UCLA-Led Study Unveils New Insights and Potential Treatments for Pulmonary Hypertension

The AHA! Team — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 17:48:21 +0000

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Health Sciences via Newswise – A new study from researchers with UCLA Health and collaborating organizations has found that asporin, a protein encoded by the ASPN gene, plays a protective role in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Their findings, which were published on August 21 in the peer-reviewed journal Circulation, offer new insights into this incurable, often-fatal disease and suggest potential new ways to treat it. “We were surprised to find that asporin, which previously had not been linked to PAH, gets upregulated to increased levels as a response to counteract this disease process,” said Dr. Jason Hong, a pulmonary and critical care physician at UCLA Health and the study’s corresponding author. “This novel finding opens up new avenues for understanding PAH pathobiology and developing potential therapies.” Pulmonary hypertension is a serious medical condition characterized by high blood pressure in the arteries that supply the lungs. It causes these arteries to narrow or become blocked, which, in turn, slows blood flow to the heart, requiring it to work harder to pump blood through the lungs. Eventually, the heart muscle becomes weak and begins to fail. Need for New Therapies According to recent estimates, PAH affects about 1% of the global population, but that number climbs to 10% in people who are 65 or older. There’s no cure for the disease, but medications and lifestyle changes can help slow progression, manage symptoms and prolong life. The urgent need for new therapies, combined with the potential of multiomics – an integrated approach to drive discovery across multiple levels of biology – inspired Hong and research colleagues, including co-first author Lejla Medzikovic and senior author Mansoureh Eghbali to take a deep dive into the disease. Both work at UCLA’s Eghbali Laboratory. Methodology For the study, the researchers applied novel computational methods, including transcriptomic profiling and deep phenotyping, to lung samples of 96 PAH patients and 52 control subjects without the condition from the largest multicenter PAH lung biobank available to-date. They integrated this data with clinical information, genome-wide association studies, graphic models of probabilities and multiomics analysis. “”Our detailed analysis found higher levels of asporin in the lungs and plasma of PAH patients, which were linked to less severe disease,” Hong said. Additionally, Medzikovic noted that their cell and living-organism experiments found that asporin inhibited pulmonary artery smooth muscle cell proliferation and a key signaling pathway that occurs with PAH. “We also demonstrated that recombinant asporin treatment reduced PAH severity in preclinical models,” said Medzikovic. Next Steps Hong and colleagues plan to further investigate the mechanisms by which asporin exerts its protective effects in PAH and explore potential therapeutic applications, focusing on how to translate their findings into clinical trials. “Asporin represents a promising new target for therapeutic intervention in pulmonary arterial hypertension,” he explained. “Enhancing asporin levels in PAH patients could potentially lead to improved clinical outcomes and reduced disease progression.” Authors: Jason Hong, MD, PhD,* Lejla Medzikovic, PhD*, Wasila Sun, BS‡, Brenda Wong, BA‡, Gregoire Ruffenach, PhD, Christopher J. Rhodes, PhD, Adam Brownstein, MD, Lloyd L. Liang, MS, Laila Aryan, PhD, Min Li, PhD, Arjun Vadgama, Zeyneb Kurt, PhD, Tae-Hwi Schwantes- An, PhD, Elizabeth A. Mickler, MS, Stefan Graf, PhD, Melanie Eyries, PhD, Katie A. Lutz, BS, Michael W. Pauciulo, MBA, Richard C. Trembath, MD, Frederic Perros, PhD, David Montani, MD, PhD, Nicholas W. Morrell, MD, Florent Soubrier, MD, PhD, Martin R. Wilkins, MD, William C. Nichols, PhD, Micheala A. Aldred, PhD, Ankit A. Desai, MD, David-Alexandre Tregouet, PhD, Soban Umar, MD, PhD, Rajan Saggar, MD, Richard Channick, MD, Rubin M. Tuder, MD, Mark W. Geraci, MD, Robert S. Stearman, PhD†, Xia Yang, PhD†, and senior author, Mansoureh Eghbali, PhD†. Legend: *Joint first authors; ‡ Joint second authors; †Joint last authors Funding: This work was supported by American Heart Association grant 23POST1022457 (L.M.), American Thoracic Society Early Career Investigator Award in Pulmonary Vascular Disease (J.H.), and U.S. NIH grants K08HL169982 (J.H.), R01HL147586 (M.E.), R01HL162124 (M.E.), R01HL159865 (M.E.), R01HL147883 (X.Y.), R24HL105333 (W.N. and M.P.), R01HL160941 (W.N., A.D., and M.P.), British Heart Foundation Senior Basic Science Fellowship FS/SBSRF/21/31025 (C.R.), and funding for the PHBI is provided by NHLBI R24HL123767 and by the Cardiovascular Medical Research and Education Fund (MAA). Disclosures: Drs. Medzikovic, Hong, and Eghbali are coinventors of US provisional patent application No. 63/544,027, “Asporin in Pulmonary Hypertension.” To read the original article click here.

The post UCLA-Led Study Unveils New Insights and Potential Treatments for Pulmonary Hypertension appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

Texas Doctor Claims He Discovered Effective and Inexpensive Solution for COVID-19

AHA Publisher — Fri, 17 Jul 2020 07:00:10 +0000

Sara Middleton via NaturalHealth365 – Could a common drug called Budesonide really offer an effective, safe, and affordable COVID solution for ill patients? The answer may shock you, especially if you’ve been listening to the dire reports put out by the mainstream media. The truth is: a Texan emergency room doctor – with nearly 30 years of experience – has some very good news for those people concerned about COVID-19. And, thankfully, he’s currently working hard to get his message out about this potentially lifesaving steroid, no matter how reluctant some government officials may be to admit its promising impact. Medical Doctor Is Putting the Proverbial Fire of COVID-19 Out with Budesonide Budesonide is typically inhaled via a nebulizer, a non-invasive medical device that transforms medication into vapor so it can be breathed in by the patient through a handheld nozzle or simple face mask. The drug is commonly used to treat asthma. Because it helps alleviate inflammation in the body, doctors also use budesonide for other reasons, including managing symptoms of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. But, according to Texas ER physician Dr. Richard Bartlett, budesonide is helping his COVID patients recover extremely quickly and without the side effects commonly seen with other heavier-duty steroid medications. In a July 2 interview on the news show American Can We Talk, Dr. Bartlett explains: “My silver bullet is inhaled [generic] budesonide. It’s super cheap … with insurance, many of my patients are not even having to pay for it.” He continues: “[Budeosnide] is a respiratory anti-inflammatory for COVID – which is a respiratory inflammatory disease – and it works.” Dr. Bartlett has had a 100% success rate with this promising COVID treatment, and notes that many of his patients have reported feeling significantly better after just one five minute nebulizer treatment. In his clinical practice setting, he’s been treating very ill patients since March. See for yourself by watching this wonderful interview with Dr. Bartlett – below: In another interview shared by MSN, Dr. Bartlett says his COVID treatment plan for ill patients – many of whom are high risk due to underlying medical conditions and advanced age – is based on the complementary action of three main drugs: generic budesonide to fight inflammation and the so-called “cytokine storm” (a severe inflammatory process in the body often seen in COVID-19 that can lead to multi-organ failure and death), generic antibiotics to fight subsequent bacterial infections, and zinc, to interfere with replication of the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. “It’s common sense,” he adds bluntly. Dr. Bartlett has said that doctors in other countries including France and Spain are starting to explore the use of inhaled steroid medications for their COVID-19 patients. He also adds that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will reportedly be looking into budesonide for use in the global pandemic, as well. We look forward to hearing more about budesonide and are curious to see whether it’ll start picking up more support in the media and scientific community. Sources for this article include: NewsWest9.com, Drugs.com, TexasHillCountry.com, MSN.com This article has been modified. To read the original article click here. For more articles from NaturalHealth365 click here.

The post Texas Doctor Claims He Discovered Effective and Inexpensive Solution for COVID-19 appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

inflammation in lungs Archives - Amazing Health Advances

UCLA-Led Study Unveils New Insights and Potential Treatments for Pulmonary Hypertension

Texas Doctor Claims He Discovered Effective and Inexpensive Solution for COVID-19