Word: foundings
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...published the first in a series of studies demonstrating that commonly used general anesthetics can cause cell death and plaque accumulation in brain cells - both potential hallmarks of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. More recently, at the Mayo Clinic, in Minnesota, anesthesiologist Dr. Robert Wilder published a study that found a link between exposure to anesthesia and surgery in infancy and learning disabilities later in life. Both doctors have since been approached with inquiries from concerned patients - but armed only with early data, neither can offer much reassuring advice. "What can I say? We don't have any answers," says...
...brain cells of patients in the midst of a stroke were flooded with calcium. Doctors wishing to treat these patients hypothesized that blocking the receptor that enables calcium to enter cells could protect stroke patients from severe brain damage. But in the course of researching this possibility, they found that switching off the receptor in a healthy brain cell led to the death of that cell - an unexpected and troubling result, given that many common anesthetics block the same receptor. At first this made little sense, but other researchers began to speculate that preventing calcium entry might be the cause...
...vicious cycle of apoptosis and the accumulation of beta-amyloid protein - the sticky plaques that build up in Alzheimer's patients' brains - among the cells. But in this case, it may have been an excess of calcium that led to cell death. Xie and his colleagues have since found that the Alzheimer's drug memantine, which works by reducing calcium levels inside cells, can slow the rate of isoflurane-induced cell death. "That certainly suggests that Dr. Turner and we could be looking at the different sides of the same coin," Xie says...
...only in "cell cultures and lab animals." If anesthetics have always been neurotoxic, one slide in her presentation asked, "Why is it only an issue now?" She and others point out that non-human testing of anesthetic safety has an unreliable history. Ten years ago, for instance, lab researchers found evidence that isoflurane protected brain cells during surgery and trauma, only to be contradicted by more recent lab findings...
...this year. Experts at the California Department of Public Health, who led the study, say their findings are largely in line with the growing body of data on the worldwide pandemic flu, confirming, for instance, that the 2009 H1N1 flu disproportionately affects younger patients. The California research team found that the median age of hospitalized H1N1 patients was 27, much lower than the median age of seasonal-flu sufferers. (See what you need to know about the H1N1 vaccine...