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 WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- In a new study, people living with HIV who got standard meds to keep the virus at bay also had much lower rates of Alzheimer's disease -- suggesting the drugs might also lower risks for the brain illness.It's early-stage research, but it's possible that mechanisms used by these HIV drugs work at a genetic level to thwart Alzheimer's in the brain, concluded a team led by Dr. Jerold Chun. He's a professor in the degenerative disease program at the nonprofit research group Sanford Burnham Prebys, in La Jolla, Calif. In the study, Chun's group looked at rates of Alzheimer's disease among nearly 80,000 HIV-positive individuals over the age of 60.  More than 46,000 of them had been prescribed a form of HIV-suppressing medications known as reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitors.Among this subgroup, Alzheimer's diagnoses occurred in about 2.5 people per 1,000 -- much less frequently than the 6.15 per 1,000 observed in a control group of older people without HIV, the researchers found.The study wasn't designed to prove that RT inhibitors directly prevent Alzheimer's disease. However, the finding was intriguing and there are genetic mechanisms that might explain the link, the scientists said. In findings first published in the journal Nature in 2018, Chun's lab showed that, in Alzheimer's patients, a gene found in neurons undergoes mutations that can produce thousands of new gene variants.  The Alzheimer's-linked gene, called APP, undergoes this transformation using the same enzyme -- reverse transcriptase -- that HIV uses to genetically hijack human cells. That's why RT inhibitor drugs are a common ingredient in the drug "cocktail" that HIV-positive people use to suppress the virus. So, it stands to reason that RT inhibitors might also thwart RT processes involved in Alzheimer's disease within brain cells, Chun's team theorized.Their work, published recently in the journal Pharmaceuticals, was funded by the U.S. National Institute on Aging. In a news release from Sanford Burnham Prebys, Chun stressed that the research is still in its early days.“What we’re looking at now is very crude,” said Chun, who is also senior vice president for neuroscience drug discovery at the organization. “The clear next step for our lab is to identify which versions of RTs are at work in the AD [Alzheimer's disease] brain, so that more targeted treatments can be discovered, while prospective clinical trials of currently available RT inhibitors on persons with early AD should be pursued.”More informationFind out more about how HIV works at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.SOURCE: Sanford Burnham Prebys, news release, April 16, 2024

Could Some HIV Meds Also Fight Alzheimer's?

WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- In a new study, people living with HIV who got standard meds to keep the virus at bay also had much lower rates of Alzheimer's disease -- suggesting...

 WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Microplastics could be migrating from the digestive tract into the kidneys, livers and brains of human beings, a new mouse study suggests.Lab mice exposed to microplastics in their drinking water wound up with the tiny plastic particles lodged in a number of different organs, researchers reported April 10 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.“We could detect microplastics in certain tissues after the exposure,” said senior researcher Eliseo Castillo, an associate professor with the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. “That tells us it can cross the intestinal barrier and infiltrate into other tissues.”Scientists estimate that people ingest five grams of microplastic particles each week, on average, about as much plastic as found in a credit card, researchers said in background notes.“Over the past few decades, microplastics have been found in the ocean, in animals and plants, in tap water and bottled water,” Castillo said in a university news release. “They appear to be everywhere.”To see what happens after these tiny plastic particles are eaten, Castillo and colleagues fed lab mice an amount of microplastics equivalent to what humans ingest weekly.After a month, researchers found microplastics had found their way out of the gut and into the tissues of the liver, kidney and brain.The accumulation in mice over such a short time has dire implications for humans, Castillo said, although animal research doesn't always pan out in humans.Still, “these mice were exposed for four weeks,” Castillo said. “Now, think about how that equates to humans, if we're exposed from birth to old age.”Castillo also is concerned that microplastics could be exacerbating the health problems of humans, based on prior research that has shown the particles can cause inflammation and alter cell metabolism.Such increased inflammation could worsen gastrointestinal conditions like ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, Castillo said.The next step in research will be to see how diet affects uptake of microplastics, Castillo said.“Everyone’s diet is different,” Castillo noted. “So, what we're going to do is give these laboratory animals a high-cholesterol/high-fat diet or high-fiber diet, and they will be either exposed or not exposed to microplastics.”Research is also planned into how microplastics change the natural bacteria of the gut, Castillo said.“At the end of the day, the research we are trying to do aims to find out how this is impacting gut health,” Castillo said.“Research continues to show the importance of gut health. If you don't have a healthy gut, it affects the brain, it affects the liver and so many other tissues,” Castillo said. “So, even imagining that the microplastics are doing something in the gut, that chronic exposure could lead to systemic effects.”More informationYale School of Medicine has more about microplastics.SOURCE: University of New Mexico, news release, April 15, 2024

Mouse Study Shows Microplastics Migrating From Gut to Other Organs

WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Microplastics could be migrating from the digestive tract into the kidneys, livers and brains of human beings, a new mouse study suggests.Lab mice...

 WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Zepbound, one of the wildly popular weight-loss drugs that millions of Americans now take, eased sleep apnea in obese adults in two company trials, drug maker Eli Lilly announced Wednesday.First approved to treat obesity by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last November, Zepbound's power was significant: It reduced sleep apnea severity by nearly two-thirds in patients. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) "impacts 80 million adults in the U.S., with more than 20 million living with moderate-to-severe OSA. However, 85% of OSA cases go undiagnosed and therefore untreated," Dr. Jeff Emmick, senior vice president of product development at Lilly, said in a company news release announcing the results. "Addressing this unmet need head-on is critical, and while there are pharmaceutical treatments for the excessive sleepiness associated with OSA, tirzepatide [Zepbound] has the potential to be the first pharmaceutical treatment for the underlying disease," he added.Importantly, the results have not yet been published in a medical journal.In the two studies, researchers looked at whether Zepbound worked better than a placebo in reducing how many times per hour, on average, a person partly or fully stopped breathing while sleeping.In the first study, sleep apnea patients did not use CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machines, which blow air into the airway to keep it from collapsing during sleep. Patients in the second study did use the machines.After 52 weeks, Zepbound prompted an average reduction of 27.4 events per hour in people who were not on PAP machines, compared to a reduction of 4.8 events per hour for people on a placebo.In people who did use PAP machines, Zepbound led to an average reduction of 30.4 events per hour, compared to an average reduction of 6 events per hour in the placebo group.Dr. Susan Spratt, an endocrinologist and senior medical director of the Population Health Management Office at Duke Health in North Carolina,  said the findings show that obesity “is not a vanity issue.”“This is about treating a major health problem that reduces significant morbidity [illness] and mortality,” she told NBC News.She said the findings could also make insurance companies more willing to provide coverage for the weight-loss drug.Just last month, Medicare said it would cover another popular weight-loss drug, Wegovy, for obese patients who also have heart disease.Sleep apnea affects about 39 million American adults, according to the National Council on Aging. Obesity, which can narrow a person's airway, can up the chances of a sleep apnea diagnosis.Left untreated, sleep apnea can lead to heart arrhythmias, heart failure and even death.Lilly said Wednesday that it plans to share additional findings from the studies at the American Diabetes Association annual meeting in June, and it will also submit the results to the FDA sometime this summer.More informationVisit the National Institutes of Health for more on sleep apnea.SOURCE: Eli Lilly Co., news release, April 17, 2024; NBC News

Weight-loss Drug Zepbound Eases Sleep Apnea in Company Trials

WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Zepbound, one of the wildly popular weight-loss drugs that millions of Americans now take, eased sleep apnea in obese adults in two company trials...

 WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Changes in gut bacteria have been linked to a variety of different diseases, including type 2 diabetes, obesity and inflammatory bowel disease.Now, a new study indicates that gut bacteria also might play a role in a person’s risk of developing heart disease.Certain species of bacteria actively consume cholesterol in the gut, which might help lower cholesterol levels and heart disease risk in people, researchers reported recently in the journal Cell.In particular, people with higher levels of Oscillibacter bacteria in their gut have lower levels of cholesterol, because those bacteria drink in and process cholesterol from their surroundings, results show.These findings could serve as “starting points to improve cardiovascular health” by tweaking a person’s gut bacteria, also known as the microbiome, said senior researcher Ramnik Xavier, co-director of the Broad Institute Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program in Boston.Prior studies have linked the gut microbiome to heart disease risk factors like triglyceride or blood sugar levels, but they have failed to completely explain the means by which these bacteria affect heart health.For the study, researchers analyzed the gut bacteria of more than 1,400 participants in the Framingham Heart Study, a decades-long effort to investigate risk factors for heart disease.They found that people with several Oscillibacter species tended to have lower cholesterol than those who didn’t.They also found that Oscillibacter is surprisingly abundant in the gut, representing, on average, one in every 100 bacteria.To see how Oscillibacter affects cholesterol, researchers grew the bacteria in a laboratory from stool samples.Analysis showed that the bacteria breaks down cholesterol into byproducts that are then further processed by other bacteria and excreted from the body.They also found that another gut bacterial species, Eubacterium coprostanoligenes, also contributes to decreased cholesterol levels. That species carries a gene that is involved in cholesterol metabolism, the researchers explained.In fact, Oscillibacter and Eubacterium might even boost each other’s impact on cholesterol levels, results show.This research could lead to more studies that figure out why gut microbes have other effects on human health, the researchers said.“There are many clinical studies trying to do fecal microbiome transfer studies without much understanding of how the microbes interact with each other and the gut,” said lead researcher Chenhao Li, a postdoctoral researcher in Xavier’s lab.“Hopefully stepping back by focusing on one particular bug or gene first, we’ll get a systematic understanding of gut ecology and come up with better therapeutic strategies like targeting one or a few bugs,” Li added in a Broad Institute news release.More informationHarvard Medical School has more on the microbiome.SOURCE: Broad Institute, news release, April 11, 2024

Some Gut Bugs May Help Lower Your Cholesterol

WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Changes in gut bacteria have been linked to a variety of different diseases, including type 2 diabetes, obesity and inflammatory bowel disease.Now...

Some Gut Bugs May Help Lower Your Cholesterol 

 WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Eating healthy can lower the risk of heart disease in breast cancer survivors, a new study has found.Heart disease is a top cause of death in women who've survived breast cancer, likely due to the toxic effects of chemo, radiation and targeted cancer therapy on the heart, researchers said.Breast cancer and heart disease also share some common risk factors, including aging, lack of exercise and smoking.But following a heart-healthy DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet appears to blunt this risk, according to findings published April 17 in the journal JNCI Cancer Spectrum.“Our findings suggest that we need to begin talking to breast cancer survivors about the potential heart benefits of the DASH diet,” lead researcher Isaac Ergas, a staff scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, said in a journal news release.For the study, researchers analyzed data for more than 3,400 women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer at Kaiser Permanente Northern California between 2005 and 2013. The women were monitored through 2021.Women whose diets were most similar to DASH at the time of their breast cancer diagnosis had a 47% lower risk of heart failure, a 23% lower risk of irregular heart rhythm or cardiac arrest, a 21% lower risk of valve heart disease, and a 25% lower risk of deep vein thrombosis, results show.A DASH diet emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and low-fat dairy. It also limits intake of salt, red and processed meats, and sugary beverages.In particular, higher consumption of low-fat dairy reduced the risk of heart-related death, after adjusting for all other food groups, researchers found.The relationship between a DASH diet and heart disease also appeared to be modified by the type of chemo a woman received, researchers added.Chemotherapy regimens involving anthracyclines -- a class of chemo known to damage the heart -- benefitted more from healthy eating, in terms of heart health, than others.More informationHarvard Medical School has more on the heart effects of cancer treatment.SOURCE: Oxford University Press, news release, April 17, 2024

Why Healthy Eating Is Key for Breast Cancer Survivors

WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Eating healthy can lower the risk of heart disease in breast cancer survivors, a new study has found.Heart disease is a top cause of death in women...

 WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Active women using the pill appear to receive an added bonus from their birth control, a new study says.These women are less likely to suffer sprains and strains than women not on birth control, researchers reported recently in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.Women taking oral contraceptives had significantly fewer tendon and muscle injuries than women not on the pill or men, results show.These sorts of injuries are among the most common in sports, researchers said.“This understanding holds promise for informing the development of targeted preventive strategies and interventions aimed at reducing injury risk in women, benefiting both athletic and nonathletic populations,” said lead researcher Luis Rodriguez. He's a doctoral candidate with the Joint Biomedical Engineering Graduate Program at University of Texas-Dallas and University of Texas-Southwestern.For the study, researchers analyzed health data for more than 126,000 men and women between the ages of 18 and 39 who were either normal weight or overweight and had sustained an orthopedic injury.About 0.5% of women on the pill had a sprain or strain, versus 2.5% of women not taking birth control and 3.5% of men, researchers found.Overall, women taking the pill were 85% less likely than men to suffer a sprained muscle or strained tendon, results show.Meanwhile, women not taking the pill were only about 26% less likely than men to have a strain or sprain.The results indicate that the hormones in birth control pills might somehow provide protection against muscle and tendon injuries, researchers said.“This research offers valuable insights into how synthetic sex hormones may mitigate the risk of … injuries in women,” senior researcher Yasin Dhaher, a professor of physical medicine & rehabilitation and orthopedic surgery at UT Southwestern, saidin a university news release.The findings also open up the question of whether women with health conditions that cause hormone imbalances, like polycystic ovary syndrome or menopause, might have an increased risk of injury, researchers added.More informationThe Cleveland Clinic has more on birth control pills.SOURCE: UT Southwestern, news release, April 15, 2024

Birth Control Pill Might Lower Odds for Sports Injuries

WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Active women using the pill appear to receive an added bonus from their birth control, a new study says.These women are less likely to suffer sprains...

 WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Some people with tough-to-treat epilepsy might benefit if doctors target a brain region newly linked to the disorder, a new study suggests.Seizures declined by 83% after a patient underwent surgery that removed almost all of the fasciola cinereum, a previously overlooked region of the hippocampus, researchers report April 17 in the journal Nature Medicine.In practical terms, that means a patient who had been having one or two seizures a month now has one seizure every three months or so, results show.The findings indicate that people with drug-resistant epilepsy might need the fasciola cinereum treated alongside other brain regions that are typically targeted, the researchers said.“The hippocampus is the best studied part of the brain by far, but there is shockingly little known about the fasciola cinereum,” said senior researcher Ivan Soltesz, a professor of neurosurgery and neurosciences at Stanford University School of Medicine.The standard of care for epilepsy when drugs fail to work is surgery, researchers explained in background notes.In one type, called mesial temporal lobe epilepsy, seizures originate in two specific brain regions: the amygdala, an almond-shaped structure involved in processing emotions, and the hippocampus, a region necessary for forming memories.The brain is symmetrical, with an amygdala and a hippocampus on both the left and right side, and often seizures erupt from the structures on one side of the brain, researchers said.So, doctors use electrode implants to figure out which regions are causing seizures, and then they remove those structures through surgery or by using a laser to burn them away, a process called ablation.Because there’s an amygdala and hippocampus on both sides of the brain, people still retain the ability to form memories following the procedure and typically have minimal side effects, researchers said.But even this approach, as dire as it sounds, fails a third of the time, researchers said.To figure out why, researchers started using electrodes to map in detail patients’ brain seizure activity.The hippocampus, located deep within each hemisphere of the brain near ear level, looks like a sea horse lying on its side with the head pointing toward the front of the brain, researchers said.Electrode mapping of seizure activity noted that neurons in the fasciola cireneum -- the far tip of the sea horse’s tail -- were active during seizures in mice.Further, mouse studies indicated that if neuron activity in the fasciola cireneum were shut down, it shortened the duration of seizures in mice.“Seizure activity in this region could be a reason why these surgeries sometimes fail,” said co-lead researcher Dr. Ryan Jamiolkowski, a resident in neurosurgery at Stanford Medicine.Researchers next turned to six human epilepsy patients, implanting electrodes to map seizure activity in their brains.The fasciola cinereum contributed to the recorded seizures in all six patients, including some episodes in which the rest of the hippocampus remained silent.One of the patients already had received laser treatment to burn away their amygdala and most of their hippocampus in the left brain, but nevertheless continued having seizures.Electrode mapping showed that the only part of the hippocampus that remained, the fasciola cireneum, was involved in those seizures.A follow-up laser procedure burned away the fasciola cireneum, and the patient’s seizures declined by 83%.Because of the way the hippocampus is shaped, future patients whose seizures involve the fasciola cireneum might need two separate surgeries as well, researchers said.“The hippocampus curves like a banana, and the optical fiber used for laser ablation is a straight line,” Jamiolkowski said in a Stanford news release.To burn away the entire structure “requires different trajectories that are not currently feasible to combine into one procedure,” Jamiolkowski explained.The fasciola cireneum also might be targeted in patients with seizures emanating from the amygdala and hippocampus on both sides of their brains, researchers added.To preserve their ability to form memories, these patients have a device implanted in the hippocampus that provides electrical jolts to interrupt a seizure before it can start rolling.“Knowing which patients have seizures involving the fasciola cinereum would let us target it with either ablation or neurostimulation, and help us treat patients better than a one-size-fits all approach,” Jamiolkowski said.More informationThe Mayo Clinic has more on epilepsy.SOURCE: Stanford University, news release, April 17, 2024

New Brain Target Key to Easing Tough-to-Treat Epilepsy

WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Some people with tough-to-treat epilepsy might benefit if doctors target a brain region newly linked to the disorder, a new study suggests.Seizures...

 WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- The placenta could be one reason why some women develop gestational diabetes during pregnancy, a new study finds.A deficit in the way the placenta expresses the gene for a hormone called  insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) appears linked to insulin resistance during pregnancy, researchers reported April 16 in the journal Nature Medicine.“The placenta -- the major driver of changes in insulin physiology in pregnancy -- is likely a key source of hormones involved in the development of gestational diabetes,” said lead researcher Marie-France Hivert, an associate professor of population medicine at Harvard Medical School.Gestational diabetes affects one in seven pregnancies, and can lead to multiple complications during pregnancy and delivery.Excess insulin resistance contributes to gestational diabetes, prior research has found, but the exact causes of this resistance remains unclear.For this study, researchers conducted genetic analysis on placental tissue samples, identifying 14 genes associated with insulin resistance.The strongest association involved the IGF-1 gene, which manages the effects of growth hormone in the body, results show. The hormone produced by the IGF-1 gene is related to the insulin hormone and affects how cells process blood sugar.IGF-1 hormone levels rise over the course of pregnancy and are five times higher in pregnant people, the researchers noted.Further, low levels of IGF-1 hormone in early pregnancy could be an indicator that a woman is at risk for gestational diabetes, given that higher levels are associated with less insulin resistance, researchers said. In fact, low blood levels of IGF-1 hormone in the first trimester appear to predict later diagnosis of gestational diabetes, independent of other risk factors like excess weight, results show.“It’s possible that measuring [IGF-1 hormone] in the first trimester could help identify people at risk of developing gestational diabetes early in pregnancy, potentially offering a window for prevention,” Hivert said in a Harvard news release. “We hope to conduct future research to address whether this protein plays a causal role in gestational glycemic regulation.”More informationThe U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on gestational diabetes.SOURCE: Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, news release, April 16, 2024

Placenta Plays Role in Gestational Diabetes, Study Suggests

WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- The placenta could be one reason why some women develop gestational diabetes during pregnancy, a new study finds.A deficit in the way the placenta...

 WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Two implanted heart devices used by patients in end-stage heart failure are now under a strict U.S. Food and Drug Administration recall, after being tied to 273 known injuries and 14 deaths, the agency said Tuesday.The HeartMate II and HeartMate 3 are manufactured by Thoratec Corp., a subsidiary of Abbott Laboratories. About 14,000 of the devices are thought to be under recall, but as of now the two devices are not being removed from the market."The HeartMate II and 3 are used for both short- and long-term support in adult patients with severe left ventricular heart failure," the FDA explained in a statement. "It can be used while waiting for a heart transplant, to help the heart recover, or as a permanent solution when a transplant isn't an option."The devices replace the blood-pumping action of the heart's main pumping  chamber, the left ventricle. They divert blood flow from that weakened chamber and propel it into the aorta, where it flows to the rest of the body.However, in rare cases a type of clot can form from "biological material" that builds up in a particular area of the devices."This buildup can obstruct the device, making it less effective in helping the heart pump blood," the FDA explained. "It can trigger alarms indicating low blood flow and affect the device's ability to help the heart properly. The accumulation of biological material typically occurs over two years or more."In the worst cases, this kind of obstruction can lead to injury or death, the agency said.On Feb. 19, Thoratec "sent all affected customers an Urgent Medical Device Correction Letter," asking them to pay attention to low flow alarms linked to the devices, "as this is the first symptom of significant outflow obstruction," according to the FDA.If alarms are reported to doctors, they could address the issue by either monitoring the patient closely, implanting a stent to improve blood flow or replacing the pump.One study published in 2022 in the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery found the blockages occurred in about 3% of patients with the devices, with the likelihood of obstructions rising over time.Heart specialists are concerned about the issue, because patients in end-stage heart failure have few options if the HeartMate devices are removed from the market. In the absence of these devices, "we are in trouble," Dr. Francis Pagani, a cardiothoracic surgeon at the University of Michigan, told KFF News."It would be devastating to the patients to not have this option. It's not a perfect option -- no pump ever is -- but this is as good as it's ever been," said Pagani, who also oversees a proprietary database of HeartMate II and HeartMate 3 implants. More informationFind out more about the care of people in end-stage heart failure at the American Heart Association.SOURCES: U.S. Food and Drug Administration, statement, April 16, 2024; KFF News

FDA Recalls Heart Failure Devices Linked to Injuries and Deaths

WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Two implanted heart devices used by patients in end-stage heart failure are now under a strict U.S. Food and Drug Administration recall, after being...

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