Here is Good News…. Israel’s COVID DRUG on the anvil

COVIDDRUG ISREAL

Israeli’s Coronavirus medicine has got the prime minister’s consent to go ahead with testing as the drug would come a long way for the poor countries who don’t have access to vaccines.  Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Medical Center calls this a major stand point, saying that Prof. Nadir Arber’s EXO-CD24 inhaled medicine had been administered to 30 patients whose conditions were moderate or worse, and all 30 recovered — 29 of them within three to five days.

This medicine fights the cytokine storm — a potentially lethal immune overreaction to the coronavirus infection that is believed to be responsible for much of the deaths associated with this disease.

The toxin of Alzheimer’s spreads like ‘Trojan Horse’

Alzheimer's trojan horse

Protein connected with Alzheimer’s disease use the brain’s cells as a “Trojan Horse” to intensify the disease.  The protein ‘tau’ which is present in the healthy brain cells is used by our brain for normal function to connect the neuron ‘tangles’, which is the core area of Alzheimer’s and other dementias.

The team from the Queensland Brain Institute at UQ have been trying to find how the protein spreads through the brain after an initial build-up, eventually causing these tangles.

Dementia expert Professor Jürgen Götz said their research revealed that the protein is carried by small sacs of material produced by brain cells called exosomes, which function like mails/letters – physical packets sent between two points which contains information. The brain unfortunately punches holes in these sacs, allowing the tau protein to spill out.

“This is all a natural mechanism of the cells in the brain, it’s almost like these cells are acting like Trojan horses, they contain these proteins that spill out and cause this damaging effect”.  Professor Götz says that now they have an understanding of how the protein is spreading through the brain, they can work on ways to halt its spread before it affects large areas of a sufferer’s neural network.

Currently, there is no treatment to either prevent or stop the effect of Alzheimer’s, with the only treatment currently available focusing on reducing the worst of the symptoms.

CANCER IS LIFE ALTERING BUT NOT LIFE DEFINING

Dr V Shanta - Cancer Day

The second leading cause of death globally is cancer. The World Cancer Day cannot be ignored as it reiterates its message through out the world that ‘I Am and I Will’.  This campaign has an empowering message to induce commitment on people at various level there by raising awareness concerning cancer prevention. 

The day cannot be complete without remembering Dr.V.Shanta, who was the  Chair Person of the Cancer Institute, Adyar.  Dedicated her life to the prevention, treatment of Cancer and her contribution to the field of oncology through her commitment to research during her medical career of 65 years.  Which is humungous at all measures.  She remained a workaholic and accessible to patients till her very end.  The fight is not over.  Let the mantle of her legacy and responsibility fall on each one of us to carry forward what we could do best in our given capacity.

Here is a quick snippet of promising development in treatment and prevention of cancer

Immunotherapy breakthroughs – the drugs recognise and destroys cancerous cells. A big break through against previously untreatable cancers

Another technique is checkpoint inhibitor therapy – where proteins contained within cancer cells bind with immune cells, sends ‘off’ signals to the rest of the immune system there by disabling the body’s natural defences.  This checkpoint inhibitor therapy blocks this binding and allows killer immune T cells to seek and destroy the pathogen.  This therapy is still under trial.

While ‘vaccine’ for tumours is still underway predicting and giving precise elective treatment has come a long way

Nanotechnology – is yet another area of growing interest. By using nano capsules, it directly addresses the tumour cells without damaging the normal cells.

 

It’s time to act therefore we could live without the fear of cancer. Let’s create awareness and understanding about Cancer while breaking the myths and misinformation. As more than one third of the cancers are preventable. 

Potato is the secret of weight loss…..?

Potato diet

When we are on a weight loss the first thing that goes out of our diet is the potato. But the new fad diet is the extreme way of consuming nothing but only the cooked potatoes for a set period of time with the goal of achieving rapid weight loss. Many have claimed to have had a significant weight loss.  Of Couse, there are no scientific studies that have been done so far to support these claims.  But the thumb rule is to stay away from the deep-fried cooking.

But what is the Potato diet?

It’s committed to eating plain cooked white potatoes for three to five days to lose up to half a kg per day. No toppings recommended except for salt.  Another long term version of the potato diet which has cropped up in the recent times is the Spud fit challenge created by Aussie dieter Andrew Taylor, who ate nothing but potatoes for an entire year to shed around 50 kgs of weight.  In this version sweet potatoes, herbs, spices and even certain fat-free condiments are allowed like tomato sauce or barbecue sauce.

‘There’s nothing special about the potato in terms of weight loss,’ says
an enthusiast. ‘It simply does whatever any diet tries to do: limits foods in
order to limit total energy consumption. Most likely someone would get bored of
eating nothing but potatoes pretty quickly and therefore end up eating less
food overall compared to usual.’