Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/CtvpDUbuH6o/

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE is a threat to brain power and even longevity of not only professional football players but also those at the college and high school levels.  Stanford University bioengineers, in collaboration with a local company appropriately named Savior Brain Inc,. have developed football helmets that incorporate 21 liquid shock absorbers. When tested with the type of simulations used by the NFL to evaluate helmet safety, these novel helmets offer a overall 33% reduction of impact harm and up to a 50% reduction of harmful impact in those zones that produce significant brain injury.  These helmets are not available yet, but they promise to make American football safer……someday soon.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2023.1160387/full

https://saviorbrain.com/

#cte #chronictraumaticencephalopathy #concussion #football #helmet #shockabsorber #saviorbrain

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/CtvoP5qLcuj/

Patients who received a donor heart that had stopped and its owner died in so-called circulatory death were just as likely to survive 6 months as those who received hearts from brain-dead donors whose hearts were actively beating at the time of donation.  This remarkable multicenter study, headed by Duke University cardiac transplant surgeons, used the “heart in a box” Organ Care System developed by the Andover, MA-based TransMedics company to bring “clinically dead” hearts back to life by perfusing them with warmed, oxygenated blood after they have been electrically shocked.  The system permits testing of the heart to be certain that it will support life.

The study compared 80 patients who received hearts from circulatory-dead donors with 86 who received hearts from brain-dead donors.   The 6 month survival of those patients receiving resuscitated hearts was 94%, statistically no different than the 90% figure for those receiving hearts that had never actually stopped beating. There were more post-surgery graft issues with the reanimated hearts, but all were manageable.

This is a game changer since the supply of donor hearts, currently in terribly short supply, could be expanded by as much as 30%.  As I file this report, the only organs transplanted from circulatory-dead donors are kidneys, livers, and lungs.  This new technique will change that and save many lives….someday soon.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2212438

#heart #circulatorydead #braindead #transplantation #transmedics

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/CtvngjiMJsY/

Combining genetic information with conventional Prostate Specific Antigen, PSA, test results sharpens the precision and the predictive value of conventional PSA tests.  Multi-disciplinary researchers at UC-San Francisco and the Stanford Cancer Institute studied 95,768 men and discovered 128 specific genetic associations with prostate cancer.  Using this data, they developed a PSA polygenic score that, when combined with conventional PSA levels was 3.4 times more predictive of aggressive prostate cancer than raw PSA values.  Such hybrid PSA testing could avoid as many as 31% of negative prostate biopsies for screening purposes and as many 12% of such biopsies for follow up after prostatic cancer therapy.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02277-9

#psa #prostatecancer #genetics #precisiononcology

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/CtvmkKntiJ-/

College athletes experiencing concussions during play were about 90% more likely than non-exercisers to enjoy resolution of all symptoms and return to play if they resumed light exercise less than two days post-concussion.  Researchers at the University of Michigan Concussion Center headed a multisite study of 1228 collegiate athletes at 30 institutions.

They determined the probability that an athlete would resolve all symptoms and return to active play as a function of when, if ever, they initiated exercise.  The exercise timing categories included EARLY, less than 2 days after injury, TYPICAL, 3-7 days post injury, and NEVER.  Compared to the NEVER group, the EARLY group was 92% more likely to experience complete symptom resolution and 88% more likely to return to play.  These early exercisers also recovered 2 to 3 days faster.

The bottom line: if you’ve had a concussion, get moving within two days after the injury.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-023-01861-w

#concussion #earlyexercise #athletics #collegiatesports

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/CtvlzWsvPs0/

Consistent and close skin-to-skin contact between mothers and low-birthweight newborns reduces risk of death during their first month of life by 32%.  Pediatricians at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences conducted a meta-analysis of 31 trials using this so-called kangaroo medical care.  Their technique also reduced the risk of severe infection by 15%.

This close cuddling technique should be initiated as soon after birth as possible as mortality for premies and low birthweight newborns is greatest in the first 24 hours.

https://gh.bmj.com/content/bmjgh/8/6/e010728.full.pdf

https://www.aap.org/en/aap-global/immediate-kangaroo-mother-care-ikmc/

#kangaroo #kmc #premies #lowbirthweight #mortality #kangaroomothercare

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/CtvlCX9JloY

Nearly half (49.1%) of those using ketamine nasal spray called it “very effective and more than a third (35.5%) described their lives as “much better.”   

Neurologists at Philadelphia’s Thomas Jefferson University’s headache center screened 242 subjects, 80% of whom were women with a mean age of 44 years.  Their descriptive study found that the participants used, on average, 6 sprays of ketamine a day for about 10 days a month.  Two-thirds of the subjects were so satisfied that they remained intranasal ketamine users after the study ended.

This preliminary study is an exciting beginning offering yet another modality for control of migraine headaches, a disease affecting more than 39 million Americans and more than a billion people worldwide.

https://rapm.bmj.com/content/early/2023/05/03/rapm-2022-104223

https://www.singlecare.com/blog/news/migraine-statistics/

#migraines #ketamine #nasalspray

Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/kjX9rfH12LI

Bariatric surgery in the form of sleeve gastrectomy leads to a significant reduction in bone strength associated with decreased bone density and increased bone marrow fat.  Harvard Medical School radiologists report these findings after a 2 year prospective study of 54 subjects 15 to 21 years of age.

Of the group, 25 underwent surgery and  29 received dietary and exercise counseling.  The lumbar spine strengths of those undergoing surgery decreased 10-fold more than those receiving medical therapy.  Bone densities of the surgical group decreased 4-fold more than those in the control group.

The bottom line: those undergoing bariatric surgery should have careful monitoring of their bone health with appropriate dietary modifications and medical therapy.

https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiol.223256

#bariatric #surgery #dieting #osteoporosis #vertebralbodystrength #bonedensity 

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/CtvjF5MLG0N/

You might say: Doc….We’ve heard over and over that charcoal grilling produces carcinogenic compounds that might later trigger cancer.  Now, though, Stanford University chemists have uncovered yet another genetic risk associated with cooking foods at high temperatures.

We know that our food comes from plants and animals, but we never think about the fact that the food contains its own DNA.  The researchers have studied the considerable damage that occurs to this food DNA when you heat and super heat it.  They then proved with tracer studies that fragments of this damaged food DNA is incorporated into mammalian cells not only in the test tube but also in the lining cells of test animals.  The higher the cooking temperatures the greater the DNA damage.

So think about this the next time you are grilling or, for that matter, cooking pizza in a high temperature oven.  We don’t yet know what harm this damaged food DNA may trigger over time.  But…..This latest data is food for thought that contains no damaged DNA.

https://news.stanford.edu/2023/06/12/study-mice-links-heat-damaged-dna-food-possible-genetic-risks/

#dna #charcoal #grilling #pizza #fooddna

Vid: https://www.instagram.com/p/CtviHYxMNOn/

Those who use drugs like methylphenidate and dextroamphetamine, branded as Ritalin and Dexedrine, to think faster, work longer, and get better test scores can actually handicap their performance.  University of Melbourne neuroscientists report this finding after testing 40 subjects, ages 18 to 35 years, in a randomized, double-blinded trial.

There tabulated data showed that the medicated subjects consistently performed only 50% of the tasks on a so-called knapsack test efficiently. The drugs failed to improve the chances of correct answers, and they increased the time the subjects required to complete a task.  The researchers found that this suboptimal performance was due to a diminished quality of effort.

Methylphenidate, branded as Ritalin and Concerta, and dextroamphetamine, branded as Dexedrine, are effective medications for those with attention deficits and hyperactivity disorders.  We now know that those without such cognitive issues are outsmarting themselves by taking these drugs in an effort to turbocharge their minds.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add4165

#Methylphenidate #dextroamphetamine #adhd #stimulants #testing

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/Cta-8UcRK_B/

Recall By: FDA; Cricket Creek Farm

Sold: Sophelise and Tobasi were distributed in Massachusetts and New York at Wild Oats, Williamstown, MA; Provisions Williamstown, Williamstown, MA; McEnroe Organic Farm Market, Millerton, NY; New Lebanon Farmers Market; New Lebanon, NY, at restaurants, and farmers markets.

Affected are Sophelise cheese with product code 087055 or Tobasi cheese 315, 341, 048 sold on or after March 26.

Action: Don’t consume these products.  Return them to the place of purchase for a full refund.  For more information, contact Cricket Creek Farm at [email protected] or 1-413-458-5888.

https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/cricket-creek-farm-recalls-sophelise-and-tobasi-cheeses-because-potential-listeria-monocytogenes

#crookedfarm #sophelise #tobasi #cheese #listeria #infection #recall