Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune condition where the immune system inappropriately attacks the brain and the spinal cord. Symptoms of MS vary widely from person to person and can affect any part of the body. MAVENCLAD®(cladribine) tablets are an RMS treatment that’s not an infusion, not an injection, and not a daily pill taken every day of the year, for 10 oral treatment days per year for 2 years. Each treatment week (also known as a cycle), taken about a month apart, consists of 1 or 2 MAVENCLAD pills a day for 4 or 5 days in a row—dosing depends on your weight. Screening and monitoring should be performed before, during, and after treatment.
Ariana M. Chao, PhD, CRNP, Assistant Professor of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing CREDIT Penn Nursing
Studies suggest that exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic has been associated with a variety of different mental health consequences including reports of depression, loneliness, and insomnia. People who are more than 65 years of age and those with underlying medical conditions such as type 2 diabetes and obesity are particularly vulnerable to negative outcomes from COVID-19. Until now, few investigations have identified and separated the mental health consequences of exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic from preexisting factors in this age group. A new prospective study of a large cohort of older adults with type 2 diabetes and overweight/obesity from across the U.S. has explored this subject with surprising results.
The prospective study, published in the journal Diabetes Care, showed that from pre-COVID to during the COVID-19 pandemic, the prevalence of mild or greater symptoms of depression increased by 1.6 times (from 19.3% to 30.4% of participants), while loneliness rose by 1.8 times (from 12.3% to 22.1% of participants). Reports of insomnia remained stable in the cohort (at 33.3x% and 31.5%, respectively). More than half of the study participants remained free of clinically significant levels of adverse mental health conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Many older adults have demonstrated psychological resiliency amid the pandemic, but sex and race/ethnicity did play an important role in these outcomes,” says Ariana M. Chao, PhD, CRNP, Assistant Professor of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing) and the lead author of the article. “Women, relative to men, had greater odds of depressive symptoms, anxiety, loneliness, and perceived COVID-19 threat. Compared with participants who were non-Hispanic White, those from underrepresented groups tended to report lower levels of depressive symptoms, loneliness, and insomnia. For example, 32.9% of women versus 26.1% of males reported symptoms of mild or greater depression during the pandemic.”
The article, “Changes in the Prevalence of Symptoms of Depression, Loneliness, and Insomnia in U.S. Older Adults with Type 2 Diabetes During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Look AHEAD Study,” is available online. “We were fortunate,” said study co-author Thomas Wadden at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, “to have been evaluating these more than 2800 participants in the Look AHEAD study for nearly 20 years, thus giving us a clear picture of their mental health and other functioning before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.” Other study authors included: Jeanne M. Clark of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Kathleen M. Hayden, Marjorie J. Howard, and Lynne E. Wagenknecht, all of the Wake Forest School of Medicine; Karen C. Johnson of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center; Blandine Laferrere of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center; Jeanne M. McCaffery of the University of Connecticut; Rena R. Wing of the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University; Susan Z. Yanovski of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; and the Look AHEAD Research Group.
A participant in the dyslexia study CREDIT University of Reading
Children with dyslexia are slower to process visual information, according to new research that sheds new light on which brain processes are affected by dyslexia beyond just reading ability.
The study, published in JNeurosci and the first to combine new methods to understand visual processing and brain activity in dyslexia, challenged a group of children aged six to 14 to identify the average direction of motion of a mass of moving dots, while their brain activity was measured.
It found children with dyslexia took longer to gather the visual evidence, and were less accurate, than their typically developing peers, and that the behavioural differences were reflected in differences in brain activity.
Although reading ability is known to be affected by dyslexia, researchers are still unclear on which brain processes are affected by the condition. Increasing understanding of this could potentially lead to more effective support for those affected.
Dr Cathy Manning, lead researcher in the Centre for Autism at the University of Reading, said: “These findings show that the difficulties faced by children with dyslexia are not restricted to reading and writing. Instead, as a group, children with dyslexia also show differences in how they process visual information and make decisions about it.
“Future research will be needed to see if these differences in visual processing and decision-making can be trained in order to improve reading ability in affected children, or provide clues as to the causes of dyslexia.”
Brain activity monitoring using EEG in the study showed synchronized activity over the centro-parietal regions of the brain involved in decision-making steadily increased in all of the children during the task until they made a decision. However, this happened more gradually in the children with dyslexia.
The study supports a link between motion processing and dyslexia, although the causes are not yet known.
Whether dyslexia is, at its core, a visual processing disorder is hotly debated among researchers. With reading and writing a key challenge among children with dyslexia, increasing understanding of its effects on the brain might aid how we improve existing interventions.
We’ve talked before about selective eating/picky eating and autism as well as same food, but we didn’t get into the real community that the term “safe food” is used for – those with ARFID or Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder.
Intermittent fasting may not only be a hot dieting trend, but it also has broader health benefits, including helping to fight inflammation, according to a new study from researchers at the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute in Salt Lake City. CREDIT Intermountain Healthcare
Intermittent fasting may not only be a hot dieting trend, but it also has broader health benefits, including helping to fight inflammation, according to a new study from researchers at the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute in Salt Lake City.
Previous research has shown that intermittent fasting, an eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating, may improve health markers not related to weight. Now, the new Intermountain research shows that intermittent fasting raises the levels of galectin-3, a protein tied to inflammatory response.
“Inflammation is associated with higher risk of developing multiple chronic diseases, including diabetes and heart disease. We’re encouraged to see evidence that intermittent fasting is prompting the body to fight inflammation and lowering those risks,” said Benjamin Horne, PhD, principal investigator of the study and director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology at the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute.
Findings of the study will be presented on Saturday, November, 13, at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2021, which are being held virtually this year.
These results are part of Intermountain’s WONDERFUL Trial studying intermittent fasting, which found that intermittent fasting causes declines in the metabolic syndrome score (MSS) and insulin resistance.
This specific study examined 67 patients aged 21 to 70 who all had at least one metabolic syndrome feature or type 2 diabetes. Participants also weren’t taking anti-diabetic or statin medication and had elevated LDL cholesterol levels.
Of the 67 patients studied, 36 were prescribed an intermittent fasting schedule: twice a week water-only 24-hour fasting for four weeks, then once a week water-only 24 hour-fasting for 22 weeks. Fasts could not be done on consecutive days. The remaining 31 participants made no changes to their diet or lifestyle.
After 26 weeks, researchers then measured participants’ galectin-3, and found that it was higher in the intermittent fasting group. They also found lower rates of HOMA-IR (insulin resistance) and MSS (metabolic syndrome), which researchers believe may be similar to the reported effects of SGLT-2 inhibitors, a class of drugs used to lower high glucose levels in type 2 diabetes patients.
“In finding higher levels of galectin-3 in patients who fasted, these results provide an interesting mechanism potentially involved in helping reduce the risk of heart failure and diabetes,” said Dr. Horne, who added that a few members of the trial team completed the same regime before the study started to make sure that it was doable and not overly taxing to participants.
“Unlike some IF diet plans that are incredibly restrictive and promise magic weight loss, this isn’t a drastic form of fasting. The best routine is one that patients can stick to over the long term, and this study shows that even occasional fasting can have positive health effects,” he added.
Members of the Intermountain Healthcare research team include: Horne, Joseph B. Muhlestein, MD; Heidi T. May; Viet T. Le; Tami L. Bair; Kirk U. Knowlton, MD; and Jeffrey L. Anderson, MD.
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