Medical Bulletin 31/December/2022

Hare are the top medical news for the day:

Perfectionists tend to burn out more: Study

What is burnout?

With the worries accompanying pandemic lockdowns, the pressures of inflation and other life stressors, many people are feeling at the end of their tether.

For some people, the cumulative effect of these prolonged periods of stress can result in burnout.

Unlike normal tiredness, the experts suggest burnout symptoms include constant exhaustion, emotional numbness and confusion at home or in the workplace.

People with perfectionist traits are more susceptible to burnout, according to new research, and it is not just work-related stress that is the cause.

There are coughs and colds everywhere. Bills are mounting. It is safe to say we are all exhausted - but when does tiredness tip into burnout?

Reference:

Professor Gordon Parker et al,TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP

Review of scientific criteria for assessing the safety of probiotics

A group of industry and government scientists convened under the auspices of the United States Pharmacopeia's Probiotic Expert Panel recently set out to review current approaches to assessing the safety of probiotics from a scientific perspective, while also looking at what regulators currently require.

In past decades, the safety of many probiotics available to consumers was anchored in knowledge of their long history of safe consumption in humans. However, the range of probiotics is expanding to include non-traditional probiotic strains, which may bring health benefits but are not typically present in food sources and do not have a history of safe use.

Reference:

Dr. Mary Ellen Sanders et al,Considerations for determining safety of probiotics: A USP perspective,Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology,DOI: 10.1016/j.yrtph.2022.105266

Triple immunotherapy combination as possible treatment for pancreatic cancer: Study

Pancreatic cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer death in the United States, partially because 80% of cases are diagnosed at an advanced stage. Pancreatic cancer is also considered to be “non-immunogenic,” meaning it is unresponsive to commonly used anti-PD-1 and anti-CTLA-4 immune checkpoint inhibitors. This is due in part to the immunosuppressive conditions in the TIME, but the mechanisms behind this resistance are not fully understood.

Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered a novel immunotherapy combination, targeting checkpoints in both T cells and myeloid suppressor cells, that successfully reprogrammed the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) and significantly improved anti-tumor responses in preclinical models of pancreatic cancer.

Reference:

Ronald DePinho et al,UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS M. D. ANDERSON CANCER CENTER,JOURNAL: Nature Cancer