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Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for patients with social anxiety not only helps to reduce anxiety levels but also seems to protect against accelerated cellular ageing, a study involving researchers at Karolinska Institutet published in the journal Translational Psychiatry reports.

“This is the first step towards better understanding the link between cellular ageing and the treatment of psychiatric issues,” says lead author Kristoffer Månsson, researcher at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

Individuals affected by mental illness are at greater risk of developing somatic conditions, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, earlier in life than unaffected individuals. While the reasons for this are unclear, one possible contributory factor is that mental health disorders are associated with shorter telomeres and accelerated cellular ageing.

A year marked by climate protests, political uncertainty and debate over the ethics of gene editing in human embryos proved challenging for science. But researchers also celebrated some exciting firsts — a quantum computer that can outperform its classical counterparts, a photo of a black hole and samples gathered from an asteroid.

Climate strikes, marsquakes and gaming AIs are among the year’s top stories.

Article courtesy of Dr. Nicholas DiNubile, Vice President of the A4M, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine, best selling author, keynote speaker, and one of our medical editors who is dedicated to keeping you healthy in body, mind and spirit.

We’ve extended the warranty on the human heart, and people are living longer. We’ve improved care for skin, and people look better. But it’s your frame that gets you where you need to go whenever you need to get there. Without the proper care, your bones and joints can all too easily become the limiting factor in your enjoyment of life. Have you outlived the warranty on your frame? Would you like an extended warranty?

I have come to believe that the achievement of longevity will bring the challenge of durability to the forefront of modern healthcare.

According to a study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology brushing your teeth frequently is linked to a lower risk of atrial fibrillation and heart failure.

Poor oral hygiene leads to bacteria in the blood which causes inflammation in the body based on previous research; inflammation increases the risk of atrial fibrillation and heart failure and this study examined the connection between oral hygiene and occurrence of these conditions.

161,286 participants between the ages of 40–79 with no history of heart failure or atrial fibrillation who were part of the Korean National Health Insurance System were enrolled in this study; participants had a routine medical exam between 2003–2004 and information on weight, height, lifestyle, illnesses, lab tests, oral health, and oral hygiene behaviors was collected.

Blueberries are more than just delicious, these little functional foods have been subject to many studies, and now they have been found to have another beneficial ability attributed to their antioxidant rich portfolio, that is the ability to help reduce the risk of heart disease according to a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

This study found that daily consumption one one cup of blueberries over the course of six months resulted in improved arterial function and cholesterol levels in adults with metabolic syndrome. 138 overweight and obese adults aged 50+ with metabolic syndrome were involved in the double blinded and placebo controlled parallel study.

Metabolic syndrome is a term for a cluster of conditions that includes high blood sugar, high triglycerides, and high blood pressure as well as increasing the risk of developing heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

Scientists like Prof Sinclair have evidence of speeding up, slowing, and even reversing aging.
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What causes aging? According to Professor David Sinclair, it is a loss of information in our epigenome, the system of proteins like histones and chemical markers like methylation that turn on and off genes. Epigenetics allow different cell types to perform their specific functions — they are what differentiate a brain cell from a skin cell. Our DNA is constantly getting broken, by cosmic rays, UV radiation, free radicals, x-rays and regular cell division etc. When our cells repair that damage, the epigenome is not perfectly reset. And hence over time, noise accumulates in our epigenome. Our cells no longer perform their functions well.

Continue reading “How to Slow Aging (and even reverse it)” »

Columbia scientists have captured the first images of a new gene editing tool that could improve upon existing CRISPR-based tools. The team developed the tool, called INTEGRATE, after discovering a unique “jumping gene” in Vibrio cholerae bacteria that could insert large genetic payloads in the genome without introducing DNA breaks.

In the new study, published today in Nature, the researchers harnessed a Nobel Prize-winning technique called cryo-electron microscopy to freeze the gene editing complex in action, revealing high-resolution details about how it works.

“We showed in our first study how to leverage INTEGRATE for targeted DNA insertions in bacterial cells,” says Sam Sternberg, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry & molecular biophysics at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, who led the research with Israel Fernandez, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry & molecular biophysics at Columbia. “These new images, a wonderful collaboration with Israel Fernández’s lab, explain the biology with incredible molecular detail and will help us improve the system by guiding protein engineering efforts.”

In laboratory experiments, a metabolic inhibitor was able to kill a variety of human cancer cells of the skin, breast, lung, cervix and soft tissues through a non-apoptotic route—catastrophic macropinocytosis.

In mouse xenograft studies, the inhibitor acted synergistically with a common chemotherapy drug, cyclophosphamide, to reduce tumor growth. Thus macropinocytosis, a rarely described form of cell death, may aid in the treatment of cancer.

“Understanding the signaling pathways underlying macropinocytosis-associated cell death is an important step in developing additional effective strategies to treat neoplasms that are resistant to apoptosis induced by chemotherapy,” said Mohammad Athar, Ph.D., professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Dermatology.

Researchers at the University of Helsinki have discovered a novel system to generate an artificially enveloped oncolytic adenovirus to direct the immune response against cancer.

Virus-based cancer vaccines are nowadays considered an interesting approach in the field of cancer immunotherapy. Targeting tumor-associated antigens is proven to be effective. However, the identification of these antigens remains challenging.

Researchers at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Manlio Fusciello, from the research group led by Professor Vincenzo Cerullo, and Dr. Flavia Fontana, from the research group led by Professor Hélder Santos, and their co-workers, have developed ExtraCRAd, a novel cancer vaccine platform, consisting of an oncolytic adenovirus wrapped in an artificial envelope made of cancer-cell membrane. Oncolytic virus therapy uses modified viruses that can infect and destroy tumor cells but don’t harm normal cells.