US begins first trial with human embryonic stem cells

Sunday, 13 October 2013

Islamabad, Oct 14 (Newswire): US doctors have begun the first tests of human embryonic stem cells in patients, treating a man with spinal cord injuries in a landmark trial of the controversial process, the Geron Corporation said.

The patient began the pioneering treatment on Friday with an injection of the biotech company's human embryonic stem cells, as part of a clinical trial that aims to test safety and efficacy toward regaining sensation and movement.

The treatment took place at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia, a spokeswoman for the hospital said, declining to give further details due to patient privacy concerns.

The Phase-I trial is expected to involve around 10 patients. Participants in the human trials must be severely injured and start treatment with Geron's product, GRNOPC1, seven to 14 days after sustaining their injury.

Patients will be given a single injection of two million of Geron's GRNOPC1 cells in the trial.

Those taking part will be followed up for one year to monitor safety and also to see if they have regained any sensory function or movement in their lower extremities.

If the initial group of subjects shows no negative side-effects, Geron plans to seek FDA approval to extend the study to increase the dose of GRNOPC1 and to include patients with "as broad a range of severe spinal cord-injured patients as medically appropriate.

"The ultimate goal for GRNOPC1 is to inject it directly into the spinal cord lesions of injured humans where it would, Geron hopes, prompt damaged nerve cells to regrow, enabling patients to eventually recover feeling and movement.

Geron began working with human embryonic stem cells in 1999.
Back then, "many predicted that it would be a number of decades before a cell therapy would be approved for human clinical trials," Geron's president and chief executive Thomas Okarma said in a statement.

Okarma described Monday's start of the clinical trial as "a milestone for the field of human embryonic stem cell-based therapies."GRNOPC1 is made up of cells containing precursors to oligodendrocytes — multi-tasking cells that occur in the nervous system.
Oligodendrocytes are lost in spinal cord injury, resulting in myelin and neuronal loss which cause paralysis in many patients.
Preclinical studies of GRNOPC1 found that when it was injected into the injury site of animals with spinal cord injuries, it migrated throughout the lesion site and matured into oligodendrocytes.

Those oligodendrocytes then re-lined axons with myelin, the insulating layers of cell membrane that wrap around the axons of neurons to enable them to conduct electrical impulses.

The process produced biologicals that enhance the survival and function of neurons, resulting in significantly improved locomotion in the treated animals.

In the animal trials, GRNOPC1 was injected seven days after the injury was sustained.

Every year, some 12,000 people in the United States sustain spinal cord injuries, usually in automobile accidents or from falls, gunshot wounds and sports.

Geron got clearance in January 2009 from the Food and Drug Administration to conduct human trials of GRNOPC1.

Around six weeks later, President, Barack Obama, reversed a ban on federal funding for research on human embryonic stem cells, which had been imposed by his predecessor at the White House, George W. Bush.

But the clinical trials of GRNOPC1 remained on hold for more than a year while the US courts wrangled about whether lifting the ban on embryonic stem cell research was legal.

Backers of the research believe the field holds huge potential for treating serious diseases including cancer and Alzheimer's, and even for reversing paralysis.

Opponents argue that living embryos are destroyed in order to obtain the potentially life-saving embryonic stem cells.

Legislation passed by Congress in 1996 bans federal funding for research in which human embryos are either destroyed or discarded.

In lifting the ban on embryonic stem cell research, the Obama administration argued the research does not require disposal or destruction of the embryos, which were created for in-vitro fertilization treatments but never used.

Last month, a US appeals court ruled that the federal funding can continue, dissolving a lower court's ban.

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Sleeping with light on may lead to weight gain: Study

Saturday, 12 October 2013

Islamabad, Oct 13 (Newswire): Too much light at night appears to lead to weight gain, according to a report, based on studies of mice that provide fresh clues on obesity.

The researchers found that mice exposed to a dim light at night over eight weeks had a weight gain that was about 50 per cent more than other mice that lived in a standard light-dark cycle.

"Although there were no differences in activity levels or daily consumption of food, the mice that lived with light at night were getting fatter than the others," said Laura Fonken, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the Ohio State University.

The study, which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, said the weight gain could be a sign that light has an effect on the metabolism.

"Something about light at night was making the mice in our study want to eat at the wrong times to properly metabolise their food," said Randy Nelson, co-author of the study and professor of neuroscience and psychology at Ohio State.

If these results are confirmed in humans, it would suggest that late-night eating might be a particular risk factor for obesity, Nelson said.

In one study, mice were housed in one of three conditions: 24 hours of constant light, a standard light-dark cycle that included 16 hours of light and eight hours of dark, or 16 hours of daylight and eight hours of dim light.

Results showed that, compared to mice in the standard light-dark cycle, those in dim light at night had significantly higher increases in body mass, beginning in the first week of the study and continuing throughout.

By the end of the experiment, dim-light-at-night mice had gained about 12 grams of body mass, compared to eight grams for those in the standard light-dark cycle.

Mice in constant bright light also gained more than those in the standard light-dark cycle, but Nelson said the mice exposed to dim light was a more important comparison for humans.

Although the mice exposed to dim light did not eat more than others, they did change when they ate, consuming more food at night.

Since the timing of eating seemed significant, the researchers did a second study, with a change: instead of having food freely available at all times, food was restricted to either the times when mice would normally be active or when they would normally be at rest.

In this experiment, mice exposed to the dim light at night did not have a greater gain in body mass than did the others when their food was restricted to times when they normally would be active.
"When we restricted their food intake to times when they would normally eat, we didn't see the weight gain," Fonken said.

"This further adds to the evidence that the timing of eating is critical to weight gain."The researchers said the findings offer clues for causes of the obesity epidemic in Western countries.

"Light at night is an environmental factor that may be contributing to the obesity epidemic in ways that people don't expect," Nelson said. "Societal obesity is correlated with a number of factors including the extent of light exposure at night."

He said prolonged computer use and television have previously been linked to obesity but because they are associated with a lack of physical activity.

"It may be that people who use the computer and watch the TV a lot at night may be eating at the wrong times, disrupting their metabolism," Nelson said.

"Clearly, maintaining body weight requires keeping caloric intake low and physical activity high, but this environmental factor may explain why some people who maintain good energy balance still gain weight."

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Newborns with jaundice more likely to develop autism: Study

Islamabad, Oct 13 (Newswire): Infants born with jaundice are at much greater risk of developing autism, a study showed.

The study published in the US journal 'Pediatrics' found full-term infants born in Denmark between 1994 and 2004 who had jaundice were 67 per cent more likely to develop autism.

Neonatal jaundice is usually caused by elevated production of bilirubin, a substance found in bile that results from the normal breakdown of red blood cells.

Jaundice is seen in 60 per cent of term infants and usually resolves within the first week of life, but prolonged exposure to high bilirubin levels is neurotoxic and can cause lifelong developmental problems, the study says.

In this study researchers found the risk of autism was higher if the mother had had previous children, or if the child was born between October and March.

The risk for autism disappeared if the child was a firstborn child or was born between April and September. Authors suggest the seasonal difference may be due to different levels of exposure to daylight, which has an effect on jaundice, or due to infections.

The difference in risk in firstborn versus subsequent children could be due to different levels of antibodies in women who have had multiple pregnancies, or it could reflect different levels of access to health care in the first days after delivery.

In Denmark, women with healthy term newborns who have already had children are discharged soon after delivery.

Women having their first child remain in the hospital for three to four days, and so jaundice may be diagnosed while the infant is still in the hospital.

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Excess tummy fat? Watch out!

Islamabad, Oct 13 (Newswire): The Imperial College, London and the University of Leeds reviewed seven research publications, all of which showed excess tummy fat or a potbelly to be predictors of bowel cancer.

Researchers from these universities have claimed that for every inch of waist size that is above a healthy waist measurement, the likelihood of bowel cancer can rise by up to three per cent.

Therefore, obesity, especially around the tummy area can lead to cancer. It is a fact that several people in India have potbellies and as a result, they are at a higher risk of developing bowel cancer. To understand how obesity leads to cancer, we need to first understand obesity and how it affects our health.

People who are obese have an abnormally high and unhealthy proportion of body fat. In fact, obesity and physical inactivity accounts for 25 to 30 per cent of cancers including colon cancer, breast cancer, cancer of the uterus and cancer of the oesophagus.
If a woman has a waist size of more than 32 inches and a man has a waist of more than 35 inches, it could mean that they are at a higher risk of getting cancer. In fact, according to a report published in the journal of the American College of Cardiology, people with large waist-to-hip ratios (WHRs) are almost twice as likely to have calcium deposits, which indicate the onset of atherosclerosis in the arteries of their hearts that can lead to heart attacks.

It has also been found the risk of developing breast cancer and dying from it after menopause is higher among obese women.

How to reduce the risk?
The most common form of cancer caused due to obesity is colon cancer. In 2002, a major review of observational trials found that physical activity reduced the risk of developing colon cancer by 50 per cent. This risk reduction occurred even with moderate levels of physical activity. Moderate exercise such as brisk walking for three to four hours a week has been shown to lower the risk.

Therefore, people should try to stay fit without being over or under weight. It is especially important to maintain a healthy waist size as even people who are seemingly thin, could get cancer if they carry a big belly. Individuals who have high saturated fats in their diet are at a risk of developing a potbelly. Foods rich in saturated fats like meat, butter, processed foods and many junk foods should be avoided.

It is a common misconception that "pot exercise" (exercising a specific muscle or location of the body) most effectively burns fat in the desired body part but this is not true.

Spot exercise is beneficial for building specific muscles, but it has little effect on the fat in that area of the body or on the body's distribution of fat.

The same applies to sit-ups, crunches and other abdominal exercises. These exercises may be useful in building the abdominal muscle but they have little effect on the adipose tissue located there.

Therefore, physical exercises that involve the entire body like jogging or brisk walking are most effective to help you stay in shape.

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