[Press release] Researchers unravel health/disease map
From the 18 February 2015 Simon Fraser University press release
hotos: http://www.sfu.ca/mbb/People/Jones/
Researchers affiliated with several organizations, including Simon Fraser University, have realized a major scientific achievement that will advance understanding of how the information in our cells is used and processed.
Steven Jones and Marco Marra, SFU Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry professor and adjunct professor, respectively, were among dozens of scientists on the pioneering project. Both SFU alumni, they are also with theCanada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre and BC Cancer Agency.
The scientists are globally celebrating their completion of 20 manuscripts that describe their generation and analysis of reference epigenome maps.
Epigenomes are chemical modifications of DNA and proteins that control the structure and activity of our genome. Ultimately, they cause our genome to stay healthy or develop diseases because they code for cellular properties that distinguish one cell type from another.
The journal Nature has issued a special publication to showcase the researchers’ collection, which contains molecular mark-up language for translating the epigenomes of 111 distinct human cell and tissue types.
“The DNA that makes up a human genome is essentially the same in every cell,” explains Jones, a co-author on the manuscript that integrates all 111 epigenomes into a single comparative analysis.
The project, called the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Roadmap Epigenomics Mapping Consortium, provides a core set of data, methodology and infrastructure for studying the epigenome’s role in human health and disease. The original goal was to map 25 normal reference epigenomes, but new technology allowed the team to produce 111 highly detailed maps on how the epigenome varies and operates in different settings.
[Press release] Sickness and health between men and women
From the 19 February 2015 University of Washington press release
by Scott Weybright, College of Agricultural, Human & Natural Resource Sciences
PULLMAN, Wash. – Gender and personality matter in how people cope with physical and mental illness, according to a paper by a Washington State University scientist and colleagues at the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce.
Men are less affected by a single-symptom illness than women, but are more affected when more than one symptom is present. The number of symptoms doesn’t change how women are affected, according to Robert Rosenman, WSU professor in the Department of Economic Sciences.
Rosenman worked with Dusanee Kesavayuth and Vasileios Zikos, both at UTCC in Bangkok, Thailand, on the study.
“Women are more impacted by illness than men, unless more than one symptom is present,” said Rosenman. “Then men are more impacted than women. And perhaps more importantly, personality affects how women handle becoming sick, while men of all types react the same.”
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[Press release] Jumping genes have essential biological functions
From the 19 February 2015 EurekAlert!
“Alu” sequences are small repetitive elements representing about 10% of our genome. Because of their ability to move around the genome, these “jumping genes” are considered as real motors of evolution. However, they were considered for a long time as “junk” DNA, because, although they are transcribed into RNA, they encode no proteins and do not seem to participate actively in the cell’s functions. Now, the group of Katharina Strub, professor at the Faculty of Science of the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, has uncovered two key functions of Alu RNAs in human cells, which are the subject of two different articles published in Nucleic Acids Research. Alu RNA can bind to specific proteins forming a complex called Alu RNP. On the one hand, this complex allows the cells to adapt to stress caused for example by chemical poisoning or viral infection. On the other hand, the same complex plays a role in protein synthesis by regulating the number of active ribosomes, suggesting that it could be part of the innate system of cellular defense against certain viruses.
[Reblog] The hospital that will remain nameless
One person’s journey through an unhealthy health care system. Definitely not patient centered. Have had similar insurance problems, mostly because of errors in the insurance company erring in my personal identifiers.
From the 19 February 2015 item By LISA SUENNEN at The Health Care Blog
Let me start this story by telling you the end: I am just fine. For those of you who like me, there is nothing to worry about and all is well. For those of you who don’t like me, sorry to disappoint you, but you’re stuck with me for a while.
I’m telling you these things—news to make you happy or disappointed, depending on your point of view about me—because this story is about my recent trip to the hospital, an unexpected journey that I wasn’t sure I was going to talk about publicly.
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And from one of the comments…
You sound true and authentic to me too. I am embarrassed as to how often we do screw up. The only excuse I think is that we have so much internal and external regulation that we become nervous nellies, unable to relax and enjoy what we are doing. You should go to a Pharmacy and Therapeutics meeting in a hospital and listen to the barrage of complaints from everyone to everyone. Wrong dose, wrong timing, wrong drug, wrong patient. I have walked out of these meetings because of the hostility. We would all do better if we could start some little village clinic in the Congo, without the interminable watching from a thousand eyes.
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[Press release] Genome’s tale of ‘conquer and enslave’
From the 20 February 2015 University of Toronto press release
Toronto scientists uncovered how viral remnants helped shape control of our genes.
If genes were lights on a string of DNA, the genome would appear as an endless flicker, as thousands of genes come on and off at any given time. Tim Hughes, a Professor at the University of Toronto’s Donnelly Centre, is set on figuring out the rules behind this tightly orchestrated light-show, because when it fails, disease can occur.
Genes are switched on or off by proteins called transcription factors. These proteins bind to precise sites on the DNA that serve as guideposts, telling transcription factors that their target genes are nearby.
In their latest paper, published in Nature Biotechnology, Hughes and his team did the first systematic study of the largest group of human transcription factors, called C2H2-ZF.
Despite their important roles in development and disease, these proteins have been largely unexplored because they posed a formidable challenge for researchers.
C2H2-ZF transcription factors count over 700 proteins — around three per cent of all human genes! To make matters more complicated, most human C2H2-ZF proteins are very different from those in other organisms, like those in mice. This means that scientists could not apply insights gained from animal studies to human C2H2-ZFs.
Hughes’ team found something remarkable: the reason C2H2-ZFs are so abundant and diverse — which makes them difficult to study — is that many of them evolved to defend our ancestral genome from damage caused by the notorious “selfish DNA.”
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[News article] Middle East Mystery Disease Triggers Early Resurgence
From the 20 February 2015 Scientific American article
English: Saudi Arabia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
International health experts head to Saudi Arabia to help determine why MERS cases are soaring again
Infectious disease watchers are again wondering what is going on in Saudi Arabia. Since the beginning of February the Saudis have reported 52 cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome—better known as MERS; 40 have come to light in the past week or so alone. Since the disease first hit the world’s radar in September 2012 only two months have racked up more cases than this one has. They were April and May 2014, when Saudi Arabia had rampantMERS outbreaks in several hospitals.*
An expert delegation from the United Nation’s human and animal health agencies began a three-day mission to the Arabian Peninsula’s geographically largest country Wednesday, trying to get to the bottom of why MERS cases are soaring.
This is the time of year in which the number of MERS cases has climbed in the past, although not enough time has elapsed to make clear whether that pattern will continue. In the past two springs large hospital outbreaks in Saudi Arabia have certainly created the appearance of a high season for MERS transmission, which some scientists believe exists and is linked to the birth and weaning of young camels. The animals are known to be susceptible to the virus and can transmit it to people.
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According to the daily updates posted online by the Saudi health ministry, most of the recent cases—unlike during past surges—did not report contact with camels or with other people infected with MERS—either in the community or in a hospital setting. “It seems quite a few are not health care associated,” says Koopmans…
[Report] 2012 National Health Interview Survey
From the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health
The 2012 National Health Interview Survey provides the most comprehensive information on the use of complementary health approaches in the United States.
Click on any practice or product below
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How I Learned to Trust The Needle
So true “To actually address why parents opt out of vaccinations, Science must ask itself difficult and uncomfortable questions about why such a large and fundamental trust-gap exists, and what we plan to do about it.”
[Reblog] Going Viral: The Re-Emergence of Preventable Diseases
From the 19 February 2015 post at Policy Interns
From an aging population to the growing threat of pandemic influenza and other emerging infectious diseases as well as the rapid growth of obesity and other chronic illnesses, the most persistent and costly challenges to American health and well-being fall increasingly on the public health system and on public health professionals at all levels. Unlike health care, which often intervenes when an individual is already sick with a costly disease, the focus of public health is prevention rather than treatment of diseases. Public health professionals, working with state and local health departments, laboratories, and other public health organizations, play a vital and increasingly central role in protecting a population’s health. Yet the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and other public health observers have repeatedly identified deficiencies in public health infrastructure and workforce.
Regional interstate planning, preparing for mass vaccination and the distribution of medical supplies, and development of adequate surge capacity are incomplete or insufficient. The Government Accountability Office concluded in 2004 that “no State is fully prepared to respond to a major public health threat,” an assessment that the CDC reiterated in 2008.
One might look at Figure 1 and think, where are the lines for public health expenditures on federal, state, and local levels? They’re there, almost completely parallel to the x-axis. Federal public health spending underperformed a number of other U.S. health sector expenditure categories overall. As a percentage of all U.S. health expenditures, federal public health spending was lower in 2008 than it was in 1966. To make matters worse, the Fiscal Year 2015 request proposes a $51 million decrease for the immunization program due to an expectation of increased insurance coverage for immunization services in 2015. This is yet another cut to public health spending that will undoubtedly affect population health.
Program operations, which contribute to disease surveillance, public awareness and provider education, took a $14 million cut.
…
While proponents of the ACA said the majority of the proposed fiscal 2016 cuts again will go toward vaccine purchasing and won’t affect immunization infrastructure funds, this cannot be the whole picture. The families and children currently using these programs will be in jeopardy because insurance coverage alone is not enough to ensure high vaccination rates.
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Related articles
[Reblog] John A. Rich: Black men, trauma, and nonviolence
From the 21 February 2015 item by Teagan Kuruna (the MPH formerly known as Teagan Keating)
…While at Boston City Hospital, [Dr.] Rich saw a steady stream of young Black men come through the emergency room with stabbing and gunshot wounds. He also began to realize that everyone, including the other medical staff, saw these men as perpetrators rather than victims. The general consensus was that these men had done something to get themselves injured instead of what was obvious to Rich: these young Black men were truly victims.
Because of his compassionate streak, Rich began interviewing these men to learn more about their lives and what led to them returning to the ER over and over. He learned that the injuries that brought them to him were often due events outside their control–a robbery, a few wrong words to the wrong person, a simple accident that escalated to violence. After talking with them as they received treatment, Rich realized that the men were suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. Even worse, their injuries were stitched up and they were sent right back out to the same environment that brought them to the ER.
Rich wrote a book about these experiences called Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Trauma and Violence in the Lives of Young Black Men.
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[Reblog] A problem with precision medicine: It’s not quite precise – at least not yet
From the 20 February 2015 post by Joseph Burns at Covering Health (Association of Health Care Journalist)
At a conference last year, Michael Laposata, M.D., Ph.D., one of the nation’s best known pathologists, explained how clinical laboratories could deliver more value to patients, physicians, and health insurers. To do so, pathologists and laboratory scientists need to provide more detailed explanations about lab test results because even physicians who order genetic and molecular tests are often confused about the results, said Laposata, chairman of the Department of Pathology at the University of Texas Medical Branch.
When he explains test results to ordering physicians, he frequently refers to an “allele” which is one of two or more versions of a gene, he said. When he does, physicians sometimes ask, “What’s an allele?”
His anecdote is telling following President Obama’s announcement last month that he recommended spending $215 million on the precision medicine initiative. The announcement was correctly hailed as an important and needed investment in medical technology. “Precision medicine” is described by the National Institutes of Health as “an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person.”
Given that there is and will continue to be a lot of hype about precision and personalized medicine, we may want to check our expectations, because the hurdles are daunting, as Tabitha M. Powledge wrote for the Genetic Literacy Project. “The plan embodies a wonderfully human let’s-climb-Everest-because-it’s-there aspiration. But you also have to wonder about the practicality of such a sweeping program,” she explained.
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There is not much good, proven, scientific, medical uses for what we’re talking about as personalized or precision medicine,” Greely said. “And yet, we … sell and we hype as if there is much more.”
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“Here’s the problem: because personalized medicine is in the realm of OMG-that’s-too-complicated science, the usual watchdogs don’t see it. Plus the big academic medical centers love the grants that it generates.”
Even health insurers are struggling to understand the full implications of genetic and molecular testing…
Related article
About
This blog presents a sampling of health and medical news and resources for all. Selected articles and resources will hopefully be of general interest but will also encourage further reading through posted references and other links. Currently I am focusing on public health, basic and applied research and very broadly on disease and healthy lifestyle topics.
Several times a month I will post items on international and global health issues. My Peace Corps Liberia experience (1980-81) has formed me as a global citizen in many ways and has challenged me to think of health and other topics in a more holistic manner.
Do you have an informational question in the health/medical area?
Email me at jmflahiff@yahoo.com
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This blog is a companion site to my Health and Medical News and Resources Web site with…
- Great places to start (locating health information)
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My professional work experience and education includes over 15 years experience as a medical librarian and a Master’s in Library Science. In my most recent position I enjoyed contributing to our library’s blog, performing in depth literature searches, and collaborating with faculty, staff, students, and the general public.
While I will never be be able to keep up with the universe of current health/medical news, I subscribe to the following to glean entries for this blog.
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- Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce – a collaboration of U.S. government agencies, public health organizations and health sciences libraries
- US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) news now with updates on the agency’s efforts to “improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans”
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- Scout Report, a “weekly publication offering a selection of new and newly discovered Internet resources of interest to researchers and educators”
- KevinMD.com -“Social Media’s leading physician voice”
- EurekAlert-Medicine and Health
Health and Medical News and Resources 