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A recent study reveals that the common steroid betamethasone might be used to decrease the unpleasant side effects of prostate cancer radiation treatments.

The findings were reported in the journal ‘International Journal of Molecular Sciences.’ The lab study, led by Luksana Chaiswing, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, is the first to show that betamethasone protects normal prostate cells from radiation therapy-induced injury while making cancer cells more susceptible to the treatment.

In the United States, prostate cancer is the second highest cause of cancer mortality in males. While radiation therapy is beneficial for slowing the progression of prostate cancer, it also increases the chance of undesired side effects, such as tissue damage.

“New therapeutics targeted at preventing against natural tissue harm while simultaneously enhancing the efficiency of radiation therapy are desperately needed,” Chaiswing added. “The development of such treatments would have a significant influence on prostate cancer control and patient quality of life.”

The researchers examined over 700 FDA-approved medications for qualities such as shielding non-cancer cells from radiation therapy-induced cytotoxicity, killing prostate cancer cells, and boosting hydrogen peroxide levels in both cancer and non-cancer cells.

Betamethasone, a corticosteroid licenced for the treatment of haematological system inflammation and cancer, was one of the top five medications with all of the necessary qualities.

In normal, non-cancerous prostate cells, betamethasone raises hydrogen peroxide levels, which activates a protective protein called “RelB.”

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“The results of this investigation might lead to a novel anticancer regimen that increases the efficiency of radiation treatment by sensitising c to radiation while simultaneously shielding normal tissue from radiation-induced adverse effects,” Chaiswing explained.

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A new study conducted by the Universities of Eastern Finland and Turku has enhanced comprehension of an under-researched problem concerning sleep among elderly employees. The survey comprised 2,771 near-retired Finnish municipal personnel.

The study looked at how mental and physical job circumstances, stressful life events, and work-life balance influenced sleep issues in older workers. Sleep issues are linked to both job and nonwork pressures.

In another demographic survey, over half of Finnish males aged 60-69 and nearly 70% of Finnish women had sleeplessness symptoms in the previous month.

“In our investigation, we discovered four distinct components connected with mental stress. Physical workload and shift work, psychological workload, social and environmental nonwork adversity, and life event- and health-related nonwork adversity are all examples of nonwork adversity “Marianna Virtanen, Professor of Psychology at the University of Eastern Finland, states

Loneliness and limited engagement with one’s neighbours are examples of social and environmental nonwork difficulties. Nonwork adversity connected to life events and health refers to a stressful occurrence in one’s life or the provision of informal care.

“The more job and nonwork pressures each employee faced, the more sleep issues they had.”

Flexibility is a key development goal.

Work-related stress was connected with present sleep issues, but loneliness and stress related to one’s living environment predicted growing sleep problems throughout the follow-up. Sleep quality was also linked to psychosocial working situations.

“Psychosocial working circumstances were defined in this study by the contents and arrangements of work, such as chances for influence and working hours, as well as competence development and fair management.”

The research, funded by the Finnish Work Environment Fund, provides information on characteristics at which development measures and interventions for older employees might be focused.

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“Flexible working hours are an essential aim for growth, especially when there are stress factors in private life, such as serious sickness or death in the family, or being an informal caretaker for someone,” Virtanen adds.

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A pooled data analysis of the existing evidence suggests that dietary salt replacements reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, and mortality from all causes including cardiovascular disease, according to the conclusions of a new research.

The findings were reported in the journal Heart online. According to the experts, the favourable effects of these alternatives are likely to apply to people all over the world.

Cardiovascular disease is the largest cause of mortality globally, and high blood pressure is a significant risk factor for premature death. A high salt, low potassium diet is known to raise blood pressure.

According to the study, around 1.28 billion people worldwide have excessive blood pressure, with more than half of them going untreated.

Salt substitutes that replace a portion of the sodium chloride (NaCl) with potassium chloride (KCl) are known to help reduce blood pressure.

A significant Chinese research (Salt Substitute and Stroke Study; SSaSS) released recently indicated that salt replacements reduce the incidence of heart attacks, stroke, and premature mortality, but it was unclear whether these advantages would extend to other regions of the world.

In order to shed light on this, the researchers combed through research databases for randomised clinical studies published up to the end of August 2021 that reported on the effects of a salt replacement on blood pressure, cardiovascular health, and premature mortality.

Blood pressure is measured in millimetres of mercury (mmHg) and is composed of two numbers: systolic—the larger number indicating the power with which the heart pumps blood around the body—and diastolic—the lower number indicating arterial pressure while the heart is filled with blood.

They combined the findings of 21 relevant worldwide clinical studies involving over 30,000 participants from Europe, the Western Pacific Region, the Americas, and Southeast Asia.

The research periods ranged from one month to five years. The amount of sodium chloride in the salt replacements ranged from 33% to 75%, whereas the quantity of potassium ranged from 25% to 65%.

The examination of pooled data revealed that salt replacements reduced blood pressure in all subjects. The total systolic blood pressure drop was 4.61 mm Hg, while the overall diastolic blood pressure reduction was 1.61 mmHg.

Blood pressure reductions appeared to be constant regardless of region, age, gender, history of high blood pressure, weight (BMI), baseline blood pressure, and baseline urine salt and potassium levels.

Each 10% reduction in sodium chloride in the salt replacement was related with a 1.53 mmHg increase in systolic blood pressure and a 0.95 mmHg increase in diastolic blood pressure. There was no indication that consuming more potassium was harmful to one’s health.

A pooled data analysis of the outcomes of five of these trials involving over 24,000 individuals found that salt replacements reduced the odds of early mortality from any cause by 11%, cardiovascular disease by 13%, and heart attack or stroke by 11%.

The researchers recognise that their findings have limitations, such as the fact that the studies in the pooled data analysis differed in design and that there were very limited data for those who did not have high blood pressure.

Nonetheless, they emphasise that their findings are consistent with those of the SSaSS, the biggest study of a potassium-enriched salt replacement to date.

“Because blood pressure lowering is the mechanism by which salt substitutes confer cardiovascular protection,” they write, “the observed consistent blood pressure reductions make a strong case for the generalisability of the cardiovascular protective effect observed in the SSaSS both outside of China and beyond.”

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“These findings are unlikely to be due to chance,” they write, “and support the use of salt replacements in clinical practise and public health policy as a strategy to reduce dietary sodium intake, increase dietary potassium intake, lower blood pressure, and avoid major cardiovascular events.”

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A medicine routinely used to treat enlarged prostates and high blood pressure has shown promise as a potential new treatment for motor neuron disease (MND), better known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, according to a recent research (ALS).

Motor neuron disease (MND) is a rare category of disorders that gradually deprive individuals of their capacity to regulate their muscles by damaging motor neurons in their bodies. Terazosin, a medication, has been proven in experiments employing zebrafish, mice, and stem cell models to prevent motor neuron death by boosting their energy production.

According to experts, the medicine may help delay the course of an illness that affects roughly 5,000 persons in the UK. Following the beginning of symptoms, the average life expectancy is three years.

The organisation is starting a feasibility study to see how the medicine affects MND patients. If this is effective, they intend to launch a large-scale clinical investigation.

Although the specific mechanism of motor neuron loss is uncertain, scientists do know that motor neurons begin releasing less energy early in the disease.

Energy must be created in order for the motor neurons to send the brain’s directives to the muscles. When there is inadequate energy, movement is impeded and signals cannot be adequately sent.

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh and their collaborators from the University of Oxford focused on motor neurons’ energy production as a potential therapeutic approach for treating MND.

The team wanted to see if terazosin, which has been shown to be effective at increasing energy production in models of Parkinson’s disease and stroke, could also protect motor neurons from MND.

They concentrated on PGK1, an enzyme that is an active molecule in cells and is involved in energy production.

Zebrafish models of MND demonstrated that either genetically boosting PGK1 levels or administering terazosin to the fish to boost PGK1 activity improved the growth of motor neurons.

In a mouse model of MND, terazosin also shielded motor neurons, increasing survival and delaying the onset of paralysis.

The team showed that terazosin protects motor neurons by boosting energy levels by growing these cells in a dish.

The Oxford MND Care and Research Centre’s 50 patients are being invited to take part in a feasibility study that will look at the effect of terazosin on important markers of disease progression in order to further investigate this.

The research has been released in biomedicine. The My Name’5 Doddie Foundation and MND Scotland provided funding for it.

A team from the Euan MacDonald Centre for Motor Neurone Disease, which was founded by Euan MacDonald and his father Donald to enhance the lives of those with MND, conducted research at the University of Edinburgh.

“Our work shows that terazosin is protective of motor neuron cell death in multiple models of MND, making it an exciting new potential therapy,” said Dr. Helena Chaytow, senior postdoctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh’s Euan MacDonald Centre and the study’s first author. We can quickly move terazosin to the clinic because it is already approved for use in treating a different medical conditions, which is an advantage of using it.

The study’s co-leader and professor of anatomy at the Euan MacDonald Centre at the University of Edinburgh, Professor Tom Gillingwater, stated: “We are excited about the potential for terazosin to impact on the breakdown of motor neurons in MND. The current work demonstrates the value of collaborating between scientists and clinicians to find novel therapeutic targets that can be tested in human MND patients.

The study’s co-leader and Oxford University professor of motor neuron biology, Professor Kevin Talbot, stated: “We urgently need to accelerate the way drugs are developed from laboratory models into trials in patients. Our research employs a variety of techniques to raise the likelihood that medications will be effective in MND patients and significantly slow the course of the disease. It represents a significant new step in the pursuit of treatments.”

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As the primary funders of this research study, Dr. Jane Haley MBE, Director of Research for MND Scotland, stated: “We are thrilled to see a potential new therapy for MND on the horizon. The findings of this study suggest that terazosin, a medication currently used to treat enlarged prostates and high blood pressure, may be able to protect motor neurons after testing in a variety of models. We are happy that the drug will now be the subject of a feasibility study in Oxford that includes MND patients. It’s about time we found a cure, so it’s great to see researchers, medical professionals, and MND charities collaborating to find new treatments for MND.

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In a recent study, Houston Methodist researchers presented clinical evidence supporting the safety and usefulness of directly injecting pain medicine into the tibia during knee replacement surgery for better postoperative pain control.

The study’s findings were published in the journal ‘The Journal of Arthroplasty.’ The double-blind, randomised trial published in The Journal of Arthroplasty found that patients who received morphine and the antibiotic vancomycin injected into the tibia (also known as the shin bone) of their knee joint had less pain after surgery than those who received the infusion without morphine.

“Despite many technological advances, controlling pain after total knee arthroplasty can be challenging; most patients experience considerable pain and discomfort, especially in the first couple of weeks into their recovery,” said Kwan “Kevin” Park, M.D. orthopaedic surgeon at Houston Methodist.

“Intraosseous infusion, which involves injecting medication directly into the bone marrow, allows us to control pain pre-emptively so that patients don’t have to take as much pain medicine later on.”

Total knee replacement is the recommended treatment to alleviate chronic pain caused by damage to the knee joint from arthritis or injury. According to the 2021 American Joint Replacement Registry Annual Report, primary knee replacement surgeries accounted for 54.5 per cent of the nearly two million hip and knee replacement procedures performed between 2012 and 2020.

Despite the high frequency and favourable outcomes of the surgical procedure, the manipulation of soft tissue and resurfacing damaged bones during knee replacement cause pain in the early postoperative periods.

“Twenty years ago, patients would remain in the hospital for several days after their surgery and receive extremely high-dose narcotics to help with their postoperative pain,” Park said. “But there has been a paradigm shift; patients are often discharged the same day after knee replacement surgery, and we use multimodal pain management techniques that work much better for pain control and require fewer narcotics.”

These multimodal regimens, he added, often include a combination of medications, such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, opioids and neurogenic agents that act on the nervous system, administered both pre-emptively and after the surgery.

However, opioid medications, although very effective in managing pain, have known side effects, like constipation and nausea, and some individuals are allergic to opiates. Opioid medication can be highly addictive, as well. Furthermore, a consensus on the optimal preoperative protocol to mitigate pain is lacking.

Previously, the researchers demonstrated that injecting the antibiotic vancomycin directly into the tibia before surgery helped in reducing infection by reaching a higher concentration of the drug in the knee. Motivated by this success, they investigated whether adding morphine to the tibial bone with a standard antibiotic solution could improve postoperative pain management.

For the study, the team included 48 patients needing total knee replacement surgery. Of these patients, half were randomly assigned to receive vancomycin and morphine injected directly into the bone marrow, using an infusion device that was inserted into the tibial tubercle region. The remaining were only administered vancomycin.

Post-surgery, the researchers monitored patient-reported pain, nausea and opioid use for up to 14 days after surgery.

Park’s team collaborated with Francesca Taraballi, PhD, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery and director of Houston Methodist’s Center for Musculoskeletal Regeneration, to measure the serum levels of morphine and an inflammatory marker called interleukin-6 in all study participants for 10 hours after the operation.

Upon analyzing their data, the researchers found that the patients who were given morphine in the tibial bone had lower pain scores after their knee replacements compared to those who did not. This was effective up to two weeks after surgery. Further, these patients also reported having less pain for several days even though they had similar interleukin-6 inflammatory marker levels as the control group.

Taken together, although the patients who received pain medication-infused directly into the tibia during surgery had comparable inflammation, these patients were taking less pain medication post-surgery.

Park noted that this infusion of opiates directly into the bone marrow during surgery could potentially even facilitate a swifter recovery of the knee joint.

“By infusing pain medication intraosseously we’re able to reduce postoperative pain for up to two weeks, reduce the number of pain pills patients need and even possibly improve the function of the knee over time,” he said. “Our technique also can improve the multimodal pain management protocol we have been using for knee replacement over the years.”

Women who had difficulties connected to establishing high blood pressure, or hypertension, during pregnancy had a 63% greater chance of having cardiovascular disease later in life, according to new research.

Previously, hypertensive pregnancy problems were associated to elevated cardiovascular risks; however, the present analysis accounted for pre-pregnancy shared risk factors for these types of issues and cardiovascular disease.

Researchers also discovered that following pregnancy, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, or being overweight or obese accounted for the majority of the increased risk of pregnancy problems and future cardiovascular events.

The findings, which were published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, might help healthcare practitioners establish individualised heart disease preventive and monitoring methods for pregnant women who had hypertension. The information may also aid in bridging the gap that commonly develops when a woman discontinues obstetric treatment and restarts or begins care with another physician.

Using health data shared by more than 60,000 participants in the Nurses’ Health Study II, the research represents one of the most comprehensive reviews evaluating links between future cardiovascular events in women who have had preeclampsia or gestational hypertension. Gestational hypertension is characterized by an increase in blood pressure during pregnancy. Preeclampsia is a more severe complication marked by a sudden rise in blood pressure that can affect the organs and be dangerous for both mother and baby. Both conditions are often diagnosed after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

“Women with a history of gestational hypertension or preeclampsia should be informed that they have an increased risk for cardiovascular disease,” said Jennifer J. Stuart, Sc.D., a study author and associate epidemiologist in the Division of Women’s Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston. “While the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology recognize these conditions as cardiovascular risk factors, women and their providers have lacked clear direction on what to do in the intervening years between delivery of a hypertensive pregnancy and the onset of cardiovascular disease.”

The researchers’ analysis showed that early screening and monitoring in four targeted areas — blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels, and body mass index — could provide even more personalized targets to help delay or possibly prevent future cardiovascular events among these women.

In this study, almost 10% of women developed hypertension during their first pregnancy. Among these women, 3,834 (6.4%) developed preeclampsia and 1,789 (3%) developed gestational hypertension. Women who were obese before pregnancy were three times more likely to experience a hypertensive pregnancy disorder, and those with a family history of heart disease or stroke also shared increased risks. In their analysis, the researchers controlled for these and other important pre-pregnancy factors that could increase the risk of developing hypertension during pregnancy and having a heart attack or stroke later in life.

After about 30 years, when the average age of women in the study was 61 years, approximately 1,074 (1.8%) of study participants had experienced a cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack or stroke. The type of event women had — and when they had it — often overlapped with specific pregnancy complications.

For example, compared to women with normal blood pressure in pregnancy, women with gestational hypertension, which was associated with a 41% increased risk for cardiovascular disease, were more likely to have a stroke about 30 years after their first pregnancy. Women with preeclampsia, which was associated with a 72% increased cardiovascular risk, were more likely to have a coronary artery event, such as a heart attack, as early as 10 years after their first pregnancy.

Post-pregnancy cardiometabolic risk factors, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and chronic hypertension, explained most of the increased cardiovascular risk observed among women with gestational hypertension or preeclampsia.

Chronic hypertension was the largest contributor of all, accounting for 81% of increased cardiovascular disease risks among women who had gestational hypertension and for 48% of increased risks among women who had preeclampsia. Most women who experienced a hypertensive pregnancy disorder developed chronic hypertension in the years or decades after they gave birth.

“This study reinforces how important it is for women and their healthcare providers to address known cardiovascular disease risk factors, such as obesity or having high blood pressure, while thinking about starting a family and then during and after during pregnancy,” said Victoria Pemberton, R.N.C., a program officer at NHLBI.

For future research, Stuart said diversity is key. Most women in the Nurses’ Health Study II were white, which means the percentage of women affected by different risk factors may vary. The study also provides a foundation to expand on emerging associations, such as studying links between gestational hypertension and stroke and between preeclampsia and coronary artery disease.

Additionally, while over 80% of the increased risk for cardiovascular disease among women with a history of gestational hypertension appears to be jointly accounted for by established cardiovascular risk factors, nearly 40% of the risk for cardiovascular disease following preeclampsia remains unexplained.

Investigating these mechanisms may help explain why some preeclamptic women are more prone to develop cardiac disease. Researchers may be able to give knowledge to help healthcare practitioners make even more targeted suggestions and actions for women at highest risk by better understanding these linkages.

The National Cancer Institute and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development also provided funding for the study.

India on Sunday saw a slight decline in the Covid cases as it reported 14,092 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours with its active caseload standing at 1,16,861, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed.

According to the Health Ministry, the country had logged 15,815 new COVID cases in its previous 24 hours with a daily case positivity rate of 4.36 per cent. The Ministry informed that the active caseload of the country stood at 0.26 per cent while its recovery rate was 98.54 per cent with 16,454 recoveries in the last 24 hours, with which the total number of people who recovered from the infection rose to 4,36,09,566.

Also Read: Monkeypox situation continuously monitored in national capital, no need to panic: Delhi govt

The Ministry further informed that the current Daily Positivity Rate stands at 3.69 per cent, while its Weekly Positivity Rate is 4.57 per cent.

Ever since the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic, the Ministry has conducted 88.02 crore Covid tests, so far, of which 3,81,861 were conducted in the last 24 hours alone.

Covid vaccines

Under the nationwide vaccination drive, a total of 207.99 crore vaccine doses (93.78cr Second Dose and 12.07cr Precaution Dose) have been administered across the country, so far. In the last 24 hours, 28,01,457 doses of Covid vaccines were jabbed, said the Union Ministry.

The fifth incidence of monkeypox was confirmed in a statement by the Delhi government on Saturday.

“As of now, five confirmed cases of Monkeypox have been reported in Delhi; one has recovered and been discharged,” the Delhi government said in a statement. “The Monkeypox situation is being continuously monitored in Delhi. There is no need to panic,” the statement added.

Three government and three private hospitals with isolation rooms have been properly prepared in the framework of the Delhi government’s readiness and procedures. Lok Nayak Hospital has reserved the maximum amount of rooms. Six hospitals would be referred and quarantined for treatment of suspicious patients.

“Guidelines for the management of monkeypox (on disease transmission, surveillance and case definitions; diagnosis and case management; infection prevention and control; and personal protective equipment) have been shared with all Govt/ Pvt hospitals,” stated the government of Delhi.

Also Read: Clades I, IIa and IIb: WHO assigns new names to Monkeypox variants

“District Surveillance Units (DSUs) are in place for surveillance including contact tracing and follow up, and have been sensitized as per the Govt. of India guidelines,” it further explained.

“The training has been provided to all designated hospitals on Monkeypox and reviews meetings on preparedness for monkeypox have been held at various levels under the chairmanships of higher authorities,” the statement read

“GNCT of Delhi is maintaining a close watch over the evolving situation,” it stated.