Biology

Peyronie's disease breakthrough: Coenzyme Q-10?

Perhaps someone can explain the connection between Coenzyme Q-10 and why it should work in Peyronie's disease, but there seems to be some efficacy here, according to a study out this week.  Finally, medical progress we can all be happy about!

Catching up with...stool transplants for C. diff

This must be C. Diff week here at InteractMD.com, because we have a few new papers on the challenging subject.

Today's latest is an update of stool transplants from Norway--researchers report up to 73% efficacy in treating this often deadly infection by taking stool from a family donor and transferring it by colonoscopy to the patient.  If it didn't work the first time, sometimes it works after a second attempt.

PPI users three times more likely to have recurrent C. Diff colitis

Proton pump inhibitors as a risk factor for recurrence of Clostridium-difficile-associated diarrhea.


Didn't see this one in the New York Times, but I thought it was interesting.

Watch that ALT in Tylenol users

Is ten days of Tylenol, used according to the label, enough to strain the liver?  Researchers suggest perhaps the answer is yes.

The liver enzyme ALT elevated when tested after subjects used 4gm of tylenol daily for 10 days.

Fascinating stuff.  Another thought to have when looking over a lab test result sheet that flags a solitary elevated ALT: "is this guy taking high doses of Tylenol?"

Get ready for the flu shot patch

This story was the web-bomb for 7/18--came out in Nature Medicine.  My AI abstract sniffer didn't identify it as clinically relevant, I'm afraid.  Hundreds of news outlets had coverage.

Machine learning notwithstanding, I think it's highly exciting that in a few years, we might be able to slap on a patch instead of getting a needle injection for vaccines.

Scientists regenerating functional rat lung

Scientists at Harvard and B.U. were able to transplant lab-generated lung tissue into a rat.  The tissue was able to perform regular gas exchange for six hours (at which point it presumably failed).  Report is in this month's Nature Medicine.

New application for old idea: antibodies in the fight against HIV

WSJ highlights research findings published in Science this week on HIV-neutralizing antibodies.

The news is that an antibody has been discovered that neutralizes almost all known strains of HIV.

I wish the news was that scientists have created a vaccine to neutralize almost all strains of HIV--that would have been better.

Stem cell therapy probably killed a lady in Bangkok

Though there is tremendous promise in stem cell therapy, there are risks, and sadly, bad outcomes.

The story today was from Thailand, where a woman suffering lupus nephritis was injected in the kidney with bone marrow stem cells.   The hope was to regenerate normal kidney tissue to replace the scar tissue in her kidneys.

What did Dr. Venter actually create?

We saw breathless coverage of the "artificial life" story, with people proclaiming that a new era of biology had started.  Even today, Venter is quoted as saying they transformed one cell into another.

Kombucha: get ready for the onslaught

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