took to cause such damage, only a small change in membrane electrical properties,” he added, “and by how much damage it could cause,” he added.

Hemichannels form a small-gated pathway from the interior of a cell, through the cell membrane to the cell surface.

They usually connect with an identical hemichannel from an adjoining cell to form a gap junction. By directly connecting two cells, gap junctions enable them to exchange the chemical signals they use to coordinate their activities and maintain metabolic and ionic homeostasis among connected cells in a tissue.

About fifteen years ago, scientists realized that some hemichannels had no partners; they led directly from the cell’s interior to the fluid extracellular space. In 2000, Lal and colleagues showed that cells used these channels to increase their volume, opening as necessary to take in water and calcium ions that allowed cells to reorganise their cytoskeleton and mechanical properties commonly related to cell growth and differentiation.

In this study, they looked at the effects of oxidative stress on unpaired (or non-junctional) hemichannels found in the membrane of cells from the lungs and the heart–the primary targets of cigarette smoke.

When they exposed these cells to low levels of an extract made from cigarette smoke, the non-junctional hemichannels opened. This allowed toxic molecules found in the smoke to flow directly into the cell, and vital metabolites such as ATP and NAD, to leak out, leading, ultimately, to cell injury and death.

Drugs that prevented hemichannels from opening protected the cells from similar exposures. Treating the cells with silencing RNA for the hemichannel protein also protected cells by preventing the creation of these channels.

“It required very little stress to open these channels,. Substances found in smoke and other pollutants can alter the electrical potential of the cell’s membrane. A small shift in the membrane’s electrical potential, which we know occurs in many oxidative stress situations, appears to open these channels and allow unregulated flow. This can weaken and kill cells,” Lal said.

Cells have multiple membrane channels that carefully control the flow of specific small molecules in and out of the cell, including calcium, sodium and potassium ions, each of which passes through a specific type of channel.

Hemichannels, however, with ports nearly twice the size of an ion channel, are not as specific, permitting more rapid, less regulated flow of molecules up to the size of 1000 Daltons–wide enough to allow exchange of many signalling and messenger molecules, such as ATP and small metabolites that are essential for normal cell sustenance.

“We suspect that this mechanism could play a major role in the onset of diseases such as emphysema, which is associated with smoking,” said Lal.”

“Improperly opened hemichannels may play a role in many other diseases tied to environmental stimuli,” Lal said, “or even to normal aging, where oxidative stress is thought to contribute to the gradual accumulation of multiple small damaging hits. Finding and testing drugs or other mechanisms that can selectively block these unpaired channels offers a novel approach to disease prevention,” he added.

Source: The Times Of India

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Ailmemts & Remedies

Endometriosis

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Many women suffer from the pain and heavy bleeding of endometriosis. In the past, they often were told their complaints were “just cramps” or “all in your head”. Today, doctors take this condition more seriously, but conventional medicine offers little to ease its symptoms.

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Symptoms

*Intense menstrual cramps that begin before your period starts and reach their peak after it ends.
*Abnormally heavy menstrual bleeding, often with large clots.
*Nausea and vomiting just before a menstrual period.
*Sharp pain during sexual intercourse at any time of the month.
*Diarrhea, constipation, or pain during bowel movements.
*Blood in the stool or urine during menstrual period.
*Infertility.

When to Call Your Doctor

If you have any of the above symptoms.
Reminder: If you have a medical condition, talk to your doctor before taking supplements.

What It Is

In endometriosis, bits of the uterine lining (endometrium) migrate out of the uterus and embed themselves in other abdominal tissues, often the ovaries, uterine ligaments, or intestines. Each month, as estrogen and other hormones cause the lining of the uterus to thicken with blood, the wayward cells also expand. The uterine tissues then slough off normally. But the stray cells have nowhere to release the blood they’ve amassed, leading to cysts, scarring, or adhesions (fibrous tissue that binds parts of the body that are normally not attached to each other). Although not all women with endometriosis have symptoms, the condition can cause severe pain. Endometriosis is a leading cause of female infertility.

What Causes It

No one knows why endometriosis develops, but speculation abounds. According to the reflux menstruation theory, menstrual blood travels backward through the fallopian tubes, funneling endometrial cells into other abdominal areas where they seed and grow. Another hypothesis suggests that endometriosis is congenital — meaning that some endometrial cells have been outside the uterus since birth. Still another idea is that endometriosis is caused by a faulty immune system, which neglects to destroy the out-of-place cells.

How Supplements Can Help

All of the supplements listed can be used together and with any medications prescribed by your doctor. Begin by taking the traditional combination of chasteberry and dong quai. These herbs aid in correcting the hormonal imbalances that can intensify the pain of endometriosis. They also relax the uterus, as does wild yam. In addition, take a lipotropic combination, which stimulates the liver to clear excess estrogen from the body. Use these supplements throughout your menstrual cycle for best results. If menstrual cramps are painful, take the high doses of calcium and magnesium listed, but only during your period. These minerals help to lower the body’s production of prostaglandins, substances made by endometrial cells that cause menstrual cramps.

What Else You Can Do

Eat soy products, which contain phytoestrogens (plant estrogens) that may offset the effect of estrogen on symptoms of endometriosis.
Exercise. In several studies, it has been shown to suppress symptoms and may actually prevent endometriosis.

Supplement Recommendations

Chasteberry
Dong Quai
Wild Yam
Lipotropic Combination
Calcium/Magnesium
Vitamin C
Vitamin E
Flaxseed Oil
Evening Primrose Oil

Chasteberry
Dosage: 225 mg standardized extract 3 times a day.
Comments: Also called vitex. Should contain 0.5% agnuside.

Dong Quai
Dosage: 200 mg, or 30 drops tincture, 3 times a day.
Comments: Standardized to contain 0.8%-1.1% ligustilide.

Wild Yam
Dosage: 500 mg twice a day.
Comments: Take with food to minimize stomach upset.

Lipotropic Combination
Dosage: 1 or 2 pills 3 times a day.
Comments: Should contain milk thistle, choline, inositol, methionine, dandelion, and other ingredients.

Calcium/Magnesium
Dosage: 500 mg calcium 4 times a day; 500 mg magnesium twice a day.
Comments: Use this dose only during menstruation.

Vitamin C
Dosage: 1,000 mg 3 times a day.
Comments: Reduce dose if diarrhea develops.

Vitamin E
Dosage: 400 IU twice a day.
Comments: Check with your doctor if taking anticoagulant drugs.

Flaxseed Oil
Dosage: 1 tbsp. (14 grams) a day.
Comments: Can be mixed with food; take in the morning.

Evening Primrose Oil
Dosage: 1,000 mg 3 times a day.
Comments: Can substitute 1,000 mg borage oil once a day.

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Disclaimer: This information is not meant to be a substitute for professional medical advise or help. It is always best to consult with a Physician about serious health concerns. This information is in no way intended to diagnose or prescribe remedies.

Source:Your Guide to Vitamins, Minerals, and Herbs(Reader’s Digest)

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Healthy Tips

How The Bacteria In Your Gut Can Make You Fat

..Two new studies show that obese people have different intestinal bacteria than slim people. What’s more, the microbes in an overweight body are much more efficient at extracting calories from food………click & see

One study looked at mice, the other looked at humans. In both, a family of bacteria known as firmicutes were more plentiful in the obese (20 percent more). Bacteria called bacteroidetes were also much more abundant in those of normal weight (the obese had almost 90 percent fewer bacteroidetes).

Most likely because of the firmicutes, the obese mice were more efficient at taking calories out of complex sugars and depositing those calories in fat. When these microbes were transplanted into the normal-weight mice, those mice started to gain twice as much fat.

As obese people lost weight, their bacteroidetes increased, while the numbers of firmicutes decreased.
Dr. Mercola‘s Comment:

Having the right bacteria in your gut has an enormous influence on your health. In fact it is likely that one of the main benefits of eating healthy is that it will nurture the right types of bacteria growing in your colon.

There is a wealth of evidence demonstrating that the nutritional cause of many diseases is related to an imbalance of bacteria in your gut, a problem easily rectified by eating a diet that has minimal processed high quality, preferably organic foods.

This is one of the reasons why taking antibiotics can be so dangerous as they kill beneficial bacteria in your gut and can lead to overgrowth of yeast that the late Dr. William Crook helped to bring to consciousness.

This new report gives more credence to infectobesity, the study of microbes and viruses in your gut that may be responsible for some cases of obesity.

Influencing the bacteria growing in your body for the positive is easy by making better food choices, starting with reducing, with the plan of eliminating, sugars and most grains from your daily diet. Ideally, your gut should contain a ratio of 85 percent “good” bacteria to 15 percent non-beneficial bacteria, but the high-sugar Western diet has caused this ratio to actually reverse in many people.

You can also use a high quality probiotic as an “insurance policy” to make sure you colon is balanced with good strains. Many of you may know that I recommend supplements very sparingly but for the patients that are seen in my Chicago area clinic nearly everyone is given an omega-3 supplement and a high quality probiotic.

On Vital Votes, Dr. Jason Lauer from Waukehsa, Wisconsin, says:

“Much can be said about lifestyle and the biochemical environment our choices create inside the body. Recall the work of Bruce Lipton, PhD (in the archives on this site) showing how the environment we create through lifestyle influences genetic expression.

“Along with proper lifestyle, supplementing with a probiotic and a pure and potent source of omega 3 fat are a scientific no brainer.”

Source:www.mercola.com

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