Bacteriophages -- a new solution to antibiotic resistance?

Prevention magazine had an article by Koren Wetmore in the February 2015 edition that described "The Natural Superbug Cure" that no one is telling you about.  It is about Bacteriophages.  Discover Magazine also had a good article about it.  Phage Therapy is the use of specialized viruses to attack and kill disease-causing bacteria.
The use of bacteriophages to cure diseases was done a lot in Russia prior to the development of antibiotics.  Antibiotics were easier to use, and seemed safer at the time.  Since the introduction of the first antibiotics, many other antibiotics have been developed to target specific types of bacteria.  However the bacteria have developed resistance to many of the antibiotics.  It is clear that by developing more phage therapies, we can bypass that antibiotic resistance and cure some diseases that could not be cured by antibiotics.  Also, if we can hone the process and make it efficient enough, we could use phage therapy as a 'mainstream' form of fighting disease and prevent the bacteria from becoming resistant to the antibiotics.  Of course, there is also the possibility that bacteria can develop a resistance or "immunity" to the phage viruses as well.
From what I've read, I think the Government should put some significant resources into the development of phage therapy.  Others seem to think so too.   See this article in Frontiers  I see one of the problems with continuing the development of phage therapy is that it would be difficult to get a pharmaceutical company interested in developing the technology.  It could take hundreds of millions of dollars to develop, test, and get FDA approval for new types of phage therapies.  But the drug company would probably not be able to patent the idea, or get a reasonable return on the huge investment.  In situations like this, the only solution is to use public funds to develop the technology.  To be even more effective, it may require many countries to get together to share in the cost of development of the technology.  

How to Live to 100?

I saw this article by Henry S Lodge on the front page of the September 15, 2015 issue of Bottom Line Personal that explains how to improve our chances to live to 100. It is a good article, and I'm glad that Bottom Line made it available online to everyone. Dr. Henry S. Lodge is a well respected internist, who has been ranked as one of the Best Doctors in America by Castle Connolly, and he has written several books. In this article he makes several good recommendations, but it appears that the one he thinks is most important is for us to exercise! I feel like I've exercised through high school & college (cross country), then had to maintain a fitness program through 27 years of military. I sort of thought that when I hit age 70, I could slack off a bit. But Dr Lodge says "Exercise more as you get older".. He says that everyone should exercise hard at least five days a week -- but if you are 50 or older you should make it six days a week! I guess that if we do get to live to 100, we'll finally get to rest in our "final resting place."...

I also listened to a good podcast from the "Health Report" with Norman Swan about the best exercise to do to reduce dementia risk. (Link also has transcript of podcast)  In the podcast, Norman interviewed Nicola Lautenschlager who's a professor of old age psychiatry at University of Melbourne. The professor presented evidence that regular aerobic exercise does seem to slow down the development of dementia and alzheimer's disease. He says that dementia and alzheimer's disease starts in the body 30 years prior to showing symptoms, so that exercise and other "environmental factors" can have a long time to work to either accelerate or slow down the progress of the diseases.  His recommendation is for "older people" to exercise 150 minutes per week, and that if we walk, it should be at a fast pace to get our heart rate up and blood pumping!

Nobelist Talks about Exercise and Chromosome Integrity

I've always known that longer telomeres in our cells was an indication of health.  I've also known that as we age our telomeres get shorter, so the DNA in our cells are less protected from mutation.  I just heard this Scientific American 60 Second Science podcast (see below)

Nobelist Talks about Exercise and Chromosome Integrity - Scientific American  I'm amazed that exercise apparently can restore, or increase the length of the telomeres and, in effect, reduce the effect of aging. Elizabeth Blackburn won a nobel prize for her research on telomeres

Scientific American has The entire 27-minute Google Hangout with Mariette DiChristina and Nobel Laureate Elizabeth Blackburn is on their Web site. Just google Hangout and Elizabeth Blackburn.  Other research done at UCSF has now shown that telomere length can actually be reversed with exercise and a healthy lifestyle

Fried and grilled meat may raise risk of diabetes and dementia | Science | The Guardian

This appears to be another potential breakthrough on diet, health and ageing.

Fried and grilled meat may raise risk of diabetes and dementia | Science | The Guardian

I never understood why some people seem to get alzheimers, and others don't.  Why some get diabetes, and others don't.  It may be partially caused by genes.  However in so many cases, it doesn't seem to be directly related to inherited traits.  Yes, it could be caused by being overweight, over eating, too much sugar etc.  But there are so very many people who eat poor diets who don't "catch" these horrible diseases.

Maybe these scientists are on to something.  However there needs to be a lot more work to identify the "smoking gun" at the cell-mechanism level to understand why this is true.

The sad thing is that all of these dietary recommendations seem to infringe on the pleasure we get from eating.

Dogs trained to detect prostate cancer with more than 90% accuracy | Society | The Guardian

The Guardian had an article by James Meikle that described an experiment done in Milan Italy using dogs to detect prostate cancer.  This experiment seems to prove that it will be possible to detect prostate cancer using smell.  Yes, it would be good to train dogs to detect disease.  That could be a lot better than many of our current medical screening systems.
Dogs trained to detect prostate cancer with more than 90% accuracy | Society | The Guardian

There have also been tests demonstrating similar capability to detect lung cancer using smell. (see this link)  If we can build an electronic "sniffer" that can discriminate the various scents (see this link), we may be able to use it to diagnose many other diseases, in addition to cancer.  The world needs a simple, low cost, non-invasive screening system to identify diseases while in the early stages.  It could also help for maintaining quarantines, since it would provide a quick screening technique to use at borders.

I sure hope that governments are providing adequate incentives to accelerate this technology. It appears that NIH is participating this test in Israel.   If such a device could be built to reliably screen for many types of diseases using only smell, the overall cost of medical care in the world would go down, and the quality of health could go up, because of more accurate earlier diagnosis.  

Weight loss agent for women..being tested soon

Potential weight-loss agent from a tree is almost too good to be true http://lat.ms/1wKnexK

Where's the War on Alzheimer's?

I saw this excellent article in the  Jan/Feb 2015 AARP Bulletin by T.R.Reid concerning the rapid growth of Alzheimer's in the country, and the relative lack of expenditure by the Government to try and find a prevention or cure for the disease.
See this link: AARP Bulletin - January/February 2015 - Page 14-15
The article shows projections of over 13 million patients costing over a trillion dollars per year to care for by 2045.  It also points out that there has NEVER been any patient cured of the disease.   Meanwhile, the US Government is spending around $566 Million on research into the cause and cure of Alzheimer's disease.
Spending on research can sometimes be a waste.  For example, there are some problems that we could dump immense amounts of money to solve, but there are no viable paths to study.  So spending more money would generally result in massive waste. .  In the case of Alzheimer's however, according to this article there are some potentially fruitful studies that could be done to hopefully find a cure.  The Alzheimer's association believes that there is a need for about $2 Billion in spending per year to get to a cure.
As in many cases of spending on research, it is a gamble.  By putting money into research, we would be betting that a cure would be found that would avoid the costs in dollars and lost lives that would more than pay off in the long run.  If AARPs projections are correct, expending $2 Billion per year now could help avoid some or all of the possible $1 Trillion/per year in future cost.  That sounds like a good payoff!  I really think the US should be spending more on this important problem.  It should be at least proportional to the impact of the disease on the US population.  Apparently we're spending $5.4 Billion on cancer, and $1.2 Billion on heart disease, and the cost impact of those diseases is probably lower than the cost impact of Alzheimer's disease.  Below are the costs in 2014 of the disease in the United States according to the Alzheimer's Association

Sadly, the article points out that many of the existing medications and therapies don't work all that well in slowing down the progress of the disease.  At one time it was thought that daily aspirin, daily physical exercise, and brain exercise puzzles might prevent the disease.  But none of these appeared to have any statistical significance in tests. The world needs a medical solution to the problem!

In Sep 2015, Bradley Fikes of Union Tribune reported on a new breakthrough in the understanding of how Alzheimer's works in the brain, which will hopefully lead to new techniques to prevent or cure the disease.  

I would think that the rest of the world is experiencing the same problem with the rising cost of this horrible disease.  Therefore, other countries should be more than willing to share in the cost and participating in the research.  I wonder if there are international efforts to coordinate research so we can minimize waste and share findings.  However, I would bet that "big pharma" is also working hard on this problem.  If one of the companies does discover a "magic pill" that could prevent a person from getting the disease, or cure a patient with the disease, it could be worth a lot!  However, I hope we don't get into a situation where the treatment could cost $100,000 per patient.

‘America’s Bitter Pill,’ by Steven Brill - NYTimes.com

I saw 60 minutes this evening where Leslie Stahl interviewed Steven Brill of the New York Times.  Apparently he has written a new book about how the medical "industry" is now making huge profits from Obamacare --even "non profit" hospital businesses are "profiting" by paying their executives extremely high salaries, which, in turn drives up the costs.

Here is a link to the book review.

‘America’s Bitter Pill,’ by Steven Brill - NYTimes.com


After seeing this 60 minutes piece and reading the book review, I also read the book.  On the surface, the book is simply a chronological description of the development, passing and implementation of the Affordable Care Act.  It doesn't sound too exciting?    It describes step-by-step who was involved in the development and writing of the law, how it got modified in order to pass, and then how the implementation of the law unfolded, including the development of the healthcare.gov website.  However, I did find it somewhat exciting even though I knew what happened.  Brill was able to make the story interesting by providing some personal information about each of the major players, so we understood better about the motivations behind each individuals position or role.

I think  it is a shame that all of our US Congress and Senators didn't pull together to help develop the Affordable Care Act in a cooperative spirit.  Yes, it is possible that there are flaws in the law.  It may have been better if all sides worked to make necessary corrections.  After the act was passed, and problems were identified, it would have been good to have congress pass minor changes to the act to make those necessary corrections.  As it is, hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of hours have been spent fighting against the act and wasting lawyers and judges time on somewhat trivial problems or flaws in the wording.

I don't understand who is against the act, or who is behind the vehement effort the Republicans have mounted to fight against the law.  I can't see how any businesses involved in the health care industry would be against it.  They are ALL making lots of money, as are the CEOs.  Hospitals, insurance companies, doctors, pharmaceuticals, medical device manufacturers are all making seemingly windfall profits from the law.  States are getting assistance from the Federal Government to improve the health of all of their citizens.  More of our citizens are now contributing to their own health care by paying for their insurance.  Because more people have insurance, more Americans are able to obtain preventative health care which should eventually reduce the overall cost.  What is not to like?  I have tried to read and listen to the complaints issued by the Republican Party as they have continually tried to stop or repeal the Affordable Care Act with many different parliamentary and legal procedures.  They all say it is bad --but they never have been able to explain why and even when they have presented alternative approaches, it is clear that the alternatives have not been thought through.