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India Today
02-05-2025
- Health
- India Today
Could childhood bacteria be driving colon cancer in millennials?
Childhood exposure to a bacterial toxin in the colon may be triggering the increase in colorectal cancer cases among younger patients, a new study considered a disease of older adults, colorectal cancer is now on the rise among young people in at least 27 countries. Its incidence in adults under 50 has roughly doubled every decade for the past 20 for clues as to why, the researchers analyzed genes of 981 colorectal cancer tumors from patients with varying colorectal cancer risk levels who had early- or late-onset disease in 11 countries. DNA mutations in colon cells that are known to be caused by a toxin produced by Escherichia coli, called colibactin, were 3.3 times more common in adults who developed colon cancer before age 40 than in those diagnosed after age patterns of mutations are thought to arise when children are exposed to colibactin before age 10, researchers reported in mutation patterns were particularly prevalent in countries with a high incidence of early-onset cases.'If someone acquires one of these... mutations by the time they're 10 years old, they could be decades ahead of schedule for developing colorectal cancer, getting it at age 40 instead of 60,' study leader Ludmil Alexandrov of UC San Diego said in a every environmental factor or behavior we study leaves a mark on our genome,' said Alexandrov. 'But we've found that colibactin is one of those that can. In this case, its genetic imprint appears to be strongly associated with colorectal cancers in young adults.'The researchers have found other mutational signatures in colorectal cancers from specific countries, particularly Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Russia and suggests that local environmental exposures may also contribute to cancer risk, they said.'It's possible that different countries have different unknown causes,' study co-author Marcos Diaz-Gay of the Spanish National Cancer Research Center in Madrid said in a statement.'That could open up the potential for targeted, region-specific prevention strategies.'
BBC News
29-01-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Scientists trial implant to patch up the heart
Damaged hearts could be mended using small "patches" of heart muscle grown in the lab, say scientists writing in technology could give new hope to millions of people with advanced heart failure whose treatment options are currently limited, the German researchers on early results of a small trial in humans and promising tests in monkeys, the patches appear to support the pumping of the heart the long-term potential of the treatment is as yet unknown, with a clinical trial in 15 patients still ongoing. The patches are grown from another person's stem cells - special cells which can be turned into any number of different cell types - and made into heart muscle lab-grown cardiac tissue can then be grafted on to beating hearts to help them is like "implanting young muscle", says study author Ingo Kutschka, from University Medical Center Goettingen.A small incision is made in the chest and the 3.5in (9cm) by 1.5in patch is stitched on to the surface of the heart."It's tricky because the tissues are floppy, and you have to take care to make it stay in shape," he says. There have been encouraging results in trials of the patches on primates and on one human 46-year-old woman had a heart attack in 2016, then developed heart failure which got steadily worse. In 2021, after all possible treatments had been tried, she chose to have a heart researchers say her condition was stable and she experienced no side effects from the implant, before having a heart transplant three months author Prof Wolfram-Hubertus Zimmermann said her case showed that new muscle can be added to failing hearts "without safety concerns, such as tumours and arrhythmia [irregular heart rhythms]".The patches of engineered heart muscle have to survive in the patient and be nurtured over several months, so are not useful for people who need emergency care, the researchers the female patient, the patch was able to "adapt, grow, mature and start to support the failing heart," says Prof trials on monkeys, the research team found the patches were good at contracting, enhancing and thickening the heart wall, which improved the pumping of the whole heart. Heart failure is the leading cause of death worldwide, but there are few effective ways of fixing the organ once it is is a condition that makes even simple daily tasks, like climbing the stairs or getting dressed, devices can be costly and come with complications, and a heart transplant - although the best solution - is rarely an Zimmermann says: "99% of patients with heart failure won't receive a new heart."The researchers have more to learn from the current human trial and plan a long-term follow-up of 15 patients to find out more about the health of those living with the patches for James Leiper, director of research at the British Heart Foundation charity, said the early results were "promising", but trials in a larger number of patients were needed "to determine the effectiveness of the heart patch in humans"."If these are positive, it could help to usher in a new era of heart failure treatment," he said. Previous attempts to inject heart muscle cells into people's failing hearts had mixed results."Off the shelf" heart patches made from millions of human stem cells and grown into working heart muscle are seen to be a less dangerous option, although patients would need to take strong drugs to prevent their bodies rejecting the patient's own stem cells to develop heart tissue has been attempted, but this process takes a very long time and previous trials using these grafts were not encouraging.
