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No More Pricks: Trading blood tests for tear tests?

October 2, 2017

Here at A4M, we are all about moving forward into the future of medical care. How many years have we been drawing blood to detect health and nutritional deficiencies in our makeup?
Too many.

We are actually starting to see that this may now change. We may have figured out that we may not need to be pricked by a needle to get tested.
A study now suggests that tears could be considered an alternate source of diagnostic fluid for testing for nutritional deficiencies.

Researchers from Michigan Technological University in partnership with UP Health System -Portage in Michigan have determined that tears are not only easier to produce than blood, but tears are also easier to work with when analyzing as a fluid.

Maryam Khaksari, study author and research specialist at Michigan Tech, said studies show that people with nutritional deficiencies blink more than those without deficiencies. “We hypothesized that nutrients are transferred to the living cells of your cornea through your tears,” Khaksari said. “We would like to translate the information we have for blood to tears. In this paper, we did show that there are correlations between vitamin concentrations in tears and blood – so it’s possible.”

The researchers involved in this study retrieved samples of both tears and blood from 15 different families that each had a four-month-old child. The samples taken from a child and a parent were then compared between tears and blood, infants and their parents, and against self-reported dietary intakes.

Multiple vitamins were all detected in both the tears and blood, and although Vitamin A was only found in the blood samples, researchers claim this is only the beginning. This project is the first step which proved vitamins are detectable in tears, and that they do correlate with blood levels. “Our goal was to seek the viability of establishing measurable vitamin concentrations in tears for nutritional assessments,” Khaksari said. “Your body cannot manufacture vitamins, and vitamins reflect available food sources in your body. That’s what makes them good indicators of nutritional health.”

We fully understand that this is only the start of the discussion regarding the trade of blood for tears, but we are very excited to follow this research and report back to all of our followers that there may be a day where we don’t have to have a needle draw blood to determine everything!

Diagnostic for Early Biomarker of Cognitive Decline

November 18, 2014

Arterial spin labeling (ASL), a promising magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique that doesn’t require injection of a contrast agent, can detect signs of cognitive decline in the brain even before symptoms appear, say researchers from the University of Geneva in Switzerland.

Sven Haller, MD, and colleagues studied 48 healthy elderly participants and 65 people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The participants underwent brain MRI and a neuropsychological assessment, a common battery of tests used to determine cognitive ability. At clinical follow-up 18-months later, of the 148 healthy individuals, 75 remained stable, while 73 deteriorated cognitively.

Those who deteriorated had shown reduced perfusion at their baseline ASL MRI exams, particularly in the posterior cingulate cortex, an area in the middle of the brain that is associated with the default mode network, the neural network that is active when the brain is not concentrating on a specific task.

Declines in this network are seen in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and are more pronounced in those with Alzheimer’s disease. “There is a known close link between neural activity and brain perfusion in the posterior cingulate cortex. Less perfusion indicates decreased neural activity,” Dr. Haller said. “ASL MRI is simple to perform, doesn’t require special equipment and only adds a few minutes to the exam.”

The results suggest that the technique has the potential to serve as a biomarker in very early diagnosis of preclinical dementia. Early detection of cognitive decline is vital, as treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia, are most effective in this early phase.

Xekardaki A, Rodriguez C, Montandon ML, et al. Arterial Spin Labeling May Contribute to the Prediction of Cognitive Deterioration in Healthy Elderly Individuals. Radiology. 2014, Oct 7. 

Two Foods Boost Cell Processes For Longevity

November 7, 2014

The protein known as Nrf2 plays a key role in cell health. When Nrf2 is exposed to threats, it oscillates faster and activates an increase in the cell’s defense mechanism, including raising the levels of antioxidant.  Paul Thornalley, from the University of Warwick (United Kingdom), and colleagues have observed that sulforaphane in broccoli, and quercetin in onions, are capable of increasing Nrf2 movement.

Observing a continual movement cycle of Nrf2, which sees the protein oscillate in and out of the cell nucleus once every 129 minutes, the team found that sulforaphane and  quercetin sped the cycle up to 80 minutes.  Writing that: “We discovered cytoplasmic refresh rate of Nrf2 is important in maintaining and regulating the transcriptional response and links stress challenge to increased cytoplasmic surveillance,” the study authors aim to develop new food supplements – superfoods that stimulate Nrf2 activity.

Xue M, Momiji H, Rabbani N, Barker G, Bretschneider T, Shmygol A, Rand D, Thornalley PJ.  “Frequency modulated translocational oscillations of Nrf2 mediate the ARE cytoprotective transcriptional response.” Antioxid Redox Signal. 2014 Sep 2.