Longer Life Span with Genetic Mutation – Anti Aging News

Posted on by

Posted on June 20, 2017, 6 a.m. in Longevity Genetic Research Genetics

According to a new study, a deletion in d3-GHR, a growth hormone receptor gene, is linked to an average of ten extra years of life among men.

Pinpointing specific genetic factors tied to longevity in human beings has been quite the challenge. A recent study shows that whether or not there has been a deletion of the growth hormone receptor genes exon 3 (d3-GHR) may play an important role.The research results were recently published this past Friday in the journalScience Advances.

Details About the Finding

About 840 individuals from long-lived populations were studied.The researchers found that males with the mutation deletions in d3-GHR tend to live an average of 10 years longer than those without the mutation. It is interesting to note this effect was limited to men. There was no difference noted in the women.

The deletion of d3-GHR still allows for the existence of a functional protein that boosts longevity. The study's co-author, Gil Atzmon, describes the finding as phenomenal. Atzmon is a geneticist at Albert Einstein's College of Medicine as well as the University of Haifa, located in Israel. Atzmon states the result is more accurate and globally translated as his colleagues observed the same pattern across nearly half a dozen different populations. They include those who participated in the Cardiovascular Health Study, those who participated in the French Long-Lived Study, the Old Order Amish and Ashkenazi Jews. The director of genome informatics with the Scripps Translational Science Institute, Ali Torkamani, commented that the results look convincing from his perspective.

What was of particular interest, is that Atzmon and his research team determined the men with two replicas of the d3-GHR deletion were an average of an inch taller than other men. This is the exact opposite of what the research team expected. They suspect the mutation alters the receptor's response to increases in growth hormone during instances such as pubertal growth spurts. They also suspect the mutation limits the responses to growth hormone as one passes into the adult years, spurring a slower division of cells and reducing the rate at which aging occurs.

Why the Results Matter

The research results raise the question of whether it is prudent to prescribe growth hormone to patients in an effort to restore or maintain a body that is more youthful. The study's co-author, Nir Barzilai, a geneticist with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, has expressed concern that providing such treatments might actually be more likely to produce the opposite result of what was originally intended.

Excerpt from:
Longer Life Span with Genetic Mutation - Anti Aging News

Tim Ferriss Reveals the Anti-Aging Secrets You Must Know – Men's Health

Posted on by

Men's Health
Tim Ferriss Reveals the Anti-Aging Secrets You Must Know
Men's Health
The following recommendations are a reflection of the lessons, research, and real-life applications I've picked up from the smartest scientists, doctors, trainers, and anti-aging experts. But before I go on, remember that I'm not a doctor and don't ...

Visit link:
Tim Ferriss Reveals the Anti-Aging Secrets You Must Know - Men's Health

Health care: Key issues in closed-door Senate talks …

Posted on by

And the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to release its analysis of the bill early next week, with a Senate vote possible before the July 4 recess.

Here's a cheat sheet of what we know, don't know and think we know on the policy front at this hour:

An under appreciated element of the House bill was the extent to which it dramatically reformed the Medicaid program.

Regulatory waivers

The waiver issue was all the rage in the House, and behind closed doors, has certainly been an area of contention in the Senate.

Senate leaders have decided to address the most contentious issue head on -- they plan to remove the waiver option for community rating, which bans insurers from charging higher premiums to those with pre-existing conditions. They will leave, or add, waivers for the following regulations:

And a note of caution: There is still no guidance as to whether these waivers will survive the Senate parliamentarian and be allowed to be in the final bill.

State stability fund

The House included $138 billion to help states and insurers cover pricey patients in a variety of ways, primarily through things like high risk pools, and to help lower consumers' costs.

This will be in the Senate bill as well, but several moderate senators have pushed for *significantly* more money for this fund. It's unclear how much will be added, but a sizable amount is likely needed to pacify senators like Susan Collins, who gave a private presentation on Maine's now-defunct high risk pool and noted for it to be taken nationwide.

Tax credits

The House bill eliminated the Affordable Care Act's subsidies, which are based on income and cost of coverage, and replaced them with tax credits based mainly on age that started at $2,000 per year and peaked at $4,000 a year.

That structure, according to analysts and Republicans alike, fell far short when it came to providing adequate financial help for lower income and older Americans.

The Senate is expected to make the tax credit more generous for these groups. There's also been a significant push from people like Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski to add a geographic adjustment to the credit -- something essential to ensuring her state isn't disproportionately hammered by the new subsidy structure. However, it could also further alienate conservatives, who are already upset that the tax credits are too similar to Obamacare's subsidies.

To what degree all of this would be implemented -- or if it all makes it in the final structure -- remains somewhat unclear, but the House bill included an $85 billion placeholder for the Senate to utilize, so there is room to maneuver in what would be a crucial component of securing moderate Republican support.

Opioid funds

This is a central issue for Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, whose home state relies heavily on the ACA's Medicaid expansion to finance its addiction treatment and rehabilitation.

The structure and size of the fund remains up in the air -- Portman has made clear he'd accept it through Medicaid, or via a separate fund of sorts and $45 billion over a decade has been a number that has been mentioned. But it's important enough to him -- and to several other senators from states that have been crushed by the current epidemic -- that it's likely to find its way into the bill in some form or fashion. Still, the path isn't entirely clear - conservatives have voiced concern about the new spending and structure of the fund.

Rural hospital funding

Keep a close eye on how Republicans try to address this issue -- it may be key to securing the Murkowski's support.

Alaska, according to analysts, would be hit particularly hard by the House version of the Republican American Health Care Act. The coverage losses and premium hits would be borderline catastrophic. Changes to the tax credit will address some of that, but funding for rural hospitals may be the best way to assuage some of her very real concerns.

Short-term market stabilization

GOP Senators including health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander and Wisconsin's Ron Johnson have called for some sort of short-term market-stabilization package to be included -- provisions to essentially hold the markets over until a new law could be fully implemented. What that would entail is still very much unknown.

Would they guarantee Cost Sharing Reduction funding for an additional year? Would they allow individuals to utilize subsidies outside the Obamacare exchanges in areas insurers have abandoned entirely? These are very consequential near-term question for a number of senators -- and answers (and what it would mean for the cost of an overall bill) are still lacking.

Medicaid growth rate

Conservatives are pushing to change the way the growth rate is calculated for how federal payments are made to states. The House bill would peg the growth rate to medical inflation.

A proposal that has been on the table in the Senate (and pushed heavily by Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey) would, by 2025, shift measure to regular inflation, something that would result in significantly deeper spending reductions for the program. For conservatives, who call the program bloated and unsustainable, this would be a major win. But for more moderate senators, like Portman and West Virginia's Sen. Shelly Moore Capito, it's likely a non-starter. It would likely force states to cut benefits, enrollment and provider rates.

Medicaid expansion phase out

Obamacare's Medicaid expansion is going away. The question is how quickly and in what form.

The House bill froze the ability of states to join the program and essentially eliminated the expansion by ending enhanced federal funding for new enrollees in 2020. People who were continuously enrolled would be able to maintain their coverage, but the program has a high churn rate, so the House authors worked under the assumption that expansion beneficiaries would quickly dwindle and the program would end on its own.

Senators and governors from expansion states have called that funding cliff unrealistic and too draconian. Senators pitched a seven-year glide path for the program. Senate GOP leaders have countered with a three-year glide path, starting in 2020, that would gradually drop the enhanced funding to the traditional match rate for expansion states over that period.

It's still unclear whether that will fly with expansion state Republicans. How governors react will play a major role here, particularly in the case of Nevada, home to the most endangered GOP senator up for re-election next year, Dean Heller.

Obamacare taxes

Like the House bill, the taxes will be repealed. The question is when.

The House bill, at the request of conservatives both outside and inside the halls of Congress, immediately repeals most of the taxes. The issue here is financing for the bill. Senate Republicans have made clear they'd also love to immediately repeal all of Obamacare's taxes -- but they're adding new money via the tax credit, and the more gradual Medicaid expansion phase out, and to risk pools, and potentially to an opioid fund and rural hospital money.

And they're doing all of that while being required to have *at least* $133 billion in deficit savings over a 10-year period (which is actually more than is in the House bill, according to CBO.) So they need to find that money somehow. Delaying the repeal of certain taxes is a nifty way to do it, but it's something that is abhorrent to conservatives. So this remains an open question.

Abortion

The House bill prohibits federal funding for Planned Parenthood for a year. This is a major issue for Sens. Collins and Murkowski -- a potential deal-breaker for both -- who oppose limiting funds for the group. But there's a chance it's something Senate GOP leaders may not have to grapple with at all. Many aides believe the Senate Parliamentarian will strike this provision down on Byrd Rule grounds.

There's also the lingering issues of the tax credits. There is widespread speculation that they can't attach Hyde language (no federal funds for abortions) to the new credits. Without it, conservatives may have even deeper problems with the credits (and it's worth noting, conservatives are already quite uncomfortable with the credits themselves.) Should they lose the ability to attach Hyde language, plus the ability to defund Planned Parenthood, that would be a significant loss for the anti-abortion groups who have pinned major policy hopes on this bill.

Auto-enrollment

This is an idea pushed by several senators -- one that would markedly improve any CBO score's coverage numbers. It could also play a huge roll in market stabilization, essentially forcing younger, healthier people into the marketplace and as such, lowering overall costs. But it's something that would infuriate conservatives in the conference and talk of its existence in a final bill has faded in recent weeks. Experts also say it would be incredibly difficult to implement. We'll see if it somehow comes back to life.

CNN's Tami Luhby contributed to this report.

Continue reading here:

Health care: Key issues in closed-door Senate talks ...

Georgia race: Republicans jittery about health care breathe sigh of relief – CNN

Posted on by

The Democrat in the Georgia race, Jon Ossoff, was unsuccessful in flipping a traditionally Republican district in the Atlanta suburbs previously represented by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. Had the 30-year-old first-time political candidate pulled off an upset, it would have dealt a major blow to the Republican Party's already complicated efforts to gut Obamacare.

Democrats were prepared to cast the results of the closely watched special election as a referendum on President Donald Trump and the GOP's legislative priorities -- chief among them the quest to repeal former President Barack Obama's landmark health care law.

Former Republican Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Handel's win provides the party with "huge relief and somewhat of a political sedative" heading into 2018, when Democrats are eager to try to win back control of the House.

"It kind of calms the waters in terms of people looking for predictors or harbingers and what it means for 2018," Pawlenty told CNN. "It says: Perhaps the approach that's being taken in Congress and by the President are more acceptable to a swing district or swing-voting parts of the country than people are predicting."

The controversial proposal, which Handel said she would have voted for, would "gut the protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions -- hundreds of thousands of them," Ossoff argued at a debate earlier this month.

Handel pushed back forcefully, pointing out that her sister was born without an esophagus -- a pre-existing condition.

"For you to suggest that I would do anything to negatively effect her is absolutely outrageous and unacceptable," Handel said.

With health care so much of the focus in the Georgia special election, Democrats were ready to liken an Ossoff victory to that of former GOP Sen. Scott Brown in the 2010 special election in Massachusetts.

At the time, Brown's unlikely triumph over Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley was viewed as voters' sharp rejection of Obamacare, which Democratic lawmakers were in the middle of crafting. When Brown decisively won the office long occupied by the late-Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy, Democrats were forced to act quickly to pass Obamacare, despite deep reservations and divisions across the party about the legislation.

Now, with Handel keeping Price's old seat in GOP hands, Democratic strategists insist that health care will still be powerful ammunition against Republicans in next year's congressional elections.

"I don't think that very many Republicans will take much comfort on the health care issue even if Handel does win," said veteran Democratic pollster Geoff Garin in advance of Tuesday's result. "I think Republicans will continue to recognize that taking away coverage from millions of Americans and raising costs for millions more is a politically unpopular and dangerous enterprise."

A draft of Republicans' plans in the Senate is expected to be released this Thursday, according to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who wants to put health care in the rear-view mirror before lawmakers leave Washington ahead of the July 4 recess.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer reiterated that sentiment in the briefing room Tuesday.

"The President clearly wants a bill that has heart in it," Spicer said. "He believes that health care is something that is near and dear to so many families and individuals."

See the original post:

Georgia race: Republicans jittery about health care breathe sigh of relief - CNN

Most Americans say Republican healthcare plan will be harmful: Reuters/Ipsos poll – Reuters

Posted on by

NEW YORK When U.S. Senate Republicans unveil their plan to overhaul America's healthcare system, they will face a skeptical public that already does not buy the justification for an earlier version that passed the House of Representatives, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday.

The June 9-13 poll shows that a majority of the country thinks the American Health Care Act would be harmful for low-income Americans, people with pre-existing health conditions and Medicaid recipients.

Overall, 41 percent of American adults oppose the House plan, while 30 percent support it. Another 29 percent said they "don't know," according to the poll.

"It'll make people's deductibles skyrocket" said Shannon Sowards, 39, of Memphis, Tennessee, a Trump supporter who took the poll. "So I'm not for this healthcare act. I'm for insurance for everyone."

The Senate is expected to release its full plan on Thursday.

The gap between what Republicans say their plan will do and what people think it will do further complicates matters for Senate Republicans, who already have been criticized for drafting their bill in secret.

"It would be great if a politican had the nerve to be brutally honest" and tell people that healthcare costs are going up, said Joseph Antos, a healthcare expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. "None of them seem to."

For years, Republicans have promised voters they would replace Democratic former President Barack Obamas healthcare law, which they say is too costly and intrusive.

When House Republicans pitched their health plan earlier this year, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan boasted that it would lower premiums, protect people with pre-existing conditions and improve public "access" to high-quality, low-cost healthcare. U.S. Representative Tom MacArthur of New Jersey, who helped shape the House bill, said it "would make coverage of pre-existing conditions sacrosanct for all Americans."

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, however, presented a different view of the bill. It estimated that under the House plan 23 million people would lose their health coverage by 2026 in an effort to cut the federal deficit.

According to the poll, nearly 60 percent of adults said they thought it would make insurance more expensive for low-income Americans and people with pre-existing conditions. Fifty-seven percent said it would make Medicaid less available, and 69 percent said it would cut federal money for Planned Parenthood.

Thirteen percent felt that the House plan would improve the quality of their healthcare, and 9 percent said it would make their healthcare cheaper.

About 28 percent of Americans said they would be "less likely" to support their congressional representative if he or she supported the House plan. Another 16 percent said they would be "more likely" to support their representative and 33 percent said it would make "no difference."

Republican respondents were more supportive of the House plan than others. And even those Republicans who did not like the House plan said that it is probably an improvement over the current healthcare system.

"It's not going to change my political views" said Barb Huntington, 64, of Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, a Trump supporter who took the poll.

Huntington, who buys health insurance through her state's Obamacare exchange, said her premiums went up by $25 per month this year. Huntington said she would not be surprised if they keep going up no matter what the Republicans do.

"It's going to be like that every year, and we'll be lucky to have what we have," she said.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English across the United States. It gathered responses from 1,492 adults, including 671 Democrats and 501 Republicans. It has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points for the entire group, 4 percentage points for Democrats and 5 percentage points for Republicans.

(Click here for the survey questions and methodology: tmsnrt.rs/2tty3EI)

(Reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

WASHINGTON The Trump administration on Wednesday made its final plea to the U.S. Supreme Court to allow its proposed ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority countries to go into effect as the justices weigh how to handle the hotly contested dispute.

WASHINGTON The United States hopes Arab countries involved in a diplomatic split with Qatar will soon present Doha a list of "reasonable and actionable" demands to move the crisis toward a resolution, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday.

Follow this link:

Most Americans say Republican healthcare plan will be harmful: Reuters/Ipsos poll - Reuters

Local health care providers warn of ripple effect of Obamacare repeal – Buffalo News

Posted on by

Major health care groups in Buffalo are warning that the health plan emerging in Congress will lead to millions of people losing health insurance and many others being hurt by major cutbacks in Medicaid.

They also see the potential for unintended and unwanted consequences, voicing concern that the changes will raise costs for doctor-training and worsen crowding in emergency rooms.

And it could hit Western New York hard, they say, because of the region's large populations of older and poorer residents.

We feel the legislation could be devastating," said Candace Johnson, president and chief executive of Roswell Park Cancer Institute, who expressed particular concern for the effects on cancer patients.

Every major health care provider in Buffalo has voiced similar views about legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act that is about to emerge from the Senate.They say proposed cutbacks in Medicaid and changes to insurance regulations in the Republican health care plan, which has been discussed behind the scenes so far with no public hearings by the Senate, will do "irreparable" harm.

The leaders ofKaleida Health, Erie County Medical Center and the University at Buffalo issued a joint statement this week warning that the bill, known as the American Health Care Act, "will ultimately make health care more expensive for patients, doctors and hospitals."

They expressed concern that the changes would strip people of their health insurance, "either through prohibitively high premiums for people with pre-existing conditions, elimination of the Medicaid safety net or forcing patients into severely underfunded high-risk pools."

Jody L. Lomeo, president and chief executive of Kaleida Health; Thomas J. Quatroche Jr., president and chief executive of ECMC; and Satish K. Tripathi, president of UB, warned that changes under discussion will ripple across the health care system to cause secondary problems, such as increasing the cost of training doctors and filling emergency rooms with patients seeking basic care.UB includes the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, which works closely with key hospitals here.

They also noted that medicaleducation and biomedical research represent central components of the regions economic recovery and that potential cutbacks that stem from the legislation will pose a challenge.

The head of the Catholic Health system offered a similar bleak take on the current politics of health care.

"In its present form, the American Health Care Act would leave tens of millions of Americans without health coverage; eliminate essential protections for older and sicker patients, including those with pre-existing conditions such as cancer; and cut billions from Medicaid, which helps our most vulnerable patients children, the disabled, the poor and the elderly," Joe McDonald, president and chief executive officer, wrote in an email response.

Similarly, cancer center officials and cancer-related groups have expressed serious reservations or opposition to the Senate's draft of the American Health Care Act, which previously passed the House. The Senate is expected to vote on its version of the bill next week.

Johnson, Roswell's CEO,said that while she doesn't view the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, as perfect, the foundation of the bill was good and worth revising rather than dismantling.

"This legislation does not advantage cancer patients," said Johnson, who is troubled by what she sees as potential rollbacks in support for clinical trials, prevention programs and such insurance protections as requirements to cover pre-existing conditions and essential health benefits.

Details of the Senate bill remain unclear but, like the House legislation, it is expected to cap payments to states for Medicaid and, starting in 2025, slow the growth of the payments below increases in the overall Consumer Price Index. That's important because medical prices have grown faster than the index.

The Senate bill also looks likely to stop the expansion of Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, a provision that was optional for states. Thirty-two states, including New York and the District of Columbia, provide the expanded coverage.

In addition, the bill that passed in the House allows states to opt out of major insurance requirements in the Affordable Care Act, including those that define what benefits must be covered and that ban charging people with pre-existing conditions higher premiums if their coverage lapses.

Supporters say the bill will eliminate the taxes and regulations in Obamacare, and increase competition in health insurance. But there have been conflicting descriptions about the evolving details. President Trump, after passage in the House of the American Health Care Act in May, called the legislation "incredibly well-crafted" and said premiums and insurance deductibles will come down. More recently, he described it as mean and urged the Senate to write a more generous bill, according to news reports.

For hospitals, nursing homes and other health care providers here and elsewhere, the repeal effort follows steady growth in health care jobs and a decline in the rate of the uninsured since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law in 2010. The potential changes to Medicaid pose significant risks to the finances of institutions, which have come to rely on the funding, and the availability of care to people in a program that touches lives in many different ways.

Of the approximately 80 million Medicaid enrollees, 43 percent are children, 14 percent are disabled or blind and 9 percent are elderly. Medicaid pays for more than 60 percent of nursing home residents and nearly half the births in the United States, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. There are more than 325,000 Medicaid enrollees in Erie and Niagara counties.

Officials from UB, ECMC and Kaleida Health described the American Health Care Act as failing to "fix what is currently broken" and "doing more harm than good" at a time of significant development downtown related to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

"Western New York and the patients that we serve are even more sensitive to the dynamic impacthealth care legislation has on a community," they said. "Not only is Western New York home to an older, poorerpopulation needing more intensive health care interventions than other regions, but also medicaleducation and biomedical research are central components to our regions economic recovery."

Read this article:

Local health care providers warn of ripple effect of Obamacare repeal - Buffalo News

Senate’s Obamacare replacement bill will likely boost health savings accounts – CNBC

Posted on by

When the U.S. Senate unveils its bill to replace Obamacare Thursday, it's fair to expect the legislation will seek to expand the benefits of health savings accounts.

Senate Republicans plan to unveil the text of their draft health-care bill as senators struggle over issues such as the future of the Medicaid program for the poor and bringing down insurance costs.

An estimated 23 million people could lose their health care under the House plan, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

"Most of the debate in the Senate is around the Medicaid and tax credit pieces of the legislation," said Steve Wojcik, vice president of public policy at the National Business Group on Health, which advocates for large employers. "The HSA enhancements are not very controversial and no one has really spoken out against them."

HSAs, introduced in 2003 during President George W. Bush's administration, offer you triple tax advantages: First, contributions are tax-deductible. Second, those contributions can be invested and grow tax-free. Third, withdrawals aren't taxed as long as you use them for qualified medical expenses, such as doctor's visits, prescription drugs and dental care.

"It's [the] best tax-advantaged vehicle to save for medical expenses and for other expenses in retirement," said John Young, senior vice president of consumerism at Alegeus, a technology company that helps employers provide HSAs to their workers.

For example, while 401(k) plan contributions are subject to the FICA tax, which funds Social Security and Medicare, the money you put into an HSA is not.

Original post:

Senate's Obamacare replacement bill will likely boost health savings accounts - CNBC

A troubling health-care bill rushes forward in secret. The media (mostly) shrug. – Washington Post

Posted on by

Early Wednesday, 52 headlines on CNNs homepage covered everything from a special election in Georgia to More Bachelor in Paradise fallout.

Not one mentioned the Senates health-care bill. Nothing shouted the distressing idea that 23million Americans stand to lose their health insurance. Nothing screamed that the Senate will probably vote on and approve the legislation next week, even though its being worked on behind closed doors, hidden from the public, from experts and from Democratic lawmakers.

CNN is not alone. At 7 a.m. Wednesday, USA Todays homepage covered this crucial topic only in an opinion piece; not in a single news story, and with nothing on the front page of its print edition. On Fox News Channels homepage, the health news section pondered, Does Werewolf Syndrome really exist? but there was no mention of the Senate bill.

And in the first two weeks of June, according to a study, the three broadcast news networks gave the subject a combined three minutes of attention.

Its no surprise that a new CBS poll reported that 3 in 4 Americans dont know whats in the bill, and want to know a lot more.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wants it that way. Under pressure to keep a promise to voters to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, hes keeping the measure under tight wraps. A discussion draft may come this week, he has suggested, and a final vote next week.

And the news media with some notable exceptions is playing right into his hands.

TV news is particularly culpable, especially considering that most Americans, even in the digital age, still get their news on television.

The secret strategy is working, said Jeremy Slevin, an anti-poverty advocate with the Center for American Progress, who has been tracking the news coverage daily.

Its not that theres zero coverage, but it tends to be buried.

Slevin thinks thats terrible but he also understands why its happening. As a former cable news producer, he knows that the story doesnt lend itself to visual coverage.

There arent any images to show, so TV news particularly has nothing to cover, Slevin told me. There are no hearings, no markups, no sound bites, and therefore nothing to focus on.

But Slevin thinks its possible and necessary for TV outlets to do stories anyway it just takes more thought and creativity.

After weeks of extreme quiet, there are signs that TV news is waking to the challenge, although it may be too late.

Lester Holt led his Tuesday evening news broadcast, for example, with images that may have struck some as a stunt Democratic lawmakers shown walking on Capitol Hill, supposedly in search of the elusive bill.

But stunt or not, it gave NBCs reporting team an opportunity to report on whats known of the bill and how quickly the vote is approaching.

One result of the lack of intense coverage is difficulty mobilizing citizen resistance to the measure, wrote congressional reporter Jeff Stein of Vox, who has been keeping the pressure on. In one recent story, he quoted a New Orleans organizer, Joyce Vansean, talking about the difficulty of getting people motivated when so little is known.

Its like trying to tackle a football player made of air, Vansean said. How do you do that without falling on your face?

Among cable news outlets, MSNBC has paid the most attention to the secrecy around the bill.

Major print-based news organizations are tracking the bill regularly. The Washington Post and the New York Times both had front-page stories in Wednesdays print editions and have covered the story almost daily. The Times story received only a tiny subheadline on the morning home page, despite its prominent print placement.

Outlets that specialize in government news, such as Politico and the Hill, have followed the story closely but their audiences tend to be inside the Beltway. (And later Wednesday, CNN added a homepage headline on the politics of the vote, pegged to the results of the special election in Georgia: Republicans jittery about health care breathe sigh of relief. The network did a fuller story early in the week.)

Vast swaths of American citizens, though, remain in the dark.

I seriously doubt that most people know the Senate is planning on passing this next week, or what might be the effect on their lives, Slevin told me.

Hes right. The first and largest share of blame goes to Senate leadership. But too much of the mainstream news media comes in a regrettable second.

For more by Margaret Sullivan visit wapo.st/sullivan

View post:

A troubling health-care bill rushes forward in secret. The media (mostly) shrug. - Washington Post

Trump: GOP healthcare plan will have ‘heart’ – The Hill

Posted on by

President Trump promised Wednesday that the Republican's bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare would have "heart".

"I think and I hope, I can't guarantee anything, but I hope we're gonna surprise you with a really good plan," Trump told the crowd during a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Wednesday.

"I've been talking about a plan with heart," Trump said. "I said, 'add some money to it!' A plan with heart."

Trump also bashed Democrats for being unwilling to work with Republicans on the ObamaCare repeal.

"If we went and got the single greatest healthcare plan in the history of the world, we would not get one Democrat vote," Trump said. "Because they're obstructionists."

"If we came to you and said 'Here's your plan, you're gonna have the greatest plan in history, and you're gonna pay nothing,' they'd vote against it," Trump told the crowd.

"But ObamaCare is dead," he continued.

Trump's comments come one day after Sean Spicer confirmed that Trump made remarks in a private meeting with Senate Republicans that the House bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare was "mean, mean, mean," and that he wanted to see the Senate bill have more "heart."

"This is an area that the president believes passionately about," Spicer told reporters on Tuesday.

Read more from the original source:

Trump: GOP healthcare plan will have 'heart' - The Hill

GOP senator on healthcare plan: ‘If I don’t get to read it, I don’t vote for it’ – The Hill

Posted on by

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said on Wednesday that he wouldn't vote for a healthcare bill if he wasn't first able to read and study it.

During an interview on MSNBC, Cassidy was asked whether he thinks he'll get the chance to see the GOP healthcare plan and decide whether it is satisfactory before a vote.

"If I don't get to read it, I don't vote for it," he said.

"If I don't get to study it, I don't vote for it. And so it's just a question we got pretty detailed discussion, though, as to what we wish to do."

Cassidy said he's not defending the process and doesn't like it.

"I can either sit around and complain about the process," he said, "or I can dig in, try and make it better."

Lawmakers and the publicare expected to receive draft text of the healthcare bill on Thursdaymorningahead of a likely vote next week.

Senate Republicans have criticized their own party for negotiating and writing a healthcare reform bill largely behind closed doors and without input from Democrats.

Link:

GOP senator on healthcare plan: 'If I don't get to read it, I don't vote for it' - The Hill

Oregon lawmakers send health care tax to governor – KTVZ

Posted on by

SALEM, Ore. - SALEM, Ore. (AP) - A $670 million health care tax package has officially passed the Oregon Legislature and now heads to Gov. Kate Brown.

Lawmakers in the Oregon Senate gave final approval on Wednesday in a 20-10 bipartisan vote.

The package raises tax revenue from hospitals and insurers over the next two years so that 350,000 low-income Medicaid recipients won't lose health care and a newly-built psychiatric hospital with hundreds of patients and workers won't be shut down.

House Bill 2391 is also one of the most important pieces of legislation lawmakers need to finish writing the 2017-19 budget that begins July 1 and must be balanced no later than July 10.

More specifically, it closes the upcoming $1.4 billion shortfall by about one-third.

---

News release from Oregon House Republican Office:

Representatives Hayden, Buehler, Kennemer decry healthcare package that passed with no support from House Republican medical practitioners

Salem, Ore. A two-bill package architected by Democratic Ways and Means leaders that will increase healthcare taxes on an estimated 275,000 Oregon health insurance ratepayers passed on the Senate floor today. No House Republican healthcare practitioners were afforded consideration in crafting the measures. Collectively, the three Republican House Healthcare Committee members professional experience covers the spectrum across oral, physical and mental health. All were supportive of an alternative package that editorial boards across Oregon urged lawmakers and Governor Brown to consider.

Its disappointing to see such a complex measure with such a vast impact rushed through the legislative process while another plan that would have spared working-class Oregonians a tax increase was never given any consideration, said Representative Cedric Hayden (R-Cottage Grove). As a dentist and a legislator, Ive worked to ensure low-income Oregonians have the access they need to care. This bill could have the net effect of people losing their coverage when they cant afford their premium increases.

House Bill 2391 creates two new healthcare taxes. The first is a .7% tax on hospitals which will generate $120 million. These dollars will be incurred by patients who are likely to see increased costs of hospital healthcare in order to pay for the tax. The second tax, a 1.5% insurance premium increase that is estimated to generate $145 million will be borne by school districts, local governments, small businesses, 217K insurance buyers in the marketplace, and 11,681 college students.

The second bill in their package takes money from an expiring reinsurance program and redirects it to insurance companies. House Bill 3398 was originally a bill to allocate money to a Hunger Task Force before it was gut and stuffed with a kickback to insurance companies.

As a retired psychologist, I believe one of the most important and neglected aspects of our care delivery system is mental health. Oregon has high rates of mental health problems and suicide, making dedicated mental health investments critical, stated Representative Bill Kennemer (R-Oregon City). Kennemer noted that the alternative package had a funding mechanism that would have dedicated nearly $7 million dollars to mental health and addiction treatment in Oregon.

Just as recently as this morning, the Eugene Register-Guard Editorial Board opined that a better way to fund Medicaid would have been to have a bipartisan package that both parties could solidly support.

Unfortunately, the hunger for new taxes and Democrats' resistance to accountability prevailed once again in Salem. It was a missed opportunity for more thoughtful, creative and bipartisan lawmaking that would have protected health care for hundreds of thousands of Oregonians while making government work better and smarter in the process, said Representative Knute Buehler (R-Bend).

House Bills 2391 and 3398 are now headed to Governor Browns desk for her signature. The bills are on an expedited path for becoming enrolled into law in order to guarantee insurance companies a $50 million windfall from the expiring reinsurance program. Both bills allow that program to continue if signed into law by June 30, 2017.

Link:

Oregon lawmakers send health care tax to governor - KTVZ

Rare genetic variants found to increase risk for Tourette syndrome – Medical Xpress

Posted on by

June 21, 2017

An international research team led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) - along with their facilitating partner the Tourette Association of America - has identified rare mutations in two genes that markedly increase the risk for Tourette syndrome (TS), a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by chronic involuntary motor and vocal tics. The report in the June 21 issue of Neuron also describes finding an overall increase in the presence of large, rare, risk-associated copy-number variants - areas of the genome that are either duplicated or deleted - in TS patients, many being observed in just a single patient.

"TS has long been considered a model disorder to study the parts of the brain that function at the intersection of our traditional concepts of neurology and psychiatry," says Jeremiah Scharf, MD, PhD, of the Psychiatric & Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit in the MGH Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology and the Center for Genomic Medicine , co-senior author of the report. "These first two definitive genes for TS give us strong footholds in our efforts to understand the biology of this disease, and future studies of how these genes work both in health and disease may lead to discoveries that are more broadly relevant to neuropsychiatric disorders in general."

Co-senior author Giovanni Coppola, MD - a professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at UCLA and member of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior - adds, "Identifying genes associated with Tourette syndrome is a first, key step in understanding their role in the disease process and ultimately in pointing the field toward possible therapeutic strategies. Often patients agree to be involved in genetic studies with uncertainty about the likelihood of results, and often these projects take years to complete. We hope that findings like this will encourage more people to participate in genetic studies."

Patients with TS often have other neurodevelopmental conditions like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder or obsessive compulsive disorder, along with increased risk for mood and anxiety disorders. Evidence from previous studies, including the high risk of TS in children of individuals with the disorder, points to genetic risk factors as the main cause of the disorder; but that risk appears to be very complex, involving interactions between different genes in different individuals. Several small studies have identified structural variants in several neurodevelopmental genes that appear to contribute to TS risk, but none of them met the statistical threshold of genome-wide significance.

The current study was designed to assess the impact of rare copy-number variants in more than 6,500 individuals - around 2,400 patients with TS and almost 4,100 unaffected controls - analyzing data collected by the Tourette Syndrome Association International Consortium for Genetics (TSAICG) and the Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome GWAS Replication Initiative. The results identified an overall increase in large copy-number variants - most of them over 1 Mb in size - among participants with TS, with each variant primarily occurring in just one individual. The two sites meeting genome-wide significance involved deletions in a portion of NRXN1 - a gene known to have a role in the development of the synapses that transmit signals between neurons - and duplications within CNTN6 - which also has a role in the development of neuronal connections, particularly in areas involved in movement control.

While these gene variants were present in 1 percent of individuals affected with TS in this study, the investigators note that finding these genes is a key starting point towards understanding the neurologic pathways that contribute to TS in a broader group of patients. Coppola says, "We will continue to screen large cohorts to identify additional rare events; and we also plan to study cells from patients with these rare variants, to understand more precisely how they are involved in the disease process."

Scharf, an assistant professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, adds, "Even more importantly, identifying additional genes will give us additional points on the map to let us focus in on exactly which cells in the brain are not functioning correctly at which specific times in brain development. That will open up a whole range of biological studies that could lead to new targets for treatment."

John Miller, president and CEO of the Tourette Association of America, which provided support for this study, says, "Pinpointing the cause of Tourette Syndrome has been a primary research goal of the Tourette Association of America since it began more than 45 years ago. Identifying these two genetic markers is an enormous step forward, and we are absolutely thrilled to reach this medical milestone. The TAA is proud to have been instrumental in bringing these partners together for such an important discovery and of the real progress it means for individuals with Tourette."

Explore further: First clear-cut risk genes for Tourette disorder revealed

More information: Neuron (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2017.06.010

Tourette disorder (also known as Tourette syndrome) afflicts as many as one person in a hundred worldwide with potentially disabling symptoms including involuntary motor and vocal tics. However, researchers have so far failed ...

Two papers that will appear in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, both receiving advance online release, may help identify gene variants that contribute to the risks of developing obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or Tourette ...

Yale scientists produced increased grooming behavior in mice that may model tics in Tourette syndrome and discovered these behaviors vanish when histaminea neurotransmitter most commonly associated with allergiesis ...

An international research consortium led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the University of Chicago has answered several questions about the genetic background of obsessive-compulsive disorder ...

A new study of Tourette syndrome (TS) led by researchers from UC San Francisco and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has found that nearly 86 percent of patients who seek treatment for TS will be diagnosed with a second ...

Many of the genetic variations that increase risk for schizophrenia are rare, making it difficult to study their role in the disease. To overcome this, the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, an international team led by Jonathan ...

Scientists at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute (BSI) in Japan have linked early serotonin deficiency to several symptoms that occur in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Published in Science Advances, the study examined serotonin ...

For most people having a good memory means being able to remember more information clearly for long periods of time. For neuroscientists too, the inability to remember was long believed to represent a failure of the brain's ...

Although "multitasking" is a popular buzzword, research shows that only 2% of the population actually multitasks efficiently. Most of us just shift back and forth between different tasks, a process that requires our brains ...

While concussion awareness has improved over the past decade, understanding the nuances of these sports injuries, their severity, symptoms, and treatment, is still a work in progress. In the June 21 issue of Neuron, UCLA ...

The optic nerve is vital for visiondamage to this critical structure can lead to severe and irreversible loss of vision. Fengfeng Bei, PhD, a principal investigator in the Department of Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women's ...

People who suffer a stroke often undergo a brain scan at the hospital, allowing doctors to determine the location and extent of the damage. Researchers who study the effects of strokes would love to be able to analyze these ...

Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more

Excerpt from:

Rare genetic variants found to increase risk for Tourette syndrome - Medical Xpress

The Unexpected Way Genes Can Double Heart Disease Risk – TIME

Posted on by

Its common to think of cancer as a disease driven by the buildup of mutations in the DNA of cells. Everything from pollutants to cigarettes to exposure to everyday chemicals can alter genes, and continued exposure over a lifetime can lead to a critical mass of mutations.

Now, researchers say the same process may be at work in heart disease. In a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Sekar Kathiresan, from the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, and Dr. Benjamin Ebert from Brigham and Womens Hospital and their colleagues found a gene that builds up mutations over a lifetime and can double the risk of heart events.

MORE: Single Gene Responsible for Group of Heart Disease Risk Factors

While there are genes associated with greater heart disease risk, most of them are inherited. The new mutations linked to heart problems are among the first to be acquired, or picked up over a lifetime. The mutations develop among a group of blood cells known as stem cells, which divide throughout a person's lifetime to replenish the supply of blood cells. The genetic changes the researchers found are also linked to a higher risk of developing blood cancer, but they seem to have a stronger effect on heart disease than cancer.

This is a totally different type of risk factor than hypertension or hypercholestserolemia [high blood cholesterol] or smoking, says Kathiresan. And since its a totally different risk factor that works through a different mechanism, it may lead to new treatment opportunities very different from the ones we have for heart disease at present.

Kathiresan and his team actually found the gene several years ago when they linked it to a 10-fold higher risk of developing blood cancers. Although the mutations increased cancer risk, the cancers were still relatively rare, but people who had them had a 40% higher risk of dying of other causes. Among those was heart disease. In the new paper, the researchers looked at four different populations of nearly 8,000 people who had their genomes sequenced. Even among younger people, those with the mutationscalled clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential, or CHIPshowed a higher rate of heart disease.

We were fully expecting not to find anything here, says Kathiresan. But the odds of having an early heart attack are four-fold higher among younger people with CHIP mutations.

MORE: This New Kind of Stem Cell May Revolutionize How We Treat Diseases

Whats significant about the CHIP mutations are that they arent inherited. They are accumulated over time, from exposures to all sorts of things that can damage DNA. Among people over 70, 10% of people have these mutations, says Kathiresan. Whether they develop heart problems (or cancer) depends on how many of the mutated cells are circulating in the blood. The load of mutations increases over time," Kathiresan says. "The higher the load, the more the risk of heart disease.

Fortunately, there are ways to detect the mutated cells. Currently available blood tests for blood cancers can easily keep track of the volume of mutated cells, which means that monitoring the CHIP mutations could be a new way to identify people at higher risk of having heart problems, keep track of their risk and guide treatments.

When the researchers introduced the CHIP mutations into mice, they learned more about how a cancer-causing gene can contribute to heart disease. It appears that the CHIP mutations cause atherosclerotic plaques in the blood vessels, which contributes inflammation and hardening of the arteries that can trigger heart attacks.

There's still a lot to learn. As exciting as the findings are, its still too early to add CHIP testing to routine blood screening to identify people at higher risk of having heart problems. And because CHIP contributes to heart disease in a new way, its possible that the mechanisms to control CHIP-related heart events have nothing to do with cholesterol, exercise and blood pressure. The mouse work suggests that the path to heart disease is something different from what we have been working on so far, says Kathiresan.

More work needs to be done to determine if there are ways to counteract the effect of the mutation on plaques or control the rate at which the mutations build up in these cells. Currently there isnt a drug thats safe enough or efficacious enough to treat people with, says Ebert. But its a very active area of research to identify interventions that can decrease the size of the mutated cell population or potentially eliminate them.

See the rest here:

The Unexpected Way Genes Can Double Heart Disease Risk - TIME

The power of a billion: India’s genomics revolution – BBC News

Posted on by

BBC News
The power of a billion: India's genomics revolution
BBC News
At the same time, there's a growing interest in developing new, more effective therapies tailored to an individual's genetic makeup - an idea known as precision or personalised medicine. Missing out on mapping worldwide genetic diversity is a big ...

and more »

More here:

The power of a billion: India's genomics revolution - BBC News

UM medical school scientists studying bacteria found in subway systems – Baltimore Sun

Posted on by

Scores of bacteria live on the many surfaces of the Baltimore-area subway and light rail systems, and three University of Maryland School of Medicine scientists set out Wednesday to learn more about the microscopic organisms found there.

Emmanuel F. Mongodin, Lynn M. Schriml and Lauren Hill, microbe researchers at the medical school's Institute for Genome Sciences, began their mission at the Charles Center Metro stop in downtown Baltimore.

There they and a group of student volunteers used synthetic swabs to wipe handrails, ticket kiosks and floors to collect samples of bacteria. They placed the swabs in tubes that will be sent to a New York lab for DNA and RNA sequencing and analysis.

The research is part of a global project started last year by Weill Cornell Medicine in New York to collect and catalogue bacteria in public transportation systems around the world. Researchers descended on more than 50 cities Wednesday swabbing for samples.

The information will be used to develop a giant genetic map, or microbiome, that details the community of microorganisms that live on the surfaces of transportation hubs.

That information could be used to aid in new drug discoveries and influence the way transportation systems of the future are built. It will also allow scientists to better study antimicrobial resistance and potentially make cities safer, the researchers said.

Kenneth K. Lam / Baltimore Sun

"We really want to understand how these microbes interact and move around," Schriml said.

Cornell first did testing for bacteria in subways in New York two years ago and expanded globally last year.

Baltimore had a small pilot program last year to figure out logistics and protocols. This year, they did a full-scale collection at all 14 Metro subway stations and a handful of light rail stations.

A human body contains about 50 trillion to100 trillion bacterial cells, said Dr. Christopher Mason, principal investigator on the global project. The number on subway systems, by comparison, "is almost certainly in the 100s of trillions," he said

Researchers discovered lots of food bacteria. One sample included a large amount of chickpeas and cucumber. Researchers guessed that people were eating falafel. "A huge amount of it," Mason said.

In New York, scientists found fish and other bacteria related to the ocean in one station that had flooded during Hurricane Sandy. They were also able to learn the ancestry of people who used the stations based on the human DNA left behind. An area of North Harlem in New York had a strong mix of African-American and Hispanic genes.

Riders looked perplexed as the University of Maryland scientists wearing green rubber gloves swirled their swabs on various parts of the subway.

"I would hate to see what's on this seat," said 33-year-old Melissa Meissinger, who was riding the subway from Johns Hopkins Hospital.

"Ewww, scary!" said Curtis Rice, a 56-year-old retiree who was coming into the Charles Center station.

The scientists said that is a common reaction. But the research from other subways systems shows that most of the bacteria are actually good and not harmful to humans. Harmful bacteria are usually found in trace amounts or disappear quickly.

"There's nothing nasty in the subways," Schriml said. "They're clean. They're cleaner than bathrooms."

Said Cornell's Mason: "Most people have relatively healthy skin microbiome, and that is what they leave behind."

Researcher say the project should serve as a lesson to people that exposure to bacteria helps build up immune systems.

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh was on hand Wednesday to try her hand at swabbing. She said that although the subways are cleaned regularly, it's easy to see how people might think they are dirty because the systems handle so many people.

"We have to learn not to be such germaphobes and realize that some bacteria is good for us," she said.

The Maryland researchers plan to publish a report on their findings in the next few months.

Rice is looking forward to the results. Although he still thinks subways are dirty, he believes his body has built up resistance to all that bacteria.

"I take public transportation all the time, and I never get sick," he said.

amcdaniels@baltsun.com

Twitter.com/ankwalker

Read the original post:

UM medical school scientists studying bacteria found in subway systems - Baltimore Sun

Fixing How FDA Regulates Diagnostic Lab Tests – Investor’s Business Daily

Posted on by

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced its intention to begin to regulate a class of medical laboratory tests called laboratory developed tests (LDTs). But before it embarks on new regulatory initiatives, the FDA should fix the significant deficiencies in its oversight of the laboratory tests that are already within its jurisdiction.

Precision medicine is often defined as providing "the right drug, for the right patient, at the right dose, at the right time." That typically means performing genetic analysis on a patient's blood or a tumor, and linking therapy to the identified genetic profile. Diagnostic laboratory tests are at the center of this process.

In the U.S., diagnostic laboratory tests are either LDTs or in vitro diagnostic test kits (IVDs). IVDs, manufactured and sold to laboratories, are regulated by the FDA. LDTs, on the other hand, are developed and performed within laboratories by skilled professionals for use with their own patients. They are overseen directly by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments program; by accrediting agencies like the College of American Pathologists; or by individual states.

But now the FDA plans to directly regulate LDTs. That would be a mistake.

The current regulatory framework has ushered in bona fide medical miracles through the creation of LDTs for well over 1,000 genetic and genomic biomarkers.

Consider chronic myelogenous leukemia, a once deadly form of blood cancer. LDTs for this disease have helped many patients achieve a life expectancy approaching that of the general population and until last year, there was no IVD test available for it.

LDTs have also played a profound role in turning AIDS into a manageable chronic condition, and in converting acute promyelocytic leukemia, which was historically the most malignant human leukemia, into the most curable one.

They have spared thousands of patients with colon cancer the side effects of expensive medications from which they are unlikely to have benefited, and have allowed thousands of women cured of early stage breast cancer to avoid noxious and unnecessary chemotherapy. These examples only scratch the surface.

What about IVDs? The FDA approval process for these tests is lengthy and expensive. Obtaining approval for updates that keep tests current with rapidly advancing medical and scientific knowledge can be difficult and costly. Unsurprisingly, there are few genetic and genomic IVDs.

Consider the example of next generation sequencing (NGS), a revolutionary new technology that allows physicians to examine thousands of genes at high resolution with great accuracy. NGS-based LDTs are now the tests of choice for the diagnosis of inherited disorders and the detection of mutations used to select therapy in cancer patients.

This is the essence of precision medicine. Yet there still are no FDA-approved NGS oncology tests and only one FDA-sanctioned NGS genetic test. This latter test examines only a single gene.

There are no data showing systematic harms from LDTs, and some evidence of equivalent or superior performance compared to IVDs. LDTs provide safe, useful and analytically sound tests that can be quickly modified in response to advances in medical understanding. Moreover, many LDTs are legally available in Europe and elsewhere in the world. In contrast, the FDA review process can make IVDs less functional, less user-friendly and less safe.

What should the FDA do?

First, rather than expanding its reach, the agency should work to repair the deficiencies in its current oversight of IVDs. The agency should focus on whether IVDs analytically perform as the vendors say they do, with minimal clinical review.

Second, the FDA should examine products for operational safety issues.

Finally, the agency should stop requiring modifications to IVDs that make them more difficult to use.

In short, the FDA should focus on the mechanics of diagnostic tests and leave the medicine to the doctors. By repairing the broken regulatory system for IVDs, the FDA will greatly increase the available choices for laboratories and the number of high-quality tests available for patients.

See original here:

Fixing How FDA Regulates Diagnostic Lab Tests - Investor's Business Daily

Men With This Genetic Mutation May Live 10 Years Longer – Vital Updates

Posted on by

Males with a singular genetic mutation are likely to live about 10 years longer than their peers without the change, shows a new study appearing in the journal Science Advances.

Researchers have linked a mutation in the growth hormone receptor (GHR) gene to longer life in a number of populations, ranging from Ashkenazi Jews to Pennsylvania Amish.

Our study provides the first consistent evidence linking the GHR to human longevity, report the study authors from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and other institutions.

The authors believe that their findings may support interventions on a genetic level that can impact the human lifespan.

These results may have implications in devising precision medicine strategies, such as GH-related interventional therapies in the elderly, the authors write.

The new findings come as one of the first clear associations between a populations genetic makeup and overall lifespan. Much previous work on population-level DNA has come up empty.

Its been a real disappointment, Nir Barzilai, a geneticist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine who led the current study, told the New York Times.

Yet researchers have begun to take cues from approachable physical evidence, rather than first burrowing deep into the genome to try to find the magical gene thats tied to a longer life.

Related:Running May Increase Life Expectancy

If you look at dogs, flies, mice, whatever it is, smaller lives longer, Gil Atzmon, a geneticist at the University of Haifa in Israel, explained to the New York Times.

That observation has led researchers to investigate growth hormone, a substance created in the brain that is directly tied to human growth and size. At a microscopic level, growth hormone attaches to cell molecules via the growth hormone receptor, and this connection guides the ability of the body to keep or stop growing.

The next step in comparing a persons size to longevity took the researchers on a course through history.

The researchers decided to investigate a specific population Ashkenazi Jews (AJ), whose history gave the researchers something of a clean slate from which to work.

To a large extent, this population exhibits both cultural and genetic homogeneity. For these reasons, the AJ population has been successfully used in the discovery of many disease-associated genes, report the study authors.

Among this population, most of whom were born or migrated to the United States in the years preceding World War II, the link between the GHR gene and longevity held true the genetic mutation was present in about 12 percent of men who were over the age of 100. Among those 70 years old, the rate of the GHR mutation was about three times less.

When observing data from an Amish population in Pennsylvania and a group of notably long-living people in France, the researchers found the same genetic trends the GHR mutation was again linked to longevity.

Although numerous genes have been shown to influence longevity, certain genes appear to affect life span across diverse organisms, conclude the researchers, who believe that plausible therapies are not too far off.

Richard Scott is a health care reporter focusing on health policy and public health. Richard keeps tabs on national health trends from his Philadelphia location and is an active member of the Association of Health Care Journalists.

Follow this link:

Men With This Genetic Mutation May Live 10 Years Longer - Vital Updates

$10 million DNA sequencing effort aims to shed light on lung diseases – Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis

Posted on by

Visit the News Hub

Research is part of national project to understand genetic roots of heart, lung, blood, sleep disorders

A new DNA sequencing project aims to add the genetic data of people from underrepresented groups so that national genomic databases more closely reflect the diversity of the U.S. population.

Washington Universitys McDonnell Genome Institute has received $10 million from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to sequence the DNA of people from diverse ethnic backgrounds, in an effort to identify the genetic roots of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and other lung disorders.

The research is part of a national project to understand the genetics underlying heart, lung, blood and sleep disorders, including high blood pressure, obesity, sleep apnea, stroke, asthma, COPD, hemophilia, sickle cell disease and pulmonary embolism.

Most other large genome sequencing projects have focused on Europeans and Caucasians, said principal investigator Susan K. Dutcher, PhD, a professor of genetics and the interim director of the McDonnell Genome Institute at Washington University School of Medicine. With this program, we are including many people with other racial and ethnic backgrounds. Increasing the diversity of the groups being sequenced is important in understanding how genetic variations influence disease risk.

The work is part of the NHLBIs TOPMed program, a national initiative to sequence and analyze the complete DNA or whole genomes of patients participating in a number of large U.S.-based clinical trials. The 62,000 participants in the current program are drawn from more than 30 studies, including well-known and long-running studies, such as the Womens Health Initiative and the Framingham Heart Study.

The clinical trials included in the analysis were chosen to help reduce disparities in sequencing efforts, adding the genetic data of people from underrepresented groups so that national genomic databases more closely reflect the diversity of the U.S. population. Half the participants in the current program are of European descent; 30 percent are of African descent; 10 percent are of Hispanic or Latino origin; eight percent are of Asian descent; and about two percent represent indigenous populations, such as Pacific Islanders.

Its also important that the total number of patients in the project is huge, Dutcher said. Early phases of TOPMed have already sequenced the genomes of 85,000 people. This year, for Washington Universitys portion of the project, were sequencing the genomes of about 6,500 patients with lung diseases, primarily COPD and interstitial pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive scarring of lung tissue with variable causes, including autoimmunity.

The goal of such large genomic studies is to understand how differences in DNA contribute to disease risk. Such investigations may identify variations in genes that increase a persons risk of developing a particular disease. Conversely, scientists may find variations that are somehow protective, decreasing the risk of a particular disorder. To make these comparisons, researchers require very large sample sizes so they can analyze DNA sequences in the context of the course of the patients diseases and in comparison with healthy individuals.

In addition to the McDonnell Genome Institute at Washington University, the other genome sequencing centers involved in the program include the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Illumina, Macrogen, the New York Genome Center and Northwest Genomics Center.

Washington University School of Medicines 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient-care institutions in the nation, currently ranked seventh in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

See the article here:

$10 million DNA sequencing effort aims to shed light on lung diseases - Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis

Protesters, police clash at conference – Sacramento Bee

Posted on by

Sacramento Bee
Protesters, police clash at conference
Sacramento Bee
Protesters contend the meeting is not about ending hunger, but rather is a stage for the United States to push its agenda on other countries, an agenda that promotes big-business interests and technology, specifically the genetic engineering of crops ...

Read the original:

Protesters, police clash at conference - Sacramento Bee

Your coffee could get worse and more expensive thanks to climate change – SFGate

Posted on by

Photo: Kitjanat Burinram / EyeEm / Getty Images

Kitjanat Burinram / EyeEm / Getty Images

Kitjanat Burinram / EyeEm / Getty Images

10. Fresh Brew Coffee882 Bush St.

10. Fresh Brew Coffee882 Bush St.

6 Monterey Blvd.

6 Monterey Blvd.

2701 Leavenworth St.

2701 Leavenworth St.

442 Hyde St.

442 Hyde St.

1035 Fillmore St.

1035 Fillmore St.

3139 Mission St.

3139 Mission St.

1401 Sixth Ave.

1401 Sixth Ave.

3414 22nd St.

3414 22nd St.

2155 Bayshore Blvd.

2155 Bayshore Blvd.

Your coffee could get worse and more expensive thanks to climate change

Coffee drinkers may be in for a bleak future, thanks to climate change.

A new study published in the academic journal Nature Plants by researchers from the University of Nottingham,Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, the Royal Botanical Gardens, and other institutions has found that the cost of coffee is likely about to go up, and the quality is about to nosedive.

In short, the issue is that the Earth is getting too hot. As researchers found, more than half of the land wherein coffee crops grow in Ethiopia will be no longer agriculturally viable due to a longer dry season, unpredictable rainfall, and higher-than-usual temperatures.

"Historical climate data shows that the mean annual temperature of Ethiopia has increased by 1.3 degrees Celsius (roughly 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) between 1960 and 2006," the study reads.

What's worse, as Popular Science reports, this is already a similar issue in other coffee-growing areas of the world, including Colombia, Indonesia, and Brazil.

There's no easy solution to a complex problem, and though the study points out "cost-effective agronomy" options, it appears that coffee drinkers will likely need to shell out more for their beloved beverage in the future.

One such option put forth by the study is to move crops up higher in altitude, to lower temperatures. That's a possibility, but it's an expensive endeavor, and it will almost certainly change the taste of the coffee derived from the terroir of the soil we're used to. Another option, as Pop Sci points out, is to consider genetic engineering.

No matter what, it seems the cost will rise for consumers that is, if nothing changes.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.

See the original post here:

Your coffee could get worse and more expensive thanks to climate change - SFGate