Newsbriefs: Depression; Alzheimer’s; Macular Degeneration; COPD
How exercise may protect against depression.
A recent study at the Karolinska Institute, Solva, Sweden, conducted in mouse models, seems to have revealed some of the mechanism of how exercise helps protect against depression. The study showed that exercise training induces changes in skeletal muscle that can rid the blood of kynurenine, which accumulates during stress and is harmful to the brain. The study compared normal mice and mice with high levels of PGC-1alpha1 in skeletal muscle (similar to well-trained, or exercised, human muscle); both groups were exposed to high levels of stress for five weeks. The normal mice developed symptoms of depression, while the PGC-1a1 mice showed no depressive symptoms. The genetically modified mice also had higher levels of KAT enzymes, which convert kynurenine, a substance formed during stress, into kynureic acid, which appears to have a detox effect against harmful substances when paired with PGC-1a1. “Skeletal muscle appears to have a detoxification effect that, when activated, can protect the brain from insults and related mental illness,” says Jorge Ruas, principal investigator at the Institute’s department of physiology and pharmacology. It is not yet known whether the same process can act on already-existing depression, which affects more than 350 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. The study was published in Cell online September 25, 2014.
Lower AD risk: Don’t worry, be happy.
Women who are anxious, jealous, moody, or distressed in middle age could be at higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) later in life, a 40-year-long Swedish study has found. Of 800 women in the study, 19 percent developed dementia. For the study, women took personality tests that examined their level of neuroticism, extroversion or introversion, and memory tests. People who are neurotic are likely to distress easily and exhibit personality traits such as worry, jealousy, or moodiness. Introverts are shy and reserved, while extroverts are considered outgoing. The women also were asked if they had experienced a period of stress lasting one month or longer. Results showed that women who scored highest on tests for neuroticism had double the risk of developing dementia than those who scored lowest; 25 percent of the 63 women assessed as easily distressed and withdrawn developed AD, compared to only 13 percent of women who were not easily distressed. Being either an extrovert or an introvert alone did not appear to raise dementia risk. The study was based out of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden (Neurology, Oct. 1, 2014).
Macular degeneration treatment guidelines change.
A change to the license for the drug ranibizumab (Lucentis), used to treat patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), now gives ophthalmologists the flexibility to extend treatment or monitoring intervals in stable patients in the first year of treatment and thereafter, a result of evidence from clinical trials and practice that treatment requirements vary among patients. The individualized patient approach could spare patients monthly clinic visits if they are stable on the drug. Since it was first licensed in 2007, ranibizumab has been associated with a 50 percent reduction in blindness due to wet AMD. The pharmaceutical company Novartis, maker of ranibizumab, announced the change in late September 2014.
Antibiotics target COPD treatment.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), predicted to be the third-most common cause of death worldwide by 2020, is usually treated with steroids. But Australian scientists led by Dr. Sandra Hodge, from the Lung Research Laboratory at the Hanson Institute in Adelaide, South Australia, found that antibiotic treatment with azithromycin enables better control of the epithelial cells (which form a protective barrier and line the hollow organs and glands of the body) in COPD patients’ airways. These patients are at increased risk of infection in their airways, and the antibiotic has an anti-inflammatory effect on the epithelial cells in those airways. Researchers found that a three-month course of azithromycin suppressed production of granzyme B, considered “a natural born killer” cell, in the airway epithelium (Respirology, October 2014).
The post Newsbriefs: Depression; Alzheimer’s; Macular Degeneration; COPD appeared first on University Health News.
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