Suicide cases due to fear of COVID-19

The novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic has become a global concern. Healthcare systems in many countries have been pushed to breaking point in an attempt to deal with the pandemic. At present, there is no accurate estimation about how long the COVID-19 situation will persist, the number of individuals worldwide who will be infected, or how long people’s lives will be disrupted. Like previous epidemics and pandemics, the unpredictable consequences and uncertainty surrounding public safety, as well as misinformation about COVID-19 (particularly on social media) can often impact individuals’ mental health including depression, anxiety, and traumatic stress. Additionally, pandemic related issues such as social distancing, isolation and quarantine, as well as the social and economic fallout can also trigger psychological mediators such as sadness, worry, fear, anger, annoyance, frustration, guilt, helplessness, loneliness, and nervousness. In extreme cases, such mental health issues can lead to suicidal behaviors. It is well stablished that around 90 % of global suicides are due to individuals with mental health conditions such as depression. In the south Asian country like Bangladesh and India, village people arguably less educated than those that live in cities. Suicide is the ultimate human sacrifice for anyone who cannot bear the mental suffering. However, the fact that the fear of having COVID-19 led to suicide is preventable. Hence there is an urgent need to carry out a nationwide epidemiological study to determine the level of fear, worry, and helplessness, as well as other associated issues concerning mental health in relation to COVID-19. This would help in developing targeted mental wellbeing strategies. Additional mental health care is also needed for patients confirmed as having COVID-19, patients with suspected COVID-19 infection, quarantined family members, and healthcare personnel. Researchers also suggest the following to the general people, avoid unreliable and non-credible news and information sources to reduce fear of COVID-19, help individuals with known mental health issues where possible, offer basic help like foods, medicines to those most in need during lock-down situations . It is also recommended that online-based mental health intervention programs as a way of promoting more reliable and authentic information about COVID-19, and making available possible telemedicine care.

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                        New hints explain how the Alzheimer's spreads in human brains

The ultimate goal of the research is to help design a strategy to stop prion disease in humans and, ultimately, to translate new approaches to work on Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases. Prions were first discovered in the late 1980s as a protein-containing biological agent that could replicate itself in living cells without nucleic acid. Prions dramatically accelerated the development of a new scientific concept of self-replicating protein. Human prions can bind to neighboring normal proteins in the brain, and cause microscopic holes. In essence, they turn brains into sponge-like structures and lead to dementia and death. Human prion diseases are conceivably the most heterogeneous neurodegenerative disorders, and a growing body of research indicates that they are caused by distinct strains of human prions. However, the structural studies of human prions have lagged behind the recent progress in rodent laboratory prions, in part because of their complex molecular characteristics and prohibitive biosafety requirements necessary for investigating disease which is invariably fatal and has no treatment. The researchers developed a new three-step process to study human prions: 1) Human brain-derived prions were first exposed to a high-intensity synchrotron X-ray beam. That beam created hydroxyl radical species which, with short bursts of light, selectively and progressively changed the prion's surface chemical composition. The unique properties of this type of light source include its enormous intensity; it can be millions of times brighter than light from the sun to the Earth. 2) The rapid chemical modifications of prions by short bursts of light were monitored with anti-prion antibodies. The antibodies recognize the prion surface features, and mass spectrometry that identifies exact sites of prion-specific, strain-based differences, providing an even more precise description of the prion's defects. 3) Illuminated prions were then allowed to replicate in a test tube. The progressive loss of their replication activity as the synchrotron modifies them helped identify key structural elements responsible for prions' replication and propagation in the brain. This structural approach also provides a template for how to identify structurally important sites on misfolded proteins in other diseases such as Alzheimer's, which involves protein propagation from cell to cell in a similar way to prions.

SOURCE: Science Daily News, June 2021

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                              Stem cell therapy for type 1 diabetes (IDDM)

Type 1 diabetes, which arises when the pancreas doesn't create enough insulin to control levels of glucose in the blood, is a disease that currently has no cure and is difficult for most patients to manage. Scientists using stem cells to create insulin-producing cells (called beta cells) that could replace nonfunctional pancreatic cells. Additionally, when these beta cells were tested in a mouse model of type 1 diabetes, the animals' blood sugar was brought under control within about two weeks. In the current work, the investigators started with human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). These cells, which can be derived from adult tissues (most often the skin), have the potential to become any kind of cell found in the adult body. Using various growth factors and chemicals, the investigators coaxed hPSCs into beta cells in a stepwise fashion that mimicked pancreatic development. Producing beta cells from hPSCs in the lab is not new, but in the past the yields of these precious cells have been low. With existing methods, only about 10 to 40 percent of cells become beta cells. By comparison, techniques used to create nerve cells from hPSCs have yields of about 80 percent. Another issue is that if undifferentiated cells are left in the mix, they could eventually turn into another kind cell that would be unwanted. To address the problem, the researchers took a stepwise approach to create beta cells. They identified several chemicals that are important for inducing hPSCs to become more specialized cells & ultimately identified several cocktails of chemicals that resulted in beta cell yields of up to 80 percent. Normally cells are grown on a flat plate, but researcher allowed them to grow in three dimensions. Growing the cells in this way creates more shared surface area between the cells and allows them to influence each other, just as they would during human development. After the cells were created, they were transplanted into a mouse model of type 1 diabetes, The model mice had a modified immune system that would not reject transplanted human cells. The researchers will continue to study this technique in the lab to further optimize the production of beta cells. More research is needed to assess safety issues before clinical trials can be initiated in humans.

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          Novel immunotherapy approach to treat cat allergy

Cat allergy is a rapidly increasing phenomenon characterized by an hypersensitivity and excessive immune response to certain allergens associated with felines typically found in their saliva, glands, skin and fur. Cat allergy manifestations can range from mild symptoms to the development of severe conditions such as rhinitis and asthma, with potentially fatal outcomes. While pharmacotherapy is an option for the milder forms, only allergen-specific immunotherapy (AIT) can ensure an effective and longer lasting treatment in the more advanced cases. AIT typically consists in the subcutaneous injection of gradually increasing quantities of the allergen in question, until a critical dose is reached that induces long-term immune tolerance. Nevertheless, there is still the need to improve cat AIT in terms of efficacy and safety. The researchers hypothesized that the most effective cat AIT could be achieved by optimizing the response of immune system T- and B-cells through immune adjuvants to induce the production of antibodies against Fel d 1 while minimizing inflammatory reactions, thereby boosting immune tolerance to this allergen. To study the cellular and clinical effects of an AIT based on the injection of the Fel d 1 allergen in combination with a high dose of CpG adjuvant, the team challenged Fel d 1-allergic mice with the allergen, both in the presence and absence of AIT. The scientists observed that AIT-treated allergic mice showed a significantly improved lung resistance, similar to that of non-allergic control mice, when compared with untreated allergic mice, with signs of airway inflammation and hyper-responsiveness being considerably reduced. Indeed, when looking at the Fel d 1-specific antibodies, the team noticed that AIT-treated allergic mice displayed lower levels of IgE, which are commonly associated with allergic responses, and higher levels of IgA and IgG, which can have anti-inflammatory properties. In addition, AIT-treated allergic mice showed a reduction in the levels of certain pro-allergic cytokine molecules, produced by type 2 helper T cells (Th2), compared to untreated allergic animals. The researchers also noticed that, already very soon after AIT-injection, there was an increase in the tissues of AIT-treated mice in the abundance of immune cell types involved in allergy regulation and tolerance, namely plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs), Natural Killer cells (NKs), regulatory T cells (T-regs) and regulatory B cells (B-regs). These cells were found to express higher levels of the Tumor Necrosis Factor alpha (TNF-α) receptor 2 (TNFR-2), with NK cells also producing the TNF-α cytokine, which are known to play a role in suppressing the allergen-specific immune response, thereby allowing these regulatory cells to act as a 'brake' on the immune system.

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