ucsdhealthsciences
UC San Diego Health Sciences
UC San Diego Health Sciences Research News
2895 posts
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
Last Seen Blogs
Text
Want to see more great science and medicine content?
Check us out here: vchs.ucsd.edu/blog
36 notes
·
View notes
Photo
A New Role for RNA-Binding Protein in Asthma
Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) were only discovered in the past decade, but are now known to be major contributors to widespread organ inflammation, including the lungs. Studies have shown they promote lung inflammation in asthma through cytokine production. Still, very little is known about how they are naturally suppressed.
In a new study published July 30, 2022 in Nature Communications, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine found the RNA-binding protein RBM3 was increased in human and mouse ILCs during asthma conditions. The team further showed RBM3 was required for the intrinsic suppression of overactive ILC responses and lung inflammation, in a process partially dependent on cysteinyl leukotriene 1 receptor (CysLT1R).
Thus, authors said, RBM3 may be a potential therapeutic target and biomarker in asthma.
The study was led by first author Jana Badrani and senior author Taylor A. Doherty, MD, professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine and allergist/immunologist at UC San Diego Health.
— Nicole Mlynaryk
46 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Chemo-Radio-Immunotherapy Treats Local Cancers, Minimizes Side Effects
In a new study published July 5, 2022 in Nature Communications, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine present a three-prong approach to targeting local cancers while minimizing adverse effects in other parts of the body. The precision cancer therapy combines chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy to improve tumor control.
For many cancer patients with local tumors that have not yet spread, the best available treatment plan is a combination of systemic chemotherapy and targeted radiotherapy. Still, it is important to minimize the side effects of this approach.
The research team, led by Sunil Advani, MD, associate professor of radiation medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine, found that spatially-targeted cytotoxic agents called auristatins can further sensitize tumors to radiation, allowing greater tumor control while simultaneously activating anti-tumor immune responses. While the study was done in mice, the findings suggest that combining these auristatins with radiotherapy and immunotherapy may be a promising step towards spatially precise, biomarker-driven chemo-radio-immunotherapies.
Pictured above: The chemotherapy drug was localized to tumors (yellow circle) over surrounding normal muscle tissue or other organs.
— Nicole Mlynaryk
23 notes
·
View notes
Photo
You Are What You Eat, Metabolomically Speaking
The connection between nutrition and health outcomes is surprisingly indirect. For example, we know that fruits and vegetables are good for you. They’re packed with beneficial stuff like vitamins and fiber. However, it’s far less clear what exactly happens inside the body when you eat them — or any other kind of food.
Researchers have historically relied on tools like food frequency questionnaires and diaries to provide clues, but in a new paper, researchers at UC San Diego describe an approach called untargeted metabolomics that identifies the vast number of molecules derived from food and links them to relevant chemical inventories.
“The expanded ability to understand how what we eat translates into products and byproducts of metabolism has direct implications for human health,” said co-corresponding author Pieter Dorrestein, PhD, director of the Collaborative Mass Spectrometry Innovation Center at Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at UC San Diego.
“We can now use this approach to obtain diet information empirically and understand relationships to clinical outcomes. It is now possible to link molecules in diet to health outcomes not one at a time but all at once, which has not been possible before.”
The study has “huge implications” for future research, say the authors.
“The potential to read out diet from a sample directly has huge implications for research in populations, like people with Alzheimer’s Disease, who may not be able to remember or explain what they ate,” said co-corresponding author Rob Knight, PhD, director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation at UC San Diego.
“And in wildlife conservation applications. Good luck getting a cheetah or a gorilla, to name just two species out of the hundreds we’re studying, to fill out a food diary.”
— Scott LaFee
128 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Canadian Study, with UC San Diego Support, Provides Seniors with Tools to Fight Dementia
The Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS) at UC San Diego School of Medicine has partnered with Canada’s largest dementia research initiative, the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA), to launch an innovative online program that offers older adults the opportunity to increase their knowledge of dementia, improve lifestyle risk factors and engage with researchers.
The program, Brain Health PRO (BHPro), offers interactive digital educational modules to empower older adults to improve their physical and mental health, and modify their risk factors for dementia.
BHPro was created through the Canadian Therapeutic Platform Trial for Multidomain Interventions to Prevent Dementia (CAN-THUMBS UP) program, which is part of the CCNA and involves collaboration with the ADCS. The online program focuses on seven different modifiable dementia risk domains: exercise, nutrition, sleep, psychological and social health, cognitive engagement, heart health, and vision and hearing.
For each, the program includes 10-minute educational videos, as well as interactive activities for users to complete. One of the unique aspects of this program will be some of the information gained through wearable devices in its participants. They will be sent smart devices that will record brain activity during sleep, and track their physical activity. These measures will allow researchers to evaluate the impact of the program on participants’ everyday activities and risk factors for dementia. The study of BHPro will support 350 older adults across Canada who have at least one risk factor for dementia, with the goal of seeing participants’ dementia risk reduced throughout the yearlong study.
ADCS has provided leadership and partnership to this project from its inception. Its unique infrastructure has been fundamental to the successful support and launch of the CAN-THUMBS UP program. Howard Feldman, MD, co-director of the ADCS, serves as a member of the co-principal investigator team of CAN-THUMBS UP, and is joined by several UC San Diego faculty and staff members who serve as part of the CTU Steering Committee and Study Operations Team.
“It’s timely to be working with CCNA on this project,” Feldman said. “BHPro’s innovative approach aligns with our own commitment to dementia education, better understanding of lifestyle factors affecting dementia outcomes, and modification of risk factors through new approaches.”
A complementary ADCS study called HALT-AD is being launched in San Diego at UC San Diego. HALT-AD, a pilot study for the Healthy Actions and Lifestyles to Avoid Dementia or Hispanos y el ALTo a la Demencia, is a bilingual, bicultural co-created program. This program is designed and will be available for adults in the community who wish to join an education program and discussion groups enabling them to learn more about dementia, and practice preventive actions.
In addition to these educational initiatives directed at dementia prevention, the ADCS was the recent recipient of a $50 million gift from the Epstein Family Foundation to UC San Diego to support two programs: one for gene therapy for Alzheimer’s disease and the other, a “powder for pennies” (P4P) program, designed to expedite the testing of existing or repurposed drugs and natural products for its treatment.
To learn more about the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study and its current clinical trials, visit www.adcs.org.
(BHPro is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the ASC, and was created through the Canadian Therapeutic Platform Trial for Multidomain Interventions to Prevent Dementia {CAN-THUMBS UP} program, which is part of the CCNA. To learn more, please visit www.canthumbsup.ca.)
— Daniel Bennett
#science#medicine#alzheimer's disease#neurodegenerative disease#aging#dementia#prevention#lifestyle#cognitive decline#senior health
13 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Monkeypox is Not COVID-19
It is a rare disease closely related to smallpox, caused by a virus in the same genus that includes the variola virus responsible for smallpox. But it is not smallpox either. Monkeypox is less contagious, with milder symptoms and, until recent reports, almost entirely limited to regions of Central Africa.
Since early May, more than 250 cases of monkeypox have been detected in Europe and North America. The first confirmed case in the United States was in Massachusetts on May 18 involving a person who had recently traveled to Canada. A suspected case of monkeypox was reported May 24 in Sacramento, the first in California, in a person who had recently returned from a trip to Europe.
Monkeypox cases in the U.S. are not unprecedented. They occasionally pop up, usually involving travelers from West or Central Africa. What is more unusual this time is that small outbreaks of monkeypox are occurring concurrently in countries where the virus is quite rare. What concerns health officials are two still-unanswered questions: Are the known cases somehow related? Is monkeypox spreading elsewhere undetected?
These questions are the focus of current public health investigations.
But that said, monkeypox does not pose the same public health threat or risk as other infectious diseases. First, it’s a known quantity, with established tools to prevent and treat it. In fact, there is already an FDA-approved vaccine for monkeypox called Jynneos, and because of its similarities, it’s believed that existing smallpox vaccines, including Tembexa, a vaccine based on original research conducted at UC San Diego, may also be effective.
Immunity to smallpox is protective against monkeypox, though vaccinations against smallpox have grown increasingly rare. (In 1980, smallpox was declared officially eradicated in humans; the last naturally occurring case was reported in 1977.)
Monkeypox gets its name from its discovery in 1958 in laboratory monkeys, though scientists suspect rodents are the primary carriers of the virus in the wild. It is typically transmitted through close contact with infected animals, such as an animal bite, scratch, bodily fluids, feces or by consuming meat not thoroughly cooked.
Human-to-human transmission is rare, requiring skin-to-skin contact with an infected person displaying active symptoms. “Bottom line,” said Francesca Torriani, MD, professor of clinical medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at UC San Diego School of Medicine and program director of Infection Prevention and Clinical Epidemiology at UC San Diego Health, “if you are getting nice and cozy with someone, please look at their skin before engaging in sexual activities. If they have boils or vesicles, think monkeypox. The same is valid for saunas or Turkish baths or places where the bare skin or mucosae can come in contact with the environment, which in any case is the recommendation with COVID-19 numbers rising again.”
Monkeypox tends to be self-limiting, with symptoms appearing on average six to 13 days after exposure and persisting for two to four weeks. People who get sick commonly experience a fever, headache, back and muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes and general exhaustion. They may also develop a painful rash characteristic of poxviruses, beginning with flat red marks that become raised and fill with pus. The rash can start on the face, hands, feet, inside of the mouth or on the genitals, spreading to the rest of the body.
Once the pustules scab over, usually within two to four weeks, the person is no longer infectious.
Children and persons with underlying immune deficiencies are more susceptible to severe outcomes, but monkeypox is rarely fatal. In recent times, according to the World Health Organization, the case fatality ratio has been 3 to 6 percent.
— Scott LaFee
#science#medicine#infectious diseases#monkeypox#public health#smallpox#variola virus#virology#epidemiology#poxviruses
71 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Fatigue Associated With Worse Cognitive Functioning in Older Persons with HIV
Older people with HIV experience a type of fatigue associated with worse cognitive and everyday functioning, according to a paper published in the journal AIDS by UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers. That association remains even after accounting for factors like depression, anxiety and sleep quality.
The finding suggests fatigue is important symptom to assess and consider in the context of aging with HIV, which is a major focus in HIV research. By 2030, it’s estimated that 73 percent of persons with HIV will be age 50 or older.
“There’s a dearth of research examining the fatigue-cognition relationship — in particular in people with HIV,” said senior author Raeanne Moore, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
“This is one of the first studies to examine it.”Moore and her team, led by graduate student researcher Laura Campbell, studied 105 people ages 50 to 74 — 69 persons with HIV and 36 persons without HIV — recruited from ongoing studies at UC San Diego's HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center and from the community. Participants completed neuropsychological testing, a performance-based measure of everyday functioning and self-report questionnaires about fatigue, depression, anxiety, sleep quality, and everyday functioning.
Fatigue was the only factor associated with cognition among participants with HIV.
“The fact that we found this very strong relationship between fatigue and objective cognition among persons with HIV may speak to the biological underpinnings of fatigue and how that might be related to cognition, given that we also see this relationship in other chronic disease populations as well,” Moore said.
“Down the road, the hope is that we can identify and modify some of some of these biological mechanisms with treatment.“Fatigue is often one of the primary complaints that patients present with, so identifying new ways to reduce fatigue could have a significant impact on daily cognitive abilities and overall quality of life.”
— Corey Levitan
Pictured above: A colorized scanning electron micrograph of an HIV-infected human T cell. Image courtesy of NIH.
#science#medicine#hiv#cognition#fatigue#infectious diseases#public health#sexually transmitted infections#aging#psychiatry#academic medicine#ucsd#uc san diego
34 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Pharmacists at Higher Risk of Suicide than General Population
The pandemic put a spotlight on burnout and suicide among physicians and nurses, but until now, less was known about the mental health of pharmacists.
In the first study to report pharmacist suicide rates in the United States, a team of researchers led by Kelly C. Lee, PharmD, professor of clinical pharmacy at UC San Diego Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, found that suicide rates are higher among pharmacists compared to non-pharmacists, at an approximate rate of 20 per 100,000 pharmacists compared to 12 per 100,000 in the general population. Results of the longitudinal study were published May 13, 2022 in Journal of the American Pharmacists Association.
The most common means of suicide in this population was firearms, followed by poisoning and suffocation. The prevalence of firearm usage was similar between pharmacists and the general population, but poisoning via benzodiazepines, antidepressants and opioids was more frequent among pharmacists.
The data also provide some insight into contributing factors, including a history of mental illness and a high prevalence of job problems. Job problems are the most common feature of suicides across health care professions.
For pharmacists, Lee said job problems reflect significant changes in the industry in recent years, with more pharmacists employed by hospitals and chain retailers than small, private pharmacies more common in the past. The responsibilities of a pharmacist have also grown considerably, with larger volumes of pharmaceuticals to dispense and increasing demands to administer vaccines and other health care services.
“Pharmacists have many more responsibilities now, but are expected to do them with the same resources and compensation they had 20 years ago,” said Lee. “And with strict monitoring from state and federal regulatory boards, pharmacists are expected to perform in a fast-paced environment with perfect accuracy. It’s difficult for any human to keep up with that pressure.”
Future research will further evaluate which job problems have the biggest impact and how the field can better respond. In the meantime, Lee advised pharmacists to encourage help-seeking behaviors amongst themselves and their colleagues.
“Mental health is still highly stigmatized, and often even more so among health professionals,” said Lee. “Even though we should know better, there is such an expectation to appear strong, capable and reliable in our roles that we struggle to admit any vulnerabilities. It’s time to take a look at what our jobs are doing to us and how we can better support each other, or we are going to lose our best pharmacists.”
— Nicole Mlynaryk
If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (En Español: 1-888-628-9454; Deaf and Hard of Hearing: 1-800-799-4889) or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.
#suicide cw#science#medicine#mental health#psychiatry#pharmacy#pandemic#mental health crisis#self harm#health care industry#health care professionals#academic medicine#ucsd#uc san diego
10 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Tome Sweet Tome
The surfaces of all cells in nature are festooned with a complex and diverse array of sugar chains (called glycans). These perform a wide variety of biological functions, from the proper folding of proteins to cell-to-cell interactions. Their ubiquity in nature underscores their essentialness to complex life.
This week, the fourth edition of “Essentials of Glycobiology” (the study of glycans) was published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. It’s a continuation and updating of landmark work by a consortium of editors, led by Ajit Varki, MD, Distinguished Professor in the departments of Medicine and Cellular and Molecular Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine, with contributions from a number of UC San Diego scientists and physicians, including Jeffrey D. Esko, PhD, Distinguished Professor of cellular and molecular medicine; Pascal Gagneux, PhD, professor of pathology and anthropology, and Kamil Godula, PhD, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Amanda Lewis PhD, professor of obstetrics-gynecology and reproductive science.
Varki and Esko are also founding directors of the Glycobiology Research and Training Center (GRTC) at UC San Diego, established in 1999, and have recently handed over leadership to Lewis and Godula.
Glycobiology is a relatively new scientific discipline. The term was only coined in 1988, recognizing the combining of carbohydrate chemistry and biochemistry to focus on glycans, which have since proven to have a multitude of diverse and often critical roles in biology.
They have been linked to human origins and as a key evolutionary marker. They are found to both inhibit and promote tumor growth; and the presence of a particular sialic acid in red meat may be linked to increased cancer risk in humans. Another class of glycans called glycosaminoglycans have been shown by Esko and colleagues to be involved in COVID-19 coronavirus pathogenesis. The cover of the fourth edition presents an all-atom model of infamous spike protein of the pandemic virus, emphasizing the massive array of glycan chains modelled by UC San Diego professor of biology Rommie Amaro.
Varki, Esko and colleagues at the GRTC have been central to many of the advances in glycobiology, and the textbook, which originally debuted in 1999, has been an enduring effort to broadly introduce and describe the rapidly changing discipline.
For example, the second edition of “Essentials of Glycobiology,” published in 2008, appeared simultaneously in print from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, and free online to reach a wider audience. Subsequent editions have also been free online at the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Library of Medicine.
“This approach ensures that everyone, from the layperson to the high school student to the graduate student in a developing country, has free access to the knowledge the book contains, while increasing awareness of the availability of a printed edition that may be more suitable for some readers’ requirements,” said Varki at the time.
— Scott LaFee
Pictured above: In this electron micrograph, the surface of a bacterium is fuzzy with a coating of glycans.
#science#medicine#glycobiology#glyans#coronavirus#spike protien#human evolution#cancer#cellular and molecular medicine#pathology#cell biology#molecular biology#academic medicine#chemistry#biochem#uc san diego#ucsd
41 notes
·
View notes
Text
For Some Hallucinogens, the Bad Trip Comes Later
In recent years, hallucinogens ranging from LSD and ecstasy (MDMA/Molly) to salvia divinorum and ketamine have garnered renewed interest as potential as therapeutics for a variety of psychiatric conditions. Both LSD and ketamine, for example, are being widely studied as a treatment for major depression.
In a study published online April 28, 2022 in the journal Addictive Behaviors, researchers at UC San Diego School of Medicine and New York University investigated how use of these substances outside of medical settings relates to subsequent psychological distress, depression and suicidality.
They examined data from a representative sampling of noninstitutionalized adults (2015-2020) who had reported specific drug use on the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, and whether that use was associated with any reported serious psychological distress, major depressive episode (MDE) or suicidality.
The researchers found that LSD was associated with an increased likelihood of MDE and suicidal thinking. Salvia divinorum, a plant species with psychoactive properties when its leaves are consumed by chewing, smoking or as a tea, was linked to increased suicidal thinking. The hallucinogens DMT, AMT and Foxy were associated with suicidal planning.
Sometimes called “Maria Pastora” or “Sally-D,” Salvia divinorum contains opioid-like compounds that induce hallucinations when the leaves are chewed, smoke or brewed in a tea. Researcher found the plant also induces an increased likelihood of suicidal thinking.
Conversely, ecstasy use was associated with a decreased likelihood of serious psychological distress, MDE and suicidal planning.
“The findings suggest there are differences among specific hallucinogens with respect to depression and suicidality,” wrote authors Kevin H. Yang, a fourth year medical student; Benjamin H. Han, MD, an assistant adjunct professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine; and Joseph J. Palamar of New York University. “More research is warranted to understand consequences of and risk factors for hallucinogen use outside of medical settings among adults experiencing depression or suicidality.”
— Scott LaFee
If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (En Español: 1-888-628-9454; Deaf and Hard of Hearing: 1-800-799-4889) or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.
#science#medicine#psychiatry#major depressive episode#hallucinogens#depression#suicidality#drug use#psychiatric therapeutics#addiction#academic medicine#ucsd#uc san diego
13 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Gene Therapy Reverses Effects of Autism-Linked Mutation in Brain Organoids
In a study published May 02, 2022 in Nature Communications, scientists at University of California San Diego School of Medicine used lab-grown human brain organoids to learn how a genetic mutation associated with autism disrupts neural development. Recovering the function of this single gene using gene therapy tools was effective in rescuing neural structure and function.
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and schizophrenia have been linked to mutations in Transcription Factor 4 (TCF4), an essential gene in brain development. Transcription factors regulate when other genes are turned on or off, so their presence, or lack thereof, can have a domino effect in the developing embryo. Still, little is known about what happens to the human brain when TCF4 is mutated.
To explore this question, the research team focused on Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome, an ASD specifically caused by mutations in TCF4. Children with the genetic condition have profound cognitive and motor disabilities and are typically non-verbal.
Using stem cell technology, the researchers created brain organoids, or “mini-brains,” using cells from Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome patients, and compared their neurodevelopment to controls.
They found that fewer neurons were produced in the TCF4-mutated organoids, and these cells were less excitable than normal. They also often remained clustered together instead of arranging themselves into finely-tuned neural circuits. This atypical cellular architecture disrupted the flow of neural activity in the mutated brain organoid, which authors said would likely contribute to impaired cognitive and motor function down the line.
The team thus tested two different gene therapy strategies for recovering the functional TCF4 gene in brain tissue. Both methods effectively increased TCF4 levels, and in doing so, corrected Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome phenotypes at molecular, cellular and electrophysiological scales.
“The fact that we can correct this one gene and the entire neural system reestablishes itself, even at a functional level, is amazing,” said senior study author Alysson R. Muotri, PhD, professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
The team is currently optimizing their recently licensed gene therapy tools in preparation for future clinical trials, in which spinal injections of a genetic vector would hopefully recover TCF4 function in the brain.
— Nicole Mlynaryk
#science#medicine#autism#pitt-hopkins syndrome#non-verbal autism#neurobiology#genetics#stem cells#organoids#molecular biology#pediatrics#neuroscience#academic medicine#ucsd#uc san diego
57 notes
·
View notes
Photo
A Clue to Why Cancer Often Involves Muscle Loss
Many cancer patients gradually lose significant skeletal muscle, both in mass and density. The condition is known as cachexia and it’s a bigger problem than just consequential fatigue or poorer functional performance. The amount of muscle loss impacts cancer survival, in part because it can lower patient tolerance to adverse effects resulting from chemotherapy and other treatments.
In a new study using mouse models, published online in the April 25, 2022 issue of Nature Cell Biology, researchers at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences describe the mechanism they believe connects cancer to muscle loss. It involves extracellular vesicles (EV) – hollow spheres that carry proteins, lipids and genetic material between cells as a form of intercellular communication.
“These are little sacs released by cancer cells into the bloodstream,” said co-corresponding study author Shizhen (Emily) Wang, PhD, professor of pathology. “These sacs can influence many tissues in the body, including muscle.”
The study found that EVs released by cancer cells block a certain type of glycosylation (a type of protein modification) in muscles. This causes an abnormal increase in a calcium-release channel that quickly begins to break down muscle proteins. (Muscle function was studied in the lab of Simon Schenk, PhD, professor of orthopaedic surgery, UC San Diego School of Medicine, and co-corresponding author with Wang and first author Wei Yan, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in Wang’s lab.)
For many years, Wang and colleagues had observed that those mice with tumors were weaker, and sometimes smaller, than their cancer-free littermates.
“At first, we thought, ‘Oh well, I’m not surprised and the reviewers won’t be impressed,’ ” Wang said. “However, when Simon’s group performed a muscle mechanics assessment and found a difference between two groups he was blinded to, we knew there was a real mechanism to pursue.”
The researchers began their work in 2016. They began with breast cancer mouse models, but believe a one-size-fits-all mechanism explaining muscle loss in all human cancers is unlikely. However, Wang said, “similar concepts may apply to other cancers.”
Wang said she hopes their findings might eventually lead to a drug that blocks the identified pathway and prevents or slows cancer-related muscle loss. (Compounds that enhance the same glycosylation have been developed and are being tested in clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease.)
— Corey Levitan
#science#medicine#cancer#cachexia#muscle loss#cell biology#extracellular vesicles#cancer survivorship
137 notes
·
View notes
Photo
E-cigarettes Alter Inflammatory State of Brain, Heart, Lungs and Colon
Daily use of pod-based e-cigarettes alters the inflammatory state of multiple organ systems including the brain, heart, lungs and colon, according to a new study done in mice from researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, published April 12, 2022 in the journal eLife. Effects also vary depending on the e-cigarette flavor and can influence how organs respond to infections, such as SARS-CoV-2.
Authors saw the most striking effects in the brain, where several inflammatory markers were elevated. Additional changes in neuroinflammatory gene expression were noted in the nucleus accumbens, a brain region critical for motivation and reward-processing. The findings raise major concerns, they said, as neuroinflammation in this region has been linked to anxiety, depression and addictive behaviors, which could further exacerbate substance use and addiction.
“Many JUUL users are adolescents or young adults whose brains are still developing, so it’s pretty terrifying to learn what may be happening in their brains considering how this could affect their mental health and behavior down the line,” said senior study author Laura Crotty Alexander, MD, associate professor of medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
The researchers also found that the inflammatory response of each organ varied depending on which JUUL flavor was used. For example, the hearts of mice that inhaled mint aerosols were much more sensitive to the effects of bacterial pneumonia compared to those that inhaled mango aerosols.
"This was a real surprise to us,” said Crotty Alexander. “This shows us that the flavor chemicals themselves are also causing pathological changes. If someone who frequently uses menthol-flavored JUUL e-cigarettes was infected with COVID-19, it’s possible their body would respond differently to the infection.”
While mint and mango JUUL flavors have been discontinued since this study began, many of their chemical ingredients can still be found in current JUUL products, such as their menthol flavor, or other brands of flavored e-cigarettes.
— Nicole Mlynaryk
#science#medicine#pulmonology#infectious diseases#sars-cov-2#covid-19#neuroinflammation#vaping#e-cigarettes#inflammation#neurology#nucleus accumbens#anxiety#depression#addiction
19 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Harms of Vaping Hang in the Air
With the increasing popularity of e-cigarettes or vaping, there has been a concurrent rise in “e-cigarette or vaping product use-associate lung injury,” dubbed EVALI. In 2019, according to published data, more than half of patients diagnosed with EVALI in the United States required hospitalization.
In a paper published March 30, 2022 in the journal CHEST, a multi-institution team of researchers, including Laura E. Crotty Alexander, MD, associate professor of medicine in the UC San Diego School of Medicine and a pulmonary specialist, outline best health care practices for treating EVALI patients.
“Not long ago, there was tremendous interest in vaping-related lung injuries. But I think, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people believe this problem has gone away,” said first author Don Hays, MD, a pulmonologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
“The truth is that it hasn’t. These injuries are still being seen, though we’re not positive on the frequency because the CDC has ceased collecting data since the pandemic began. The goal of this study is twofold: to provide information and guidance on treating EVALI patients, and also to put forth a reminder that this is still a problem.”
EVALI is characterized by respiratory symptoms, such as cough, shortness of breath and chest pain, combined with gastrointestinal symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. The new study reviewed CDC data regarding 2,708 confirmed or probable EVALI patients requiring hospital admission between August 2019 and January 2020. The study reported that 93 percent of the patients survived to discharge, but 88.5 percent required respiratory support.
Given that EVALI symptoms can be similar to common respiratory infections, such as influenza and COVID-19, the authors said it is important to determine whether a patient has a history of e-cigarette use, particularly within the last three months.
Alexander said the EVALI epidemic in 2019 was primarily due to the addition on Vitamin E acetate to e-cigarettes already containing THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana, but also noted that e-cigarettes containing nicotine were linked to EVALI before and after 2019.
“We need to continue to warn both THC and nicotine e-cigarette vapers about the potential for acute lung injury,” said Alexander, who noted that UC San Diego Health averages two EVALI hospitalizations monthly.
“In health care, it is critical to be aware of, and understand, what’s going on in the public domain, in order to be suspicious of what might be happening with an individual patient. This is why public health is so important,” said Hayes. “The fact is, the average doctor may only see one or two EVALI cases, so by utilizing this panel of experts, who see EVALI cases more frequently, we’re able to provide guidance to questions like, ‘What should we be doing, how do we manage this, and should we be doing certain types of diagnostic tests?’”
Alexander agreed: “As clinicians become more aware of the health effects of e-cigarettes, we are hopeful that more accurate inhalation histories will be taken and documented, allowing us to accurately quantify e-cigarette driven diseases and outcomes.”
— Scott LaFee
#science#medicine#pulmonology#vaping#evali#e-cigarettes#e-cigs#vitamin e acetate#thc#public health#lung disease#academic medicine#ucsd#uc san diego
15 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Study: Convalescent Plasma Can be Effective Early COVID-19 Therapy
Confirming findings first announced in December, a study published March 30, 2022 in The New England Journal of Medicine reports that plasma from patients who have recovered from COVID-19 and whose blood contains antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the causative virus, is an effective and safe option as an early outpatient treatment for the disease.
The research showed that high-titer (antibody-rich) COVID convalescent plasma — when administered to COVID-19 outpatients within nine days after testing positive — reduced the need for hospitalization for more than half of the study’s predominantly unvaccinated outpatients. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) currently authorizes this plasma as a treatment option for outpatients with immunocompromising diseases or receiving immunocompromising medications, and for all patients hospitalized with early-stage COVID-19.
The multi-institution study was overseen by Johns Hopkins University and included a testing site at UC San Diego Health, led by Edward Cachay, MD, an infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine.
“The findings reinforce the idea that convalescent plasma therapy can be an important and valuable early option for outpatient treatment,” said Cachay. “It’s safe, well-understood and effective under the right circumstances. We’ve answered a century-old question about when and how to use passive antibody therapy, which will be important for future pandemics to come.”
In the outpatient early-treatment study conducted between June 2020 and October 2021, the researchers provided 1,181 randomized patients with one dose each of either polyclonal high-titer convalescent plasma (containing a concentrated mixture of antibodies specific to SARS-CoV-2) or placebo-control plasma (with no SARS-CoV-2 antibodies). The patients were 18 and older, and had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 within eight days prior to transfusion. A successful therapy was defined as a patient not requiring hospitalization within 28 days after plasma transfusion.
The study found that 17 patients out of 592 (2.9 percent) who received the convalescent plasma required hospitalization within 28 days of their transfusion, compared with 37 out of 589 (6.3 percent) who received placebo-control plasma. This translated to a relative risk reduction for hospitalization of 54 percent.
Timing of the convalescent plasma transfusion also is critical: “The earlier the better,” the researchers said.
The FDA has authorized emergency use of convalescent plasma with high titers of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies “for the treatment of COVID-19 in patients with immunosuppressive disease or receiving immunosuppressive treatment, in either the outpatient or inpatient setting.”
And earlier this month, the American Red Cross announced it would “temporarily test all blood donations for COVID-19 antibodies to help identify donations that could be processed into convalescent plasma.” The organization said this was being done “to help support immunocompromised patients battling COVID-19.”
— Scott LaFee
#covid-19#convalescent plasma#infectious disease#public health#pandemic#science#medicine#antibodies#clinical trials#sars-cov-2
13 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Excess Neuropeptides Disrupt Lung Function in Infant Disease and COVID-19
Excess fluid in the lung can significantly disrupt lung function and gas exchange, but researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine were surprised to find that neuropeptides may be to blame.
In a study published March 17, 2022 in the journal Developmental Cell, scientists show that excessive neuropeptide secretion by neuroendocrine cells in the lungs can lead to fluid buildup and poor oxygenation. However, blocking the neuropeptide signals with receptor antagonists prevented the leakage and improved blood-oxygen levels, suggesting that neuropeptides may be a promising therapeutic target for conditions marked by excess lung fluid.
This mechanism was discovered in the context of neuroendocrine cell hyperplasia of infancy (NEHI), a lung disease affecting infants in which lung size and structure appear normal but blood-oxygen levels are consistently low. Its defining feature is an increase in the number of pulmonary neuroendocrine cells (PNECs), but until now, physicians did not know how these cells contributed to the disease.
In the new study, researchers confirmed that PNECs and their neuropeptide products are the drivers of NEHI, but also showed that PNEC numbers were increased in the lungs of COVID-19 patients with excess lung fluid. This suggests a similar mechanism may contribute to COVID-19 symptoms.
The study was led by Xin Sun, PhD, professor of pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine and the Division of Biological Sciences.
“We were surprised to find that neuropeptides can play such a major role in gas exchange,” said Sun. “Researchers are just starting to appreciate the relationship between the nervous system and the lungs, but the more we understand it, the more we can modulate it to treat disease.”
Pictured above: An angiogram of blood vessels in the NEHI mouse lung shows multiple sites of fluid leakage, marked by yellow arrowheads.
— Nicole Mlynaryk, Bigelow Science Communication Fellow
#science#medicine#pulmonology#cell biology#molecular biology#pediatrics#infectious disease#covid-19#endocrinology#nehi#neuroendocrine cell hyperplasia of infancy#ards#academic medicine#uc san diego
112 notes
·
View notes
Photo
All of Us Advances
Officially launched in 2018, the All of Us Research Program represents a massive, long-term effort to gather information from 1 million or more persons living in the United States, then use that data to accelerate health research and medical therapies. The biggest emphasis is upon gathering information on racial, ethnic and cultural groups who have historically been underrepresented or ignored in medical research.
Today, the sponsoring National Institutes of Health announced the release of the first genomic dataset generated by All of Us: nearly 100,000 whole genome sequences encompassing diverse individuals that can be used as a national resource for studies covering a wide variety of health conditions.
UC San Diego is part of the All of Us program, led by Lucila Ohno-Machado, MD, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Medicine, chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at UC San Diego Health, and associate dean for informatics and technology.
“As modern medicine seeks to become more precise and personalized, it necessarily requires more and more data to both understand the big picture of health and disease and, more specifically, how each person fits into the whole,” said Ohno-Machado. “With this first public genomic dataset, All of Us begins to meet its goals and expectations, allowing physicians and scientists to parse the mysteries and challenges of diseases across the health spectrum in new, individualized ways.”
— Scott LaFee
#science#medicine#precision medicine#equity#diversity#inclusion#edi#lgbtq health#health#bioinformatics#all of us#nih#health disparities#whole genome sequencing#uc san diego#academic medicine
11 notes
·
View notes