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Allergies, Asthma May Raise Risk of High BP, Heart Disease

Adults with a history of allergic disorders as well as asthma have an increased risk of high blood pressure and coronary heart disease, finds a study. The study led by teams at Shenzhen Peking University in China showed that individuals with a history of allergic disorders between ages 18 and 57 had a higher risk of high blood pressure. A higher risk of coronary heart disease was seen in study participants who were between ages 39-57 and males. Asthma contributed most to the risk of high blood pressure and coronary heart disease. "For patients with allergic disorders, routine evaluation of blood pressure and routine examination for coronary heart disease should be given by clinicians to ensure early treatments are given to those with hypertension or coronary heart disease," said Yang Guo, from the University's Department of Dermatology. Previous studies reported an association between allergic disorders and cardiovascular disease, which remain controversial findings, the team said. The current study aimed to determine whether adults with allergic disorders have increased cardiovascular risk. The team included 34,417 adults, over half of whom were women and averaged 48.5 years old. The allergic group, with 10,045 adults, had at least one allergic disorder, including asthma, respiratory allergy, digestive allergy, skin allergy and other allergy. "Further large cohort studies with long-term follow-up are needed to confirm our findings," Guo said. "Additionally, appreciating the underlying mechanism may help future management in such individuals." The study will be presented at ACC Asia 2022 together with the Korean Society of Cardiology Spring Conference on April 15-16. Read More► Not Just Lungs, Smoking Affects Every Cell of Human Body: AIIMS Professor
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किडनी की बीमारी से ग्रसित व्यक्ति को कैंसर का अधिक खतरा: शोध

टोरंटो: किडनी की बीमारी से पीड़ित व्यक्तियों को न सिर्फ कैं सर होने का अधिक खतरा होता है, बल्कि उनकी कैंसर से मौत होने की संभावना भी अधिक रहती है। अमेरिकन जर्नल ऑफ किडनी डिजीजेज में प्रकाशित शोध अध्ययन के मुताबिक जो व्यक्ति लंबे समय से किडनी की बीमारी से जूझ रहे हैं, उनके कैंसर ग्रसित होने का खतरा भी अधिक है। टोरंटो यूनिवर्सिटी के अभिजात किचलू इस शोध रिपोर्ट के सह लेखक हैं। किचलू कहते हैं कि किडनी संबंधी बीमारी से ग्रसित व्यक्ति को कैंसर होने का खतरा अधिक होता है। जो व्यक्ति हल्के और थोड़े अधिक रूप से किडनी की बीमारी से ग्रसित हैं और जिनका किडनी प्रत्यारोपण हुआ है, उनको कैंसर होने का अधिक खतरा है। उन्होंने कहा कि जिन लोगों को किडनी की बीमारी होती है, उनके कैंसर पीड़ित होने पर मौत का अधिक खतरा रहता है, खासकर अगर उन्हें यूरोलॉजिक कैंसर, पेट का कैंसर या मल्टीपल माइलोमा हो जाये। उन्होंने कहा कि किडनी की बीमारी से लंबे समय से पीड़ित व्यक्तियों में कैंसर की जांच की रणनीति बनानी जरूरी है। शोध के दौरान 58,82,388 लोगों के आंकड़ों का विश्लेषण किया गया। ये वो लोग थे, जो किडनी की बीमारी से ग्रसित थे या डायलिसीस पर थे या उनका किडनी प्रत्यारोपण हुआ था। (एजेंसी) यह भी पढ़े► नशीली दवाओं के सेवन से गर्भस्थ शिशु हो सकता है मोटापे और मधुमेह का शिकार
Research

Sleeping With Even Low Light

New York: Close the blinds, draw the curtains and turn off all the lights before bed because exposure to even moderate ambient lighting during night-time sleep can harm your health. According to researchers at Northwestern University in the US, even dim light can harm cardiovascular function during sleep and increase insulin resistance the following morning. "The results from this study demonstrate that just a single night of exposure to moderate room lighting during sleep can impair glucose and cardiovascular regulation, which are risk factors for heart disease, diabetes and metabolic syndrome," said Dr. Phyllis Zee, chief of sleep medicine at the University's Feinberg School of Medicine. "It's important for people to avoid or minimise the amount of light exposure during sleep," Zee said. The study, published in the journal PNAS, tested the effect of sleeping with 100 lux (moderate light) compared to 3 lux (dim light) in participants over a single night. The investigators discovered that moderate light exposure caused the body to go into a higher alert state. In this state, the heart rate increases as well as the force with which the heart contracts and the rate of how fast the blood is conducted to your blood vessels for oxygenated blood flow. "Even though you are asleep, your autonomic nervous system is activated. That's bad. Usually, your heart rate together with other cardiovascular parameters are lower at night and higher during the day," said Dr. Daniela Grimaldi, research assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern. Further, the investigators found insulin resistance occurred the morning after people slept in a light room. Insulin resistance is when cells in your muscles, fat and liver do not respond well to insulin and can't use glucose from your blood for energy. To make up for it, your pancreas makes more insulin. Over time, your blood sugar goes up. "In addition to sleep, nutrition and exercise, light exposure during the daytime is an important factor for health, but during the night we show that even modest intensity of light can impair measures of heart and endocrine health," Zee said. "These findings are important particularly for those living in modern societies where exposure to indoor and outdoor nighttime light is increasingly widespread," Zee said. (Agency) Read More► Genes May Be Responsible for Couples Not Wanting to Have Kids: Study
Research

Increased Blood Fat Levels More Harmful Than Thought Earlier: Study

London: Increased levels of blood fats, also known as lipids, in people with Type 2 diabetes and obesity are more harmful than previously thought, a new study has found. In patients with metabolic diseases, elevated fat levels in the blood create stress in muscle cells -- a reaction to changes outside the cell which damage their structure and function. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications showed that these stressed-out cells give off a signal which can be passed on to other cells. The signals, known as ceramides, may have a protective benefit in the short-term, because they are part of a mechanism designed to reduce stress in the cell. But in metabolic diseases, which are long term conditions, the signals can kill the cells, make symptoms more severe, and worsen the illness, said researchers at University of Leeds in the UK. Increased fat in the blood has long been known to damage tissues and organs, contributing to the development of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases including Type 2 diabetes. The condition can be caused by obesity, rates of which have nearly tripled worldwide between 1975 and 2020. "This research gives us a novel perspective on how stress develops in the cells of individuals with obesity, and provides new pathways to consider when looking to develop new treatments for metabolic diseases," said Lee Roberts, Professor of Molecular Physiology and Metabolism in the University's School of Medicine. "With obesity an ever-increasing epidemic, the burden of associated chronic disease such as Type 2 diabetes necessitates new treatments. We hope the results of our research here open a new avenue for research to help address this growing concern," he added. In the lab, the team replicated the blood fat levels observed in humans with metabolic disease by exposing skeletal muscle cells to a fatty acid called palmitate. The cells began to transmit the ceramide signal. When these cells were mixed with others which had not been previously exposed to fats, the researchers found that they communicated with each other, transporting the signal in packages called extracellular vesicles. The experiment was reproduced in human volunteers with metabolic diseases and gave comparable results. The findings provide a completely new angle on how cells respond to stress, with important consequences for our understanding of certain metabolic diseases including obesity.  (Agency) Read More► Genetic Inflammation Linked to Neuropsychiatric Illness
Research

Drinking Coffee Could Benefit Heart, Help You Live Longer: Study

New York: Contrary to worries among some doctors and the public, drinking coffee may protect your heart instead of causing or worsening heart problems, find a new study. According to three research abstracts, drinking two to three cups of coffee daily has been associated with a 10 per cent to 15 per cent lower risk of getting heart disease, heart failure or a heart rhythm problem, or dying early for any reason, CNN reported. "We found coffee drinking had either a neutral effect meaning that it did no harm or was associated with benefits to heart health," said researcher Peter M. Kistler from the University of Melbourne. For all the studies, the researchers used data from UK Biobank, which follows the health outcomes of more than 500,000 people for at least 10 years. When joining the registry, participants reported that their coffee consumption fell on a range from up to a cup to six cups or more daily. The authors of the current research wanted to examine the relationship between coffee drinking and heart rhythm problems (arrhythmias), cardiovascular disease, including coronary heart disease, heart failure and stroke, and total and heart-related deaths among people with and without heart disease. The first study focused on more than 382,500 adults who did not have heart disease and was age 57 on average. Participants who drank two to three cups of coffee daily had the lowest risk for later developing the heart problems the study focused on, the researchers found. People who drank roughly one cup of coffee per day had the lowest risk of having a stroke or dying from cardiovascular disease. Another study looked into the relationships between different types of coffee caffeinated ground, caffeinated instant and decaffeinated and the same health outcomes. Whether the decaf coffee was ground or instant wasn't specified. Drinking one to five cups of ground or instant coffee a day was linked with lower risks of having arrhythmia, heart disease or failure, or stroke. Drinking two to three cups of any type of coffee every day was associated with a lower risk of dying early or from heart disease. Participants analysed in a third study were those who already had arrhythmia or a type of cardiovascular disease. For people with cardiovascular disease, no level of coffee intake was found to be linked with developing arrhythmia. Of the adults with arrhythmia, coffee intake especially one cup per day was associated with a lesser risk of premature death. (agency) Read More► Shortness of Breath Could Signal Heart Attack With Worst Survival Rate
Health News

Scientists Uncover New Targets for

New York: Scientists have found that a type of immune cells of people with Parkinson's disease have a very specific gene signature, a finding that may open the door to new treatments and diagnostics for the debilitating condition. Researchers at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) in California found that people with Parkinson's disease have a clear "genetic signature" of the disease in their memory T cells. These genes appear responsible for targeting alpha-synuclein and potentially causing ongoing inflammation in cases of Parkinson's. The new study, published in the journal npj Parkinson's Disease, offers a way to stop these T cells in their tracks. "Identifying these genes will make it possible to see which patients have T cells that respond to alpha-synuclein and which do not," Professor Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn, of La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI), said. Parkinson's progresses as dopamine-producing neurons in the brain die. Unfortunately, scientists have been unable to pinpoint what causes this cell death - though they do have a clue: The doomed neurons contain clumps of a damaged protein called alpha-synuclein. The researchers suggest these clumps may be the kiss of death for dopamine-producing neurons. Self-reactive T cells can damage the body's own cells, including neurons. In fact, self-reactive T cells are the culprits behind many autoimmune diseases. "Parkinson's disease is not usually seen as an autoimmune disease. But all of our work points toward T cells having a role in the disease," Arlehamn said. "Now that we can see what these T cells are doing, we think intervening with antibody therapies could have an impact on the disease progression, especially early on," added LJI Professor Alessandro Sette, from the Institute's Center for Autoimmunity and Inflammation. One important gene expressed that the scientists found in blood samples was T cells is LRRK2. This gene is associated with the genetic, or familial, type of Parkinson's disease. Neurons in many people with Parkinson's express LRRK2, but the new study is the first to show this gene expressed in T cells. But many of the genes expressed in these T cells were completely unexpected and not previously linked to Parkinson's disease. "This finding suggests we found novel targets for potential therapeutics," Sette said. Going forward, Arlehamn and her collaborators plan to study post-mortem brain samples. This work will confirm whether the same self-reactive T cells found in blood also target neurons in people with Parkinson's. The team also wants to look for other targets, called antigens, that might be recognised by T cells in individuals with Parkinson's disease. (agency) Read More► New smell test developed for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's & Covid