Medical Bulletin 3/September/2022

Here are the top medical news for the day:

A near death experience may make some cancer cells worse

Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have identified how some cancer cells cheat treatment-induced cell death. In doing so, they persist and lead to cancer recurrence. The findings may serve as the basis for drugs that prevent relapses by inhibiting cancer cells from gaining these persistence traits. The research was published in Cell.

After treatment, sometimes the cancer returns called a recurrence. Researchers knew that a small population of cancer cells sometimes become drug-resistant and persist after treatment. These "persister" cells can then reconstitute a more aggressive form of same cancer. Until now it was unclear how these cells initially change to become persistent.

Ref:

Doug Green,Sublethal cytochrome c release generates drug-tolerant persister cells, Cell, DOI 10.1016/j.cell.2022.07.025

Circadian rhythm common among mental health disorders: Research

Anxiety, autism, schizophrenia and Tourette syndrome each have their own distinguishing characteristics, but one factor bridging these and most other mental disorders is circadian rhythm disruption, according to a team of neuroscience, pharmaceutical sciences, and computer science researchers at the University of California.

In an article published recently in the Nature journal Translational Psychiatry, the scientists hypothesize that circadian rhythm disruption or CRD is a psychopathology factor shared by a broad range of mental illnesses and that research into its molecular foundation could be key to unlocking better therapies and treatments.

Ref:

Pierre Baldi et al, The hidden link between circadian entropy and mental health disorders, Translational Psychiatry, DOI: 10.1038/s41398-022-02028-3

Greater effects of air pollution on females than males: Study

The impact of breathing diesel exhaust fumes may be more severe for females than males, according to new research. Researchers looked for changes in people's blood brought about by exposure to diesel exhaust. In both females and males, they found changes in components of the blood related to inflammation, infection, and cardiovascular disease, but they found more changes in females than males.

The study involved ten volunteers, five female and five male, who were all healthy non-smokers. Each volunteer spent four hours breathing filtered air and four hours breathing air containing diesel exhaust fumes at three different concentrations – 20, 50 and 150 micrograms of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) per cubic metre – with a four-week break in between each exposure.

Ref:

Professor Neeloffer Mookherjee, Professor Chris Carlsten et al,MEETING European Respiratory Society International Congress 2022