Author Archives: Sarenka Smith

The Link Between Parkinson’s & Gut Bacteria

November 8, 2017

Recent findings have confirmed a long assumed, yet never officially proven, hypothesis regarding a functional link between the gut’s bacteria and the onset of Parkinson’s disease. While previous research has demonstrated strong correlations between the gut and the disease, no research has shown the exact relationship.

One of the world’s most prevalent neurodegenerative disorders, Parkinson’s affects approximately 1 million people in the United States. A progressive and chronic movement disorder, Parkinson’s involves the malfunction and ultimate death of the brain’s vital nerve cells: neurons. As the neurons that typically produce normal levels of dopamine—the chemical that communicates with the segment of the brain that controls coordination and movement—regularly decrease and dopamine levels lessen, a person becomes unable to control movement. Worsening symptoms include the gradual deterioration of motor symptoms: body tremors, bradykinesia/slowness of movement, rigidity, and severe postural instability.

The studies suggest a new, unprecedented way of treating the disease and its symptoms: targeting the gut, rather than the brain, and developing next-generation probiotics: a more sophisticated version than those readily available for purchase and consumption today.

Through conducting trials during which mice were fed certain short-chain fatty acids that are commonly produced by bacteria in the gut, in addition to actual samples of gut bacteria from human Parkinson’s patients and healthy human controls, the team found that the mice either exhibited symptoms, or did not produce symptoms, respectively. The team’s researchers expressed their hope in the possibility of the prescription of drugs that contain bacteria to prevent Parkinson’s, or treat the disease symptoms. Moreover, the studies imply that Parkinson’s is less related to hereditary genetics than environmental factors—including the onset of age.

At A4M, our overarching goal is to treat—and ultimately prevent—the onset of diseases associated with aging. Attend our upcoming events and learn about the advancement of technology and biomedical engineering, coupled with the most recent research & inquiries into methods that optimize the human aging process.
 
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National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month

November 2, 2017

At A4M/MMI, our mission is to spread awareness surrounding the need for research, funding, and further education in order to prevent age-related diseases. This will not be the last you hear from us concerning Alzheimer’s disease, as it is a topic that both deserves and requires a significant amount of attention.

The month of November has been officially designated as Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month, a disease that currently affects more than five million Americans: a number that could potentially skyrocket to 16 million in the next three decades. Not only is Alzheimer’s the sixth-leading cause of death in the country, but the disease also leads to tremendous financial and emotional instabilities, in addition to extensive family strain and stress.

The cognitive losses that accompany Alzheimer’s disease are, at first blush, signs of normal aging: forgetfulness, disorientation, and impairments in functioning that lead to one’s inability to perform basic, rudimentary tasks. Yet these symptoms are merely the tip of the iceberg: depression, anxiety, aggression, and a detachment from reality are some of the emotional and behavioral difficulties caused by Alzheimer’s.

While pharmaceutical medications can alleviate some of the more crippling symptoms of Alzheimer’s, controllable risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease remain unknown; thus, it is not yet possible to reduce chances of developing the disease. While the past two decades have seen significant advances in our understanding of the disease, there is still no cure, nor any way to slow the disease’s progression, or reverse the deterioration.

Current mainstream medical therapy aims to preserve diminishing brain function, yet several drugs are currently being studied through clinical trials, with the hopes of improving memory or slowing the disease’s progression. Continued and increased funding in research is critical, as most scientists and clinicians believe that early detection is the primary way in which to stop the disease’s progression—or even ultimately cure it.

To become further involved with research, funding, or learn more about ways to prevent aging-related diseases, take a look at what being an A4M member means.  Enhancing health is always our top priority, and we believe if you are reading this, it is yours too.

Chelation Therapy for Cardiovascular Disease

For decades, clinicians have used cholesterol-lowering statins, aspirin therapy, and a number of other pharmaceutical drugs in order to combat heart disease. Yet new research from Dr. Gervasio Lamas, chief cardiologist at the Columbia University Division of Cardiology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, indicates that the alternative medicine technique of chelation therapy may be as effective in preventing the onset of cardiovascular disease. 

After almost two decades of studying the potential benefits of chelation therapy, Dr. Lamas’s preliminary findings indicate that it may be a significant ‘game changer’ in the treatment and prevention of heart disease: now the primary cause of death in the United States.

The National Institutes of Health recently authorized a $37 million grant for Lamas to conduct a follow-up study, in order to determine whether chelation is as beneficial as conventional therapies, or perhaps more so, in preventing heart attacks among people with diabetes. The five-year study, titled the Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT2), will ultimately involve 1,200 participants and researchers at more than 100 leading medical institutions in the U.S. and Canada.

One-half of the participants will undergo chelation therapy, a process that removes lead, cadmium, and other toxins from the body–materials that may contribute to heart disease, just as “artery-clogging cholesterol can boost heart attack risk.” The other participants will receive an identical placebo, with the hopes of measuring the effect of chelation. All participants will receive high-doses or oral vitamins and minerals, or an oral placebo.

“I am very hopeful that we will be able to develop a new way of treating heart disease by removing some of the toxic substances that we take into our bodies inevitably during our lifetime,” says Lamas. “We live in an industrialized society, we can’t go back to living in caves and on farms. So we need to recognize [environmental toxins] as a risk factor for heart disease and treat [them] in the same way that we treat cholesterol…We think the bad actors are lead and cadmium, but we’re also looking at other toxins.”

Lamas himself acknowledges that he was initially skeptical about chelation’s benefits, believing that the alternative-medicine technique was fringe-medicine quackery. Lamas’s first study of chelation in 2002 was, in fact, initially designed to confirm his skepticism and suspicions. Instead, however, his own research demonstrated that chelation was enormously beneficial to heart patients–and rivaled the conventional techniques of statin and aspirin therapy. That NIH-sponsored study involved more than 1,700 heart attack survivors at 134 North American research sites, including Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic.

Over a seven-year period, participants were randomly assigned to receive 40 injections of a chelation solution–or “infusion”–or an inactive placebo. When the trial ended in 2012, the results indicated that those who received chelation in tandem with vitamin supplements had a 26 percent lower risk of heart complications (i.e. a second heart attack, stroke, or bypass surgery), compared with those given placebos. In diabetic patients, the findings were even more dramatic, with the combination therapy linked to a 49 percent lower risk of heart complications. Chelation was also found to cut the risk of death among diabetics by half over the course of the study.

“There is nothing like this for diabetes care,” says Lamas, whose findings were published in the American Heart Journal. “There just isn’t.” In follow-up meetings with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Lamas pressed for a follow-up study of chelation therapy, and was ultimately able to secure the $37 million grant. The new study, funded by the NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, will examine the use of intravenous chelation treatments and oral vitamins in diabetic patients with a prior heart attack. If the findings prove the therapy is successful, chelation could become a front-line therapy for heart disease, says Lamas.

Chelation has long been approved by the FDA to rid the body of lead by using a synthetic amino acid (ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid), which binds to toxic metals and minerals in the bloodstream, allowing a patient to excrete them. Alternative practitioners have used chelation for almost six decades, with the belief that metal contamination causes or contributes to heart disease, and that chelation rids the body of deposits that can lead to atherosclerosis, which causes coronary arteries to narrow, leading to heart attacks.

Most conventional cardiologists have dismissed the therapy — just as Lamas once did. Yet the new TACT2 study could change that by providing a definitive answer on chelation and the role environmental contaminants play in the development of heart disease. “There hasn’t been a new mechanism [in treating heart disease] for a long time,” Lamas notes. “And that’s what’s gotten me so excited about this and why I’ve spent 20 years studying chelation.”