StemCell Therapy

MINNEAPOLIS (KMSP) - Millions of Americans suffer from excruciating pain that makes it hard for them to stay active, but a first-of-its-kind implant could bring new hope for people with arthritis.

Some two million Americans suffer from big toe arthritis, which makes it hard for them to do simple things like exercise or for women, wear high heels.

The FDA, however, approved a new implant last year that could help people with the condition get back on their feet.

"Stiffness is the most troublesome symptom. People can't bend over their big toe," Edina orthopedic surgeon Dr Lance Silverman said. "They can't squat down. They can't get into shoes."

Dr Silverman says big toe arthritis is caused when the cartilage in the joint wears out, making the bones rub against one another, limiting the toe's movement and causing excruciating pain.

He's the first orthopedic surgeon in Minneapolis to perform a procedure that takes an implant called Cartiva, which is the size of a gum drop and made out of the same material as contact lenses, and inserts it between the bones to act as a shock absorber.

"It's so exciting because it's simple," Dr. Silverman said. "It's an elegant solution. It reproduces Mother Nature as closely as humans have been able to in this particular area and does so with an excellent track record."

Dr. Silverman says the usual treatment for big toe arthritis is to fuse the bones together, but that means the patient can't bend their toe anymore.

But with the Cartiva implant, the toe retains its full range of motion and patients are back in regular shoes within a couple of weeks, rather than a couple of months with a bone fusion.

"It allows you to do the running, the jogging you want to," Dr. Silverman said. "It allows people to get back to yoga exercises where they can bend their toe joint and don't have to roll out out as much. So there is some success that fusion just can't provide."

The Cartiva synthetic cartilage implant has been available in Europe and Canada for a decade, where doctors have used it to treat arthritic knees and even thumbs.

Read more here:
New implant offers long-term treatment for arthritis - KMSP-TV

By Andrea Avery By Andrea Avery June 20 at 6:00 AM Andrea Avery is the author of "Sonata: A Memoir of Pain and the Piano." She was the winner of the Real Simple "Life Lessons" essay contest, has a PhD from Arizona State University and is an English teacher in Phoenix.

Excerpted from Sonata: A Memoir of Pain and the Piano, and republished with permission from Pegasus Books

There was a painfully short before, and then the rest came after. The first 12 years of my life, I lived in another body.

Those 12 years before 1989 get smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror: They were once all Id known, then the better half, now just a blip. Like matter itself, they will never entirely disappear.

In this before, I was going to be a pianist. I was not crazy to think so. By some magic of genetics and environment, the keys rose to meet my fingers and music came. And then, too soon, by some inverted miracle of genetics and environment, rheumatoid arthritis appeared. The keys still rose to meet my fingers, but my curling fingers recoiled. For too long, I tried to be arthritic and a pianist.

For too long, I refused to believe that I could not be both. For decades, with swelling and crumbling hands, I groped at the piano, kneading, fearing that if I lost it, I would lose the only thing I liked about myself. Well into foolish adulthood, music swelled up inside me, infectious, a boil in need of lancing, and I kept one bruised and brutalized hand on the keyboard. With the other hand, I tried to fend off the disease as precocious as my musical talent itself that threatened to become the most notable thing about me.

***

Its a swampy Maryland summer, 1985. Its hot in my room. I cant sleep. I have the window open. I turn my pillow over. I kick the flimsy plaid bedspread to the floor. I flail and flop, and the tips of my hair get stuck in the sweaty creases of my armpits. When you have a house of your own, my dad likes to say, you can run the air-conditioning as much as you damn well please. I am 8. A house of my own is a long way off. Im going to be fever-hot forever. I extend my long, suntanned legs. Reflexively, I deploy the muscles I dont yet know are called quads so that my knees effortlessly hyperextend, so the slick crease behind them presses into my bedsheet. Many years later, in a future I cant imagine on this hot night, I will laboriously perform this same stretch 20 times in a row on the orders of a physical therapist. But tonight, I stretch my legs gloriously straight just once, a flash, and then I curl my feet up to my bottom like a potato bug.

My dad is snoring a low rumble. My mom is snoring in alto counterpoint on her side of the bed.

I get out of bed and walk sideways down the carpeted stairs, stepping as close to the wall as possible to avoid creaking. My brother taught me that. I support myself with one arm against the grass wallpaper. Not very much later, I will find I have to walk up and down all stairways sideways to minimize pain in the balls of my feet and because my knees will freeze, incapable of the fluid perpetual motion of leaving one step as I reach for the next. But tonight, my body is not yet calling the shots. Tonight, my body is incidental.

I turn left and go into the living room. I sit on the piano bench. I put my feet over the brass pedals of the Wurlitzer upright. The pedals are cold, and they fit into the space between my foot and my toe. I open the fallboard. My piano books are stacked on top of the piano. I open a book to find the solo I played at my first competition, at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, in the spring: Flamenco. I won a first-place ribbon.

I put my fingers on the plastic keys. They are not cold. They are the same temperature as my body. I depress a key slowly so it will not make a sound. I will get in trouble if I wake anyone up. But now that I am here, I must play. I cannot stand it.

I push a key again, this time a little harder. I keep my left foot on the una corda, or soft pedal. This is my bargain: I will go back to sleep in my own hot room if I can play for a few minutes. I cannot go back to sleep if I do not hear the piano first.

I make a sound, and then I must hear another. I keep one foot on the soft pedal and another on the damper pedal, because I love the way it sounds when the notes are all mushed together like coins in a piggy bank.

Sotto voce, pianissimo, I promise. I reach up and turn on the piano light, which instantly makes me hotter and stickier.

But the heat makes the muscles in my fingers limber, and the sweat on the pads of my fingers makes them fleet. They move quickly over the tops of the keys, nearly slipping off. I try to stay quiet, but I am playing.

This is home. This is the tonic. Tonic: taken in doses, it restores you to health.

***

I am 14; it has been two years since my diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, four years from that hot night at the piano.

Im home sick, again, from school, but I will not spend the day at the Wurlitzer. I know I am truly, differently sick, because even though I am older, I am not home alone. My dad is downstairs, and Im in the upstairs bathroom, trying to get into my bathing suit. I cant do it. My hands are too weak to hold on and pull.

I want to get into my bathing suit so I can go soak in the hot tub. I want to soak in the hot tub because I want to be surrounded by something hotter than my own skin, because I want to boil off the stiffness and pain that greeted me when I awoke this morning. Water is the kindest atmosphere; in water, less is asked of me. Water buoys my joints. In water, I can almost forget the horrible, heavy fact of lugging a body around. I get the bathing suit up to my belly button. My arms are through the armholes, but the armholes are down by my waist, so my arms are strapped to my side and Im in a straitjacket. Im stuck. I cant get the bathing suit up or down. I will be like this forever.

The girl in the mirror has ragamuffin hair stuck to her face because her face is wet with tears and sweat and fever, and I see her bare shoulders and brand-new, inadequate breasts and her hunched form, and I am disgusted. I think, No one will ever want you.

I dont remember how I got out of the bathing suit, whether it went up or down, or if I ever got into the hot tub that day. In the more than 25 years since I received a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis at 12, this point in my diseases infancy is among my lowest. I am ashamed of it. Not because of my helplessness after all, a kid can get stuck in a bathing suit and it can be a funny story or because of what it reveals about my body or how sick I really was. I am ashamed of what I thought. What I said, even silently, to a helpless, hurting kid, even if that kid was me.

I am ashamed that this moment, this raw note, is not truly discordant, that it suggests a key to which I could easily modulate, a key I was, and am always, in danger of living in.

Read this article:
I was going to be a concert pianist. And then rheumatoid arthritis appeared. - Washington Post

June 20, 2017

Results were analyzed for early intervention in 1156 patients with pre-RA, at 52 weeks

Early treatment intervention in patients with "pre-rheumatoid arthritis" (pre-RA) significantly lowered the risk of RA occurrence in patients at 52 weeks and beyond. The full findings of the meta-analysis were presented at the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology (EULAR) 2017 in Madrid, Spain.

Pre-RA is defined as undifferentiated arthritisor very early RA, a point where early intervention could be more effective. Study authors searched PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane databases as well as the EULAR and ACR congress abstracts. They identified two congress abstracts and nine randomized controlled trials: eight of which were related to undifferentiated arthritis, and one which was related to very early RA.

Of the total patient sample (n=1,156), the majority were female and the mean symptom duration was 16.2 weeks. Early intervention in these pre-RA patients included methylprednisolone, methotrexate, TNF-blockers, abatacept or rituximab. Findings from the review showed a significant reduction in the risk of RA occurrence at 52 weeks or more "although there was no statistically significant difference in the absence of disease progression as seen on X-ray between those taking active treatments or placebo due to the disease being at such early stage," noted lead author Dr. Stephane Hilliquin, from the Piti Salptrire University Hospital, Paris, France.

The authors concluded that the literature review of the available data supports the rationale for early intervention in these patients. The benefit to risk profile and the feasibility of early treatment of pre-RA in clinical settings still warrant further research.

For more information visit eular.org.

Excerpt from:
Early Treatment of 'Pre-RA' Patients May Reduce Risk of Rheumatoid Arthritis - Monthly Prescribing Reference (registration)

Some people don't like to eat their vegetables , but for obese people with type 2 diabetes , broccoli could hold the key to slowing, and potentially reversing, the disease, according to a new study.

Scientists used both computational and experimental research to zero in on a network of 50 genes that cause symptoms associated with type 2 diabetes. They also located a compound called sulforaphane which is found naturally in cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli , Brussels sprouts and cabbages that could turn down the expression of those genes, according to the findings, published today (June 14) in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

In the study, the scientists gave sulforaphane to obese patients , in the form of a concentrated broccoli sprout extract. They found that it improved the patients' systems' ability to control their glucose levels and reduced their glucose production two symptoms of diabetes that can lead to other health problems, including coronary artery disease , nerve damage and blindness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .

"It's very exciting and opens up new possibilities for the treatment of type 2 diabetes ," Anders Rosengren, an assistant professor at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, told Live Science.

Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of diabetes, affects more than 300 million people globally. For those with the disease who are obese, the excess fat in the liver makes the body less sensitive to the hormone insulin, which can make it difficult for the organ to help regulate blood sugar levels. Normally, insulin, which is produced by the pancreas , stimulates the liver to pull glucose out of the bloodstream and store it for later use.

People with type 2 diabetes are usually advised to change their diet to help control their blood sugar levels. " Lifestyle changes are at the core of type 2 diabetes treatment but often need to be complemented with drugs," Rosengren said.

Currently the main treatment option is the drug metformin . But not every person who needs it can take it. About 15 percent of type 2 diabetes patients have reduced kidney function and taking metformin can increase their risk for lactic acidosis, an unhealthy build-up of lactic acid, which can cause abdominal discomfort, shallow breathing, muscle pain or cramping, and tiredness.

About 30 percent of patients who take metformin develop nausea, bloating and abdominal pain.

Finding an alternative to metformin was one of the team's objectives. But there was also general frustration in the clinical community that research labs were having a difficult time developing new anti-diabetic compounds , Rosengren said.

One challenge is that researcherslooking to develop new drugs have traditionally studied single genes or individual proteins . But diabetes is much more complicated than that. It involves a large network of genes, so the scientists had to find a new, systematic approach that took a holistic view of the disease.

Study leader Annika Axelsson, a doctoral student at Gothenburg, and her colleagues began by analyzing liver tissue from diabetic mice who were raised on a "Western diet" containing 42 percent fat and 0.15 percent cholesterol. After several tests, the scientists identified 1,720 genes associated with hyperglycemia, a condition in which an excessive amount of glucose circulates in the blood.

After further analysis, the researchers narrowed the 1,720 genes to a network of 50 linked genes that together result in high bloodglucose levels . This network became the so-called disease signature for type 2 diabetes.

Next, the researchers used a database of existing drug compounds and employed a mathematical modeling program to rank those compounds for their potential ability to reverse the disease signature in other words, to turn down those overexpressed genes.

Sulforaphane had the highest ranking. The team ran several experiments to see if it could actually lower glucose levels in living systems. First, they tested the compound in cells growing in lab dishes, and found that it inhibited glucose production. Next, they tested it in rodents, and found that it improved glucose tolerance in animals on a high-fat or high-fructose diet.

Finally, the researchers tested sulforaphane in people. Over the course of 12 weeks, 97 patients with type 2 diabetes took a daily dose of concentrated broccoli sprout extract in powdered form. The dose was about 100 times the amount found naturally in broccoli . For those who were not obese, the sulforaphane did not have any affect.

But for those who were obese, the results were significant, the researchers reported. Typically, for people with type 2 diabetes, glucose levels in the blood stay high, even when they are fasting. But sulforaphane reduced fasting blood glucose in these patients by 10 percent compared to the participants in the study who took a placebo, according to the study. That amount is enough to lower a person's risk of developing health complications. And the compound did not cause gastrointestinal problems that metformin can cause, nor other side effects.

For the next phase of this study, Rosengren said the team would like to investigate the effects of sulforaphane on people with prediabetes to see whether it could improve their glucose control before type 2 diabetes develops.

Originally published on Live Science .

See the rest here:
Broccoli compound could help treat type 2 diabetes - Fox News

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Secondary market arises for diabetes test strips | Pittsburgh Post ... Pittsburgh Post-Gazette High retail costs for the strips and limits on prescription availability have created a gray market — and related concerns. and more »

See more here:
Secondary market arises for diabetes test strips | Pittsburgh Post ... - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

CLEVELAND, Ohio Diabetes can be deadly. Each year, more than 70,000 Americans die from complications of the disease. About half of all people with type 2 diabetes dont have their condition under control.

Now, new research shows a well-known procedure for weight loss may be the best bet for patients with uncontrolled diabetes.

This was the old Lisa Shaffer. At her heaviest: almost 300 pounds!

When I was obese, my life was so limited, Shaffer said.

Her health suffered, too. Lisa had type 2 diabetes, and she tried everything to control it.

Shaffer explained, Nothing worked, nope.

But today, Lisa is 120 pounds lighter and her diabetes is gone. The reason; gastric bypass surgery.

Its been incredible. Yeah. It really did give me my life back, Shaffer exclaimed.

Phillip Schauer, MD, Director of the Cleveland Clinic Bariatric and Metabolic Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, led a study that compared bariatric surgery, either gastric bypass or gastric sleeve, to intense medical therapy in people with diabetes. After five years, the gastric bypass patients did the best. Many were in complete remission without drugs or insulin.

Which is pretty remarkable. Thats about as close to a cure that you can get, Dr. Schauer explained.

Twenty-nine percent of gastric bypass and 23 percent of gastric sleeve patients achieved and maintained normal blood sugar levels -compared to just 5 percent of medication-only patients. The surgery groups also lost more weight and reported a better quality of life.

All in all, the patients who had surgery did better and were happier at the five- year mark, Dr. Schauer stated.

Three days after her surgery, Lisa was off all of her meds. Her A1c, a measure of blood sugar control, was 10.5 before the surgery and today, its 5.3. Now shes able to live the life shes always wanted.

Ever since I lost the weight, Ive run three 5ks. Ive done zip lining with the family, which is fantastic. Just no limits anymore, theres no limitations on my life anymore, Shaffer stated.

Doctor Schauer says weight loss is one reason diabetes patients benefit from bariatric surgery. The other is something that happens in the body as a result of the surgery. When the intestines are bypassed, special hormones increase, which helps the pancreas produce insulin more effectively.

See more here:
Weight loss procedure may help people with uncontrolled diabetes - WNDU-TV

Gothenburg, Sweden (Scicasts) Researchers have identified an antioxidant - richly occurring in broccoli - as a new antidiabetic substance. A patient study shows significantly lower blood sugar levels in participants who ate broccoli extract with high levels of sulforaphane.

"There are strong indications that this can become a valuable supplement to existing medication," says Anders Rosengren, Docent in Metabolic Physiology at the University of Gothenburg.

The publication in the journal Science Translational Medicine builds on several years' research at Sahlgrenska Academy and Wallenberg Centre for Molecular and Translational Medicine, University of Gothenburg, and the Faculty of Medicine at Lund University.

The objective was to find new medications against type-2 diabetes by addressing an important disease mechanism: The liver's elevated glucose production. The classic drug metformin works by doing just that, but often causes gastric side-effects and can also not be taken when kidney function is severely reduced, which affects many with diabetes.

The researchers began by mapping the genetic changes in the liver in diabetes. 50 genes proved to play key roles. These were then matched against different substances in the search for compounds that could affect these particular key genes, and thereby attack the disease on a broad front.

Of 2,800 substances investigated through computer-based mathematical analyses, sulforaphane proved to have the best characteristics for the task. An antioxidant that was previously studied for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory disease, but not for diabetes was thereby identified.

Cell experiments were followed by animal studies on rats and mice with dietary-induced diabetes. The blood sugar of the animals that received sulforaphane dropped by 23 percent in four weeks, and by 24 percent in those given metformin.

"We tested removing sulforaphane from the extract and the effect disappeared. We also looked at the genes from the liver of the animals and saw that the 50 key genes had been changed in the right direction," says Anders Rosengren.

With the knowledge that sulforaphane does not hurt people, which was already documented, a patient study was then done with around hundred patients. Basically all were on metformin treatment, but in the group that took sulforaphane every morning for 12 weeks, the patients with poor glucose control and BMI at 30 or above (well-known factors associated with elevated glucose production) had significantly lower blood sugar levels than the placebo group. In other words, sulforaphane benefited exactly those patients, totally 17 in the study, who have elevated glucose production in the liver.

A daily dose of sulforaphane is extracted from four to five kilograms of broccoli. The plan is to have a functional food preparation out within two years. Development is taking place with farmer owned organization Lantmnnen.

"Sulforaphane targets a central mechanism in type 2 diabetes and has a mild side-effect profile. As functional food, it can reach the patients faster than a medication, and it is also an interesting concept from a diabetes perspective where diet is central," says Anders Rosengren.

Article adapted from a University of Gothenburg news release.

Publication: Sulforaphane reduces hepatic glucose production and improves glucose control in patients with type 2 diabetes. Annika S. Axelsson et al. Science Translational Medicine (2017): Click here to view.

Go here to read the rest:
Researchers Identify New Substance Against Diabetes in Broccoli - Scicasts (press release) (blog)

Tyson Graham sits in a small room with a keyboard. His fingers move across the keys with the ease of a professional pianist though Tyson is only 11 years old.

That was beautiful, he says as he finishes writing a piece, a smile forming on his face. He listens to a piece of piano music and plays it back nearly perfectly without ever seeing the music. At the age of 9, he was given a full scholarship to a gifted school of music in Salt Lake City.

The music is in him, said his mother Laura. He has a hard time vocalizing his feelings but he speaks through his music.

Despite playing his beautiful music, Tyson cannot see the keys. He and his brother, Landon aka Dino, are both completely blind from retinopathy of prematurity, or ROP, and have cerebral palsy. They also both love music. As Tyson plays in the keyboard, Landon squeals with delight in the next room as he hears the sounds.

Thats a happy scream, Laura explains. Landon is nonverbal and the family has learned his sounds. Tyson smiles as he hears his brothers joy.

The two are perfectly in sync. When Landon is sad, Tyson will go check on him and make sure he is okay. And when Tyson is having a rough time, Landon will lay with him to cheer him up.

They dont like when the other is upset, I dont think they even understand what fighting is, explained parents Laura and Jared.

Today, Landon is working with the physical therapists at the Now I Can Foundation in Provo. The Grahams came from their home at Hill Air Force Base near Ogden to be at the center, which provides traditional and intensive therapy sessions that last three to four weeks long.

The first time we came, Landon would lay in the bathtub and we could wash him, explained Laura. After that he would stand and hold the rail, it was worth it just for that.

Now, he is working on walking with less assistance. Due to his condition, one of Landons legs is inches shorter than the other. Along with his cerebral palsy and blindness, he lacks the confidence to walk alone. At the center, the physical therapy team works with the children to gain confidence in themselves along with learning new everyday skills. On Tuesday, Landon will graduate from this three-week section.

We have never told them they cant do anything, said Laura. My goal is for them to reach whatever height they can achieve.

Together, the two show talents incredibly beyond their ages, Tyson through music and Landon through engineering things, taking things apart and putting them back together again.

Life for the Graham family has been anything but easy. Jared is a member of the U.S. Air Force and was previously deployed when the boys were younger to serve his country. During his deployment, Laura learned how to handle the boys on her own. I learned to just do it, she said. There are times when I dont want to be a nurse, but I do it with love and joy because that is the option. The boys have a nightly three-hour routine involving g-tubes and medications and medical activities.

They have a warrior spirit to them, explained Jared. Theyve had so much done to them their entire life but they never complain. We have a little bit of heaven in our house.

As therapy continues, Landons walking improves and he walks while only lightly holding someones hand for a while. Laura beams at the progress he is making.

Theyre incredible human beings, said Laura. Theyre not giving up and we arent either.

Read more from the original source:
A little bit of heaven - Twin boys with blindness share love of music - Daily Herald

The 59-year-old from Wellington had already lost sight in one eye after a work accident years before, but has had to adjust to life with only five per cent vision after his operation at Princess Royal Hospital in October.

The condition, he said, has left him terrified to leave his home town, and he blames the hospital for both the original infection and, he says, for failing to help him in the months since. The hospital has denied responsibility for the infection.

Bosses at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust said that after an investigation they found no errors in his care or treatment, and that they would be happy to talk to Mr Mason about his options.

I used to travel all over the world. I dont feel confident leaving Wellington now, Mr Mason said.

I know the environment here, but I dont know about going somewhere else.

I used to do a lot of travelling, but because of this I cant do that any more. I dont feel confident enough to travel anyway. Ive got to ask people what time the train is coming or where I should go. It makes life so difficult.

It causes me an awful lot of problems. I struggle around the house. I live on my own in Wellington. Because of my eye sight problems, I had a fall and broke my left arm because I missed a step. That was the beginning of this year.

I cant see the cooker dials, but I can just about see the microwave minutes buttons. I cook food that way.

I used to enjoy cooking, but I cant do that now. I seem to be living on ready meals. It has had a major impact on my life.

Mr Mason was admitted to Princess Royal Hospital in October with an abdominal issue, but while there picked up an eye infection, which left him with a swollen eyeball.

He was treated with antibiotics and his eye went back to normal size, but he was left with his now limited vision.

He said: It was just a minor surgery issue, but once I had recovered my eyeball had swollen up. I was given eye drops which cured it for a short time, but now Ive been left in the position Im in now.

The hospital have told me I need a corneal skin graft to smooth out the front of my eye, but nothing seems to be forthcoming from them.

Ive seen a specialist who has told me Im in a queue. Ive complained to the chief executive and got a letter back saying theyd look into it. That was in the beginning of March.Theres a hope this operation will restore my sight, and its a hope Im clinging to. If it fails, that is something Ill cross when it comes to it. Im not someone who looks on the negative side. I just know I need the operation.

Mr Mason said that he wanted the hospital to take responsibility for what happened while he was in their care.

Id like them to give me the operation, but Id also like them to take the responsibility for my condition, he said.

I got the infection while I was their patient. Ive come out of Princess Royal Hospital with a problem and its only gone on from there. Im a fairly positive person, but I went in for an operation and this happened. I wasnt banking on this.

Mark Cheetham, scheduled care group a medical director at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, said: We are aware of Mr Masons complex medical history.

Were sorry to hear Mr Mason has suffered a deterioration in his eyesight. We have fully investigated Mr Masons concerns and no evidence has been found of any errors in his care or treatment. We would be very happy to meet with Mr Mason if he would like us to discuss this further with him.

Read more:
Princess Royal Hospital to blame for blindness, says Telford man ... - shropshirestar.com

Theres consensus that the UKs maritime industry has, over the last few decades, struggled to captivate the public imagination. Whether it be through word of mouth, media attention, or the jobs on offer, other sectors, such as automotive, aerospace and aviation, have climbed the ladder of awareness to such an extent that the term sea blindness has now entered the maritime lexicon.

Out of sight and out of mind, is how Nick Harvey, campaigns manager at the charity Seafarers UK, describes it. We take the view that sea blindness is very much a real issue. The contact we have with people through our campaigning work indicates that young people, in particular, are not receiving information in schools or in their family units.

But, according to a recent poll, people do understand shippings importance to the countrys imports and exports.

Ive lost track of the number of times people have complained to me that the public and our politicians dont understand the importance of shipping to our trading economy, wrote UK Chamber of Shipping communications director Jonathan Roberts in May. I was concerned not only of the enormous time and energy being devoted to solving sea blindness, but that it was also potentially diverting resources away from more pressing matters.

The Chamber, therefore, undertook a poll with ComRes, asking 2,026 members of the British public and 127 MPs which mode of transport was principally responsible for moving international trade. Results show that 87% of MPs and 84% of the public identified shipping.

Is that to be expected, or a surprising finding? I think this idea that people don't understand where our goods come from is a myth, explains Guy Platten, Chamber of Shipping CEO. Platten does, however, qualify his answer, agreeing that to some extent the publics relationship with the maritime industry has changed over the years, adding: What Im finding as I speak to people and journalists is that they suddenly find it interesting. We can sometimes do ourselves down a little bit. I think the profile will continue to rise.

"If you look at the national media, maritime is seldom a headline story."

Theres also the caveat that comes with any poll how accurate is the result and were people simply guessing at the answer? Speaking after the publication of the results, Maritime UK chairman David Dingle said: This opinion poll shows without doubt that shipping is in the minds of the public and our politicians, while an article on the Chambers official website was titled Opinion poll confirms 'sea blindness' is a myth.

Yet such a statement seems premature when coupled with Harveys thoughts and, indeed, the opinion of trade union Nautilus. Theres no doubt, says a Nautilus spokesperson, that sea blindness is a challenge, with a widespread lack of public and political awareness about the vital role of ships and seafarers in our society.

Theres certainly evidence to show some alarming gaps in knowledge about the maritime sector, the spokesperson adds.

Back in 2014, another poll this one commissioned by Seafarers UK as part of the annual Seafarers Awareness Week found that just four in 10 people knew that the majority of food imported into the UK came by sea. Of the 1,000 people surveyed, 27% said air and 20% road.

Harvey adds: Some of the research we have done among children, even those living in coastal towns and port cities, shows they don't have much of an inkling of what's going on right under their noses.

So, why might the maritime sector be losing public awareness? The reasons are complex. Globalisation has somewhat diminished Britains status as the pre-eminent maritime nation. Seafarers can now be employed from almost anywhere in the world, often on lower wages than their British counterparts. Consider also Harveys point that the majority of business takes place out of sight, out of mind.

Young people now have more career options. Education, in particular higher education, is now more readily available, meaning that school leavers are less likely to follow parents or other family members in their choice of job. Moreover, in the UK people look back on the countrys maritime heritage with a great deal of fondness. Is there too much focus on the past and not enough on the here and now?

You have hit the nail on the head, says Harvey. We take the view that 30, 40, 50 years ago, there was a feeling that everyone knew someone who worked at sea.

Platten argues that we have tended to be a bit inward looking at times, while Harvey adds that its also the fact that maritime gets on with its business; it does what it does. In essence, it is away from the media glare. If you look at national news programmes or newspapers, maritime is seldom a headline story, although Platten is eager to point out that the Chamber had over 150 mentions in the mainstream media last year, up from 13 in 2013.

Still, there is concern that unless more is done, recruitment will be damaged. In January, the governments shipping minister, John Hayes, spoke of how the sea and those who work on it and for it are significant for the economy, contributing about 13.5bn and employing over 110,000 people. It is, he added, important to what we are, who we are, as a people. An island race. A maritime nation.

It is conceivable that this status will come under threat if the sector does not sell its story to the next generation. If you look at the merchant sector, says Harvey, seafarers are getting older. If those gaps aren't filled [in the UK], they will be filled by seafarers from other countries.

If the ordinary man or woman in the street doesn't have a feel for the country's dependence on seafarers, then they won't be very sympathetic when charities like ours ask them to help seafarers when they fall on hard times.

Government figures released at the start of year show that in 2016 the estimated number of UK nationals active at sea was 23,060. A total of 1,860 officer cadets were training in the financial year 2015/16, a decrease of 3% on 2014/15. Meanwhile, the number of new entrants under the governments Support for Maritime Training (SMarT) scheme was 750, a drop of 9% compared to 2014/15.

It may seem modest, and predictable, but awareness is the priority. We have to tell the story of seafaring from the beginning, explains Harvey, who, alongside his colleagues at Seafarers UK, is currently preparing for Seafarers Awareness Week, which takes place on 24-30 June, and this year focuses on careers.

Seafarers UK is also running a 'fly the Red Ensign' event for Merchant Navy Day on 3 September. This involves asking local councils we're hopeful that we'll have as many as a 1,000 participating, says Harvey to fly the Red Ensign on civic buildings. The very act of it being flown is quite helpful, because people don't commonly see that flown ashore, Harvey adds.

Platten and the Chamber of Shipping, meanwhile, want the government to double its funding for the SMarT scheme. "At the moment we get about 15m worth of support. Around 800 new cadets start each year, but we'd like to get that to 1,200, then 1,600 over time. I think 15m extra is a bit of a drop in the ocean. They can get an awful lot of bang for their buck.

"We are changing perceptions every day."

We've had parliamentarians back this campaign we believe it is the right thing to do. The government was approached for comment but was unable to respond because of pre-election purdah rules.

Furthermore, the Chamber is working with schools, sending in ambassadors on a weekly basis to outline careers at sea. The governments Maritime Growth Study, released in 2015, also makes numerous recommendations to keep the sector competitive.

And, with Brexit thrusting the economy to the forefront, theres a chance for shipping as the leading facilitator of global trade to embed itself within the collective consciousness.

I think we are upping our game, says Platten. Momentum is starting to build, and we are changing perceptions every day.

Continued here:
Sea blindness: UK maritime in the public eye - Ship Technology

PHILADELPHIA An individual is suing The United States of America c/o U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, alleging that the department denied his claim for damages stemming from what he claims was negligent care for an eye condition.

Theodore Miller filed a complaint on June 1 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania alleging that the government agency failed to provide proper medical attention to the plaintiff.

According to the complaint, the plaintiff alleges that he became completely blind in his right eye because of untimely treatment at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center during 2015. The plaintiff holds the defendant responsible because it allegedly failed to properly diagnose and treat the plaintiff's retinal condition, which led to complete blindness in one eye; in April, the department also denied the plaintiff's claims for damages stemming from the alleged negligence.

The plaintiff requests a trial by jury and seeks judgment against the defendant in the amount of $10,000,000, and all other damages. He is represented by Joseph Chaiken of Joseph Chaiken & Associates P.C. in Philadelphia.

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case number 2:17-cv-02467-MAK

Read more here:
Man says Philadelphia VA failed to prevent blindness in one eye - The Pennsylvania Record

June should be national cancer month.

Each year around this time, oncology groups and Wall Street brokerages hold a rash of conferences where researchers reveal the latest, greatest potential cancer cures.

This year has been no exception. Above all, we learned about remarkable advances in two exciting cancer therapies and three great companies that will benefit.

Heres more detail. (Ive kept the technical language to a minimum.)

Tumors are smart. They know how to trick the immune system into missing them. But scientists are wising up to their tricks. In one evasive strategy, tumors release an enzyme that renders them invisible. If you block the enzyme, your immune system can find tumors and destroy them with the help from cancer drugs. This is the key to an early-stage cancer weapon you should invest in, known as IDO inhibitors.

IDO stands for Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase, an enzyme released by tumors to blind the bodys immune system. IDO is a strange drug target, because IDO inhibition by itself has no noticeable anti-cancer effect, says Tanguy Seiwert, a cancer-therapy researcher and medical doctor who teaches at the University of Chicago. Suppressing IDO, however, makes tumors vulnerable.

The best pure play in IDO inhibitors is a company whose shares I own, and have suggested since December 2011 in my stock newsletter, Brush Up on Stocks. Were up 750% in this company since 2011 ($14 to $120). But I think this stock is still a hold because there are bigger gains ahead.

Incyte Corp. INCY, +3.58% just released excellent data on its IDO inhibitor, called epacadostat, at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference. In combination with cancer therapies from Merck & Co. MRK, +1.13% and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. BMY, +1.40% it showed excellent results against several kinds of cancer.

It looks really good. I think this was a coming-out party for IDO inhibitors, says Seiwert. Besides effectiveness, one of the main positives is that epacadostat is safe. This means it can be readily used to assist many other cancer drugs. You can add it to a ton of things because the cost is low, in terms of toxicity.

Incyte is an ideal biotech company for investors because it is self-funding. It has a very profitable drug called Jakafi, for a rare blood disorder, which supports research on new drugs like the IDO inhibitor. So investors dodge dilutive financings.

So why hasnt Incytes stock shot up? Investors have three main worries. But they look like false fears.

One bit of fake news circulating is that Incyte showed success, in part, only because it omitted patients from some results, which drove up the percentage of success stories. But this is a dubious critique for two reasons. Even if you included the three patients left out, it would only lower the success rate by a few percentage points, notes J.P. Morgan analyst Cory Kasimov. Second, Incyte offered several separate data sets showing success in many types of cancer, but the omission only affected one subgroup, says Seiwert. I think this was way overblown.

The next fear: Competitor NewLink Genetics Corp. NLNK, +3.27% recently announced Roche AG RHHBY, +0.21% handed back development rights to its IDO, following lousy results in a Roche study. Some investors take this as a sign that IDO is malarkey. But William Blair analyst Katherine Xu thinks this is bullish for Incyte, since it signals a competitor may be gone. NewLinks IDO may have fared poorly because it works differently than Incytes IDO, or because Roche used an extremely sick patient population. Neither scenario reflects poorly on Incyte.

The third knock on Incyte is the one to watch. While Seiwert is impressed with Incytes IDO results, he points out the Phase II results are early-stage, and longer-term studies are needed to learn more about patient survival. Those studies are in the works. Incyte has nine Phase III studies planned with Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb, says Xu. The outcomes here are key, since about $50 worth of the current $120 Incyte stock price is linked to IDO.

In another key advance in cancer therapy in the past two years, doctors have learned how to extract a patients blood and genetically tweak white blood cells so they override evasive tactics used by tumors.

Then the cells are reproduced in a lab to expand the supply, and put back in the patients body so they can move in for the kill. Hopefully, the cells then continue to proliferate and thrive and stay on hand to fight any more cancer that comes along.

Known as chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR-T), this approach has produced remarkable results against blood cancers in patients who otherwise had almost no hope of survival. CAR-T works by unblocking cancer cell receptors normally sought out by the immune system.

This is one of the most exciting therapies in immunotherapy, said Jae Park, a Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center cancer researcher and medical doctor, at the Jefferies 2017 Global Healthcare Conference in early June.

Probably the best pure play here is Kite Pharma Inc. KITE, +1.64% At the Jefferies conference, Kite CEO Arie Belldegrun showed images of a patients body riddled with tumors, which disappeared about a month after treatment began. The patient showed no sign of the disease a year later.

Kite has a product coming on the market by the end of this year, and probably many more on the way, says Brad Loncar, the cancer research expert behind the Loncar Cancer Immunotherapy CNCR, +2.93% exchange traded fund. This is pretty good progress for a therapy that was considered science fiction two years ago.

I suggested Kite in my stock letter at around $71 on May 17, and I think its still a hold even though it has already risen to $87, because this promises to be a blockbuster therapy. At the time, insiders were big buyers as the stock sold off on news of the death of a patient in one of its studies.

That unfortunate death highlights one of the key risks here. CAR-T patients have died because the therapy can cause brain swelling. Doctors are getting better at staving off adverse side effects, says Park. But they still dont fully understand what causes them, which should raise a yellow flag for investors.

Kite also faces competition from other companies developing CAR-T, including power players like Novartis AG NVS, +0.75% Pfizer Inc. PFE, +0.76% Johnson & Johnson JNJ, -0.21% and GlaxoSmithKline PLC GSK, -0.09% as well as Juno Therapeutics Inc. JUNO, +3.91% Cellectis SA CLLS, +0.00% Adaptimmune Therapeutics PLC ADAP, -0.44% and two privately held companies called Poseida Therapeutics and Nanjing Legend Biotech.

Any of these efforts may pan out nicely, but my pick as a third CAR-T play is bluebird bio BLUE, +3.59% which is partnering with Celgene Corp. CELG, +2.29% Bluebird just announced really impressive results for its CAR-T candidate called bb2121. In early studies, just released at ASCO, this therapy produced an overall response rate of 90% to 100% among hospice-type patients whose cancer was so bad that seven different attempts to cure them, on average, had failed.

To generate efficacy data on this level with an overall very tolerable safety profile is highly impressive, says Kasimov, at J.P. Morgan. With more key updates to come in 2017, we would continue to add to positions in bluebird bio.

At the time of publication, Michael Brush held INCY. Brush has suggested INCY and KITE in his stock newsletter Brush Up on Stocks. Brush is a Manhattan-based financial writer who has covered business for the New York Times and The Economist group, and he attended Columbia Business School in the Knight-Bagehot program.

Continued here:
Opinion: Three must-own cancer stocks for your biotechnology portfolio - MarketWatch

Sifelani Tsiko recently in Lilongwe, Malawi

An industrial development strategy could be built on the back of Africas agricultural sector underpinned by the adoption of new and emerging technologies such as biotechnology to support improved yields, value addition and services that feed into the whole agro-processing value chain, a top Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) official says.

Getachew Belay, a senior biotechnology policy advisor told Zimpapers Syndication recently on the sidelines of a communication training workshop for journalists on biotechnology and biosafety, that the adoption of genetically modified cotton developed using a bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) which naturally produces a chemical harmful only to a small fraction of insects such as the bollworm, could increase yields and enhance competitiveness.

He says cotton farmers in Africa suffer huge losses due to pest problems.

The most destructive of pests is the African bollworm (Helicoverpa armigera), which can cause severe losses of up to 100 percent like we saw on some cotton fields in Salima here in Malawi, the Comesa biotech policy advisor says.

In unprotected fields pest damage can be very severe and when you look at Bt cotton crop on trial you can see hope that its possible for African farmers to increase their yields and competitiveness of their crop on the market.

Using Bt cotton developed using bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, which naturally produces a chemical harmful only to a small fraction of insects such as the bollworm, experts say reduction in pest infestations can increase yields and improve the livelihoods of cotton growers.

The Bt toxin is inserted into cotton, causing cotton, called Bt cotton, to produce this natural insecticide in its tissues.

Biotechnology experts argue that cotton farmers in Zimbabwe, Malawi and most other African countries, can effectively reduce input costs and control damage from bollworms and other insects that frequently damage cotton by adopting Bt cotton.

For several decades, has lagged behind in terms of the industrial dynamism required to boost farmer earnings, employment, economic growth and competitiveness on the global market.

But in recent years, there is a growing realisation of the importance of industrialisation.

In 2016, the UNs Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) published a major report on industrialization in Africa where it asserts that structural transformation in Africas economies remains the highest priority and industrialization is the top strategy for achieving it in practice.

And, Belay says, biotechnology is one of the major tools for achieving industrialisation.

Im convinced that biotechnology has many opportunities to drive Africas industrialisation, he says.

We have Bt cotton, Bt maize and soya and biotechnology can enhance the competitiveness of our crops and agricultural products especially when it comes to value addition and beneficiation as it was stipulated in our African industrialisation agenda.

Already we are seeing the benefits of adopting biotech crops in South Africa. Livestock feed sectors in Zambia and even Zimbabwe cannot compete with SAs GM stock feed which is produced cheaply. We need to adopt this new technology to cut costs.

Europe relies heavily on GM soya for its livestock feed industry and this has enhanced its competitiveness.

Africa has a low uptake of biotech food crops due to lack of awareness and stiff resistance, scientists say.

International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) AfriCenter director Margaret Karembu told journalists at the workshop that adoption of agricultural biotechnology has lagged behind compared to the rapid rates seen in the medical and health sectors.

Where are we as Africans? This is the question, we need to think seriously about the good work (on agricultural biotechnology) going on in our labs, she said. What is our place in the global biotechnology space? We need reclaim it and improve the livelihoods of our farmers across the continent.

Karembu said lack of awareness and a constrained regulatory environment had also slowed down the uptake of agricultural biotechnology.

Lack of awareness of the benefits and the regulatory framework has affected the tide towards the adoption of biotechnology. The victim mentality has been largely to blame for this.

We think of ourselves as victims of the technology. The fact is that our public institutions and universities have been doing research on biotech crops for years and this has not moved to the commercialization stage, she says. She says Africa needs to diffuse myths and misconceptions around GMO crops.

The media has a big role to play in clearing some of the misconceptions about biotechnology and GMOs, the ISAAA director says.

When media demonises the science, it becomes difficult to correct the mistakes. There is a lot of unfamiliarity with the technology and having fixed mind sets will not help our struggling farmers.

The farmers you saw in Salima are poor and they are struggling. Why should we block them from accessing the Bt cotton varieties that can significantly boost their yields and income? Farming should not be for leisure, its a business and it should be there to improve the quality of livelihoods of the farmers.

Biotechnology is one of the tools we can use to first of all improve crop yields and secondly to support Africas industrialisation goals for value addition and beneficiation.

Karembu urged the media to encourage dialogue and to correct misinformation.

The information we generate should be guided by credible scientific evidence and not unverified Google information, she says. If you have a headache people just Google and Google has become the answer. The world is polluted by a lot of unsubstantiated facts. We need to change the narrative and challenge the myth that Africa enjoys being poor the romanticisation of poverty.

Stringent and expensive regulatory process in Africa has slowed down uptake of biotechnology crops.

Biotech experts say the regulatory process is burdensome and makes everything unpredictable while in some African countries there is fear of change and challenging of the status quo when it comes to biotechnology.

According to ISAAA, the production of biotech crops increased 110-fold from 1996 with countries now growing the crops on 2,1 billion hectares worldwide.

The global value of the biotech seed market alone was US$15,8 billion in 2016. A total of 26 countries, 19 developing and 7 industrial grew biotech crops.

By 2016, at least four countries in Africa had in the past placed a GM crop on the market. These included Egypt, South Africa, Burkina Faso and Sudan.

But due to some temporary setback in Burkina Faso and Egypt, only South Africa and Sudan planted biotech crops on 2,8 million hectares

South Africa is one of the top 10 countries planting more than one million hectares in 2016 and continued to lead the adoption of biotech crops on the African continent.

Kenya, Malawi and Nigeria have transitioned from research to granting environmental release approvals while six others Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Swaziland and Uganda made significant progress towards completion of multi-location trials in readiness for considering commercial approval, ISAAA reported.

But the road to the adoption of Bt cotton technologies in Africa still faces stiff resistance.

Supporters of GM crops have to grapple with vocal anti-GMO activists, limited capacity to deal with the processing of GM research applications, bureaucratic delays in approving field trials, mistrust and resistance from key decision makers in Government and limited public awareness of the issues surrounding research and development of GM crops.

In addition, they have to contend with issues related to disease resistance, bottlenecks encountered when co-ordinating with other line ministries, trade-related restrictions, biosafety regulation and the overwhelming influence of multinational companies, Governments and their sidekicks NGOs. And, despite the threats, biotechnology experts say benefits from the biotech agro-linked industrial development outweigh the threats.

SADC drew up its Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap which seeks to speed up industrialisation by strengthening the comparative and competitive advantages of the economies of the region.

The strategy which covers the period 2015 2063 is anchored on three pillars industrialisation, competitiveness and regional industrialisation.

The whole industrialisation agenda aims to help SADC member states to achieve high levels of economic growth, competitiveness, incomes and employment.

To access the funds, SADC countries have set up committees made up of government and private sector players to identify priority areas for funding.

At regional level, three areas have been prioritised, namely agro processing, mining and downstream processing.

For all this, biotechnology could be a useful tool to drive the regions industrialisation agenda, Belay says.

Its not a silver bullet, but its one of the many tools we can use to drive the continents industrialisation strategy. Agriculture is fundamental to Comesa member states in terms of improving food and nutrition security, increasing rural income, employment and contributions to GDP and expert earnings.

We need to explore ways of enhancing the use of biotechnology to drive industrialisation and improved livelihoods for farmers in Africa.

Analysts say Africa badly needs increased investment in infrastructure of all kinds reliable clean energy and water systems, medical clinics, technical colleges, railways, roads, bridges, fiber optic networks, and factories of many kinds.

Industrialisation can benefit the expansion of intra-African trade by supporting a more diversified export economy, wrote an economic analyst.

In particular, the development of rural and food processing industries could help to lift significant numbers from poverty. But, to facilitate trade in goods and services, it is essential to reduce distribution costs by improving and expanding road, rail and other communication infrastructure. -Zimpapers Syndication

See the article here:
Biotechnology could spur Africa's industrialisation - Southern Times Africa

On eve of biotech's big convention, Biotechnology Innovation ... San Francisco Business Times Ahead of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization's annual convention in San Diego, we talk to Jim Greenwood, the president and CEO of the industry trade ... The BIO International Convention Kicks Off Four Days of ...Business Wire (press release) all 3 news articles »

Read the original:
On eve of biotech's big convention, Biotechnology Innovation ... - San Francisco Business Times

Dustin Rhoads of Trumann is participating in Biotechnology Research Internship at Arkansas Biosciences Institute. (Photo provided)

Five Arkansas State University students are pursuing their interest in science this summer through the Biotechnology Research Internship Program at the Arkansas Biosciences Institute (ABI) facility on campus. One of those students, Dustin Rhoads, is from Trumann.

The program provides basic support for A-State undergraduate science majors who want research experience in life sciences or applications of life sciences during the summer of their sophomore or junior years.

Each student is matched with a faculty mentor who is conducting research related to biotechnology or biology from one of several departments and colleges, based largely on the student's interests. Selection also is based on academic credentials.

The students, along with their future plans and comments from their applications are:

Dustin Rhoads plans to go to dental school after completing his degree at A-State. His faculty mentor also is Dr. Malathi Srivatsan.

"I chose to apply for this internship mostly because of my interest in the field," Rhoads said. "Neurology has always been and interest of mine. Furthermore, the research we are doing at Dr. Srivatsan's Lab could be used to help so many people. Neuroregeneration could impact the lives of millions, and to be a part of something that could do that is very special to me. What sparked my interest in science was the way it's completely unique from all other academic fields, it has no sense of complacency, and is forever evolving. Im the kind of person who would rather study how things work as opposed to memorizing hard set facts, so the sciences are definitely for me regarding that aspect. I chose Arkansas State University because growing up I was always around it, almost developing it as a second home before even leaving high school, also accompanied with the report of its programs, made it a complete match for me."

The other students are Madalyn Rose Weiner of Little Rock, Oliver Dozier of Paragould, Kayleigh Nelson of Marion, and Aylin Villalpa-Arroyo of Hidalgo, Mexico.

Each internship is valued at $2,500. The students work 20 hours per week for 10 weeks. An additional $500 is provided to the supporting laboratory for research supplies.

See more here:
Trumann student starting ABI biotechnology research internship - Democrat Tribune

A new study confirms the link between active smoking and the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis (RA). It also suggests, for the first time, that smokers who had early life exposure to tobacco through passive smoking have a significantly increased risk for developing the disease.

RA is the most common chronic inflammatory joint disease, causing progressive joint destruction, disability and reduced life expectancy. In recent years, many potential environmental factors have been associated with an increased risk of developing RA, but so far smoking is the only one that has been extensively studied.

The findings were recently presented at the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology (EULAR) 2017 press conference.

For the study, a large population of female volunteers born between 1925 and 1950 were tracked beginning in 1990. Out of 70,598 women, a total of 1,239 patients self-reported developing RA, of which 350 cases were eligible for analysis of the link to active and passive smoking. The mean age at inclusion in the study was 49.0 years; the mean duration of follow-up was 21.2 years.

Between 1990 and 2014, 11 self-administered questionnaires were sent to the participants to collect medical, demographic, environmental and hormonal data and dietary habits. The diagnosis of RA was collected on two successive questionnaires.

Cases were considered certain if, having reported RA, they had taken an RA specific medication (methotrexate, leflunomide or a biologic) since 2004 (the period from which drug reimbursement data was available). Participants were excluded if they had an inflammatory bowel disease and/or no information on their smoking status.

Passive smoking was assessed by the following question: When you were children, did you stay in a smoky room? Patients were considered exposed if the answer was yes, a few hours, or yes, several hours a day.

The findings show that passive smoking exposure during childhood increased the association between RA risk and adult active smoking.

Our study highlights the importance of avoiding any tobacco environment in children, especially in those with a family history of RA, said lead author Professor Raphale Seror from University Hospitals of South Paris, France.

In addition, the preliminary results of a meta-analysis reveal that smoking is also related to an increased progression of structural damage to the spine in patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), a form of arthritis that affects the spine.

Smoking constitutes a major risk factor not only for disease susceptibility but also disease severity in patients with AS, said lead author Professor Servet Akar from Izmir Katip Celebi University Faculty of Medicine in Turkey.

Rheumatologists should work hard to encourage their AS patients to quit smoking as this could have a major impact on future quality of life.

Source: European League Against Rheumatism

APA Reference Pedersen, T. (2017). Passive Smoking in Childhood Can Hike Risk of Arthritis in Adult Smokers. Psych Central. Retrieved on June 19, 2017, from https://psychcentral.com/news/2017/06/19/passive-smoking-in-childhood-significantly-ups-risk-of-arthritis-in-adult-smokers/122071.html

Continued here:
Passive Smoking in Childhood Can Hike Risk of Arthritis in Adult Smokers - PsychCentral.com

Sigillo Cellars owner and head winemaker, Mike Seal, right, presented a check representing 10 percent of Sigillos sales of Sauvignon Blanc in May, to Arthritis Foundation Development Manager Toni Arrowsmith, left, and Arthritis Foundation Senior Executive Director Kelsey Woods. Courtesy Photo

In connection with Arthritis Awareness Month, Sigillo Cellars in Snoqualmie has donated 10 percent of all its sales of the winerys first-release Sauvignon Blanc in May to the Arthritis Foundation. Sigillo Cellars owner Mike Seal recently presented a check for the donation to Senior Executive Director Kelsey Woods and Development Manager Toni Arrowsmith of the Washington Arthritis Foundation.

Mike expressed a big Thank You to all of our Club Members and guests who are enjoying Sigillo Cellars first Sauvignon Blanc release while supporting an organization that provides resources for the 1.2 million adults and 6,000 children in Washington State managing life with Arthritis.

picture: (left) Toni Arrowsmith, Development Manager, Arthritis Foundation, (middle) Kelsey Woods, Senior Executive Director, Arthritis Foundation, (right) Mike Seal, Owner and Head Winemaker, Sigillo Cellars

Go here to read the rest:
Sigillo Cellars donates part of Sauvignon Blanc sales to Arthritis Foundation - Snoqualmie Valley Record

Testing stem cell therapies unilaterally?A side-by-side comparison of strength of key muscles may enable scientists to evaluate stem cell therapies for the disease. The approach aims to control for the variability of the disease internally, without historical cohorts and/or the use of a placebo (see Donofrio and Bedlack, 2011; Glass et al., 2016).The biceps and triceps appear to be most reliable muscles to monitor progression in people with ALS according to this analysis (Rushton et al., 2017). [Neural progenitor cells. Courtesy of Nature Cell Biology. Reproduced with permission.]

Motor neurons degenerate in ALS. Why these cells are destroyed remains unclear. Therefore, how to slow or stop this destruction of motor neurons in ALS remains an open question.

In the meantime, a growing number of scientists are turning to stem cells in hopes to promote motor neuron survival in people with ALS and/or reduce their toxicity (see December 2015 conference news). But how to evaluate these strategies in the clinic remains hotly debated.

Now, a research team at Cedar Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California reports that an emerging outcome measure, which involves monitoring muscle strength, may facilitate the evaluation of stem cell therapies for the disease (Rushton et al., 2017). The study, led by Clive Svendsen, found that functional decline of key muscles on the left and right side of people with ALS progressed at a similar rate. The results suggest that at least some stem cell therapies could be evaluated unilaterally by comparing the strength of muscles on the treated and untreated side for each of these muscle groups.

This side-by-side comparison, according to a subsequent power analysis, may enable clinicians to evaluate stem cell therapies for ALS in a smaller sample size without the need for sham surgeries and/or placebo injections.

This unilateral approach is emerging as an alternative to evaluate a growing number of potential neuroprotective strategies for neurodegenerative diseases including ALS (see NCT02943850, NCT02478450; Glass et al., 2016).

The study is published on June 9 in Neurology.

The retrospective analysis, performed in collaboration with Cedar Sinais Robert Baloh, studied the rates of decline of 6 upper and lower muscle groups in nearly 750 people with ALS determined by fixed dynamometry. These longitudinal datasets, previously collected by physical therapist Pat Andres and colleagues, now at Massachusetts General Hospital, capture the decline in strength of key muscles in people with ALS during at least a 16-month period measured by either the TUFTS Quantitative Neuromuscular Exam (TQNE) or more recently, the Accurate Test of Limb Isometric Strength (ATLIS) system (Andres et al., 1986; Shields et al., 1998; Andres et al., 2012.

Analyzing therapies by hand. Meanwhile, Biogen scientists in Cambridge, Massachusetts are turning to hand-held dynamometry to evaluate potential therapies for ALS. The emerging strength-based measure highly correlates with the progressive loss of motor function (ALS-FRS-R) and breathing capacity (FVC) according to a retrospective analysis of 924 people with ALS presented at the 2017 meeting of the American Academy of Neurology (see May 2017 news). And, according to a subsequent side-by-side comparison, these musclesdecline at similar rates. [Image: Douma et al., 2014 under CC BY 2.0 license.]

The study builds on previous work, led by Barrow Institutes Jeremy Shefner in Phoenix, Arizona and Biogens Toby Ferguson in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which found that monitoring the strength of key muscles using hand-held dynamometry is a reliable and reproducible approach to measure progression of ALS in a clinical setting and thereby, may facilitate the evaluation of potential therapies (see May 2017 conference news; Shefner et al., 2014).

Now, Svendsens team is gearing up to evaluate their potential stem cell therapy for ALS. The strategy uses genetically engineered neural progenitor cells (NPCs) to deliver GDNF into the CNS in hopes to protect motor neurons in people with the disease (see April 2017 news; Gowing et al., 2014). The approach is at the phase 1 stage. Stay tuned.

Featured Paper

RushtonDJ, Andres PL, Allred P, Baloh RH,SvendsenCN. Patients with ALS show highly correlated progression rates in left and right limb muscles. Neurology. 2017 Jun 9. [PubMed].

References

ShefnerJM, Liu D, Leitner ML, Schoenfeld D, Johns DR, Ferguson T, Cudkowicz M.Quantitativestrengthtesting in ALS clinical trials. Neurology. 2016 Aug 9;87(6):617-24. [PubMed].

Andres PL, Skerry LM, Munsat TL, Thornell BJ, Szymonifka J, Schoenfeld DA, Cudkowicz ME. Validation of a new strength measurement device for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis clinical trials. Muscle Nerve. 2012 Jan;45(1):81-5. [PubMed].

Andres PL, Hedlund W, Finison L, Conlon T, Felmus M, Munsat TL.Quantitative motor assessment in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Neurology. 1986 Jul;36(7):937-41.[PubMed].

Glass JD, Hertzberg VS, Boulis NM, Riley J, Federici T, Polak M, Bordeau J, Fournier C, Johe K, Hazel T, Cudkowicz M, Atassi N, Borges LF, Rutkove SB, Duell J, Patil PG, Goutman SA, Feldman EL. Transplantation of spinal cord-derived neural stem cells forALS: Analysis of phase 1 and 2 trials. Neurology. 2016 Jul 26;87(4):392-400.[PubMed].

Gowing G, Shelley B, Staggenborg K, Hurley A, Avalos P, Victoroff J, Latter J, Garcia L, Svendsen CN. Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor-secreting human neural progenitors show long-term survival, maturation into astrocytes, and no tumor formation following transplantation into the spinal cord of immunocompromised rats. Neuroreport.2014 Apr 16;25(6):367-72. [PubMed].

Further Reading

Atassi N, Beghi E, Blanquer M, Boulis NM, Cantello R, Caponnetto C, Chi A, Dunnett SB, Feldman EL, Vescovi A1, Mazzini L; attendees of the International Workshop on Progress in Stem Cells Research for ALS/MND. Intraspinal stem cell transplantation for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: Ready for efficacy clinical trials? Cytotherapy.2016 Dec;18(12):1471-1475. [PubMed].

Donofrio PD, Bedlack R. Historical controls in ALS trials: a high seas rescue? Neurology. 2011 Sep 6;77(10):936-7. [PubMed].

clinical trial clinical trial design disease-als gdnf neuralstem neuroprotection stem cell topic-clinical topic-randd

More here:
ALS Research Forum | To Evaluate Stem Cell Therapies, Think ... - ALS Research Forum

Peter Boyd Author living with arthritis

LIVING WITH ARTHRITIS for the rest of my life is one thing. Accepting that Ill never work again is quite another.

If I manage my rheumatoid arthritis correctly I potentially have 40 years of contributing in the workplace ahead of me. If Im passive and leave the arthritis in control I could have 40 years of benefits and disability payments.

Even doing the right thing and fighting arthritis with all my energy, what little I have these days, is no guarantee Ill be able to work again but Ive got to try. The only thing that is certain in the crazy, changed, unplanned for, painful, tiring, exhausting, soul destroying, exciting, medicated, drowsy, financially insecure arthritis world is that Ill fight it.

Im seven years into my journey. Im the man who spoke on behalf of Arthritis Ireland recently and said: I stand before you 33 years old, grateful for the day I got arthritis.

Being diagnosed

Thats skipping past a few chapters in my story, let me fill in the gaps.

In 2011, I was working as a full-time barman. On a quiet evening after a rugby match I began chatting to two regulars over the taps.Then I fell asleep.

Mid-conversation, mid-pub, mid-shift, I fell asleep. This was the final straw in work. I couldnt get bottles from the bottom shelf, carry a crate of beer, change kegs, stand for my entire shift or take deliveries.I was no longer a barman. I sat down with the bosses and took two weeks holiday. I never went back to work.

I lost my job and my financial security but had a mortgage to pay. I had appointments with every specialist in the hospital because RA is an auto-immune condition and the inflammation affected my whole body and every system in it.

Saying no to going out with my friends led them to stop asking. With no job, no money, lots of pain and overwhelming fatigue I lost my self-confidence and self-worth. Once they went, I stopped wanting to go out at all, saw no point in minding myself.

The inevitable depression

Depression was almost inevitable some might say. I fell into a deep, ongoing, depression that I continue to battle with every day. Ive had awful days when it all seemed too much. If Im honest, I still do.

My turnaround has been a huge success though and Ive done a lot of hard work to make it so. The impetus came from my family and Arthritis Ireland however.

My family have always provided the perfect blend of support and tough love, depending on the circumstance. When I needed a kick I got it but when I needed to be coaxed and cajoled I got that too.

Meeting people in the same boat as me opened doors I never knew existed when I did my Leisure Management Degree, worked as a barman and acted like the selfish person I was.

Arthritis Ireland introduced me to children, teenagers and adults of all ages living with their form of arthritis. I did the self-management course, trained to be on the helpline and, in helping others, I boosted myself. Im now on the Board of Directors of Arthritis Ireland.

Im a better person now

Ive learnt skills I wouldnt have done without arthritis. Two years ago, my confidence had been restored enough to go back into the classroom. Ive finished studying in Dun Laoghaire Further Education Institute and have a Higher Certificate in my pocket.

It was vital I retrained. Arthritis Ireland, my family and my friends helped rebuild my confidence to a point where I could upskill and find a new career path.

So while its awful, Im in more pain than ever and I hate having to inject myself every week, I am grateful for arthritis.

Im a better person than I was before my diagnosis and Ive learnt so many things. Im now an intern with Cricket Ireland at one of the most exciting, and potentially historic, times for the game in this country.

I dont wish my life had taken any other path and thats the honest truth.

Peter Boyd, the second of four siblings, lives in Balbriggan, North County Dublin. Though not as active as he used to be, he is still passionate about watching live sport as much as possible. Healso has huge interest in history and writing, and is a published author, having self-published his first novel in 2016.The RA NarRAtive patient survey was conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of Pfizer via an online survey that was distributed by local patient advocacy groups (PAGs) between March 20 April 6, 2017 among 211 adults, ages 18+, who have been diagnosed with rheumatoidarthritis(RA) in Ireland.ArthritisIreland is Irelands only organisation working to provide information and support for people witharthritis.For more information onArthritisIreland visitwww.arthritis.ie.

Get breaking news from TheJournal.ie via Facebook. Just click Like.

The rest is here:
Arthritis: 'I am grateful for arthritis. I'm a better person than before my diagnosis' - thejournal.ie

Consumer Update

Per the CDC, 23 percent of Americans suffer from arthritis, a leading cause of disability among adults in the U.S. Some of those afflicted seem to think that their only solutions for relieving pain are medication and surgery.

Dr. Arthritis is a company founded by a group of doctors looking to change that outlook. These are doctors with intimate knowledge of patients and the rheumatological and orthopedic conditions they suffer from.

With their line of products aimed at arthritis and other joint conditions, they offer a solution to relieve discomfort and pain.

Products include gloves and sleeves for hands, elbows, knees, cuffs, ankles, and feet. Infused with copper and through the use of compression, they help to reduce swelling and pain, while offering much-needed support.

Having worked with patients for many years and seeing the impact that arthritis has on a persons life helped Doctor Arthritis achieve the goal to help as many arthritic individuals as possible. Alongside their joint compression products, each of their customers receives a The Dr. Arthritis Handbook containing specific information on the condition, treatments, and exercises for the joint or muscle affected by arthritis.

The compression gloves infused with copper are developed with consideration and care towards each and every patient. Each glove or sleeve comes with a doctor written handbook outlining all the basic information patients should know about the joint affected.

This outlines the various conditions as well as exercises for strengthening joints and advice on lifestyle measures to improve symptoms

By offering products to help relieve symptoms while also educating, those who suffer from arthritis and other joint conditions are put back in the drivers seat. Doctor Arthritis has a passion for helping patients achieve a good, pain-free life.

For more information or to read their weekly blog visit doctorarthritis.org today.

Continue reading here:
Doctor Arthritis Clothing Products for Arthritic Individuals | NewsWatch Review - NewsWatch