FDA database of drug side effects indicates the benefit may hold up no matter where Botox is injected.
Botox, a medication derived from a bacterial toxin, is commonly injected to ease wrinkles, migraines, muscle spasms, excessive sweating and incontinence. Forehead injection of the medication is also currently being tested in clinical trials for its ability to treat depression.
Researchers at Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of California San Diego have mined the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s Adverse Effect Reporting System (FAERS) database to see what nearly 40,000 people reported happened to them after treatment with Botox for a variety of reasons.
In the study, published July 30, 2020 in Scientific Reports , the team discovered that people who received Botox injections — at six different sites, not just in the forehead — reported depression significantly less often than patients undergoing different treatments for the same conditions.
Release date: 30 July 2020
Botox Injections May Lessen Depression
FDA database of drug side effects indicates the benefit may hold up no matter where Botox is injected.
Botox, a medication derived from a bacterial toxin, is commonly injected to ease wrinkles, migraines, muscle spasms, excessive sweating and incontinence. Forehead injection of the medication is also currently being tested in clinical trials for its ability to treat depression.
Researchers at Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of California San Diego have mined the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s Adverse Effect Reporting System (FAERS) database to see what nearly 40,000 people reported happened to them after treatment with Botox for a variety of reasons.
In the study, published July 30, 2020 in Scientific Reports , the team discovered that people who received Botox injections — at six different sites, not just in the forehead — reported depression significantly less often than patients undergoing different treatments for the same conditions.
Release date: 30 July 2020
Source: University of California – San Diego
Fasting diet could boost breast cancer therapy
A USC-led team of international scientists found that a one-two punch of a fasting diet with hormone therapy may enhance the effects of breast cancer treatment in small clinical trials and mouse studies.
A USC-led team of scientists has found that a fasting-mimicking diet combined with hormone therapy has the potential to help treat breast cancer, according to newly published animal studies and small clinical trials in humans.
In studies on mice and in two small breast cancer clinical trials, researchers at USC and the IFOM Cancer Institute in Milan — in collaboration with the University of Genova — found that the fasting-mimicking diet reduces blood insulin, insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) and leptin. In mice, these effects appear to increase the power of the cancer hormone drugs tamoxifen and fulvestrant and delay any resistance to them. The results from 36 women treated with the hormone therapy and fasting-mimicking diet are promising, but researchers say it is still too early to determine whether the effects will be confirmed in large-scale clinical trials.
The research was published in the journal Nature.
Release date: 21 July 2020
Source: University of Southern California
Aerobic exercise could have the final say on fatty livers
A new Trinity study highlights that fitness may be a more important clinical endpoint for improvement in patients with fatty liver disease during exercise trials, rather than weight loss. The findings have been published in the medical journal Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics.
Metabolic associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) is a condition characterised by a build-up of fat in the liver. The liver is central to a suite of vital processes in the body including digestion, blood clotting and energy production.
If left untreated MAFLD can lead to serious complications such as liver fibrosis (scarring), cirrhosis, liver failure and liver cancer, as well as cardiovascular and metabolic issues. Risk factors for developing MAFLD include type 2 diabetes and obesity. The global estimated prevalence of MAFLD is 25%, making it the leading cause of chronic liver disease worldwide, and is quickly becoming the leading cause of cirrhosis and liver cancer in liver transplant candidates in the western world.
This new study highlights that increased fitness, the result of aerobic exercise participation, may be a more important clinical endpoint for improvement in MAFLD patients during exercise trials, rather than weight loss.
Release date: 28 July 2020
Source: Trinity College Dublin
Nature study identifies 21 existing drugs that could treat COVID-19
Multiple drugs improve the activity of remdesivir, a current standard-of-care treatment for COVID-19.
A Nature study authored by a global team of scientists and led by Sumit Chanda, Ph.D., professor at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, has identified 21 existing drugs that stop the replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The scientists analyzed one of the world’s largest collections of known drugs for their ability to block the replication of SARS-CoV-2, and reported 100 molecules with confirmed antiviral activity in laboratory tests. Of these, 21 drugs were determined to be effective at concentrations that could be safely achieved in patients. Notably, four of these compounds were found to work synergistically with remdesivir, a current standard-of-care treatment for COVID-19.
Release date: 24 July 2020
Source: Sanford Burnham Prebys
How COVID-19 Causes Loss of Smell
This article is part of Harvard Medical School’s continuing coverage of medicine, biomedical research, medical education and policy related to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the disease COVID-19.
Temporary loss of smell, or anosmia, is the main neurological symptom and one of the earliest and most commonly reported indicators of COVID-19. Studies suggest it better predicts the disease than other well-known symptoms such as fever and cough, but the underlying mechanisms for loss of smell in patients with COVID-19 have been unclear.
Now, an international team of researchers led by neuroscientists at Harvard Medical School has identified the olfactory cell types in the upper nasal cavity most vulnerable to infection by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Surprisingly, sensory neurons that detect and transmit the sense of smell to the brain are not among the vulnerable cell types.
Release date: 24 July 2020
Source: Harvard Medical School
SARS-CoV-2 viral load peaks in the early stages of disease
Less symptomatic patients have a higher viral load when diagnosed and may carry a higher virus shedding risk potential, possibly representing an important overlooked population for infection containment, report scientists in The American Journal of Pathology.
In a retrospective study, investigators from New York University Langone Health found that the quantity of SARS-CoV-2 (viral load) collected from patients in the emergency department is significantly higher in patients with fewer or milder symptoms who did not require hospitalization—the opposite of what might be expected. Reporting in The American Journal of Pathology, published by Elsevier, they also found that a patient’s history of cancer and cardiovascular disease is associated with higher viral loads even after adjusting for age.
The study was designed to determine possible associations between the viral load measured in patients positive for SARS-CoV-2 and their clinical parameters including severity of symptoms, hospital admission vs direct discharge, length of hospitalization, admission to the intensive care unit, length of need for oxygen support, and overall survival.
Release date: 14 July 2020
Source: Elsevier
Experimental drug shows early promise against inherited form of ALS
Phase 1/phase 2 trial shows evidence for safety, biological activity of tofersen; phase 3 trial underway.
An experimental drug for a rare, inherited form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has shown promise in a phase 1/phase 2 clinical trial conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and other sites around the world and sponsored by the pharmaceutical company Biogen Inc. The trial indicated that the experimental drug, known as tofersen, shows evidence of safety that warrants further investigation and lowers levels of a disease-causing protein in people with a type of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, caused by mutations in the gene SOD1.
The results of the study, published July 9 in The New England Journal of Medicine, have led to the launch of a phase 3 clinical trial to further evaluate the safety and efficacy of tofersen.
Release date: 08 July 2020
Source: Washington University School of Medicine
If relaxed too soon, physical distancing measures might have been all for naught
If physical distancing measures in the United States are relaxed while there is still no COVID-19 vaccine or treatment and while personal protective equipment remains in short supply, the number of resulting infections could be about the same as if distancing had never been implemented to begin with, according to a UCLA-led team of mathematicians and scientists.
The researchers compared the results of three related mathematical models of disease transmission that they used to analyze data emerging from local and national governments, including one that measures the dynamic reproduction number — the average number of susceptible people infected by one previously infected person. The models all highlight the dangers of relaxing public health measures too soon.
“Distancing efforts that appear to have succeeded in the short term may have little impact on the total number of infections expected over the course of the pandemic,” said lead author Andrea Bertozzi, a distinguished professor of mathematics who holds UCLA’s Betsy Wood Knapp Chair for Innovation and Creativity. “Our mathematical models demonstrate that relaxing these measures in the absence of pharmaceutical interventions may allow the pandemic to reemerge. It’s about reducing contact with other people, and this can be done with PPE as well as distancing.”
The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Release date: 23 July 2020
Source: University of California – Los Angeles
Plant-based diets shown to lower blood pressure even with limited meat and dairy
Consuming a plant-based diet can lower blood pressure even if small amounts of meat and dairy are consumed too, according to new research from the University of Warwick.
Published online by a team from Warwick Medical School in the Journal of Hypertension today (25 July), they argue that any effort to increase plant-based foods in your diet and limit animal products is likely to benefit your blood pressure and reduce your risk of heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular disease. They conducted a systematic review of previous research from controlled clinical trials to compare seven plant-based diets, several of which included animal products in small amounts, to a standardised control diet and the impact that these had on individuals’ blood pressure.
Release date: 25 July 2020
Source: University of Warwick
Physical stress on the job with brain and memory decline in older age
A new study out of Colorado State University has found that physical stress in one’s job may be associated with faster brain aging and poorer memory.
Aga Burzynska, an assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, and her research team connected occupational survey responses with brain-imaging data from 99 cognitively normal older adults, age 60 to 79. They found that those who reported high levels of physical stress in their most recent job had smaller volumes in the hippocampus and performed poorer on memory tasks. The hippocampus is the part of the brain that is critical for memory and is affected in both normal aging and in dementia.
Their findings were published this summer in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience under the research topic “Work and Brain Health Across the Lifespan.”
“We know that stress can accelerate physical aging and is the risk factor for many chronic illnesses,” Burzynska said. “But this is the first evidence that occupational stress can accelerate brain and cognitive aging.”
Release date: 16 July 2020
Source: Colorado State University