1. US food prices see historic jump and are likely to stay high
2. U.S. Debt Crisis Comes into View as Fed’s Balance Sheet Explodes Past $7 Trillion
3. Mnuchin and DeVos Sued for Unlawful Seizure of Student Loan Borrowers’ Tax Refunds During Pandemic
4. Corporate Lawsuits Could Devastate Poor Countries Grappling with COVID-19
5. At Least 9 Million US Households With Children Are ‘Not At All Confident’ They’ll Be Able to Afford Food Next Month, Census Survey Finds
6. Can Planting a Trillion Trees Stop Climate Change? Scientists Say it’s a Lot More Complicated
7. COVID-19 is Laying Bare How Big Ag is Taking America’s Small Farmers to Slaughter
8. Experts urge caution in interpreting COVID-19 antibody tests
9. US south-west in grip of historic ‘megadrought’, research finds
10. Could nearly half of those with Covid-19 have no idea they are infected?
11. Antarctic Ocean Reveals New Signs of Rapid Melt of Ancient Ice, Clues About Future Sea Level Rise
12. Study shows erosion of ozone layer responsible for mass extinction event
13. Specific immune suppression leads to severe COVID-19 disease
14. Cops and PTSD
15. The Case Is Building That COVID-19 Had a Lab Origin
16. Sixth mass extinction of wildlife accelerating, scientists warn
17. Where did policing go wrong?
18. Coronavirus, Rioting, and the Privatization of Morality
19. Atmospheric scientists identify cleanest air on Earth in first-of-its-kind study
20. Coronavirus Propaganda Mimics War Propaganda
21. Studies of brain activity aren’t as useful as scientists thought
22. Dire warning of a pandemic 100 times worse than COVID-19
23. COVID-19 could be a seasonal illness
24. ‘Extinction Is a Political Choice,’ Scientist Says After Study Warns of Threat to Civilization From Humans Destroying Wildlife
25. Amid Covid-19 and Nationwide Protests, America’s Billionaires Got $79 Billion Richer Over the Last Week
26. The Covid-19 generation divide between millennials and boomers ignores the real problem
27. The Battle Over Free Speech Online Is a Volcano That’s Ready to Blow
28. How Germany Saved Its Workforce From Unemployment While Spending Less Per Person Than the U.S.
29. How endless war contributes to police brutality
30. Covid-19 Recessions: This Time It’s Really Different

Extract from roots of Morus alba (white mulberry) can treat metabolic syndrome

Researchers find some hair greying is due to stress and thus can be reversed

Omega 3 fatty acid found to be decreased in Alzheimer disease and mild cognitive impairment

University of New South Wales (Australia), May 30, 2020

According to news reporting from Sydney, Australia, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “Plasma fatty acids have been reported to be dysregulated in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), though outcomes are not always consistent, and subject numbers often small. Our aim was to use a meta-analysis and systematic review approach to identify if plasma fatty acid dysregulation would be observed in case control studies of AD and MCI.”

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from the University of New South Wales, “Six databases were searched for studies reporting quantified levels of fatty acids in MCI and/or AD individuals, relative to cognitively normal controls. Docosahexaenoic (DHA) and vaccenic acids were significantly lower and higher respectively in MCI relative to controls. Total fatty acids were 27.2% lower in AD relative to controls, and this was reflected almost uniformly in all specific fatty acids in AD. Changes to plasma/serum fatty acids were identified in both MCI and AD relative to age and gender matched controls. Differences were greatest in AD, in both total number of fatty acids significantly altered, and the degree of change.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “Docosahexaenoic acid was lower in both MCI and AD, suggesting that it may be a driver of pathology.”

Study details molecular effects of exercise

Stanford University Medical Center, June 1, 2020

A simple blood test may be able to determine how physically fit you are, according to a new study conducted by scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

The test could complement treadmill tests, a more traditional clinical evaluation of fitness, and provide individuals with far more nuanced information about their body’s molecular response to exercise.

The blood test is an offshoot of a complex study conducted by a team of researchers that took hundreds of thousands of molecular measurements from a group of individuals before and after exercising.

“Everybody knows exercise is good for you, but we really don’t know what drives that at a molecular level,” said Michael Snyder, Ph.D., professor and chair of genetics. “Our goal at the outset was to conduct a highly comprehensive analysis of what’s happening in the body just after exercising.”

The team tracked molecular markers of a wide array of biological processes, such as metabolism, immunity, oxidative stress and cardiovascular function. Hundreds of thousands of measurements from 36 study participants provided a window into the sea of chemical fluctuations the body experiences during intense exercise. To the scientists’ knowledge, such comprehensive measurements of post-exercise molecular fluctuations have never been performed. What’s more, the team saw that the participants who were most physically fit shared similar molecular signatures in their resting blood samples captured before exercise.

“It gave us the idea that we could develop a test to predict someone’s level of fitness,” said Kévin Contrepois, Ph.D., director of metabolomics and lipidomics in the Department of Genetics. “Aerobic fitness is one of the best measures of longevity, so a simple blood test that can provide that information would be valuable to personal health monitoring.”

With the preliminary data, the team has created a proof-of-principle test, for which they’ve filed a patent application. The test is not currently available to the public.

A paper describing the study will be published May 28 in Cell. Snyder, who holds the Stanford W. Ascherman, MD, FACS, Professorship in Genetics, and Francois Haddad, MD, clinical professor of medicine, are co-senior authors of the study. Contrepois shares lead authorship with postdoctoral scholars Si Wu, Ph.D., and Daniel Hornburg, Ph.D., and with clinical assistant professor Kegan Moneghetti, MD, Ph.D.

Snyder’s team set out to better understand the molecular shifts that underlie changes in physical fitness. The gold standard of medical fitness assessments is a peak VO2 test, which measures a person’s peak oxygen consumption during intense exercise and uses the score as a proxy for aerobic fitness. But Snyder and his team wanted more detail—specifically, about the ways in which exercise initiates change at the molecular level.

They performed VO2 testing for 36 individuals, including Snyder, on a treadmill. Participants, both male and female, had an average body mass index of 29 kilograms/meter squared, and their age range was from 40 to 75 years old. Before the treadmill test, the researchers drew a baseline blood sample. Participants then donned an oxygen-measuring mask and ran at a slight incline until they reached peak oxygen consumption, at which point they stopped and got off the treadmill. The researchers took blood samples from participants 2 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes and 60 minutes after they had reached their peaks.

“All of these measurements allow us to describe a choreography of molecular events that occur after physical exercise,” Snyder said. “We know that exercise causes an array of physiological responses, such as inflammation, metabolism and hormone fluctuation, but these measurements allowed us to characterize those changes in unprecedented detail.”

It turns out that in the first two minutes post-exercise, the body experiences an intense flurry of molecular activity. In most participants, molecular markers of inflammation, tissue healing and oxidative stress, a natural byproduct of metabolism, spiked sharply shortly after hopping off the treadmill, as their bodies began to recover. Molecular markers of metabolism varied, Snyder said. At 2 minutes, blood samples revealed evidence that the body was metabolizing certain amino acids for energy, but it switched to metabolizing glucose, a type of sugar, around 15 minutes. “The body breaks down glycogen as part of its exercise recovery response, so that’s why we see that spike a little later,” Snyder said. Glycogen is a form of stored glucose.

As part of the study, Snyder also compared the molecular response in individuals who were insulin resistant, meaning they’re unable to process glucose properly, with the response in individuals who could process glucose normally. “The main difference we see is that insulin resistant individuals have a dampened immune response post-exercise,” he said.

Blood test for fitness

Although it wasn’t the team’s original intent, they noticed some consistencies in the baseline measurements of the participants who performed better on the peak VO2 test. In these individuals, the researchers saw a strong correlation between a set of molecules and an individual’s level of aerobic fitness. They discovered a collection of thousands of molecules—including markers of immunity, metabolism and muscle activity—that correlate with a person’s aerobic fitness. “At this point, we don’t fully understand the connection between some of these markers and how they are related to better fitness,” Snyder said. The researchers hope to unravel those connections in a future investigation.

Snyder said that because the molecular profiling done in the study was so thorough, it wouldn’t be practical for doctors to use in their clinics; it would be expensive and provide more information than necessary. But his team is working on whittling down the biomarkers to those that are most representative of a person’s fitness level in an effort to make the test practical for broader use. Already, the team is developing an algorithm to select a subset of these molecules that are highly correlative to peak VO2 results, Contrepois said. As the researchers continue to optimize the fitness test, they hope it can one day be a faster, cheaper and more convenient way for people to objectively measure aerobic fitness.

Dietary and physical activity intervention reduces LDL cholesterol level in children

University of Eastern Finland, June 1, 2020

An individualised and family-based physical activity and dietary intervention reduced the plasma LDL cholesterol concentration of primary school children, a new study from the University of Eastern Finland shows. The findings of the Physical Activity and Nutrition in Children (PANIC) Study ongoing at the University of Eastern Finland were published in the European Journal of Nutrition.

The two-year follow-up study explored the effects of an individualised and family-based physical activity and dietary intervention on the plasma lipids of more than 500 Finnish children aged between 6 and 8 years at baseline. The researchers were also interested in which components of the lifestyle intervention had the greatest impact of plasma lipids.

“The LDL cholesterol concentration of children from families who participated in the lifestyle intervention was slightly reduced during the two-year follow-up, whereas no similar change was observed in children in the control group. The lifestyle intervention did not have an impact on other plasma lipids,” Adjunct Professor Aino-Maija Eloranta from the University of Eastern Finland says.

The study showed that increasing the consumption of high-fat vegetable oil-based spreads and decreasing the consumption of butter-based spreads played the most important role in decreasing the LDL cholesterol concentration. Replacing high-fat milk with low-fat milk, and doing more physical activity, also explained some of the decrease in the LDL cholesterol concentration.

Having an elevated LDL cholesterol concentration in childhood is may predict artery wall thickening in adulthood. The results of this newly published study thus suggest that a family-based dietary and physical activity intervention may prevent the development of atherosclerosis in adulthood.

“Individualised and family-based dietary and physical activity counselling could be integrated into the services provided by maternity clinics and school health care. This would prevent the development lifestyle diseases in the long run and, consequently, mitigate health care costs,” Professor Timo Lakka from the University of Eastern Finland, the Principal Investigator of the study, says.

During the two-year follow-up, families participated in six individualised dietary and physical activity counselling sessions. The sessions were individually tailored to each family and they focused on improving the quality of the family’s diet, increasing physical activity and reducing screen time. In addition, children were encouraged to participate in weekly after-school exercise clubs. Children’s plasma lipids were analysed at the beginning and at the end of the study.

Extra choline may help pregnant women decrease negative effects of COVID-19 on their newborns

Study recommends pregnant women should take choline during this coronavirus pandemic

University of Colorado, June 2, 2020

Pregnant women who take extra choline supplements may mitigate the negative impact that viral respiratory infections, including COVID-19, can have on their babies, according to a new study from researchers in the Departments of Psychiatry and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Choline is a vitamin B nutrient found in various foods and dietary supplements, and is critical to fetal brain development.

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicts that COVID-19 will impact fetal brain development like other common corona respiratory viruses,” said Robert Freedman, MD, professor of psychiatry at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus and lead researcher.

The new study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, specifically looked at whether higher prenatal choline levels can help protect the fetus’s developing brain even if the mother contracts a viral respiratory infection in early pregnancy. The results reveal higher prenatal choline levels mitigate the fetal impact of virus infection.

“It’s important for the healthcare community, and soon to be mothers, to be aware that a natural nutrient can be taken during pregnancy, just like folic acid and other prenatal vitamins, to protect fetuses and newborns from brain development issues. Later on in life, these development issues can lead to mental illness,” Freedman adds.

In the study, researchers analyzed the effects on infant behavior if the mother had contracted a respiratory virus by measuring the infant’s IBQ-R Regulation dimension – which looks at the development of infant attention and other self-regulatory behaviors. Lower IBQ-R Regulation at one year of age is associated with problems in attention and social behavior in later childhood, including decreased reading readiness at age four years and with problems in concentration, and conscientiousness in children through seven years of age.

The results from the study:

• Infants of mothers who had viral infections and higher choline levels had significantly increased 3-month IBQ-R scores on the Regulation dimension and specifically the Attention scale in the Regulation dimension, compared to infants of mothers who had viral infections and had lower choline levels.
• Choline levels sufficient to protect the fetus often require dietary supplements.
• The increased maternal anxiety and depression in the viral-infected mothers were not associated with their infants’ IBQ-R Regulation.

The study highlights that in conjunction with the CDC’s current advice on COVID-19’s effects in pregnancy, phosphatidylcholine or choline supplements along with other prenatal vitamins may help buffer the fetal brain from the possible detrimental impact of the current pandemic and decrease the risk of the children’s future mental illness.

“Previous pandemics have resulted in significantly increased levels of mental illnesses including schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit disorder in the offspring,” said Camille Hoffman, MD, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus. “However, since data from COVID-19 itself will not be available for years, we’re hoping our study findings will provide valuable information for soon to be mothers on the importance of taking choline supplements daily during pregnancy.”

Fatal Lyme carditis in a 37-year-old man shows need for awareness of unusual symptoms

University of Manitoba, May 31, 2020

Lyme disease can have unusual presentations. Physicians and the public should be aware of its different manifestations, as people spend more time outside in the warmer weather and as the areas in Canada where the black legged tick is found expand. Three articles in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal), whichdescribe a fatal case in a 37-year-old man, atypical skin lesions and heart abnormalities in a 56-year-old woman and severe neurological symptoms in a 4-year-old boy, illustrate the diversity in clinical presentations of Lyme disease.

Lyme disease can affect the heart (known as Lyme carditis), which can result in serious heart rhythm abnormalities in a small group of people. Clinicians should be aware of the possibility of Lyme carditis in people presenting with atrioventricular heart block, especially in areas where Lyme disease is endemic. Patients may have had a rash. Early treatment with antibiotics is recommended to avoid complications, even before a diagnosis is confirmed.

A fatal case of Lyme disease in a previously healthy 37-year-old man illustrates the challenges of diagnosing Lyme disease in the absence of classic symptoms. http://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.191194

The patient originally presented to his family doctor with flu-like symptoms, including fever, sore throat, nasal congestion and migratory joint pain. Several weeks earlier, he had been in contact with ticks but didn’t recall removing one. His physician suspected a viral infection, and the patient’s symptoms resolved.

Weeks later, he developed heart palpitations, shortness of breath and chest discomfort for which he was sent to the emergency department. Lyme disease was suspected as electrocardiography (ECG) showed complete heart block. He was admitted to hospital and started on treatment for Lyme carditis, but his condition worsened quickly. Clinicians were unable to reverse the course of illness and he died. Serology results confirmed Lyme disease, and an autopsy showed signs of Lyme carditis.

“The diagnosis of Lyme carditis is based on clinical suspicion and serology consistent with acute Lyme disease,” writes Dr. Milena Semproni, Infectious Diseases fellow at the University of Manitoba and Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, Winnipeg, Manitoba, with coauthors. “Unfortunately, diagnosis can be delayed while serology is being processed, and clinical suspicion should guide empiric treatment. Given that the early diagnosis is clinical, cases may be overlooked by clinicians, especially as Lyme disease moves into new geographic areas.”

In suspected cases of Lyme carditis, patients should have an urgent ECG performed and be started on antibiotics without waiting for serologic confirmation.

The authors note that serious heart rhythm abnormalities and sudden cardiac death can occur in a small group of patients, although it is uncommon. In the 10 other North American cases of sudden cardiac death attributed to Lyme carditis described in the literature, 8 patients were male, and the cases occurred between June and November, when ticks are active.

A reflection written by the man’s sister, with a video testimonial, https://youtu.be/lz7e29CewE8, describes the family’s initial concern that this was Lyme disease, the heartbreak caused by his death and their hope for increased awareness and understanding of the disease.

Read a related article about a patient with a large red rash (erythema migrans), aches and chills who, after a second visit for heart palpitations, was found to have Lyme carditis. The patient recovered with antibiotic treatment. http://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.191660

“Given that most conduction abnormalities caused by Lyme carditis resolve with appropriate antibiotic therapy, recognition of atypical dermatologic presentations in the context of Lyme carditis prevents unnecessary permanent pacemaker implantation in these young and otherwise healthy individuals,” writes Dr. Adrian Baranchuk, Department of Medicine, Queen’s University, Kingston, with coauthors.

While the bull’s eye rash is usually considered a feature of Lyme disease, in some cases, the rash doesn’t follow the usual pattern.

Reishi mushroom extract shows promise as treatment for obesity and its ills

Chang Gung University (Taiwan)  May 24, 2020

Maybe Alice in Wonderland was on to something, nibbling on a mushroom to make herself shrink. New research has shown that a liquid extract made from a mushroom used in traditional Asian medicine for more than 2,000 years protects against weight gain and reverses obesity-related inflammation and metabolic dysfunction in overfed mice.

The mushroom, Ganoderma lucidum (known in Japan as reishi or mannentake), appears to work by correcting an unhealthy mix of microorganisms that colonized the guts of mice made obese by a diet of high-fat chow.

Published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, the findings of researchers in Taiwan lend credence to the woody mushroom’s ancient reputation as a promoter of longevity and digestive health. But they also illuminate the powerful role that gut microbes appear to play in obesity and several of the ills associated with it.

Scientists remain uncertain as to which comes first – obesity or a community of gut microbes that is out of whack. But researchers are growing increasingly confident that prebiotics or probiotics – food or supplements that jump-start the growth of protective bacteria in the gut – may help protect against the health effects of overconsumption.

The latest research offers further confirmation of a relatively new theory among researchers: that the insulin resistance and high levels of systemic inflammation often seen in the obese stem in part from a decline in populations of gut bacteria that line the intestines.

Like an army guarding a permeable border, those good bacteria prevent the seepage of toxins produced by other gut bacteria through the gut wall. In mice fed a high-fat diet, those who also got a daily dose of Ganoderma lucidum extract for two months retained strong populations of border-guarding bacteria and showed low levels of inflammation in the bloodstream. The obese mice who didn’t get the mushroom elixir developed insulin resistance and high levels of inflammation.

Those were among many differences between mice fed a high-fat diet that got the mushroom extract and those that did not. After two months, mice who got only high-fat chow had become obese, with fatty livers and large accumulations of visceral and subcutaneous fat.

Despite consuming the same amount, the mice who got the highest dose of Ganoderma lucidum extract – an 8 percent solution made by a biotechnology lab in Taiwan – ended the two-month period of overfeeding at virtually the same weight as mice fed normal chow, with roughly the same levels of fat in their liver. Accumulations of visceral and subcutaneous fat in the mushroom-treated mice were elevated compared with that in mice fed regular chow, but much lower than that of their fellow mice on high-fat diets who got no mushroom extract.

The researchers also offered evidence that the protections provided by the mushroom extract were a function of their effect on the bacterial mix in the guts of mice: They conducted a census of gut bacteria that showed mice who got the mushroom elixir had richer populations of intestinal Bacteroidetes and less dense populations of Firmacutes (a mix that characterizes the guts of normal mice) than did obese mice.

And when they performed fecal transfers from mice who got the mushroom mixture to obese mice who had not, the microbiotic populations of obese mice changed.

Mushrooms in the Ganoderma lucidum family are large and dark, with a shiny surface. Once harvested largely in the wild, since the 1970s they have been mostly cultivated for a large medicinal market throughout Asia. Fermentation appears to boost the mushrooms’ production of polysaccharides, which the authors of the current study suggested was the active ingredient in the extract that prevented obesity and its ills in mice.

While promising, the new findings are far short of an endorsement for the lingzhi mushroom as a treatment for obesity. Animal experiments are a first step in showing an agent’s potential for treatment. But obesity in free-roaming humans is a far more complex disorder than that of lab mice who are overfed, and dosages at which the mushroom extract is both effective and safe for continual use are far from certain.

Remember that while mushrooms made Alice smaller, there were some downsides to her imaginary adventure.

New Study: Power Lines Linked to Brain Tumors

Environmental Research Institute, May 28, 2020

The journal Environmental Research has published a new study entitled “Residential proximity to power lines and risk of brain tumor in the general population” which found an increased risk of brain tumors was associated with living near power lines. Powerlines are a source of residential exposure to magnetic field electromagnetic radiation (EMF)  and repeated research studies for decades have associated magnetic field  power-line frequency ELF-EMF  from power lines to a type of childhood leukemia.

In 2001 the  International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded that exposure to power-line frequency ELF-EMF is a “possible” human carcinogen- a decision based largely evidence of an increased risk for childhood leukemias with residential exposure .

Kaiser Permanente researchers have published several studies linking pregnant women’s exposure to magnetic field electromagnetic fields to not only increased miscarriage and but also increased ADHD,  obesity and asthma  in the woman’s prenatally exposed children.

Two published studies by the Ramazzini Institute  “Carcinogenic Synergism of S-50 Hz MF Plus Formaldehyde in Rats” (2016) and “Life-span exposure to sinusoidal-50 Hz magnetic field and acute low-dose γ radiation induce carcinogenic effects in Sprague-Dawley rats” (2016) found that  ELF exposed rats had statistically significant increased incidence of several type of malignant tumors when combined with a known carcinogen.

Over a dozen countries already have some level of protective policy in place regarding this type of electromagnetic radiation. The countries of Croatia, Finland, France, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Belgium (Wallonia, Flanders) Denmark, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Lithuania, Poland have a magnetic field radiation limit for  “sensitive areas” far far lower than ICNIRP.  Sensitive areas are generally defined as areas where children live and play such as schools, kindergartens or recreation areas. Sometimes the definition includes hospitals and residential areas. These countries’ magnetic field EMF limits are 3 or 4 milligauss, the level of milligauss associated with childhood leukemia in repeated published studies. However ICNIRP recommends a residential magnetic field exposure limit of 2,000 milligauss (mG) and an occupational exposure limit of 10,000 mG.

The United States has no limit on legal levels of milligauss electromagnetic radiation. However the California Department of Education enacted a regulation to  require minimum distances between new schools and the edge of a transmission line “right-of-way.”

Environmental Health Trust has resources on how to reduce magnetic field EMFs HERE.

In this study, ELF-MF exposure was estimated from power line location and exposure to power lines was assessed by a lifetime geographical index.

Excerpts from the study;

• “Despite this study’s limitations, our results strongly suggest that the risk of brain tumor, and particularly gliomas could be associated with residential ELF-MF exposure estimated by proximity of power lines, as several previous studies have already pointed out.”
• “Our main results are consistent with previous studies on environmental exposure to ELF-MF and brain tumors (Marcilio et al., 2011; Baldi et al., 2011; Elliott et al., 2013) although the risk levels found in our study are higher.”
• “We observed significant association for the highest exposure to cumulative duration at less than 50 m to any line and high voltage lines but not for very high voltage lines…”
• “3.3.1. All brain tumors (Table 4) Concerning the cumulative duration at less than 50 m from any power line, a significant association was observed with brain tumors for people exposed for 15 years (OR 4.33, 95%CI 1.11–16.9), but not for people ever exposed or exposed for 5 and 10 years.”
• “We observed some significant positive associations between cumulative duration at less than 50 m to any line for exposure above 15 years and brain tumors (OR 4.33, 95%CI 1.11–16.9) and meningioma (OR 8.53, 95%CI 1.48–49.17). Gliomas were also significantly associated with cumulative duration at less than 50 m but only for ever/never exposure to any line (OR 3.23, 95%CI 1.33–7.82) and high voltage lines (OR 4.96, 95%CI 1.56–15.77). No association was found between brain tumors, gliomas or meningiomas and cumulative duration in exposure corridors.”

Impact of children’s loneliness today could manifest in depression for years to come

University of Bath (UK), June 1, 2020

Children and adolescents are likely to experience high rates of depression and anxiety long after current lockdown and social isolation ends and clinical services need to be prepared for a future spike in demand, according to the authors of a new rapid review into the long-term mental health effects of lockdown.

The research, which draws on over 60 pre-existing, peer-reviewed studies into topics spanning isolation, loneliness and mental health for young people aged 4 – 21, is published today (Monday 1 June 2020) in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

According to the review, young people who are lonely might be as much as three times more likely to develop depression in the future, and that the impact of loneliness on mental health could last for at least 9 years.

The studies highlight an association between loneliness and an increased risk of mental health problems for young people. There is also evidence that duration of loneliness may be more important than the intensity of loneliness in increasing the risk of future depression among young people.

This, say the authors, should act as a warning to policymakers of the expected rise in demand for mental health services from young people and young adults in the years to come – both here in the UK and around the world.

Dr Maria Loades, clinical psychologist from the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath who led the work, explained: “From our analysis, it is clear there are strong associations between loneliness and depression in young people, both in the immediate and the longer-term. We know this effect can sometimes be lagged, meaning it can take up to 10 years to really understand the scale of the mental health impact the covid-19 crisis has created.”

For teachers and policymakers currently preparing for a phased re-start of schools in the UK, scheduled from today, Monday 1 June, Dr Loades suggests the research could have important implications for how this process is managed too.

She adds: “There is evidence that it’s the duration of loneliness as opposed to the intensity which seems to have the biggest impact on depression rates in young people. This means that returning to some degree of normality as soon as possible is of course important. However, how this process is managed matters when it comes to shaping young people’s feelings and experiences about this period.

“For our youngest and their return to school from this week, we need to prioritise the importance of play in helping them to reconnect with friends and adjust following this intense period of isolation.”

Members of the review team were also involved in a recent open letter to UK Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson MP, focusing on support for children’s social and emotional wellbeing during and after lockdown. In their letter they suggested that:

– The easing of lockdown restrictions should be done in a way that provides all children with the time and opportunity to play with peers, in and outside of school, and even while social distancing measures remain in place;

– Schools should be appropriately resourced and given clear guidance on how to support children’s emotional wellbeing during the transition period as schools reopen and that play – rather than academic progress – should be the priority during this time;

– The social and emotional benefits of play and interaction with peers must be clearly communicated, alongside guidance on the objective risks to children.

Acknowledging the trade-offs that need to be struck in terms of restarting the economy and reducing educational disparities, their letter to the Education Secretary concludes: ‘Poor emotional health in children leads to long term mental health problems, poorer educational attainment and has a considerable economic burden.’

 

Not much exercise needed to lower heart disease risk for overweight people

Ohio State University, May 29, 2020

A new study suggests, for obese or overweight adults, that any amount of exercise might lower the risk of developing cardiovascular disease in the next 10 years.

The study, published earlier this month in the journal PLOS ONE, found that exercise of any volume might lower the risk by as much as half among obese or overweight adults. People whose weight fell into the “normal” range—having a body mass index of between 18.5 and 24.9—who completed at least 150 minutes of exercise a week had lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

“This shows that increasing physical activity even a small amount, as little as 10 minutes at a time, is associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease—for example, a 30-minute walk has the same benefits as completing three 10-minute walks,” said Xiaochen Zhang, lead author of the study and a doctoral student studying epidemiology at The Ohio State University. “And it shows that health care providers need to provide advice about these behaviors, especially for people who are overweight or obese.”

Similar studies have examined the benefit physical activity can have on cardiovascular health, but had not identified whether those benefits vary based on a person’s weight, Zhang said.

The study examined data from more than 22,000 people ages 30 to 64 collected over a 10-year period from 2007 to 2016. About a third of those people were classified as “overweight,” having a body mass index of 25 to 29.9. A little more than a third were classified as “obese,” with a BMI of more than 30. The final third fell into the “normal” range.

The dataset, from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, included self-reported physical activity levels, broken down into three categories: no exercise at all, exercising for one to 149 minutes per week, or exercising for more than 150 minutes per week.

That 150-minute mark is widely recommended: The American Heart Association, The American College of Sports Medicine, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services all advise adults get at least 150 minutes of exercise each week.

Zhang and her co-authors evaluated that data and found that an obese adult who completed 150 or more minutes of moderate or vigorous exercise each week had 50 percent lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease over 10 years. But by exercising for even a short period of time—10 minutes at a time, Zhang said—the risk dropped by 34 percent.

An overweight adult who exercised any amount at all had 47 percent lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease; if that same adult exercised more than 150 minutes a week, the risk dropped by 52 percent.

The analysis showed that overweight and obese adults were more likely to have a high 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease compared with adults whose BMIs were less than 25—something previous studies have documented.

Zhang said future research could examine more detailed metrics, including a person’s cardiorespiratory fitness or body composition, to have a better understanding of physiological responses of exercise, body weight, and risk for developing cardiovascular disease.

Chamomile tea tied to lower thyroid cancer risk

            






University of Athens (Greece), May 29, 2020

 

Consumption of chamomile tea was linked with a lower risk of thyroid cancer in a small Greek study.

 

Researchers interviewed some Athens residents about their lifestyle, eating and drinking habits and found that people who reported drinking more chamomile tea over longer periods of time were less likely to develop thyroid malignancies or benign growths than those who didn’t.

 

While the study doesn’t prove tea prevents cancer, it adds to a growing body of evidence pointing to the potential health benefits of a Mediterranean diet including lots of lean fish, fresh vegetables and healthy fats in addition to tea, study co-author Dr. Athena Linos, an environmental health researcher at Prolepsis in Greece, said by email.

 

“The finding was not surprising to me because many aspects of the Mediterranean diet have been shown to be protective towards cancer in general,” Linos said.

 

Many people in Greece follow a Mediterranean diet. Out of every 100,000 people there, about 1.6 are diagnosed with thyroid cancer every year, Linos said. That compares with average rates of 13.2 and 5.2 per 100,000 people in the U.S. and Europe, respectively, “suggesting that it may be something in the Greek diet – such as tea – which accounts for this difference.”

 

Linos and colleagues examined cancer rates and dietary habits in 113 patients admitted to two Athens area hospitals for thyroid cancers between 1990 and 1993. They compared those patients to 138 people without thyroid cancer who were either healthy or had other unrelated diseases, and also to another 286 people with benign thyroid disease.

 

Researchers interviewed participants about their medical history, diet and lifestyle habits, as well as consumption of alcohol, coffee and tea.

 

Then they estimated the odds of developing thyroid cancer or benign growths based on tea consumption, comparing the outcomes for daily versus weekly cups of tea and exploring whether the habit had a bigger impact over several years.

 

After accounting for age, gender, and body mass index, the researchers found that as consumption of chamomile tea increased, the odds of developing any type of thyroid malignancy significantly declined.

 

People who drank chamomile tea two to six times a week were about 70 percent less likely to develop thyroid abnormalities. Thirty years of regular consumption reduced the risk by about 80 percent.

 

The researchers also looked at the connection between thyroid cancer and consumption of two other types of herbal tea popular in Greece – sage tea and a blend known as mountain tea – and found that these also reduced the likelihood of malignancies, though the association wasn’t as strong as it was for chamomile tea.

 

Because this review is based on data from the 1990s, it’s possible that lifestyle habits have changed since then, making the results less applicable to the way people drink tea today, noted Samantha Heller, a nutritionist at New York University’s Center for Musculoskeletal Caner and Sports Performance Center, in an email.

 

Chamomile tea – which only comes from the Camellia sinensis plant – isn’t really tea, Heller pointed out. The teas in the study are really infusions of leaves, roots, bark, seeds or flowers of other plants.

 

“The link between herbal infusions and tea consumption and disease is compelling but not a slam dunk,” said Heller, who wasn’t involved in the study. “Chasing back a double bacon cheeseburger and large fries with a cup of herbal tea is unlikely to undo the deleterious effects of poor lifestyle choices.”

 

Herbal teas may help protect against cancer or other diseases because of components linked to antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties such as polyphenols and flavonoids, said Dr. Betul Hatipoglu, an endocrinologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

 

Still, “lifestyle as a whole matters,” Hatipoglu, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email. “It’s possible that individuals who were consuming these herbal teas in the study were also more active and ate healthier.”

 

 

Taking time to commune with nature increases feelings of connection to it, study shows

University of Notre Dame, May 29, 2020

In designing a recent study, Notre Dame Professor of Psychology Darcia Narvaez wanted to test the possibility of promoting the sense of ecological attachment that was inherently part of many pre-industrialized societies and is still practiced by First Nation peoples. An experiment that was part of the study, now published in Ecopsychology, showed that students reported increased mindfulness towards the environment after performing ecological attachment tasks like contemplating nature, or practicing environmental preservation tasks like recycling and limiting electricity usage. Only the tasks that had students communing with nature increased feelings of connection to it.

“Thomas Aquinas famously suggested two routes to faith and divine inspiration: the good book and the natural world. In a time when Mass attendance and parish events are curtailed by the pandemic, it may be a good time to restore the second route to God, the natural world,” said Narvaez. “Many non-civilized societies used this route, treating natural entities as fellow community members—First Nation peoples notably so.”

Narvaez, along with former graduate student Angela Kurth, now at the University of St. Thomas, and undergraduates Reilly Kohn and Andrea Bae, conducted a three-week experiment comparing two conditions: The first emphasized conservation behaviors such as turning off the lights when you leave a room; the second condition emphasized ecological attachment, which includes things like acknowledging trees and sitting in nature while deliberately listening to sounds.

The team randomly assigned undergraduate participants to one of the conditions. After taking a pretest survey in the laboratory, participants read motivating information about their condition including scientific facts, an essay and a poem. Next, participants were given a set of possible actions to take in the following three weeks. They selected 21 actions that they put into an envelope to choose from, a different one for each day. At the end of the three-week period, participants took a post-experiment survey.

The students in the conservation condition increased in what was called “green action,” or doing things to preserve the environment like recycling and reducing use of disposables. The ecological attachment group increased in ecological empathy, or concern for non-human entities. Both groups increased their ecological mindfulness, keeping in mind the well-being of the environment and all it contains when going about daily routines.

Students enrolled in Narvaez’s Morality, Parenting and Nature Connection course this past spring semester completed similar activities and reported positive results.

“Before this class, I think I tended to believe that humanity was somehow above other animals and separated from the natural world, but I have since been shown again and again just how mistaken I was,” said Claire Rudden, a 2020 graduate.

Isabel Botero, a 2020 graduate from Colombia, was unable to leave her home during quarantine lockdown in her city but made communing with nature a priority as part of course assignments. “It challenged me to adapt those outdoor activities to things that I could do while on lockdown in an apartment. I watched birds through live cams, and I grew a bean—something I had not done since kindergarten, but really enjoyed. It was a way for me to become a kid again and to distract myself from the situation my country and the world is currently living through.”

While ecological destruction runs apace in dominant countries and cultures of the world, an increasing number of Westerners, including scientists, are noting the sustainable lifestyles among indigenous communities who traditionally care for the well-being of their landscapes. The data show that land areas controlled by First Nation peoples around the world have more biodiversity. First Nation peoples control about 20 percent of the lands that hold about 80 percent of the biodiversity. Even the recent report by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services suggested that indigenous ways of living on the Earth should be integrated in actions moving forward. “Increasing ecological attachment may be necessary to shift individuals and societies away from ecologically destructive actions,” Narvaez said.

Narvaez and her team demonstrate that it is possible to develop the ecological attachment that sustainable native communities display. The daily actions used in the study can be adopted by most people—even at home—and are detailed in the paper.

Study finds that whole-body vibrations can reduce inflammation in patients with Type 2 diabetes

Augusta University and Ohio State University, May 31, 2020

In the face of diabetes type 2, researchers from Augusta University in Georgia and Ohio State University found that whole-body vibration has potential benefits on the bacterial communities in the gut, resulting in reduced inflammation. The vibrations also led to enhanced glucose metabolism.

Their findings, published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, suggest that whole-body vibration can be utilized as a safe therapeutic option for treating high blood sugar and diabetes-related inflammation.

What is whole-body vibration?

Whole-body vibration is a form of therapeutic exercise used to improve overall health in people of all ages. It is often done with the help of a machine designed to produce vibrations at programmed frequencies as the person sits or stands on it.

As the machine vibrates, it sends small waves of energy throughout the entire body. These small energy waves force the muscles to relax and contract a couple of times per second.

Proponents of whole-body vibration therapies claim that the vibrations produced help reduce back pain, protect against bone loss, and improve overall strength and balance in older adults who cannot sustain long periods of conventional exercise.

Whole-body vibration is commonly used as a preventive treatment and rehabilitation tool for people with sarcopenia, a slow and progressive form of muscle loss. Whole-body vibration has also been used to improve osteoporosis, chronic back pain, muscle strength and muscle soreness.

A recent review published in Frontiers in Neurology found that the long-term use of whole-body vibration therapies led to significant improvements in the balance and gait of older adults. Interventions involving the use of whole-body vibration also improved walking performance in stroke patients and in older adults with osteoarthritis.

The effects of whole-body vibration on inflammation

In the current study, the team used a mouse model to understand the mechanisms behind the reported effects of whole-body vibration. They found that the vibrations led to higher numbers of Alistipes, a gut bacterium responsible for glucose metabolism. High levels of Alistipes also decreased chronic inflammation in the gut.

Furthermore, the researchers discovered that the vibrations increased the number of M2 macrophages. These immune cells help regulate the body’s inflammatory response, which tends to be compromised in obese and diabetic individuals. Chronic, low-grade inflammation can also be observed in cancer and heart disease patients.

Based on their findings, the researchers thus concluded that whole-body vibration shows potential as a safe and effective therapeutic treatment of diabetes-related inflammation and glucose intolerance.

Genetic susceptibility may modify association between cell phone use and thyroid cancer

Environmental Health Trust, May 28, 2020

 

A new study funded by the American Cancer Society by Yale researchers published in Environmental Research found a statistically significant increase in thyroid cancer among people with specific genetic markers and with longer use of the cell phone.

“Our study provides evidence that genetic susceptibility influences the relationship between cell phone use and thyroid cancer,” said Yawei Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Yale School of Public Health. “More studies are needed to identify populations who are susceptible to radiofrequency radiation (RFR) and understand exposure to RFR by different using patterns of cell phones.”

The study, entitled “Genetic susceptibility may modify the association between cell phone use and thyroid cancer: A population-based case-control study in Connecticut”  found:

• When some genetic variants were present, cell phone use was significantly associated with thyroid cancer.
• The association increased when cell phone use duration and frequency increased.
• Genetic susceptibility may modify the association between cell phone use and thyroid cancer.

The study considered  823 SNPs in 176 genes and pinpointed that 10 variations increased the risk of thyroid cancer among mobile phone users. The risk of cancer was more than doubled among users with SNPs occurring in 4 of the genes examined.

Yale School of Medicine coverage Thyroid Cancer, Genetic Variations, and Cell Phones Linked in New Yale School of Public Health Study

The study is open access online

Jiajun Luo et al. Genetic susceptibility may modify the association between cell phone use and thyroid cancer: A population-based case-control study in Connecticut, Environmental Research (2019).

 Previous Research

A 2019 review found the reduction in diameter of thyroid follicles is potentially linked with cell phone radiation and exposure may negatively influence the iodine uptake in the thyroid gland.

A 2016 study by Hardell and Carlberg found the incidence of thyroid cancer is increasing in  Nordic countries, especially the papillary type that is the most radiosensitive type. “This study has shown an increasing incidence of thyroid cancer in Sweden and the Nordic countries. Better diagnostic imaging cannot solely account for the increase. Increased use of CT and PET-CT for medical examinations has elevated the population’s exposure to the ionizing radiation and should be considered as a risk factor.”

Hilly et al (2013) demonstrated abnormalities in thyrocytes with just 3 hours of exposure to cell phone radiation frequencies.   In addition, studies have shown an association of altered thyroid function with increased cell phone use (Asl 2019) and  (Baby 2017) and  (Sinha 2008).

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) estimates that 53,990 new cases of thyroid cancer will be diagnosed in 2018 making this the 12th most common cancer in the U.S.

The CDC issued a 2019 report finding thyroid cancer drastically increasing in youth under 20 in the USA.

A 2017 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found the overall incidence of thyroid cancer increasing by 3% annually, with increases in the incidence rate and thyroid cancer mortality rate for advanced-stage papillary thyroid cancer. The researchers conclude that these increases are consistent with a true increase in the occurrence of thyroid cancer in the United States.The American Thyroid Association in 2017 discussed the worldwide increase in thyroid cancer . They state, “The incidence of thyroid cancer has increased dramatically during the past three decades and it is now the fastest growing cancer in women. Almost all of this increase is in papillary thyroid cancer.

The CDC finds increasing rates of  thyroid cancer among individuals under 20 years old in the USA.

In 2019, the CDC presented new findings of increasing rates of brain cancer, renal cancer, hepatic (liver) cancer, and thyroid cancer among individuals under 20 years old in the USA after analyzing 2001–2014  US National Cancer statistics tumor data from 48 states (covering 98% of the US population).

These findings of increased nervous system cancer rates were presented at the 2018 American Society of Pediatric Hematology Oncology Conference in May, 2018 and also at the 67th Annual Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Conference April 16–19, 2018.

Cancer was increasing for lymphoma, thyroid, brain, kidney, and liver cancer US CDC 2018

A Possible Remedy for Pandemic Stress: Exercise

People who stayed physically active while sheltering were less depressed and more mentally resilient than those whose activity levels declined

Iowa State University & Trinity College Dublin, May 29, 2020

A new study of exercise and mental health during the early stages of the nationwide lockdown suggests that the answer is yes. It finds that people who managed to remain physically active during those early weeks of sheltering at home were less depressed and more mentally resilient than other people whose activity levels declined.

The study is preliminary and not yet peer-reviewed, but its results indicate that, during difficult, testing times, the benefits of exercise extend beyond the physical and perhaps bolster our psyches.

Few people living through this pandemic will be surprised to learn that quarantines and similar measures put in place to combat plagues are associated with poor mental health. A review study published in February found that past quarantines resulted in lingering stress, confusion and mounting anger.

Exercise, meanwhile, is known to improve moods, a phenomenon I have written about often. But stay-at-home orders tend to reduce physical activity, since people stay at home and, for the most part, exercise less there. Recent data from the makers of activity trackers show that most people’s daily step counts declined after the lockdowns began worldwide in March.

But whether being less active during the pandemic might also affect how well people deal psychologically with the situation has not been clear. So, for the new study, which was published this month at the pre-print site Cambridge Open Engage, which allows new research to be uploaded and disseminated before it is peer-reviewed and published in an established journal, researchers from Iowa State University, Trinity College Dublin and other institutions decided to ask people how they were feeling these days and whether they were exercising much.

To accomplish this, they sent emails in early April to people affiliated with Iowa State, as well as their far-flung friends, families and acquaintances. Eventually, about 3,000 healthy, nonsmoking men and women aged between 18 and their mid-80s agreed to answer probing questions about their current lives.

The volunteers wound up completing multiple questionnaires about how often they exercised during an average day before the pandemic began, as well as how many hours they spent sitting.

The researchers next asked for comparable estimates of how much — or little — exercise people managed now, during the early April shelter-in-place mandates, and how often they sat. They inquired, too, about the extent of each person’s pandemic isolation. Were they fully self-quarantining inside, or were they getting outside while social distancing?

Finally, they asked people to complete additional questionnaires focused on their current mental health, including any symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, loneliness or if they generally were happy

After collating people’s replies, the researchers divided everyone into groups based on whether they previously had or had not met the standard exercise guidelines of 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise and whether they continued to meet those guidelines now, during lockdown. Then they compared exercise routines and moods.

And they found a consistent pattern of more exercise correlating to better cheer and vice versa. In particular, people who once had been active but rarely exercised now were significantly more likely to feel depressed, anxious, lonely and otherwise worried and dour than people who had continued to work out for at least 150 minutes a week.

The effects were most striking among the people in full quarantine, few of whom had maintained their prior exercise routines and most of whom reported feeling sad, depressed and solitary now.

This study involved only 3,000 people, however, most of them white and well-educated, and relied on their memories of exercise habits, which can be unreliable. Also, because it covered separate, momentary snapshots of their lives before and during the pandemic, it cannot tell us whether being more or less active caused people’s feeling to change, only that their exercise and moods were linked.

But, however limited, the findings are provocative and hopeful. “These are particularly stressful times,” says Cillian McDowell, a postdoctoral researcher at Trinity College Dublin and one of the study’s lead authors. “This study suggests that maintaining and ideally increasing our current levels of activity” — while adhering to local public health restrictions, of course — “is an effective way to manage this stress.”

Or as Jacob Meyer, an assistant professor of kinesiology at Iowa State and the study’s other lead author points out, “In the same stressful situation, people who maintained their normal physical activity experienced less symptoms of depression and anxiety, across the board” than people whose levels of activity slipped.

Of course, “exercise is hardly going to fix everything” that is frightening and disorienting about the pandemic, Dr. Meyer adds. “But it can be one thing we have control over. We can get up and move.”

Do antidepressants really work? Danish study says otherwise  

Nordic Cochrane Center (Denmark), May 30, 2020

In a recent study, a team of researchers from the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark said that the research on the effectiveness of antidepressants as a treatment for depression lacks conclusive evidence.

According to Asger Sand Paludan-Muller, one of the study authors, data from previous investigations on antidepressants are often of poor quality. Therefore, it is difficult to draw conclusions about the efficacy or effectiveness of these medications.

The researchers also found that past studies failed to show how antidepressants are more effective than placebo or alternative treatments. They observed a systemic distortion of results in about 79 percent of the studies they analyzed. In these studies, the positive effects of antidepressants were emphasized but the reported side effects had glaring inconsistencies.

The team also discovered repeated failures in double-blind experiments where the participants were able to tell whether a placebo or antidepressant was administered due to the presence of side effects. The researchers argued that such a set-up defeated the purpose of a double-blind experiment.

Based on their findings, the researchers concluded that there is not enough evidence to prove that antidepressants are the best and most effective treatment for depression.

Greedy for glucose: Cancer cells rely on a primeval energy-producing pathway to proliferate and spread

Southampton University (UK), May 29, 2020

To fuel their rapid proliferation, tumor cells rely on glycolysis, a primordial metabolic pathway that is easily exploited by cancers to gain energy to grow—and spread.

Glycolysis is the oldest form of energy production in living cells. It has been around for billions of years, having emerged before oxygen accumulated on Earth, and was the type of energy production for the planet’s first primitive forms of life.

The process involves the breakdown of glucose to yield energy for cellular metabolic activities. Bacteria use glycolysis, as do more complex organisms such as plants and animals. The latter, however, have developed more sophisticated forms of energy production, despite still having glycolysis with its lower energy yield. For example, the electron transport chain produces substantially more ATP—energy molecules—than does glycolysis. Still, many types of tumor cells use glycolysis preferentially to provide sufficient energy for growth and proliferation.

High rates of glycolysis in cancer cells remain a well-established characteristic of many human tumors, report Drs. Jeremy Blaydes and Charles N. Birts of the Cancer Sciences Unit, Faculty of Medicine, at Southampton University in England. The energy-producing process provides cancer cells with metabolites that can be used as precursors for anabolic pathways.

Writing in the journal Science Signaling, Blaydes and Birts, along with a team of cancer researchers, found that in an in vitro breast cancer model, they were able to identify something startling new—they call it a glycolytic stress response, involving p53. The p53 gene carries the DNA blueprint for a protein called tumor protein p53. The protein plays a critical role policing cellular activities, such as cell division and cell death. Mutations in p53, studies have long shown, allow cancer cells to grow and spread.

“Constitutive aerobic glycolysis—the Warburg effect—is a hallmark of cancer cells that is commonly caused by mutations in oncogenes and tumor-suppressor genes,” Blaydes and Birst wrote in Science Signaling.

“It has multiple consequences for tumor cells, including the ability to generate adenosine 5′-triphosphate (ATP), which decreases reliance on oxygen for ATP generation, thus reducing the generation of potentially damaging reactive oxygen species (ROS) by the mitochondrial electron transport chain,” the cancer researchers concluded.

In the 1920s, Otto Warburg demonstrated that cultured cancer cells have high rates of glucose uptake and secretion of lactate, even without a need for oxygen. Those three properties—glucose uptake, lactate secretion and creating energy without oxygen, are hallmarks of the Warburg effect.

Warburg was a German scientist in the early 20th century who first studied sea urchin eggs, but turned his attention to rat tumors in 1923. That switch had a lasting impact on the discipline of cancer biology, particularly in the understanding of energy production and use in tumor cells. Warburg noticed that cancer cells fueled their own growth by sucking in huge amounts of glucose from the host’s blood. Today, positron emission scans can help identify cancers by pinpointing areas of the body where enormous amounts of glucose are being consumed by cells. Those cells are easily identified as cancerous because of their unmitigated greed for glucose.

Moreover, cancer cells invariably choose the ancient metabolic pathway—glycolysis—to produce energy. Cancer cells, Warburg realized, had figured out a way to ensure their survival by exploiting the oldest form of energy production on the planet. The Warburg effect is estimated to occur in 80 percent of cancers.

Now, the University of Southampton team is shedding new light on the energy production in cancer cells by zeroing in on p53. The protein, the researchers found, is regulated by “aerobic glycolysis” in cancer cells. This is further mediated by the CtBP family of NADH-dependent transcriptional regulators, something Warburg never would have expected. “Through the provision of glucose-6 phosphate for the oxidative pentose phosphate pathway, glycolysis also facilitates the generation of a reduced form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate, which provides reducing equivalents for reactive oxygen species-protective pathways,” the team wrote.

Researchers find CBD improves arthritis symptoms in dogs

Baylor College of Medicine, May 30, 2020

A team led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in collaboration with Medterra CBD conducted the first scientific studies to assess the potential therapeutic effects of cannabidiol (CBD) for arthritic pain in dogs, and the results could lead the way to studying its effect in humans. Researchers focused first on these animals because their condition closely mimics the characteristics of human arthritis, the leading cause of pain and disability in the U.S. for which there is no effective treatment.

Published in the journal PAIN, the study first showed both in laboratory tests and mouse models that CBD, a non-addictive product derived from hemp (cannabis), can significantly reduce the production of inflammatory molecules and immune cells associated with arthritis. Subsequently, the study showed that in dogs diagnosed with the condition, CBD treatment significantly improved quality of life as documented by both owner and veterinarian assessments. This work supports future scientific evaluation of CBD for human arthritis.

“CBD is rapidly increasing in popularity due to its anecdotal health benefits for a variety of conditions, from reducing anxiety to helping with movement disorders,” said corresponding author Dr. Matthew Halpert, research faculty in the Department of Pathology and Immunology at Baylor. “In 2019, Medterra CBD approached Baylor to conduct independent scientific studies to determine the biological capabilities of several of its products.”

In the current study, Halpert and his colleagues first measured the effect of CBD on immune responses associated with arthritis, both in human and murine cells grown in the lab and in mouse models. Using Medterra tinctures, they found that CBD treatment resulted in reduced production of both inflammatory molecules and immune cells linked to arthritis.

The researchers also determined that the effect was quicker and more effective when CBD was delivered encapsulated in liposomes than when it was administered ‘naked.’ Liposomes are artificially formed tiny spherical sacs that are used to deliver drugs and other substances into tissues at higher rates of absorption.

Halpert and colleagues next assessed the effect of naked and liposome-encapsulated CBD on the quality of life of dogs diagnosed with arthritis.

“We studied dogs because experimental evidence shows that spontaneous models of arthritis, particularly in domesticated canine models, are more appropriate for assessing human arthritis pain treatments than other animal models. The biological characteristics of arthritis in dogs closely resemble those of the human condition,” Halpert said.

Arthritis is a common condition in dogs. According to the American Kennel Club, it affects one out of five dogs in the United States.

The 20 client-owned dogs enrolled in the study were seen at Sunset Animal Hospital in Houston. The dog owners were randomly provided with identical unidentified medication bottles that contained CBD, liposomal CBD, or a placebo. Neither the owners nor the veterinarian knew which treatment each dog received.

After four weeks of daily treatment, owners and veterinarians reported on the condition of the dogs, whether they observed changes in the animals’ level of pain, such as changes related to running or gait. The dogs’ cell blood count and blood indicators of liver and kidney function also were evaluated before and after the four weeks of treatment.

“We found encouraging results,” Halpert said. “Nine of the 10 dogs on CBD showed benefits, which remained for two weeks after the treatment stopped. We did not detect alterations in the blood markers we measured, suggesting that, under the conditions of our study, the treatment seems to be safe.”

A few months of vaping puts healthy people on the brink of oral disease

Ohio State University, May 26, 2020

Scientists who’ve taken the first look at bacteria in young and healthy vapers’ mouths say that the potential for future disease lies just below the surface.

The collection of oral bacteria in daily e-cigarette users’ mouths is teeming with potent infection-causing organisms that put vapers at substantial risk for ailments ranging from gum disease to cancer, researchers found.

Though they didn’t have active disease, participants’ oral bacteria composition resembled that of people with periodontitis, a gum infection that can lead to tooth loss and, left untreated, is a risk factor for heart and lung disease.

The damaging effects were seen with or without nicotine, leading the scientists to believe that the heated and pressurized liquids in e-cigarette cartridges are likely the key culprit in transforming vapers’ mouths into a welcoming home for a dangerous combination of microbes.

“Vaping is such a big assault on the oral environment, and the change happens dramatically and over a short period of time,” said Purnima Kumar, professor of periodontology at The Ohio State University and senior author of the study.

Even longtime current and former cigarette smokers in the study, whose tobacco habit would have given disease-causing microbes easier access to the mouth, had the more damaging oral profiles linked to vaping after only three to 12 months of e-cigarette use. Kumar said this finding calls into question claims that vaping reduces the harm caused by smoking.

“If you stop smoking and start vaping instead, you don’t move back toward a healthy bacterial profile but shift up to the vaping profile,” she said. “Knowing the vaping profile is pathogen-rich, you’re not doing yourself any favors by using vaping to quit smoking.”

The research is published today in the journal Science Advances.

The researchers collected plaque samples from under the gums of 123 people who showed no current signs of oral disease: 25 smokers, 25 nonsmokers, 20 e-cigarette users, 25 former smokers using e-cigarettes and 28 people maintaining both cigarette smoking and vaping habits at the same time.

The bacteria below the gums are the last line of defense against disease because they are the least likely to be disrupted by environmental changes in the mouth, such as food, toothpaste and tobacco.

Kumar and colleagues conducted DNA deep sequencing of the bacteria genomes to identify not just the types of microbes living in those mouths, but also what their functions were.

The profile of the oral microbiome in the vapers who had never smoked, who were young (age 21-35) and healthy and had used e-cigarettes for four to 12 months, was startling to the researchers.

The most concerning characteristics were the levels of stress in the microbial community, which were detected by the activation of genes that contribute to the creation of a mucus-like slime layer surrounding bacterial communities. The immune system is used to seeing assembled bacteria look like clearly defined communities, but Kumar said that in e-cigarette users, these communities cloaked in slime look like foreign invaders and trigger a destructive inflammatory response.

She said this change in the microbial landscape—accompanied by higher levels of proteins in vapers’ mouths that signaled the immune system was on standby to activate and produce inflammation—exponentially increases the likelihood for disease.

“The reason we’re all healthy is because our immune system has recognized these bacteria and their functions since birth and has established a sense of harmony,” Kumar said. “The problem is when you throw a curve ball with an environmental shift like this, your immune system doesn’t recognize the bacteria as friends anymore. You have to call the police on them, and that causes a huge inflammatory response.”

After that finding, Kumar and colleagues hoped to find that people who had replaced or supplemented cigarette smoking with vaping might be better off using e-cigarettes. Instead, they found that people who had traded cigarettes for a vape pen had a more vape-driven microbial profile.

“And if you smoked and vaped at the same time, which of these two effects overwhelms your system? It was vape,” Kumar said.

A longer duration of the vapers’ habit, with or without the use of nicotine or flavoring agents, made the oral conditions more severe.

Knowing the bacteria samples represented a snapshot of a person’s oral environment, the scientists used a “fake mouth” to validate what they had found in the human participants. They created conditions simulating normal oral bacteria in artificial saliva and introduced a vape cloud or clean air to the fake mouth.

The presence of e-cigarette aerosol set in motion development of the more harmful bacterial profile seen in human vapers’ mouths. And the nicotine-free aerosol consisting of glycerol and glycol, viscous sugar alcohol fluids that generate the cloud when vapers exhale, functioned as a nutrition source to fuel the altered oral environment.

“To mimic a smoking effect, the glycerol-glycol combination holds the nicotine to your throat to give you that sensation of a nicotine hit, and it produces a giant vapor cloud. It’s a very essential component of vaping,” Kumar said. “I’m not saying nicotine is good for you. But even without the nicotine, vaping has a pretty large impact on the bacterial communities our bodies have regarded as friends.”