nanotechnology Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Internationally, 80% of People Use Herbs as Their Healthcare

AHA Publisher — Fri, 17 Jun 2022 07:22:46 +0000

Al Sears, MD, CNS – In the United States, medicinal plants don’t get the respect they do in other parts of the world. Around the globe, about 80% of people use herbal remedies as a primary source of their healthcare.1In the U.S., that number drops down to less than 35%.2 It boils down to one thing: Big Pharma is firmly in control of your health care with its mass production of synthetic drugs. Because that’s where the big money is. You see, Big Pharma can’t get patents on herbs or other natural remedies. So they can’t profit from them. But They Found a Way Around That… They modify them — ever so slightly.. add artificial ingredients.. and manipulate molecules. And they come up with a new synthetic (fake) compound they can patent. The latest example comes from a biopharmaceutical company called Neuropathix. They’re manipulating CBD to turn it into a pain-relieving “analog drug.” Analog drugs are “substantially similar to controlled substances listed in federal or state drug schedules.” Oxycontin is the perfect example of this type of Big Pharma “designer drug.” The opioid epidemic that killed 500,000 people proves what a bad idea it is. The chemists at Neuropathix don’t deny the pain-relieving properties of CBD. But according to the company’s CEO, CBD in its natural form is not as easily absorbed as their analog drug. So, they synthesized cannabis compounds to develop a new molecule that they claim is roughly 5 times more water-soluble and therefore more absorbable than CBD. But they didn’t make it better. You see, you don’t need a pharmaceutical drug to get all of CBD’s benefits and bioavailability. It’s true that a lot of CBD users are only getting a small fraction of this healing herb’s benefits. That’s because most CBD doesn’t reach its intended destination – the cell receptors that make up the body’s endocannabinoid system. In fact, the most common kind of CBD delivery system – oil – doesn’t reach the cell membrane. That means you’re not getting all of the real benefits of CBD. But you can access all of CBD’s healing benefits – naturally – by choosing an oral CBD spray that uses nanotechnology to allow the CBD molecules to pass through your body’s cells. This delivery method gets 150% more CBD past your cell membranes.3 And because it’s not a pill or capsule, it avoids being broken down in the liver. And that means you get the full intended dose without having to resort to Big Pharma’s drug. 3 More Ways to Increase Bioavailability Look for an emulsified product. Some products emulsify their CBD using nanotechnology. This breaks CBD down into even smaller molecules. The smaller and more dispersed the molecules are, the more bioavailable they are, because they pass more easily through cell membranes and into the bloodstream than larger CBD particles.4 Take it with healthy fats. CBD is a fat-soluble compound, meaning it dissolves in fats. This breaks CBD down into smaller molecules that are more easily absorbed by the body. One way to increase CBD’s bioavailability is to mix it with a healthy high-fat snack or meal. A recent study found that people who took CBD with high-fat foods increased their absorption up to 14 times more than those who took it on an empty stomach.5 Look for full-spectrum CBD. Terpenes are fatty oils found in the essential oils of almost all plants. They occur naturally in hemp and are extracted along with CBD and other compounds to create full-spectrum CBD products. These compounds work together and amplify each other’s benefits, a synergy known as the “entourage effect.” Terpenes increase CBD bioavailability and enhance the therapeutic effects of cannabinoids. To Your Good Health, Al Sears, MD, CNS References: 1. Ekor M. The growing use of herbal medicines: issues relating to adverse reactions and challenges in monitoring safety. Frontiers in Pharmacology. 2014;4. doi:10.3389/fphar.2013.00177 2. Rashrash M, Schommer JC, Brown LM. Prevalence and Predictors of Herbal Medicine Use Among Adults in the United States. Journal of Patient Experience. 2017;4(3):108-113. doi:10.1177/2374373517706612 3. Cherniakov I, et al. “Piperine-pro-nanolipospheres as a novel oral delivery system of cannabinoids: Pharmacokinetic evaluation in healthy volunteers in comparison to buccal spray administration.” J Control Release. 2017;266:1-7. 4. Bruni N, et al. “Cannabinoid delivery systems for pain and inflammation treatment.” Molecules. 2018;23(10). 5. Birnbaum AK, et al. “Food effect on pharmacokinetics of cannabidiol oral capsules in adult patients with refractory epilepsy.” Epilepsia. 2019;60(8):1586-15 To read the original article click here.

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Innovative Silicon Nanochip Can Reprogram Biological Tissue in Living Body

AHA Publisher — Wed, 15 Dec 2021 08:00:12 +0000

Indiana University via Newswise – A silicon device that can change skin tissue into blood vessels and nerve cells has advanced from prototype to standardized fabrication, meaning it can now be made in a consistent, reproducible way. As reported in Nature Protocols, this work, developed by researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine, takes the device one step closer to potential use as a treatment for people with a variety of health concerns. The technology, called tissue nanotransfection, is a non-invasive nanochip device that can reprogram tissue function by applying a harmless electric spark to deliver specific genes in a fraction of a second. In laboratory studies, the device successfully converted skin tissue into blood vessels to repair a badly injured leg. The technology is currently being used to reprogram tissue for different kinds of therapies, such as repairing brain damage caused by stroke or preventing and reversing nerve damage caused by diabetes. “This report on how to exactly produce these tissue nanotransfection chips will enable other researchers to participate in this new development in regenerative medicine,” said Chandan Sen, director of the Indiana Center for Regenerative Medicine and Engineering, associate vice president for research and Distinguished Professor at the IU School of Medicine. Sen also leads the regenerative medicine and engineering scientific pillar of the IU Precision Health Initiative and is lead author on the new publication. Media kit: Access photos and video “This small silicon chip enables nanotechnology that can change the function of living body parts,” he said. “For example, if someone’s blood vessels were damaged because of a traffic accident and they need blood supply, we can’t rely on the pre-existing blood vessel anymore because that is crushed, but we can convert the skin tissue into blood vessels and rescue the limb at risk.” In the Nature Protocols report, researchers published engineering details about how the chip is manufactured. Sen said this manufacturing information will lead to further development of the chip in hopes that it will someday be used clinically in many settings around the world. “This is about the engineering and manufacturing of the chip,” he said. “The chip’s nanofabrication process typically takes five to six days and, with the help of this report, can be achieved by anyone skilled in the art.” Sen said he hopes to seek FDA approval for the chip within a year. Once it receives FDA approval, the device could be used for clinical research in people, including patients in hospitals, health centers and emergency rooms, as well as in other emergency situations by first responders or the military. Other study authors include Yi Xuan, Subhadip Ghatak, Andrew Clark, Zhigang Li, Savita Khanna, Dongmin Pak, Mangilal Agarwal and Sashwati Roy, all of IU, and Peter Duda of the University of Chicago. This research is funded by the National Institutes of Health. To read the original article click here.

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Nanotechnology — Nanoparticles As Weapons Against Cancer

AHA Publisher — Mon, 28 Dec 2020 08:00:56 +0000

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat München via EurekAlert – Many chemotherapeutic agents used to treat cancers are associated with side-effects of varying severity, because they are toxic to normal cells as well as malignant tumors. This has motivated the search for effective alternatives to the synthetic pharmaceuticals with which most cancers are currently treated. The use of calcium phosphate and citrate for this purpose has been under discussion for some years now, since they lead to cell death when delivered directly into cells, while their presence in the circulation has little or no toxic effect. The problem consists in finding ways to overcome the mechanisms that control the uptake of these compounds into cells, and ensuring that the compounds act selectively on the cells one wishes to eliminate. Researchers in the Department of Chemistry at LMU, led by Dr. Constantin von Schirnding, Dr. Hanna Engelke and Prof. Thomas Bein, now report the development of a class of novel amorphous nanoparticles made up of calcium and citrate, which are capable of breaching the barriers to uptake, and killing tumor cells in a targeted fashion. Both calcium phosphate and citrate are involved in the regulation of many cellular signaling pathways. Hence, the levels of these substances present in the cytoplasm are tightly controlled, in order to avoid disruption of these pathways. Crucially, the nanoparticles described in the new study are able to bypass these regulatory controls. “We have prepared amorphous and porous nanoparticles consisting of calcium phosphate and citrate, which are encapsulated in a lipid layer,” von Schirnding explains. The encapsulation ensures that these particles are readily taken up by cells without triggering countermeasures. Once inside the cell, the lipid layer is efficiently broken down, and large amounts of calcium and citrate are deposited in the cytoplasm. Experiments on cultured cells revealed that the particles are selectively lethal – killing cancer cells, but leaving healthy cells (which also take up particles) essentially unscathed. “Clearly, the particles can be highly toxic to cancer cells. – Indeed, we found that the more aggressive the tumor, the greater the killing effect,” says Engelke. During cellular uptake, the nanoparticles acquire a second membrane coat. The authors of the study postulate that an unknown mechanism – which is specific to cancer cells – causes a rupture of this outer membrane, allowing the contents of the vesicles to leak into the cytoplasm. In healthy cells, on the other hand, this outermost layer retains its integrity, and the vesicles are subsequently excreted intact into the extracellular medium. “The highly selective toxicity of the particles made it possible for us to successfully treat two different types of highly aggressive pleural tumors in mice. With only two doses, administered locally, we were able to reduce tumor sizes by 40 and 70%, respectively,” says Engelke. Many pleural tumors are the metastatic products of lung tumors, and they develop in the pleural cavity between the lung and the ribcage. Because this region is not supplied with blood, it is inaccessible to chemotherapeutic agents. “In contrast, our nanoparticles can be directly introduced into the pleural cavity,” says Bein. Furthermore, over the course of a 2-month treatment, no signs of serious side-effects were detected. Overall, these results suggest that the new nanoparticles have great potential for the further development of novel treatments for other types of cancer. To read the original article click here.

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