BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
Showing posts with label Diabetes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Diabetes. Show all posts
06 June 2022
27 January 2019
A New Study Supports the Idea That Some People Are “Super Poopers.” You Could Be One of Them. 24JAN19
THIS is fascinating, the concept of poop transplants to cure gastrointestinal and maybe other diseases seems so alien, almost like this could be an April Fools article. But it isn't a joke, and offers real hope for some who haven't had any. From Mother Jones.....
A New Study Supports the Idea That Some People Are “Super Poopers.” You Could Be One of Them.
All the more reason to donate your stools—for science!
JANUARY 24, 2019 6:00 AM
There’s nothing charming about poop. And most people, I assume, don’t want to spend any time beyond what’s necessary thinking—let alone talking—about defecation. But here’s the deal: Poop saves lives. Through fecal transplants (which are exactly what they sound like), patients with ailments like C. difficile infection, inflammatory bowel disease, or diabetes can, in many cases, cure or treat their condition with a fresh set of gut bacteria. And now, a new study bolsters the theory that some people may be “super poopers,” or fecal donors whose gut bacteria transplants are more successful in treating disease than the average donor.
“[Super donors] have been observed in a lot of different studies for different disorders,” says Justin O’Sullivan, an associate professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and an author on the new study, published Monday in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology. “And what people have observed is that there’s a propensity for some individuals to have microbiomes which make a greater impact on the clinical features and the characteristics of the recipients.”
In some cases, according to O’Sullivan, super-donor transplants have achieved clinical remission rates of about double the average.
O’Sullivan and his team did their research by analyzing more than 100 fecal transplant trials, conducted mostly in the past decade, and found evidence not only that super donors exist, but also data that could explain why. In many trials, a small percentage of donors gave stool samples that outperformed the others; those donors commonly had a high diversity of gut microbiota, which ultimately “appears to best predict” a patient’s response to a fecal matter transplant, the authors conclude. In other words, the more microbes your feces bring to the table, the more equipped it may be to treat disease.
The results are particularly significant for the future of medicine, because identifying the phenomenon of “super donors” is the first of many steps in eventually understanding how human gut microbiology can influence chronic diseases—Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart disease, among others—that are related to, or affect, gut bacteria. Before you can treat a disease, says O’Sullivan, you need to understand how it works.
“If we can understand what makes the feces from one person ‘super feces,'” says O’Sullivan, “then we can start to isolate new organisms that are within [their feces] so that we can move what was a really crude bacteria therapy into a more precision-medicine type approach, where we’re using specific organisms to treat specific disorders.”
While the new study suggests that microbe diversity plays a role in making super donors “super,” more controlled trials are needed. “The lack of large randomized controlled clinical trials of [Fecal Microbiota Transplantation] for the treatment of chronic diseases,” the authors write, “has meant that many observations, such as the existence of FMT super-donors, are not yet robustly supported by empirical evidence.”
The field of fecal matter science is still in its infancy, so the super-donor theory—which was first proposed only in recent years—still needs more data to back it up, even with the new study. But perhaps the more significant challenge toward applying this theory in medicine is that researchers wouldn’t know who among us is truly “super” because doctors don’t screen for, or generally keep records on, their patients’ gut microbiomes.
The group works with more than 1,000 hospitals across the country and has sent treatments to about 40,000 patients, mostly with C. difficile.
According to Majdi Osman, the clinical program director at OpenBiome, the super-donor phenomenon is something OpenBiome is aware of, but hasn’t tracked directly. “I think this is a really interesting paper, and it frames this very important question for all of us in this field,” he says about the Frontiersstudy. “I think it’s too early to claim that there’s a super donor for one particular disease, but we’re very interested in exploring that question further.”
After all, there’s a lot to learn from poop—even if it’s uncomfortable to talk about. “It’s an amazing thing when you think about it, right?” asks O’Sullivan. “Considering that we can transfer very carefully screened fecal material from one healthy individual into somebody else—we can do that. We can change the microbes that live in the recipient without making that person sick. In fact, we can help make them better.”
RELATED
18 November 2015
Here's What the Latest Investigation of Planned Parenthood Just Revealed & How the Attack on Planned Parenthood Is Hindering Cures for Deadly Diseases 18NOV&26OKT15
HYPOCRISY, lies, misinformation and deception continue to be spewed about +Planned Parenthood by the republican presidential candidates and gop / tea-baggers in congress. These are the same "pro-life" people who promote and legislate for cuts in family health care, WIC, and other social safety net programs. Their propaganda campaign also effects funding for research in many diseases. These from +Mother Jones.....
| Wed Nov. 18, 2015 6:00 AM EST
On Monday, a 48-page report released by Washington state's Attorney General Bob Ferguson stated that his team's investigation into allegations about Planned Parenthood profiting from sales of fetal tissue "found no indication that procedures performed by Planned Parenthood are anything other than performance of a legally authorized medical procedure."
After undercover videos filmed by David Daleiden and his anti-abortion group, Center for Medical Progress, went viral, legislators across the country called for probes of Planned Parenthood operations. So far, none of these investigations have turned up any wrongdoing.
What that have done, however, is have a chilling effect on important research into cures for diseases including diabetes, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's, as Mother Jones reported last month. That Planned Parenthood was cleared of any misconduct in Washington is particularly notable because Washington is one of only two states that allows patients to donate tissue to scientific research. (California is the other.)
Despite the lack of evidence from these state investigations, Republicans in the US Senate continue their attempts to defund Planned Parenthood; they are currently working to pass a fast-track "reconciliation" package that aims to dismantle key components of Obamacare and rescind Planned Parenthood funding.
People with Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and other afflictions will pay a price, scientists say.
| Mon Oct. 26, 2015 5:00 AM EDT
"It's anti-progress," says Gail Robertson, a veteran researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who uses cell lines derived from fetal tissue to study heart disease, including sudden cardiac death, the largest cause of natural death in the United States. "We're in a fight for the future of cures to the diseases that will affect us all."
Since the 1990s, Robertson and her colleagues have developed pharmaceutical technology using cells from embryonic tissue known as the HEK line—research credited with saving lives from fatal heart disease. "If lawmakers were to say, 'You can't use HEK cells because they come from fetal tissue,' it would be impossible to continue my work in my lab," Robertson says. "It’s something we use every single day."
"The CEO of StemExpress should be hung by
the neck using piano wire and propped up on the lawn in front of the
building," one person threatened.
According to Theresa Naluai-Cecchini, a scientist at Birth Defects
Research Lab at the University of Washington in Seattle, the political
controversy has hurt the work at her lab, which is funded by the
National Institutes of Health and also supplies other scientific
researchers with fetal tissue. "We are in the last year of funding, and
if we are unable to supply tissue to the research community we would
have to close," she says. "We may be able to obtain an extension, but
the climate in DC does not look favorable in an election cycle."Naluai-Cecchini told the Seattle Times that over the past year her lab has distributed 1,109 tissue samples to more than 60 researchers elsewhere who are working on solutions for spinal cord injuries, eye disease, cancer, and HIV. That supply line relies on about two to three samples per day coming into Birth Defects Research Lab, which has long been the lab's norm. But over the past month, Naluai-Cecchini told Mother Jones, only five specimens in total have come in. If that trend continues, she says, "promising research would stop until a commercial alternative is found. The cost of research would increase dramatically, and new findings would take considerably longer."
Before the videos were released by anti-abortion activist David Daleiden and his group, the Center for Medical Progress, a total of six Planned Parenthood affiliates in Washington state and California had tissue donation programs. Three of the programs have since been shut down, Liz Clark, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told Mother Jones. One clinic discontinued donations to labs after the videos prompted personal threats against some of its employees, according to Clark. Two other programs lost their contracts with biomedical companies due to the controversy.
"My immediate reaction was, 'Oh, I'm going
to have to move the lab'," said one researcher, regarding a Wisconsin
law that would ban her work.
One of those companies, StemExpress, a tissue provider in Placerville, California, cut ties in August following the congressional inquiry into Planned Parenthood—and after personal threats against the company's CEO, Cate Dyer. According to a complaint
filed in a Northern California district court by the National Abortion
Federation, an anonymous commenter threatened Dyer, calling her a
"death-profiteer" and offering a $10,000 bounty on her head. "The CEO of
StemExpress should be hung by the neck using piano wire and propped up
on the lawn in front of the building with a note attached," the
commenter said, also posting Dyer's home address. The threats were posted on Fox Nation by someone using the handle "Joseywhales," according to the Huffington Post.The legal complaint was filed on July 31; on August 15, StemExpress released a statement: "We value our various partnerships but, due to the increased questions that have arisen over the past few weeks, we feel it prudent to terminate activities with Planned Parenthood."
The legal complaint (read it here) states that Planned Parenthood's medical director, Deborah Nucatola, who appeared in the first of 10 videos released by the anti-abortion group, received similar death threats. Mother Jones contacted additional researchers who work with fetal tissue, but they declined to speak on the record about threats, fearing for their safety.
Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress did not respond to inquiries from Mother Jones about the fallout from their videos.
In Wisconsin, where scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the 1990s pioneered research with human embryonic stem cells‚ lawmakers are now considering a ban on the use of fetal tissue that could hinder today's cutting-edge research. That includes ongoing efforts at the university to find new antibiotics as existing ones grow ineffective. The bill's lead sponsor, Republican Rep. Andre Jacque, originally proposed legislation that would make it a felony to sell, donate, or experiment with fetal tissue in any capacity.
"My immediate reaction was, 'Oh, I'm going to have to move the lab'," says Laura Kiessling, one of the researchers in Madison. "Because you can't stop—you really want to do the research."
Jacque has since revised the bill to allow for the use of cell lines that were obtained before January 1 this year. But the latest version would still outlaw the scientific use of fetal tissue obtained after that date, potentially halting progress on treatments for spinal injuries and Parkinson's disease, according to Kiessling. "I think what's upsetting is that the logic of the legislation is not clear," she says.
"I would ask the public to reflect on family members—people you care about who have been saved by this technology."
Robertson adds that the legislation doesn't allow for scientific
advancement down the road. "The HEK line was so critical," she says,
"but we don't know what [new lines] will be critical in the future."Thirty-eight states explicitly permit fetal-tissue donation for research, while six states currently ban such research, including Ohio, which is now also moving to make reimbursement for fetal-tissue samples illegal. In mid-October, Planned Parenthood announced that it would no longer accept reimbursements for its fetal-tissue donations in order to "remove beyond the shadow of a doubt the ludicrous idea that Planned Parenthood has any financial interest in fetal tissue donation."
Now, lawmakers in nine states are proposing bans similar to the one on the table in Wisconsin, and more are likely to follow, says Elizabeth Nash, a state policy expert at the Guttmacher Institute, which studies sexual and reproductive health. Americans United for Life, a prominent anti-abortion group, has included a fetal-tissue ban in its model legislation for 2016, and Nash anticipates that AUL's language will surface in a wave of legislation proposed in 2016 in light of the group's past collaborations with conservative lawmakers. (In 2010, for example, AUL's Federal Abortion Mandate Opt-Out Act was used as a model in Tennessee and Louisiana for opting out of insurance coverage for abortion in any circumstance.)
At the federal level, Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin has sponsored a bill expected to be taken up at the beginning of next year that would outlaw fetal-tissue research nationwide.
"I would ask the public to reflect on family members—people you care about who have been saved by this technology," Robertson says. "Think about the unanticipated implications of supporting these kinds of legislation."
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