Reported medical breakthroughs in treating, obesity, diabetes and giving early cancer diagnosis.
I happened to come across some interesting international study reports relating to possible breakthroughs in treating obesity, diabetes and dealing with cancer at the weekend.
As diabetes is a serious concern in the Solomon Islands and cancer linked to diet and lifestyle habits, such as smoking and excessive consumption of alcohol, I thought the report worth sharing with your readers.
Janelle Ward, writing in the publication ‘Your Life Choices.’ said, quote.
“An international research team led by Monash University, the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and The Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute has established that an experimental drug for obesity-related metabolic diseases could soon be tested in humans.
“The study, published in the journal Nature, indicates that a compound called IC7Fc could improve glucose metabolism and prevent weight gain, enabling it to be an effective treatment for conditions including diabetes, obesity and loss of muscle mass.
“The study suggests that IC7Fc could provide a welcome relief for disease sufferers, with no reported side effects in preliminary experiments.
“Led by Professor Mark Febbraio, of the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the 13-year study has confirmed that the protein is safe in several preclinical models.
“This is the first time that we have demonstrated pharmacological evidence that we could treat obesity, type 2 diabetes, muscle loss and a loss of bone density with a single drug,” he said.
“Researchers have shown that IC7Fc improves glucose tolerance and hyperglycemia, and prevents weight gain and liver steatosis in mice.
“The compound’s ability to induce muscle hypertrophy – an increase in the size of skeletal muscle through a growth in size of component cells – is important since increased muscle mass reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes.
“Prof. Febbraio says there are currently no drugs on the market that have these multiple, positive benefits on overall health and metabolism.
“Despite the presence of a number of well-established drug classes for treating type 2 diabetes, there is still a significant unmet need for a drug that halts, or reverses, disease progression.
“A drug such as the IC7Fc could not only treat diabetes but could be harnessed to treat muscle mass loss, regulate food intake and frailty as well.”
“IC7Fc has passed preclinical hurdles and is poised to enter phase one human clinical trials.”
In a separate article in the same publication it read, quote.
“A new blood test in development has shown ability to screen for numerous types of cancer with a high degree of accuracy.
“The test uses next-generation sequencing technology to probe DNA for tiny chemical tags (methylation) that influence whether genes are active or inactive.
“When applied to nearly 3600 blood samples – some from patients with cancer, some from people who had not been diagnosed with cancer at the time of the blood draw – the test successfully picked up a cancer signal from the cancer patient samples, and correctly identified the tissue from where the cancer began (the tissue of origin).
“The test’s specificity – its ability to return a positive result only when cancer is actually present – was high, as was its ability to pinpoint the organ or tissue of origin, researchers found.
“The new test looks for DNA, which cancer cells shed into the bloodstream when they die.
“Detecting even a modest percent of common cancers early could translate into many patients who may be able to receive more effective treatment if the test were in wide use.”
Comment:
Any medical tests that can identify an illness that can be successfully treated if detected early are most welcome.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
