Lifeboat Foundation

It’s easy to get excited about breast milk. Just the basic fact that a woman can eat food and turn it into a complete food instantly tailored to grow that particular newborn is quite outstanding. But there is more to breast milk than what meets the eye and understanding the perfection of it could mean a better life for premature babies.

For starters, when a baby suckles her mama’s breast, a vacuum is created. That’s right. Saliva in, milk out. The infant’s saliva is sucked back into the mother’s nipple, where receptors in her mammary gland read its signals. Katie Hinde, a biologist and associate professor at the Center for Evolution and Medicine at the School of Human Evolution & Social Change at Arizona State University, calls this “baby spit backwash,” and it contains information about the baby’s immune status. As far as scientists can tell, baby spit backwash is one of the ways that breast milk adjusts its immunological composition. When mammary gland receptors detect the presence of pathogens, the mother’s body produces antibodies to fight it, and those antibodies travel through breast milk back into the baby’s body, where they target the infection.

“[Breast] Milk is so incredibly dynamic,” says Hinde. “There are hormones in breast milk, and they reflect the hormones in the mother’s circulation. The ones that help facilitate sleep or waking up are present in your milk. And day milk is going to have a completely different hormonal milieu than night milk.” That broken-down means that breastmilk made at night contains hormones that help your baby sleep.

The FDA is helping to speed up the process of researching and approving psilocybin, a hallucinogenic substance in magic mushrooms, to treat major depressive disorder (MDD).

For the second time in a year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has designated psilocybin therapy — currently being tested in clinical trials — as “breakthrough therapy,” an action that is meant to accelerate the typically sluggish process of drug development and review. It is typically requested by a drug company and granted only when preliminary evidence suggests the drug may be an enormous improvement over already available therapy, according to the FDA.

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NOTE FROM TED: Please do not look to this talk for medical advice. This talk, which was filmed at a TEDx event, contains strong assertions about multiple sclerosis and lifestyle medicine that lack sufficient scientific evidence for general prescription. TEDx events are independently organized by volunteers. The guidelines we give TEDx organizers are described in more detail here: http://storage.ted.com/tedx/manuals/tedx_content_guidelines.pdf

After a shocking diagnosis that would begin stripping Bob Cafaro of his ability to perform, sheer willpower and changes to his daily life allow him to beat all odds.

Continue reading “The Psychology of Beating an Incurable Illness | Bob Cafaro | TEDxCharlottesville” »

It turns out the gut is full of surprises. And one of those surprises may have offered up a key for unlocking a new way of treating multiple sclerosis (MS). Investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital have discovered a microRNA—a small RNA molecule—that increases during peak disease in a mouse model of MS and in untreated MS patients. When a synthetic version of the microRNA was orally given to the mice, it prevented disease. While several steps remain before these insights can be translated into therapy for patients, the researchers describe their results as both exciting and unexpected. Their findings are published in Cell Host & Microbe.

“We’ve discovered a new mechanism to regulate the microbiome and treat human disease that hadn’t been known before,” said senior author Howard Weiner, MD, co-director of the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at the Brigham. “The gut microbiome is known to play an important role in MS and other diseases. Our findings, which show that a microRNA can be used to target and influence the microbiome with precision, may have applicability for MS and many other diseases, including diabetes, ALS, obesity and cancer.”

Weiner, lead author Shirong Liu, MD, Ph.D., an instructor in the Weiner laboratory, and their colleagues investigated how the altered gut microbiome affects the course of MS. To do so, they studied the microbiome and microRNAs found in the experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) model of MS. Unexpectedly, they found that when they transferred fecal matter from EAE mice at peak disease, it protected the mice who received the transfer. The team found that a specific microRNA, known as miR-30d, rather than live bacteria, was responsible for preventing disease. The investigators found that miR-30d is enriched in untreated, relapsing-remitting MS patients as well.

In Technion, Bar-Ilan trials, nanochip ferries ‘neural growth factor’ — which combats neurodegenerative diseases — and releases it where needed, overcoming blood-brain barrier.

University of Edinburgh tested 1000 people aged 70 for memory, problem solving, thinking speed and general thinking ability — the same people were tested every three years until they reached 79.

New research in mice finds that blocking a key molecule can slow the progression of multiple sclerosis. The findings pave the way for new treatments.

New research highlights the importance of a diet rich in fruit, vegetables, and whole grains for preventing cognitive decline later in life.