Vitamin D: A New Puzzle Piece to the Clockwork of Life

Posted on November 19, 2018 by | Leave a comment

Imagine being to able to freeze a cell in one moment in time and then bringing it back to life in the future. This sounds like something straight out of a science fiction novel but it is exactly what some species of fish are already doing.

The researchers at Portland State University discovered that vitamin D is not only essential for calcium regulation, but also plays a major role in prompting and arresting embryonic development in killifish, Austrofundulus limnaeus ( A.limnaeus). Their findings reveal that early development of vertebrates depend on vitamin D for the mechanism connecting environmental signals to developmental pathways.

A.limnaeus

The habitat of A.limnaeus is often seasonal ponds that form from rainfall then disappear by evaporation. The uncertainty in their environment resulted in shaping two trajectories in their embryonic development. In one trajectory, embryos reach maturity while in the other, embryos enter dormancy. Dormancy is a period in the life cycle of an organism where growth is suspended to minimize metabolic activity in hopes to conserve energy under unfavourable conditions in the environment. A.limnaeus embryos goes dormant in mud when there are limited resources of nutrients and water. 

Austrofundulus limnaeus by A. C. Terceira

The Research

To investigate what mechanisms were involved in regulating embryonic activity, the researchers placed the embryos of A. limnaeus under different temperatures to observe the two developmental pathways: active and diapause (dormant). They searched for the gene in the RNA of the embryos that would trigger the active development when expressed. The results showed that vitamin D synthesis and signalling promoted active development in environments favouring dormancy while blocking vitamin D synthesis drove embryos into diapause in environments favouring active development.

They also discovered dormancy in zebrafish by inhibiting vitamin D synthesis. This finding is significant in that it suggests the role of vitamin in the early development pathways not only in A. limnaeus but to vertebrate species as a whole as zebrafish are not known to naturally follow the dormancy trajectory.

The Life Cycle of A. limnaeus (Dormant phases shown in dry seasons) by K. Culpepper

This discovery of vitamin D and its role is significant to today’s medical science as it opens doors to understanding how dormancy in human cells are controlled. By exploring the systems that regulate such phenomenon at a molecular level, we can progress to understand and find cure to medical conditions such as cold shock and even heart attacks.

Ellena Yoon

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Erasing Bad Memories

Posted on November 18, 2018 by | 3 comments

Our brain stores both good and bad memories. They don’t stay still and can fade away as time lapses. But every time when you happen to recall those bad moments in your brain, you might be overwhelmed with the come back of those “nightmares” and hope to wipe them out from your mind forever. In worse cases, this can even cause a mental illness that 1 in 5 Canadian adults will personally experience in their lifetime.

A recent study suggests that by applying an electrical shock to the brain shortly after recalling a troubling event will help a person forget many of those upsetting details. Particularly for people with severe anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, findings from the study can inspire the creation of more effective treating methods to help these people ease their mental burden, with the side effects on memory minimized. 

Erasure of negative memories one step closer to reality by Neale McDevitt; Image Source.

More Controllable Electroconvulsive Therapy(ECT)

Electroconvulsive therapy(ECT), an effective but commonly-held risky treating method was applied to 42 depression patients in the study, where their brains were jolted with a powerful electrical current under anesthesia. First, participants watched a series of pictures as they heard a narrator describe two upsetting stories. The first one was a car hitting a young boy and severing both of his feet, and the other was a woman being attacked in an alley. One week after they first heard the stories, they were asked to recall and describe the details of one of them. Immediately after recalling the story, the patients were anesthetized and treated with ECT. A day after that, participants were asked to take multiple-choice tests about the story.

The results have shown that participants performed no better than chance at remembering the details of the story that had been recalled just before ECT. But they were better at remembering the other story that hadn’t been recalled just before ECT.

“Scientists and patients know that ECT is bad for memory in general, but the results showed that the therapy, when carefully timed, can knock down specific memories”, says the study co-author Marijn Kroes of Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

‘Shock Therapy’ Could Erase Disturbing Memories by DNEWS; Image Source

“Elegant” Results

However, given the positive results for erasing specific bad memories, the study was queried and deemed as “elegant” by Daniela Schiller, a neuroscientist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. One disturbing factor is the uncertainty concerning whether ECT could interfere with natural memories, created in a person’s daily life and not in a lab.

Overall, ECT at this stage is still not applicable to simple memory erasing, and more clinical testing is required for wider applications. But for patients undergoing treatment for depression or other severe mental problems, ECT can allow them to gain control over crippling memories. This is to say, a person can better protect their good memories by not thinking about them prior to the treatment, yet try to recall those unpleasant ones with the hope that they would be weakened selectively. 

Leqi(Nancy) Wan

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Posted in Biological Sciences, Issues in Science, Science in the News, Uncategorized

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Peanut Allergies May Be a Thing of the Past

Posted on November 18, 2018 by | 3 comments

Currently, roughly 2% of Canadian children are allergic to peanuts. Symptoms of children who are allergic to peanuts can range from redness and irritation of the skin to swelling and shortness of breath, which in extreme cases can lead to life-threatening circumstances requiring immediate medical attention.

Carter Grodi is one of the many children allergic to peanuts who has had to bring his own cupcake to birthday parties, had to learn to read food labels and turned 15 without once tasting a Kit Kat or Twix.

Figure 1. A few of the many products containing peanuts. Used with permission, © 2018 The New York Times

However, at the age of 16, Carter was able to taste the wonders of Kit Kat’s and Twix’s without having an allergic reaction. Carter had recently completed a yearlong clinical trial of oral immunotherapy where he was gradually exposed to increasing amounts of peanuts in hopes of reducing his sensitivity to peanuts.

This new drug, named AR101, was created by Aimmune Therapeutics. The active ingredient in AR101 is surprisingly peanut flour. The peanut flour is carefully measured and packaged into capsules which can be opened so that the peanut flour can be added into foods and consumed. Dr. Vickery, lead scientist of the study, said, “This trial has generated the highest quality evidence to date about whether oral immunotherapy works and how safe it is.”

The treatment itself can cause allergic reactions among participants. However, participants who complete the clinical trial are better able to handle an accidental exposure to peanuts. “You exchange that uncertain, unpredictable risk of having an accidental reaction that spirals out of control for these . . . mostly mild or moderate symptoms, that are manageable for most patients,” Dr. Vickery said.

The goal of this treatment is not to cure the allergy but instead to lower the risk that an accidental exposure to peanuts will cause a life-threatening reaction. Thus, allowing children with peanut allergies and their families to live without fear and anxiety of an accidental encounter with peanuts which could potentially lead to harm, or in worse cases, death.

This treatment has been life changing for Carter, who continues to eat small amounts of peanuts to maintain his low-level tolerance. He said, “I can go sit in a place another kid was the day before and not have to wipe off the desk, and not worry about what my friends are eating around me.” He then mentioned, “To me, a peanut was like a weapon, like you have a gun to your head and you could have the trigger pulled any time. There’s not really that gun anymore.”

Figure 2. Carter Grodi at home in Florida with his mother, Carolee. Used with permission, © 2018 The New York Times

AR101 has been named a breakthrough therapy. Plans are in motion for this drug to undergo priority review and to go through a quickened approval process. “It could be on the market by the end of 2019,” a spokeswoman said.

Trevor Shen

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Does the Ketogenic Diet Really Work?

Posted on November 18, 2018 by | 2 comments

People nowadays are obsessed with the idea of being healthy; after all, who doesn’t want to feel good and look good at the same time? Besides exercising regularly and sticking to a proper sleeping schedule, the most important way to achieve this is to eat a balanced diet. However, there is no ultimate diet that works for everyone; a diet that may keep one person energized throughout the day while allowing them to look fit and strong might make someone else overweight or sick. Many diets gain and lose popularity throughout the years, but there is one diet that stands out, especially for athletes and people looking to lose weight: the ketogenic diet.

Guacamole recipe easy to make in serving dish

Guacamole is a dip made from avocados, which is a great source of healthy fats
(photo credit: Elise Bauer at simplyrecipes.com)

Carbohydrates are one of the three macronutrients in the food we eat and it is broken down into glucose and used as the body’s primary source of energy. However, in the keto diet, little or no carbs are consumed in order to force the body into ketosis (a metabolic state where the body starts to burn fat instead of carbs as a primary fuel source). Since carbs hold onto water and no carbs are being consumed, a person who starts keto will lose weight, most of which comes from the loss of water. It can also promote further weight loss because of intermittent fasting (eating only during a certain number of hours each day; during the fasting period, the body has no food calories to make energy and is forced to use fat reserves instead).

Interestingly, the ketogenic diet can also help children with epilepsy. As mentioned before, due to the lack of carbohydrates, the body is in ketosis because the liver converts fat into ketone bodies. In a study, researchers found that since there are more ketone bodies in the bloodstream, as well as a reduction in blood sugar, the chances of a seizure are greatly lowered.

However, there are some side effects and risks associated with the ketogenic diet. Not eating enough carbohydrates can cause hunger, which in turn causes headaches and fatigue. There may also be vitamin and mineral deficiencies as well as dehydration and constipation. In addition, children who use the keto diet for long periods of time may experience slow or stunted growth because they are not getting proper nutrition.

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Video of a Keto Breakfast Rollup Recipe
(credit: RuledMe on Youtube)

Lawrence Liang

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Some People Say It’s Easy to Quit

Posted on November 12, 2018 by | 2 comments

 

Image Credit:
https://thedoctorweighsin.com/opioid-addiction-cancer-of-our-generation/

You’ve probably heard the news, or seen posts  online about the opioid crisis affecting Canada.  British Columbia (B.C.) is the hardest hit province with the death rate of 1, 399 people in 2017 according to CBC news, which is 974 more people than 2016, who have died because of the opioid crisis. If this nasty phenomenon is happening and almost all of the public is aware about it, including drug users, then what causes them to continue to put their life at risk and inject, snort, and ingest the drug into their body knowing the possibility they may die in the upcoming couple of hours?

YouTube Preview Image

 

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, opioid addiction is a chronic long-lasting condition that is characterized by a powerful and compulsive urge to use an opioid drug. Without the use of the drug the abuser will feel muscle pain, anxiety, diarrhea, and cramping. These symptoms are so extreme that they will force the user to obtain the drug because without it, life will be miserable. Therefore, the abuser has no option but to ingest the drug in order to feel “normal”.

Image result for cartoon diagram of opioid receptors

Image Credit: https://www.yahoo.com/news/this-is-your-brain-on-opioids-194212388.html

Thomas R. Kosten and Tony P. George explain that 0pioids travel in the bloodstream and as soon as they enter the body they attach to little proteins in the blood called mu. We can imagine mu to be small magnets floating in our blood; once the drug attaches to mu it becomes activated triggering our brain to produce feelings of pleasure. Most often we get these same feelings of pleasure through normal day-to-day activities such as eating and sex. There is a portion of our brain that remembers the pleasurable feelings and associates them with the circumstances and the environment that we experienced them. These memories are called conditioned associations, when we experience the same conditions such as re-encountering the same people, places, or things we want the drug to make up the missing puzzle piece.

Opioid withdrawal occurs because gradually overtime opioid receptors such as mu stop responding to smaller concentrations of natural hormones. There is an area of the brain called locus ceruleus (LC). The LC controls the normal day-to-day functions such as breathing, blood pressure, and wakefulness. When the opioid drug attaches to mu, it causes the LC to stop working, which results in low blood pressure, drowsiness, and slowed respiration. However, the LC is smart! It responds by increasing its power and returning the person to a normal state by fixing all the factors mentioned above. Therefore, when opioids are present the person feels normal however when opioids are not present, the LC is still working at its strongest power and the opioid-mu complex is not available to counteract it. This causes jitters, anxiety, muscle cramps, and diarrhea – which are the symptoms of withdrawal.

Therefore opioid addiction is understood as a medical disorder, similar to heart disease, diabetes, or mental illnesses. Next time you read about the opioid crisis in B.C. never assume that people can easily stop taking their drug. They need medical help in order to stop, and until the individuals suffering don’t get the help they need they will be living in danger.

Jasleen Jassal

 

 

 

 

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Last resort: It’s better to be overweight!

Posted on November 12, 2018 by | Leave a comment

Being obese is a serious health risk especially because obesity is a risk factor which causes cancer. This is because the excess fat cells secrete extra hormones and growth factors that stimulate cells to multiply. Which then, there is an increased chance of cancer cell also reproducing in vast numbers.

How does being overweight cause cancer?
https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/obesity-weight-and-cancer/does-obesity-cause-cancer

The fact that obesity is a major risk factor for malignancies has been proven many times, but the relationship between obesity and the immune response is not very well understood. Ironically, a recently published scientific study has shown that obese patients had a greater survival outcome to targeted therapy to treat Metastatic Melanoma. This suggests that obesity has some kind of factor that helps these patients respond better to treatments.

Metastatic Melanoma is an advanced skin cancer where the cancer cells spread to other parts of the body, such as the lungs, liver and brain. Patients at this stage of cancer are treated with targeted therapy, checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapies and chemotherapy. Dr. McQuade and her colleagues followed 2046 patients with metastatic melanoma that were actively receiving one or more of these treatments from Aug. 8, 2006, to Jan. 15, 2016. Each patient was classified as normal, overweight or obese according to the body-mass index (BMI). The results show that compared to patients with normal BMI, obese patients had improved overall survival. Obese patients lived about 27 months with advanced melanoma cancer while normal BMI patients lived to only about to 17 months, near doubling in survival.

PD-1 protein inhibiting T-cells & Immune Response
https://www.arigobio.com/news/new-spd-1-elisa-kit

It is suspected that the treatment works very well for obese patients because of the amplified results from the treatment. Advanced Melanoma treatment works by blocking activation of a protein, PD-1. Tumours stimulate the release of these proteins because they reduce the amount of immune response towards cancerous cells. In obese patients, there are greater amounts of PD-1 than in normal BMI patients and also a greater amount of leptin, a hormone created by fat cells which trigger a pathway that increases PD-1. So as soon as the treatment is in effect, the PD-1 is removed and the immune response is increased. With abundant nutrient available in obese patients, the immune response works better to attach the cancer cells.

Unfortunately, this study also showed these results were only applicable to men and there was no association between obesity and survival rates in women. Also, treating metastatic melanoma patients with a high-fat diet to mimic the effects of obesity can cause harm to patients so further research is needed before clinically used.

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Meat Makes Man

Posted on November 12, 2018 by | 2 comments

Global climate change. It seems to be the topic of discussion nowadays and for good reason too. But often, people feel quite helpless in their role as a global citizen and question the efficacy of their adjustments. “Am I really helping the earth by walking instead of taking the car?”. “What damage can one plastic water bottle really do?”. If you feel that such adjustments just aren’t suitable for your lifestyle, perhaps there is something you can do and it starts with dinner.

This video explores the various implications of meat consumption based on research being conducted at the University of California.

About 14% of human-induced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from fossil fuels burned during transportation. But would you be surprised if that the medium-rare steak on your dinner plate contributes just as much? You may be thinking, “Surely this 6 ounce steak couldn’t do that much damage” (or, here’s another vegan throwing grass at me).

Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions- IPCC

When you consider all the resources that go into raising a single cow, the numbers are staggering. In fact, livestock contributes 14% of GHG emissions. It’s not even just the meat. Producing dairy also plays a large role in this. Cows are ruminant animals which means that in order to raise them, cattle ranchers require large plots of land. While deforestation is also a contributor to global climate change, probably the biggest component is the fact that cows are just gassy. A single cow produces anywhere from 70 to 120 kg of methane a year. The problem with methane is that it is 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide as a GHG.

Consider this: 330g of carbon goes into a single serving of beef. That’s like driving your car 5 km. Switch to chicken and that number goes down to 52g. Fish, 40g. On the other hand, replace your proteins for lentils and you bring this number down to 2g. However, interestingly enough, while global meat consumption is predicted to double by 2050, Canadians have been consuming less beef and more poultry in the past 50 years.

“I think as Canadians we need to take a look and think about what a sustainable future looks like, and it doesn’t look like doing the same thing we are doing now. One of things is changing our diets.”

 – Jennifer Sumner, Lecturer at University of Toronto

Meat Consumption Trends in Canada- CBC News

However, while a plant-based diet is environmentally sustainable, for most people it’s not convenient nor feasible. Furthermore, red meats provide many essential nutrients that are harder to obtain from a vegetarian diet. Moderation is everything and when it comes to your food, you only have to reduce your intake or make some simple adjustments. So maybe the next time you order a ribeye steak, consider opting for the seafood instead or walking to the restaurant.

Written by: Julia Lee

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