Tag Archives: Medicine

Acupuncture as an Alternative Hypertension Treatment

Hypertension, most often known as high blood pressure is a widespread heart condition affecting 5.3 million Canadians. Arteries can become narrowed or blocked, which increases the risk of stroke, heart attack and kidney failure. High blood pressure can be caused by numerous factors including stress, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, obesity, age and family history.

Hypertension further explained (source: Khan Academy)

The most common treatment for hypertension is the administration of diuretics or “water pills”. These pills act to eliminate excess water and salt through the urine which reduces the overall volume of blood pumped by the heart, thus easing stress and strain on the heart. But like with any other drug, diuretic use comes with an array of side effects. Frequent urination and arrhythmia (irregular heart rhythm) are most commonly experienced when taking diuretics but can also be accompanied by electrolyte imbalance and general weakness.

Despite the successes of pharmacological hypertension treatments, an alternative, non-chemical approach has proven effective, electro-acupuncture.

Just as it sounds, electro-acupuncture is a medicinal technique where the patient’s skin is penetrated by thin needles delivering 10-80 mA of current to stimulate specific acupoints.  These points are usually found at nerve-muscle junctions, muscle midpoints or at bone-muscle junctions.

A group of researchers from the University of California determined that by performing electro-acupuncture, the body forms excess enkephalin, an opioid peptide, which saturates the brains opioid receptors and lowers blood pressure by dilating blood vessels and lowering heart rate. Generally, opioid drugs such as morphine and oxycodone minimize pain by reducing the intensity of pain signals travelling to the brain.

Their study showed that hypertension in mice was controlled for up to three days after electro-acupuncture.

I am a firm believer in alternative medical techniques, especially if they reduce the intake of pharmaceuticals, and this research is a promising replacement for traditional chemical approaches to treating clinical hypertension.

  • Scarlett Liaifer

References:

Li, M., Tjen-A-Looi, S., Guo, Z., Longhurst, J. Repetitive Electroacupuncture Attenuates Cold-Induced Hypertension through Enkephalin in the Rostral Ventral Lateral Medulla. Nature. [Online] 20166, 1-11 http://www.nature.com/articles/srep35791#discussion

Shortcuts to Weight Loss: The Risk-Benefit Analysis of Weight Loss Supplements

With the busy lives that humans now occupy within society, like post-secondary students during exam season for example, balanced and nutritional dietary and exercise are often disregarded or not of a major priority. As a result, the body begins to accumulate fats to act as a storage for excess energy from the foods we eat and thus leads to a case in what society would call “overweight”. The extreme case would result in obesity and this has been a growing concern (and a rather sensitive topic to some) over the past years because excessive body weight is associated with various cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, asthma, and overall, a reduction in life expectancy. However, there is one suggestion that is portrayed by media and human society that is supposedly a shortcut to this problem: weight loss supplements.

Weight loss supplements contain common active ingredients such as bitter orange (synephrine), chromium, guar gum, and Hoodia(1). Synephrine, the main composition of bitter orange, works to suppress appetite and increase the rate of metabolism, thus increasing the number of calories burned (1). Chromium is a mineral that helps to regulate insulin and helps promote muscle growth and fat reduction and guar gum helps block absorption of fats in the body and increase the feeling of fullness whereas Hoodia temporarily suppresses your appetite (1).

Although these active ingredients and their functionality seem to be the solution to obesity, there are many side effects. First of all, synephrine is very similar to ephedrine (see Figure 1), a banned stimulating drug by the Food and Drug Administration due to implications with stroke, heart attacks, and hypertensions, in chemical structure and have many similar characteristics (2).

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Figure 1: Chemical structure of synephrine compared to ephedrine

Secondly, although chromium exists naturally in our bodies and certain foods, the intake of excessive chromium is disadvantageous because chromium, like other heavy metals, is rather toxic to the human body even at low concentrations. Moreover, although guar gum and Hoodia (Figure 2) work in synch to suppress the production of fats for excessive energy storage as a result from eating food, the overall results are still not proven and can potentially lead to malnutrition (1).

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Figure 2: Chemical structure of guar gum (top) and Hoodia (bottom)

To note, a research by Eichner, Maguire, Shea, and Fete have determined that many weight loss supplements are still on the market today that contain other ingredients that are banned due to psychiatric issues and complications with the cardiovascular and nervous system (3). Other ingredients that are not banned but are subject to caution and consumer knowledge are also present in many weight loss supplements(3).

In conclusion, although shortcuts are available to everyday medical conditions such as obesity, there are also many drawbacks to such methods. The optimum method would be the natural method of weight loss which involves a balanced nutritional dietary and exercise, despite how busy our lives may be or what telemarketers or advertisements tell you.

-Andrew Siu

References

Eichner, S., Maguire, M., Shea, L.A., and Fete, M. Journal of the American Pharmacists Association 2016, 5, 538.

Fitday. How do weight loss pills work in the body?  http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/fitness/weight-loss/how-do-weight-loss-pills-work-in-the-body.html (accessed Oct. 31, 2016).

Google Patents. Pharmaceutical compositions having appetite suppressant activity. http://www.google.com/patents/US7166611 (accessed Oct. 31, 2016)

Nutrient Journal. Is bitter orange fruit (citrus aurantum as synephrine) new ephedra? http://nutrientjournal.com/is-bitter-orange-fruit-citrus-aurantum-as-synephrine-new-ephedra/ (accessed Oct.31, 2016).

Sci-Toys. Guar gum. http://sci-toys.com/ingredients/guar_gum.html (accessed Oct. 31, 2016).

The Yew Tree: From Foe to Friend

For thousands of years, people have used the poisonous materials from the yew tree to fight their battles. Ancient people used the extract from the bark to coat the tips of their war arrows, rendering them deadly. The Romans used the same substance to assassinate political leaders. In the modern era, the yew tree is fighting a new opponent: cancer. A chemical, Taxol, which is derived from the plant is one of the most prevalent chemotherapeutic agents used today to battle cancer.

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The poisonous properties of the yew have been known for thousands of years Source: Wikimedia Commons

Taxol, or paclitaxel, is toxic to cells because it disrupts the mitosis process. Mitosis is when a cell splits into two identical daughter cells. It is essential to maintain an healthy and growing organism. When the yew plant is ingested, cells cannot divide because of the these anti-mitotic properties of paclitaxol. Division halts and the cells die, which can eventually result in the death of the whole organism. These anti-mitotic properties are why Taxol works as an agent against cancer. This is because cancerous cells have mutated so that they divide uncontrollably. As Taxol disturbs cell division, it can efficiently kill certain types of cancerous cells such as breast and ovarian cancer.

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The Yew Tree                                                           Source: Wikimedia Commons

The yew tree still holds some secrets: unlike many drugs originally derived from plant sources, there is no entirely synthetic pathway that reproduces the naturally derived compound. That is to say, for this chemotherapy to have full effect, it still needs materials acquired from yew trees. As the National Cancer Institute reports, a manufacturing technique has been developed recently which combines synthetic compounds and the chemicals from the yew bark. This has made the drug more accessible and affordable, but Taxol currently used in cancer treatment is still plant-based.

With a chemotherapeutic drug like Taxol, doctors scientists use the same properties of the substance that has been killing us for thousands of years to kill the enemy within us: cancer.

How Taxol Works (Source: Cancer quest)

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-Megan Wolf

Video

When Facebook friends ‘share’ questionable things

Everyone has at least one friend on Facebook who has ‘shared’ something questionable to your News Feed. Sometimes it’s a girl from high school sharing a link about how essential oils are the to cure cancer and sometimes its a distant relative posting an article making outlandish claims about a politician.

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Facebook is often a social media platform where misinformation is easily spread. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.  

What always shocked me was just how little the people posting this content knew about the subject.  Recently, a Facebook friend shared a picture that caught my attention. It showed someone holding up an information sheet about the flu vaccine and it read,


Here are some things in the insert not on the store’s sheet:
1. The single dose vial contains mercury at ≤1mcg (This is called a “trace amount” by the industry.) (The multi-vial contains 25 mcg.)
2. People with egg allergies are contraindicated.
3. “Safety and effectiveness have not been established in pregnant women, nursing mothers and children under four. There are no adequate and well-controlled studies in pregnant women. This vaccine should be used during pregnancy only if clearly needed. It is not known whether fluvarin is excreted in human milk.”
4. “Fluvarin has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential, or for impairment of fertility.”
5. “Antibody response is low in the geriatric population.”
6. “Serious reactions, including anaphylactic shock, have been observed.”
7. “There are no data to assess the concomitant administration of flu vaccine with other vaccines.”
8. “The vaccine has been associated with an increased frequency of Guillain-Barre syndrome.”
9. “In some studies, fluvarin protected up to 50% of subjects.”

 

Now obviously the woman who originally made this post chose those points because she thought they highlighted some ugly hidden facts about vaccines that “Big Pharma” wouldn’t like people to know. I’m not an expert in vaccines, but a few years of school and the little bit of common sense I have made a few of those points seem ridiculously obvious.

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A commonly discussed topic on Facebook is the efficacy and possible side effects of vaccines, too often without any scientific evidence referenced. Image courtesy of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Unfortunately, many people don’t seem to care to fact check what they share and a lot of misinformation ends up being spread like wildfire. I wanted to see just how easy it would be to find out more about each of the points made in her post. Turns out, it was really easy. Much to my chagrin I must admit, I became a bit of a keyboard warrior.

Now I should point out that this post is by far one of the tamer ones I’ve seen get passed around. No one is claiming that our government is deliberately giving us cancer by infecting our water sources or that global warming is a conspiracy fabricated by the Chinese (yes I’m referring to Drumpf supporters). It’s not even outright stating vaccines are bad. It is however, trying to shine a negative light on vaccines without any scientific research to back it up.

So Facebook friends, PLEASE don’t believe everything you read, and DO fact check before spreading what could be falsehoods. Google is an amazing tool and the world wide web is at your fingertips, so you don’t have any excuses. In the meantime, please feel free to forward this video to any Facebook friends who insist on sharing anti-vaccine posts.

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Bacteriophages: A Possible Alternative to Antibiotics?

What would happen if we ran out of antibiotics to use against bacteria? Antibiotic resistance is known to be one of the major concerns among doctors and scientists around the world since, it’s our primary defense against bacterial infections. Without these antibiotics, it’d be virtually impossible to treat many types of diseases or even perform surgeries.

The quality of healthcare has significantly improved over the centuries as more people have access to treatment, medicine, and antibiotics. However, it has also increased the risk of wrong applications of drugs, allowing the bacteria to develop defense mechanisms to different types of antibiotics. In fact, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of scientific reports about different drugs resistance cases.

Antibiotic resistance occurs through process known as ‘Natural Selection’, where the bacteria has evolved and is no longer affected by the antibiotics. A stand-out candidate as an alternative for antibiotics is known as bacteriophages.

‘Alternative treatments are urgently required and we are investigating one such treatment – the use of bacteriophage.’

  • Robert Atterbury, Phage Biotechnology, University of Nottingham.                             
Resistance bacteria survived the treatment of antibiotics, thus able to reproduce and increase in numbers.

Resistance bacteria survived the treatment of antibiotics, thus able to reproduce and increase in numbers. <http://www.reactgroup.org/toolbox/mutation-and-selection/>. Photo credit: Uppsala University

‘Bacteriophage, or phage is a virus that infects bacteria, so these don’t infect human cells- they are specialised and only infect bacteria’

  • Brent Gilpin, Science Leader, Environmental Science Group, New Zealand.
Bacteriophage attached itself to the bacteria before releasing its DNA inside.

Bacteriophage attached itself to the bacteria before releasing its DNA inside. <http://www.news-medical.net/news/20151202/Bacteriophage-therapy-an-alternative-to-antibiotics-An-interview-Professor-Clokie.aspx>. Photo credit: News-Medical.net team

Bacteriophage or phage infects the bacterial cell by first recognizing the bacteria and then attaching itself to the bacteria’s surface (cell wall). After the phage has penetrated the cell wall, entering the bacteria, and it releases its DNA inside. This DNA merges itself with the bacterial DNA causing the bacteria to produce proteins for the phage. Other chain reactions occur which causes the bacteria cell to produce more phages and eventually bust out, causing the bacteria to die. – This process is shown in the following video:

‘Bacteriophage Life Cycle’

This method is currently being adopted by many industries including food protection against food-borne disease, and medical treatment for both animal and humans. Furthermore, there are many advantages in using phage therapy; for example the phages are target specific, thus only attacking bacteria with a certain structure. With the right phage, it’s harmless to humans and since, phage is found naturally throughout the environment, there are several types of phages that can be studied and used. In addition to this, phage can be genetically modified to reduce their side effects, harmful abilities, or any unnecessary features. With this, it’s possible that phages can be used as an efficient and effective treatment against bacteria.

I strongly believe that bacteriophage is a potential alternative for antibiotics due to its ability to target specific bacteria, its harmless nature to humans, and its ability to be genetically engineered. Moreover, it can also be used in many industries as a safety precaution, in medical treatments, or even scientific research.

 

Poramat Sucharit

HEAVEN-GEMINI: First ever head transplant to be performed

Dr. Sergio Canavero of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group (TANG) in Italy, is confident that he will be able to perform the worlds first ever head transplant. Set to occur in late 2017, Valery Spiridonov has volunteered to be the first person to undergo a head transplant. Mr. Spiridonov suffers from Werdnig-Hoffmann disease, a rare form of spinal muscular atrophy which is characterized by wasting of voluntary muscle. The success of this operation would allow Mr. Spiridonov to regain full muscular control.

In a paper published earlier this month, Dr. Canavero explains the steps for a successful transplant. The procedure would take a team of 150 medical professionals approximately 36 hours, and would begin by lowering the temperatures of the donor head and body to about 16 degrees Celsius to prevent cell death. The neck would then be cut, the arteries and veins connected by tubes and the spinal cord severed. A sharp cut- equated to a spinal cord injury is made between the C5 and C6 vertebrae. The head is then placed on the body and the spinal cords connected using polyethylene glycol (PEG), which fuses neuronal cell membranes. The remaining muscles and organs will be fused together and the skin stitched up.

Numbering of human vertebrae.

Numbering of human vertebrae. For head transplant, the cut will be made between the C5 and C6 vertebrae.                              Image courtesy of Mayfield Brain and Spine.

A head transplant was performed on mice and “the near-miraculous properties of PEG” provided recovery periods as short as 4 weeks (Ye et al. 2016). Dr. Canavero emphasizes the importance of the sharp spinal cord severance claiming that it will inflict “minimal damage to both the axons in the white matter and the neurons in the gray laminae” both of which are essential for survival post operation and for regaining voluntary muscle control.

Courtesy of Indiana State University.

Grey and white matter of the human vertebrae. With a precise cut, minimal damage will be inflicted, resulting in a successful recovery.                                             Image courtesy of Indiana State University.

The idea may seem far fetched but Dr. Canavero and his team are determined to accomplish this feat by the end of 2017. In the meantime, extensive cadaveric rehearsals and animal trials are being performed.

-Scarlett Liaifer