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Medscape
15-05-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Can Remote Monitoring Reduce Cancer Hospitalizations?
Remote symptom monitoring (RSM) using electronic patient-reported outcomes reduced hospitalizations by 19% at 3 months and 13% at 6 months in patients with cancer receiving systemic treatment. Implementation of RSM showed consistent benefits across diverse patient populations, including Black patients and those in rural or disadvantaged areas. METHODOLOGY: Previous randomized clinical trials demonstrated that RSM improved symptom burden, quality of life, and time of receiving treatment while reducing healthcare utilization. Despite such successful trials, implementation of electronic patient-reported outcomes in routine care has been limited, with few practices achieving successful integration. This new nonrandomized controlled trial with a hybrid type 2 implementation-effectiveness design included 1392 patients with cancer receiving RSM from 2021 to 2024, who were compared with 4557 historical controls from 2017 to 2021 at two Alabama-based academic institutions. Patients receiving chemotherapy, targeted therapy, or immunotherapy were enrolled in RSM, with a median age of 61 years, 67% women, 27% Black patients, and 19% from rural areas. Analysis focused on healthcare utilization outcomes at 3 and 6 months after RSM enrollment, including intensive care unit admissions, hospitalizations, and emergency department visits. Researchers used adjusted modified Poisson models to estimate relative risk and 95% CI of healthcare utilization, with additional stratified analyses by patient race, residence, neighborhood deprivation, insurance type, and comorbid conditions. TAKEAWAY: Hospitalizations among RSM patients were significantly lower than controls at both 3 months (relative risk [RR], 0.81; 95% CI, 0.73-0.91) and 6 months (RR, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.80-0.96). Emergency department visits showed no significant differences between groups at 3 months (RR, 1.02; 95% CI, 0.89-1.16) and 6 months (RR, 1.03; 95% CI, 0.92-1.15). Intensive care unit admissions demonstrated no significant differences between RSM and control populations at 3 months (RR, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.59-1.13) and 6 months (RR, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.65-1.06). According to the researchers, similar patterns in relative risk were observed across patient subgroups, including those stratified by race, rurality, and socioeconomic status. IN PRACTICE: 'In this nonrandomized controlled trial, RSM implementation was associated with reduced risk of hospitalizations for patients with cancer, supporting the need to expand implementation nationally…,' wrote the authors of the study. 'Findings were observed in a diverse patient population, supporting broad applicability and highlighting the potential for this [Enhancing Oncology Model-required] practice transformation activity to impact value in cancer care delivery.' SOURCE: The study was led by Gabrielle B. Rocque, MD, MSPH, University of Alabama at Birmingham. It was published online on May 13 in JAMA Network Open . LIMITATIONS: According to the authors, not all eligible patients participated in the RSM program due to incomplete roll-out and patient declination, potentially introducing selection bias. The study population included few Hispanic patients and other subpopulations who may have unique language and cultural needs. Additionally, the analysis was limited to two academic centers and may not fully represent experiences in community practice settings. The researchers noted that electronic medical record–based analyses were limited in capturing utilization outside the participating centers, and outcomes for patients who declined or had incomplete survey participation were not assessed. DISCLOSURES: The study was supported by grant No. IR01NR019058 from the National Institute of Nursing Research. Rocque disclosed receiving grants from Pfizer and Daiichi Sankyo and personal fees from Gilead and being employed by Atlas Oncology Partners, outside the submitted work. Additional disclosures are noted in the original article.
CNA
26-04-2025
- Health
- CNA
How healthy is asparagus? Here's how this nutrient-dense vegetable benefits your body
Proper asparagus-eating etiquette has long been a subject of debate: Should you cut the treelike spears with a fork and knife, or are they an acceptable finger food? When it comes to asparagus's nutritional value, though, there's little dispute. Here are its most notable health attributes, plus fresh ways to prepare it. IT'S RICH IN PREBIOTICS Asparagus contains a type of prebiotic fiber called inulin, said Elizabeth Klingbeil, a dietitian and assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Your stomach can't break down inulin, she said, so it passes into your intestines undigested. Once there, the inulin helps nourish the good bacteria that make up your gut microbiome. When these good bacteria feed off the inulin in asparagus and other fiber-rich foods, they produce compounds that play a role in preventing inflammation in your intestines, Dr Klingbeil said. Over time, excess inflammation can increase your risk of chronic gastrointestinal diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer. Nourishing gut bacteria with prebiotic fibre may have benefits beyond your digestive system, said Douglas Moellering, an associate professor of nutrition sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Early research suggests a healthy gut microbiome could improve your brain function, stress levels and mood through a complex network called the gut-brain axis. Asparagus is a good source of two antioxidants called lutein and zeaxanthin, which help support the part of your eye's retina called the macula. A healthy macula helps you see sharp details and colours directly in front of you, said Richard van Breemen, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Oregon State University. When the cells in your macula break down, which can happen as you age, your vision can begin to blur. This condition, called age-related macular degeneration, affects nearly 13 percent of Americans 40 and over. (In severe cases, you can lose your eyesight entirely.) And while eating lutein and zeaxanthin-rich foods won't stave off eye disease altogether, Drvan Breemen said it may help. IT'S A GOOD SOURCE OF VITAMIN K Six spears of asparagus contain around 40 micrograms of Vitamin K – a respectable start to the 90 to 120 micrograms recommended daily. When you cut yourself, certain proteins help your blood coagulate to stop the bleeding, said Vanessa da Silva, a dietitian and diabetes educator at Sarver Heart Center at the University of Arizona. These proteins, called clotting factors, need Vitamin K to function. IS THERE A "HEALTHIEST" WAY TO PREPARE ASPARAGUS? Asparagus is a nutritious addition to your diet regardless of how you prepare it, said Nancy E Moran, an associate professor of paediatrics in the nutrition division at Baylor College of Medicine. But if you want to maximise the bioavailability of asparagus's vitamins and minerals (in other words, how easily your body can access them), Dr Klingbeil said it's best to steam or roast the spears. The chemical structures that make up asparagus's nutrients are 'folded up tightly,' she said. Heat from cooking can loosen up these folds so your body can readily use the compounds. Experts don't typically recommend boiling asparagus, since some vitamins can leach out into the water. You might occasionally find purple or white asparagus beside the green stalks at the market. The colours reflect a slightly different makeup of antioxidants, but experts agree they're all comparably nutritious. And by the way: 'There's nothing wrong with you' if you notice your urine has an unpleasant odour after you eat asparagus, Dr da Silva said. Certain compounds in asparagus contain the chemical sulfur, which is known for its pungent scent. When your body breaks down these compounds, some of that sulphur can end up in your urine. As for the etiquette debate, Dr Moran said she likes to cut her asparagus with a fork and knife – but casts no judgement on picker-uppers. 'The important thing is that you're eating your vegetables,' she said.
Business Journals
22-04-2025
- Health
- Business Journals
Killion family gives UAB $10M for neurodegenerative disease research
By submitting your information you are agreeing to our Privacy Policy and User Agreement . The gift focuses on neurodegenerative disease research, which hits close to home for the local family. A prominent Birmingham family has donated millions to the University of Alabama at Birmingham to support ongoing research and education into several diseases. The Killion family gifted $10 million to UAB to expand research into Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Huntington's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The funding also will enable the creation of the Wayne Killion Endowment at the Center for Neurodegeneration and Experimental Therapeutics at the UAB Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine. UAB will rename the center the Killion Center for Neurodegeneration and Experimental Therapeutics. It was founded in 2007 to develop ideas from UAB laboratories into novel human therapies for patients with neurodegenerative diseases. GET TO KNOW YOUR CITY Find Local Events Near You Connect with a community of local professionals. Explore All Events The gift was presented to honor three generations of Killions who suffered from various neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. David Standaert, the John N. Whitaker Professor and chair of the UAB Department of Neurology, founding director of the center and expert in Parkinson's disease, said the gift will have a permanent impact on research into these types of diseases. 'It's going to fuel both research and education by training future generations of scientists, which is very important,' Standaert said. 'In some ways, training lasts longer than any single research project. One research project hopefully moves us toward progress. But training a scientist will have a 40- or 50-year impact.' Today, the Killion Center is led by Dr. Erik Roberson, who holds the Rebecca Gale–Heersink Endowed Chair and specializes in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia, while Standaert continues to play an active role. Currently, the center employs 19 principal investigators who are training around 30 doctoral students. According to Roberson, the number of scientists has steadily grown, and this gift will help continue that progress and keep the center on the cutting edge of the field. Sandy Killion attributes the ability to give this gift to UAB to her in-laws, Christine and Wayne Killion Sr. Her father-in-law was president and an owner of industrial insulation company Shook & Fletcher for many years. The company has expanded to become Shook & Fletcher Services, which has numerous industrial contractor affiliates, including Vulcan Industrial Contractors, Vesta Industrial Contractors and Shook & Fletcher Supply. Today, the companies are led by Sandy and her sons David and Cooper Killion. Her father-in-law suffered from Alzheimer's and died in 2013. Her husband, Dr. Wayne Killion Jr., was a local physician and later took over the family business from his father as president and CEO. He was diagnosed in 2019 with corticobasal degeneration and passed away in 2022. Before Wayne Jr.'s death, their son Wayne Killion III was diagnosed with ALS and passed away in 2024, cutting short a legal career. During both of their lifetimes, the family established separate endowed funds at UAB to support memory disorders and behavioral neurology under Dr. David Geldmacher and ALS research under Dr. Peter King. The $10 million gift includes these funds. 'While my husband was in clinical care, he understood that the research piece was so important,' Sandy Killion said. 'With what we are facing with these diseases, our family wants to do everything possible to support the immense need for research.'
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Some Scientists Say Our Cells May Be Conscious
The biological cycle of our existence seems relatively straightforward: we're born, we live, we die. The end. But when you examine existence at the cellular level, things get a bit more interesting. You, me, and all of the 108 billion or so Homo sapiens who've ever walked the Earth have all been our own constellation of some 30 trillion cells. Each of our bodies is a collective organism of living human cells and microbes working in cooperation to create what our minds view as 'life.' However, a growing number of new studies have found that, at least for some cells, death isn't the end. Instead, it's possibly the beginning of something new and wholly unexpected. A growing snowball of research concerning a new class of AI-designed multicellular organisms known as 'xenobots' is gaining scientific attention for their apparent autonomy. In September 2024, Peter Noble, Ph.D., a microbiologist from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, along with Alex Pozhitkov, Ph.D., a bioinformatics researcher at the City of Hope cancer center, detailed this research on the website The Conversation. Xenobots are cells that form new roles beyond their original biological function—for example, using hairlike cilia for locomotion rather than transporting mucus. Because they appear to reassemble into this new form and function, the authors argue that xenobots form a kind of 'third state' of life, wherein cells can reorganize after the death of an organism to form something new. These forms likely wouldn't materialize in nature, but xenobots show that cells have a surprising ability to adapt to changes in their environment. Experiments with human cells, or 'anthrobots,' exhibit this behavior, too. 'Taken together, these findings … challenge the idea that cells and organisms can evolve only in predetermined ways,' the authors write in The Conversation. 'The third state suggests that [an organism's] death may play a significant role in how life transforms over time.' The implications for these cellular robots, or biobots, are pretty big—imagine tailor-made medicines crafted from your own tissues to avoid a dangerous immune response. But they also form a complicated picture of what a cell actually is. At least, that's what evolutionary biologist and physician William Miller thinks. He's the co-author of the 2023 book The Sentient Cell, which explores ideas found in the Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC) theory suggesting that cells retain a kind of consciousness. Miller believes that xenobots are just another example of how we don't give credit to the inherent cognitive—or even conscious—abilities of the cells that make up our bodies. 'The organism as a whole no longer responds as it had, but subsets of cells are active, decision-making, and problem-solving,' Miller says. 'So this fundamentally reconstitutes how we see the living frame … the fundamental unit of biological agency is the conscious cell.' Consciousness is a notoriously slippery term, and one whose definition can change based on fields of a study, context, or even across time. Famously, the 17th century philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and all-around smart guy René Descartes thought only the human mind was conscious (which led to some inhumane experiments). Thankfully, today science recognizes various types of consciousness throughout the animal kingdom, but when it comes to forms of life fundamentally unlike us, human biases of what can be conscious or intelligent slowly creep in. 'We, as humans, have very limited capacity and finely honed ability to see intelligence in medium-sized objects moving at medium speeds through three-dimensional space,' says Tufts University developmental and synthetic biologist Michael Levin, Ph.D., in a video exploring cellular intelligence. His lab constructed xenobots, and he says human beings are bad at recognizing intelligence when it's 'extremely small or extremely large.' For Miller, the concept of a sentient cell is a fundamental sea change in biology that challenges some Neo-Darwinian ideas like 'survival of the fittest.' Because cells must work in concert to be successful, a more accurate microbial catchphrase might be 'I serve myself best by serving others,' Miller the intelligent cell at the center of biology 'spills out an entirely new biological narrative where genes are not controlling, genes are tools. In which we understand why organisms choose to stick together in their trillions, to solve problems, [for] decision-making, mutual support, partnerships, synergies, co-dependencies, collaboration—it's not survival of the fittest,' Miller says. Many scientists aren't sold on this brave new future for biology. A 2024 letter published in the journal EMBO Reports describes CBC theory as 'merely an intellectual exercise without empirical evidence' and the authors remain equally skeptical of consciousness claims regarding xenobots or other 'third state' organisms. 'It's been known for maybe 75 years or more that cells can be induced to develop abnormally when taken out of context and cultured in vitro. This is nothing new,' University of California, Santa Cruz plant biologist Lincoln Taiz, Ph.D. and co-author of the letter, said in an email. 'When an insect herbivore secretes hormones into plant leaves, causing the leaves to form galls [abnormal growths] that serve as houses for the insect, is that a 'third state' of life?' Taiz has also tackled what he describes as 'myths' surrounding plant consciousness and co-authored a review in 2019 titled 'Plants Neither Possess nor Require Consciousness.' And for Wendy Ann Peer, Ph.D., a biologist at the University of Maryland who also served as co-author of the dissenting CBC letter, the idea of cellular consciousness simply lacks the scientific rigor necessary to be considered a theory. 'With the scientific method, there has to be a control and a hypothesis that's clearly tested,' Peer says. 'And the key for your hypothesis is that it has to be falsifiable.' When cells are taken out of context and are no longer exchanging information or signals from nearby cells, different genes can be expressed than what's normal, Peer says. Simply put, the xenobots are an advanced version of 'animal caps,' a well-known technique in developmental biology in which cells retain the ability to differentiate into other cells. While some experts say cells are more than just automatons following strict genetic orders, scientists still overwhelmingly define consciousness as pertaining to something with a nervous system and a brain capable of yielding a subjective point of view. However, despite this disagreement, both groups agree on at least one important point—understanding cells and exploring their many capabilities is a huge opportunity. Taiz compares the potential use of anthrobots in medicine to humans behaving as their own 'gall-forming insects in plants,' via altering the development of stem cells to create particular cell behaviors. Meanwhile, Miller agrees. 'Levin's work is a good example of trying to discern how to partner with cells to create living forms to help humans,' he says. 'We're learning to do what cells do, and we're going to partner with them if we're smart.' Conscious or not, it looks like cells will undoubtedly play a starring role in the unfolding future of human health. You Might Also Like Can Apple Cider Vinegar Lead to Weight Loss? Bobbi Brown Shares Her Top Face-Transforming Makeup Tips for Women Over 50
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Five things to know about Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox
On May 19, 52-year-old Walter Thomas Maddox will be inaugurated to his sixth term as mayor of Tuscaloosa. Here's five things to know about Tuscaloosa's 36th mayor, according to Maddox is a Tuscaloosa native who graduated from Central High School in 1991. He went to college at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he earned a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in public administration. He was a four-year letterman on the Blazers' football team. UAB competed in Division III for Maddox's first two seasons and Division I-AA for his last two seasons. His resume includes a stint as field director with the Alabama Education Association. He's also served as executive director of personnel for Tuscaloosa City Schools. In 2001, he was elected to represent District 6 on the Tuscaloosa City Council. In 2005, he was elected to his first term as Tuscaloosa's mayor, succeeding Al DuPont, who served six terms. Between DuPont and Maddox, Tuscaloosa has had only two mayors since 1981. His hobbies include running (he's completed nine marathons and numerous half-marathons) and studying history (he's a World War II buff). More: Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox looks to the future as he begins sixth term Reach Ken Roberts at This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Walt Maddox: Five things to know about Tuscaloosa's mayor
