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Engineered T Cells Could Assassinate Solid Tumor Cells

AHA Publisher — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 07:00:41 +0000

News Staff via Israel21c – Novel immunotherapy extends therapy now used in fighting leukemia, Israeli researchers say. Immunotherapy is a promising cancer treatment that enhances the natural immune response. A new study led by Dr. Yaron Carmi of Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine finds that a form of immunotherapy — chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) T-cell therapy, used to treat the blood cancer leukemia– may work against other kinds of cancer as well. The study was published recently in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. “Chemotherapy damages all fast-growing cells, including hair follicles and cells that line the gastrointestinal tract, and this attack on healthy cells causes serious side effects, which include hair loss, nausea, mood changes, pain, anemia, nerve and muscle problems, and kidney issues,” explained Carmi. “Immunotherapy, on the other hand, uses the body’s own immune system to seek out and destroy cancer cells. Engineered T cells have been proven very successful in treating blood cancer but attempts to use them to fight solid cancers have been disappointing,” he said. “Our engineered cells have now shown efficacy in attacking solid tumors as well.” T cells are a type of white blood cell that is essential to the immune response. CAR T-cell therapy uses T cells collected from the patient and modified in the lab to attach to a specific antigen on the tumor cells and kill them. “Our lab discovered a distinct subset of helper T cells, also known as CD4+ T cells, that express the high-affinity receptor for IgG [an antibody] and efficiently kill tumor cells coated with these antibodies,” explained Carmi. “This method uses CAR T-cell therapy and combines it with antibody specificity. Based on this discovery we were able to engineer novel T cells with enhanced tumor-killing activity and higher specificity, compared with other T cell-based therapies for cancer.” Carmi said this finding demonstrates that the immune system can be utilized to identify and fight all types of cancer.The researchers are testing their configuration of engineered T cells in preclinical mouse models of cancer and in human samples. To read the original article click here. For more articles by Israel21c click here.

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Proven Colloidal Silver Benefits Or An Unsafe Hoax?

AHA Publisher — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 07:00:47 +0000

Dr. Josh Axe, DC, DMN, CNS via Dr. Axe – Dating back to ancient times, silver was also a popular remedy to stop the spread of diseases. Its use as a natural antibiotic continued all the way until the 1940s, when modern antibiotics arrived. If you haven’t heard of colloidal silver, you will soon enough, especially if you’re on the lookout for alternative therapies to common health issues, such as a sinus infection or a cold. Most health food stores and pharmacies stock several brands of colloidal silver, and, of course, you can find a vast amount of information about colloidal silver benefits on the internet. Unfortunately, the information out there is confusing, as many sources have conflicting opinions. On one hand, you’ll run across thousands of personal testimonials about colloidal silver helping people with practically every disease you’ve heard about. You will also stumble upon some well-known health sites that warn consumers about safety concerns. Usually, these sources quote a statement made by the FDA in 1999 claiming that there is no scientific evidence to support the use of colloidal silver. This type of information can confuse even the most savvy natural health enthusiast, which is why I want to lend a helping hand and provide some evidenced-based information to help you make an informed choice about colloidal silver uses and benefits. What Is Colloidal Silver? Colloidal silver is a solution of water containing nanometre sized particles of suspended silver. The total silver content is expressed as milligrams of silver per litre of water, or mg/L, which is numerically the same as parts per million (ppm). Silver has been used for at least six thousand years to prevent microbial infections. It has proven to be effective against almost all organisms tested and it has played an important role in the development of radiology and in improving wound healing, according to research out of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Before the invention of the refrigerator, it was common practice to drop a silver coin into a container of milk as a preservative because silver was known to prevent the growth of algae, bacteria and other undesirable organisms. Dating back to ancient times, silver was also a popular remedy to stop the spread of diseases. Its use as a natural antibiotic continued all the way until the 1940s, when modern antibiotics arrived. Today, people obviously don’t need to drop silver coins into their water to experience colloidal silver benefits. All you need to do is carefully take a few drops from a bottle that you buy at the store. According to a report written by Richard Davies and Samuel Etris of The Silver Institute in a 1996, there are three primary ways that colloidal silver can supposedly help heal the body: 1. Catalytic Oxidation: Silver naturally holds onto oxygen molecules, which readily react with the sulfhydral (H) groups that surround bacterial and viruses. In turn, this helps block the life-preserving cellular process known as cellular respiration, which is the set of metabolic reactions and processes that take place within the cells of organisms in order to convert biochemical energy from nutrients into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and then release waste products. 2. Reaction with Bacterial Cell Membranes: Silver ions can attach to bacteria cell membranes directly and produce the same respiration-blocking effect. 3. Binding with DNA: Shown to literally enter bacteria DNA, up to 12 percent of silver has been detected in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. According to one source, “While it remains unclear exactly how the silver binds to the DNA without destroying the hydrogen bonds holding the lattice together, it nevertheless prevents the DNA from unwinding, an essential step for cellular replication to occur.” There are basically three types of products that are marketed as “colloidal silver” and these can be categorized as: 1. Ionic silver Ionic silver solutions are products whose silver content primarily consists of silver ions. Although ionic silver is often marketed as colloidal silver, it’s not true colloidal silver. Because it’s the least expensive to produce, ionic silver is the most popular product in this category. The problem? It simply won’t produce the same benefits that true colloidal silver can. 2. Silver Protein In order to keep large silver particles suspended, silver protein-based products add gelatin. Silver protein is the second-most popular type of colloidal silver product on the market and can easily be made by adding water to silver protein powder. Again, it’s also often marketed and labeled as colloidal silver, but should not be confused for the real thing. Silver protein is less effective for human use, and you won’t experience the true colloidal silver benefits. 3. True Colloidal Silver Lastly, true silver colloids don’t contain any protein or other additives, as the vast majority of the silver content consists of nanometre-sized silver particles. This will be the most effective type of colloidal silver. Is Colloidal Silver Safe? There’s plenty of debate about the potential health risks of colloidal silver. So is it safe to use colloidal silver supplements or products? According to a review published in Environmental Health Perspectives, this is a controversial topic that has contenders on both sides. The review states “despite its widespread use, nanosilver remains a fairly poorly understood material to both regulators and scientists. Consensus remains elusive on subjects as essential as how it behaves in the human body and environment, and the extent to which its use may contribute to bacterial resistance.” Of course, there are two opposing arguments in this debate — what are being called “watchdog groups” that seize on the confusion surrounding colloidal silver side effects and safety, and advocate groups, like the Silver Nanotechnology Working Group, that proclaim its usefulness and safety, noting that most applications use extremely small quantities of silver in their formulas. What the research indicates is that misuse of colloidal silver, or choosing inexpensive, low-quality products that are not true colloidal silver, can cause adverse side effects. For instance, you may have come across warnings about it causing an irreversible condition called argyria, which is when people turn blue. This is usually caused by cheaper products marketed as colloidal silver, such as ionic silver or silver protein. Although the National Center for Complimentary and Integrative Health reports that colloidal silver may cause poor absorption of some drugs, including antibiotics and thyroxine, which is used to treat thyroid deficiency, there is limited research proving that these side effects to colloidal silver exist. There is evidence that using colloidal silver for the treatment of chronic rhinosinusitis is not only effective, but safe when used as a sinus rinse for 10 days. Researchers found that colloidal silver rinses demonstrated a good safety profile with no major adverse events. A lab study published in Particle and Fibre Toxicology found that when the human lung is exposed to silver nanoparticles, it does not cause adverse effects. Lung cells were only sensitive to high silver-ion concentrations. A 2016 study conducted at the University of Michigan found that when oral doses of silver nanoparticles were administered for 28 days, it did not alter the structure or diversity of the animal gut microbiome. This is in contrast to the detrimental effects of broad-spectrum antibiotics. Many advocates are pointing to this study when suggesting the beneficial use of colloidal silver for pets. And in a summary of literature published in Frontiers in Microbiology, researchers at concluded that although there are some concerns and controversies related to nano’s safe use in human disease treatment and healthcare, the research that has been done suggests that it can be engineered to “enhance its antimicrobial efficacy, stability, specificity, biosafety and biocompatibility for increased therapeutic benefits and reduced potential side effects.” From the current research, my take is that colloidal silver may work as a potential antimicrobial agent, but it needs to be used appropriately. Only true colloidal silver should be used and studies indicate that short-term use does not cause adverse side effects. One point to consider is that, because colloidal silver is such a potent antibacterial agent, you should be sure to supplement with probiotics during use to be sure that you maintain a proper balance of microflora. 8 Colloidal Silver Uses and Benefits By having a direct effect on cellular respiration, colloidal silver benefits the body in numerous ways, including providing numerous medical uses. There are eight proven healing properties that I consider to be particularly supported by the medical literature. 1. Antibacterial and Antimicrobial First, colloidal silver’s ability to control antibiotic-resistant superbugs is impressive. While employed at UCLA Medical School in the 1980s, Doctor Larry C. Ford documented over 650 different disease-causing pathogens that were destroyed in minutes when exposed to small amounts of silver. Colloidal silver, unlike its modern prescription antibiotic counterpart, simply doesn’t create resistance or immunity in the organisms that are killed by it. This point cannot be emphasized enough, especially in light of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reporting that more than 2 million people in the U.S. suffer illness every year as a result of antibiotic-resistant infections and 23,000 die from these infections. In addition, a study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine supported ionic colloidal silver as a broad-spectrum antimicrobial agent against both aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, but its activity wasn’t as pronounced against fungi. 2. Wound Care/Skin Health Robert O. Becker, MD, says that colloidal silver stimulates healing in the skin and other soft tissues. In a research article produced by Pharmacognosy Communications in 2012, it was specifically recommended that certain colloidal silver preparations should be considered for topical use to treat burns, thrush, periodontitis and other conditions. For instance, you can potentially treat ringworm (Tinea capitis) at home with colloidal silver because it’s a potent anti-fungal. Caused by a fungus that lives on the top layer of the skin, ringworm presents as round, scaly patches. It’s contagious and spread by skin contact and by contaminated materials, such as clothing. Colloidal silver benefits many skins conditions as well, including psoriasis and eczema. It’s soothing to scrapes and even repairs tissue damage from burns. In fact, a colloidal silver-based nanogel was successfully used as a dressing for superficial pellet gun wounds in a Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care study. Such silver nanoparticle-based gel dressings for wounds or even chronic wounds are becoming more common. Topical silver historically was used on burns, but usage stopped after the advent of antibiotics, until the 1960s when it kicked back into popularity. The combination of silver nitrate and sodium sulfadiazine to create SSD cream helped lead to burn recovery in many patients. Applying a silver coating to specialized foam, as part of a wound vacuum system, provides antibacterial activity in vitro. According to research, this technology may assist in preparing infected chronic venous stasis wounds for skin grafting, ultimately leading to better healing. 3. Pink Eye/Ear Infections Although more research is needed to understand its full potential, the antiviral and antibacterial properties of colloidal silver may allow it to fight some common infections. Pink eye is an inflamed mucous membrane that covers the eyeball and eyelid lining, and it’s primarily caused by a bacterial or viral infection. Colloidal silver can be used for prompt action against this irritating and highly infectious virus and bacteria under the care of your doctor. When applied on the infected eye, the tiny silver colloids are used to pick up the infected cells by attracting them electromagnetically and sending them into the bloodstream to be eliminated. Our modern prescription antibiotic drugs are designed to work against specific classes of bacteria, but ear infections may be caused by multiple classes of bacteria or can even be fungal. In this case, the prescription antibiotic will be useless, whereas colloidal silver is effective regardless of what may be causing your infection. Again, more research is needed to fully understand the mechanisms and safety of colloidal silver for pink eye, ear infections and other bacterial or viral issues, but we do know that it’s a powerful antimicrobial agent that...

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What You Eat May Change the Way That Antibiotics Affect Your Gut

AHA Publisher — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 02:55:45 +0000

Sally Robertson, B.Sc. via News Medical – Net – “Doctors now know that each antibiotic prescription has the potential to lead to some very harmful microbiome-related health outcomes, but they do not have reliable tools to protect this critical community while also treating deadly infections.” A new study by researchers at Brown University in Rhode Island has found that diet can influence how the gut microbiome is affected by treatment with antibiotics. The scientists examined how antibiotics change the gut bacteria in mice and then looked at how diet may exacerbate or mitigate these changes. “For a long time, we’ve known that antibiotics impact the microbiome,” says study author Peter Belenky. “We have also known that diet impacts the microbiome. This is the first paper that brings those two facts together.” Belenky says the goal of his laboratory’s work is to identify new ways to protect the microbiome, which may alleviate some of the worst antibiotic side effects. The Gut Microbiome The gut microbiome is made up of trillions of bacteria that benefit the host. They aid the breakdown of dietary fiber and maintain overall intestinal health by competing with harmful bacteria for resources that would be essential for their survival such as nutrients and space. Although antibiotics save the lives of countless people who are infected with harmful bacteria, these drugs can also disrupt this community of beneficial bacteria that live in the human intestine. This, in turn, can lead to other life-threatening infections. Belenky, who is a Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Brown’s, has been studying the effect fo antibiotics on the gut and looking for ways to counteract imbalances in the microbiome that can lead to potentially life-threatening infections such as C. difficile. “Although antibiotics disturb the structure of the gut microbiota, factors that modulate these perturbations are poorly understood,” writes the team. Reducing the Detrimental Effects of Antibiotics Through Diet As recently reported in the journal Cell Metabolism, Belenky and colleagues have now demonstrated that although the antibiotics they used did perturb the composition and metabolic capacity of the murine gut microbiome, this disruption could also be exacerbated or minimized by making changes to the animals’ diet. Belenky and colleagues already knew that bacterial metabolism is an important regulator of antibiotic susceptibility in vitro and probably plays a significant role within the host. They applied a metagenomic and metatranscriptomic approach to investigate associations between antibiotic-induced taxonomic and transcriptional responses within the mouse microbiome. For the study, lead author Damien Cabral and colleagues treated three groups of mice with different antibiotics, namely amoxicillin, ciprofloxacin or doxycycline. They then charted how the composition of the animals’ gut microbiomes changed and how bacteria adapted at the metabolic level following treatment. Amoxicillin, an antibiotic commonly used to treat strep throat and ear infections, significantly reduced levels of bacteria in the gut and also changed the genes that the remaining bacteria use. Ciprofloxacin (often used to treat urinary tract infections) and doxycycline (commonly used to treat sinus infections), also altered the gut microbiome, although those changes were less pronounced. The team found that the antibiotics significantly altered the expression of key metabolic pathways at the whole-community and single-species levels. Notably, one type of beneficial bacteria, Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, flourished in response to amoxicillin treatment. This bacterium upregulated polysaccharide utilization to aid the digestion of fiber, a change that seems to enable it to bloom in the altered ecosystem and somehow protect against the antibiotic, says Belenky. Generally, the bacteria downregulated the use of genes involved in normal growth processes such as producing new proteins and DNA. They also upregulated their use of genes that are essential in stress resistance The Effects of Glucose (Sugar) Were Clear Interestingly, the researchers found that adding glucose to the animals’ diet — which is usually low in simple sugars and high in fiber — increased susceptibility of B. thetaiotaomicron to amoxicillin. “In vitro, we found that the sensitivity of this bacterium to amoxicillin was elevated by glucose and reduced by polysaccharides,” writes the team. This suggests that diet can provide some beneficial effects that may protect gut bacteria from the adverse effects of antibiotic use. According to Belenky, the findings represent a step toward helping humans to better tolerate antibiotic treatment: Revealing New Opportunities However, “now that we know diet is important for bacterial susceptibility to antibiotics, we can ask new questions about which nutrients are having an impact and see if we can predict the influence of different diets,” he says. Belenky warned that the study only looked at rodents and much remains to be learned about the interplay between host diet, microbiome metabolism and susceptibility to antibiotics. Belenky and team are currently investigating how different types of dietary fibers may impact how the microbiome changes following antibiotic treatment, as well as how diabetes may affect the microbiome’s metabolic environment and vulnerability to antibiotics. To read the original article click here.

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