With more and more states looking to legalize the use of marijuana over the next few years, people are also looking for a way to determine the effects and the level of impairment from the introduction of THC to the brain. A new prototype app, which is currently being developed and that tests cognitive speed, memory, and reaction time could help with all this.

Students from the University of Chicago presented their initial results from testing the app at the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, which is underway at the 2018 Experimental Biology meet-up in San Diego.

Researchers hope the app will help improve individual awareness of how THC affects the brain. It could do this by making users more aware of their impairment by answering the question, “Am I Stoned?” (which is also the app’s name).

 

How The Prototype App, Am I Stoned, Works

 

Researchers tested 24 healthy non-daily cannabis smokers by giving them a placebo, 7.5mg THC capsule, or a 15mg THC capsule. Then, their performance on a variety of cognitive tasks were tested and measured. Some of these assignments focused on performing computer tasks, while others were targeted on app-based tasks performed on an iPhone. Neither the participants nor the researchers knew whether those involved had received a placebo or a THC capsule.

Because computer-related tasks tend to require fine motor skills, researchers believe they are more sensitive to impairment than other assignments. The study team established that three of the four tasks could accurately predict an impaired person. At the same time, only one out of four tasks on the iPhone was capable of doing the same.

Researchers are also wary of repetitions, as performing the same task over and over can inaccurately reflect impairment if the user is too familiar with what is being asked of them by the app. Judgment planning was not something tested by the app so it could lead to an inaccurate assessment of impairment without more data.

This prototype app is not designed to detect whether a person is too impaired to drive, but researchers do hope that it will be used to help cannabis users assess their performance.

 

Conclusion

 

The app will need to be distributed to a broader cannabis-using audience to determine whether or not it is can accurately depict the effects of cannabis. However, the researchers plan to use their findings from this experiment to further refine the app so that deployment on the AppStore will help improve these studies further. Am I Stoned will soon be one way to determine the level of impairment when consuming cannabis.

 

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According to a new study which the journal Ecancermedicalscience recently published, the popular drug for erectile dysfunction, Viagra, might also be a much-needed ally in the fight against cancer. According to the researchers, this class of drugs might soon be included in some new trials for anti-cancer drugs. The main players that could help in this fight are the PDE5 inhibitors, which include drugs most commonly known as Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis. According to Pan Pantziarka, one of the researchers, this class of drugs was actually initially developed for angina. Only later, their purpose changed to treat erectile dysfunction to only change again for pulmonary arterial hypertension. Now, that purpose might be switched up once more.

It seems that the PDE5 inhibitors have the ability to fight various forms of cancer like glioblastoma multiforme. This is a very rare cancer type that desperately needs medical advances. Checkpoint inhibitors have been of great aid when it comes to fighting cancer, but there are still challenges regarding the responses and their duration. The researchers think that the PDE5 inhibitors might hold the answer to that issue.

Viagra might soon be used against cancer

This new study also dealt with the challenge of finding new agents that are able to cross the barrier between the blood and the brain. This problem actually severely limits what drugs today can do, which is where the main problem lies. Drugs for brain tumors are not effective enough in such cases.

There is unofficial evidence that inhibitors such as PDE5 might be able to increase the delivery of the cancer drugs to brain tumors. And because these drugs are rather cheap and not toxic, they could be the answer the medical world has been waiting for. Time will tell if they will indeed be included in the future trials for anti-cancer drugs.

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Prescriptions opioids are no better at easing chronic pain than over-the-counter drugs, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers found that patients with backaches or hip or knee arthritis experienced slightly less pain relief while on opioids.

The opioids tested in the yearlong study included generic Vicodin, oxycodone or fentanyl patches. Researchers also looked at nonopioids variants such as generic Tylenol, ibuprofen and prescription pills for nerve or muscle pain.

The study included a randomized trial of 240 patients recruited from Veterans Affairs primary care clinics. Researchers split the participants into two groups, with the first group being assigned to take opioids while the other group was given common medications or prescription drugs.

Erin Krebs, of the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System and lead author of the study, said that, by the end of the year, there was no difference between the two groups in terms of pain management.

“And over time, the nonopioid group had less pain intensity, and the opioid group had more side effects such as constipation, fatigue, and nausea,” Krebs said.

According to Krebs, this all comes down to opioid tolerance. The first batch of medications one takes requires them to follow up with concentrated amounts of the drug to have the same level of effect on the body. This is one of the reasons why opioids come with an increased risk of addiction and overdose.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were about 42 thousand drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2016 involving opioid as well as prescription painkillers, heroin, and fentanyl.

Krebs pointed to previous studies which showed that physical therapy, exercise, or rehabilitation therapy are the most effective ways for easing chronic pain.

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Preschoolers who are exposed to bright lights before going to bed might have problems falling asleep, a new study found. According to the research paper, published in the journal, Physiological Reports, one hour of exposure to bright light before bedtime can almost completely halt the production of melatonin, the hormone responsible for sleep.

“Although the effects of light are well studied in adults, virtually nothing is known about how evening light exposure affects… preschool-aged children,” said lead author of the study, Dr. Lameese Akacem, a CU Boulder instructor and researcher in the Sleep and Development Lab.

Dr. Akacem and his colleagues studied the hormonal changes in preschool children once they were exposed to bright lights. The main focus of the study was on the hormone responsible for inducing sleep and controlling the sleep and wake cycle, called melatonin. The hormone is also essential in regulating temperature, blood pressure, and glucose metabolism.

For the study, researchers recruited a group of ten healthy children aged 3 to 5 who were given a regular sleep schedule which they had to follow for five days. Five days were enough for the children’s metabolism to establish a pattern for their body clocks to follow.

Researchers also analyzed the children’s saliva several time throughout the day to measure the baseline levels of melatonin. On the sixth day, the children’s homes were converted into low-light “caves” with windows covered with black plastic. In addition, the regular lighting was swapped for low-wattage light bulbs.

During the following evening, the participants played with magnetic tiles on top of a light table emitting 1 thousand lux of light for nearly one hour. After the experiment, researchers collected samples once again.

When comparing the two nights, researchers found that melatonin levels were nearly 88 percent lower after bright light exposure. These levels remained low almost an hour after the lights were turned off.

The researchers, however, acknowledged that the study had some limitations including the small sample size of participants and the brighter lights, which is not generally emitted from electronics.

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More children and teens in the US are admitted to hospitals due to opioid poisoning and overdoses, according to a new study published in the journal, Pediatrics. Researchers accounted for accidental poisonings as well as overdoses from intentional use. They found that prescription painkiller were the most common drugs to lead to ICU treatment, followed by heroin, methadone, and other opioid drugs.

Opioid-related hospitalizations were most common among kids aged 12-17 and those aged 1 to 5. The increased rate of hospitalized children is believed to stem from suicide attempts as well as recreational use.

The youngest children would most likely stumble upon their parents’ medications or illicit drugs and use them out of curiosity, according to Dr. Jason Kane, the lead author of the study and an associate paediatrics professor at the University of Chicago and Comer Children’s Hospital.

Kane and his colleagues don’t know the reasons behind the increases, however, Kane speculates that the drugs became more widely available and potent throughout the years.

“Opioids can depress your drive to breathe,” Kane said, “and they also may cause blood pressure to plummet to dangerously low levels.”

The study’s findings were based on data collected from 31 children’s hospitals, roughly 20 percent of US children’s hospitals. Researchers found that opioid-related stays surged from nearly 800 to 1.500 during the study.

A small fraction of the nearly 4.2 million hospitalizations of children during the study involved opioid, however, 43 percent of these hospitalizations required intensive treatment. In addition, annual deaths dropped from nearly 3 percent to just over 1 percent of children hospitalized for opioid reactions.

The research also found that about 20 percent of children under the age of 6 were hospitalized after ingesting methadone, an opioid used to treat addiction.

Dr. Kane urges adult health providers to better educate their patients about the potential dangers to children of having opioid medications in their home and find ways to prevent them from having access to said drugs.

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Regularly eating nuts such as walnuts, hazelnuts, cashews, almonds, and peanuts, may help people with colon cancer reduce the risk of cancer remission and mortality, according to a new study.

Researchers said that people who consumed at least two, one-ounce servings of nuts each week had a 42 percent improvement in disease-free survival and a 57 percent improvement in overall survival.

More so, the study found that patients with stage III colon cancer who ate nuts on a regular basis had disease recurrence cut by half.

“The results highlight the importance of emphasizing dietary and lifestyle factors in colon cancer survivorship,” said Temidayo Fadelu, a postdoctoral student at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and lead author of the study.

The study monitored 826 participants in a clinical trial for more than six years after they were treated with surgery and chemotherapy.

While patients generally abstain from eating nuts due to their high-fat content and increased risk of obesity, recent findings suggest the opposite to be the case.

According to Charles S. Fuchs, director at Yale Cancer Centre in the US, previous studies focusing on nut consumption have revealed that regular consumers of nuts “tend to be leaner”.

The researchers also accounted for connections between biological mechanisms than worsen several types of disease, not just colon cancer, including type 2 diabetes.

Previous studies have reported that nuts may help to reduce insulin resistance, which is helpful considering that the condition often leads to unhealthy levels of sugar in the blood and eventually to type 2 diabetes and related illnesses.

Other studies involving colon cancer patients have found that insulin resistance, obesity, exercise and other lifestyle factors worsen the disease.

Professor Fuchs said that earlier research supports the hypothesis that eating nuts seem to improve outcomes in colon cancer.

The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

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New research suggests that being obese for decades increases the risk of heart disease. According to the study, published in the Clinical Chemistry journal, each year spent carrying additional fat contributes to a distinct risk factor for sustaining heart damage in the future.

To reach this conclusion, a team of researchers from the Johns Hopkins University evaluated over 9 thousand participants who had no prior history of cardiovascular disease. The participants were monitored over an 11-year period, from 1987 to 1998.

Over the course of the study, the participants were assessed four times, with the researchers focusing on their body mass index (BMI), history of heart disease, and a protein released into the bloodstream during a heart attack called troponin. Traces of this protein point to a person being at high risk of heart failure.

The participants also had to report their weight at age 25 as to allow researchers to better track their BMI from young adulthood through late middle age and elderly years.

According to the study, those who reported a BMI score of more than 25 meant that they were overweight, while participants with a BMI over 30 indicates obesity.

Researchers tracked the participants’ BMI over the 11-year period and found that those who had BMI levels in the overweight or obesity range by the fourth evaluation were 1.5 times likelier to have increased troponin levels, indicating heart damage.

Those who were obese at both the first and fourth visits were twice as likely to have increased troponin levels to more than 14 nanograms per liter, as opposed to participants who had a normal weight.

Once they accounted for heart disease factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and kidney disease, the researchers found that every decade that a person spent being obese increased their risk of having higher troponin levels.

Previous studies have concluded that obesity cause heart disease, however, this new study suggests that the number of years spent being overweight or obese also plays a factor.

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If you wanted another reason to drink red wine, then here it is. According to a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, compounds found in red wine called polyphenols can maintain good oral health.

Researchers found that polyphenols were able to diminish the ability of three species of bacteria responsible for tooth decay, plaques, and gum lesions.

Previous studies suggested that polyphenols’ health benefits draw from their antioxidant properties, which protect the body from toxic free radicals. Other studies found that polyphenols might have another health benefit, in that, they can complement gut bacteria.

In this new study, researchers found two polyphenol metabolites common in red wine, called caffeic and p-coumaric acids. These compounds were the most effective against Fusobacterium nucleatum, which is responsible for gum lesions, Porphyromonas gingivalis, which causes periodontitis, and Streptococcus mutans, which triggers caries disease.

According to the study, the two polyphenols produce an anti-adhesive response which makes it difficult for the bacteria to attack the biofilm that coats teeth and gums. The polyphenols also have anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory effects, being able to kill the three bacteria species and mediate the body’s local immune system response.

To be certain of the polyphenol’s anti-bacterial properties, the team of scientists led by Victoria Moreno- Arribas of the Instituto de Investigacion en Ciencias de la Alimentacion in Madrid, isolated the caffeic and p-courmaric acids and combined them with other compounds in wine-based extracts. The positive effects were evident in both scenarios.

The researchers also found that the two metabolites were stronger when they were combined with another bacterial species, Streptococcus dentisani, which can function as an oral probiotic.

Previous studies have shown the benefits of red wine polyphenols in areas such as cardiovascular and neurological health. More so, some studies even indicated a link between moderate intake of red wine and the prevention of diabetes and improved gut health.

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A new study has found that single fathers have double the risk of an early death than single mothers or fathers with living spouses.

“Our research highlights that single fathers have a higher mortality, and demonstrates the need for public health policies to help identify and support these men,” said lead author of the study Maria Chiu, a scientist at the University of Toronto in Canada.

The study, published in the journal, Lancet Public Health, monitored over 40 thousand parents in Canada for 11 years and discovered single fathers had unhealthy lifestyles. These individuals were found to eat fewer fruits and vegetables and had a tendency to binge drink more than other types of parents.

Approximately 700 single fathers died by the end of the 11-year monitoring period. The researchers also found that solo dads had higher cancer rates, tended to be older, and had a higher risk to heart disease. Even by controlling all those factors, the researchers still concluded the mortality rate of single fathers to be twice as high.

Men who tended to their children on their own were more likely to be divorced, separated, or widowed than single mothers. According to the study, a large proportion of single mothers had conceived outside of a relationship.

A 2016 study echoes the latest findings as it found that solo dads who acknowledged their sedentary lifestyle were still less likely to seek professional help than their female counterparts.

Chiu said that go-it-alone fathers might be less willing to allow themselves to relax than single moms.

More so, another factor that was thought to affect this group was poor mental health, as many single dads had experienced a breakup prior to their state. Widowed dads were especially susceptible to mental illness stemmed from bereavement.

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Cheating on one’s partner is a common occurrence even today. If you want to know when your special other might stray from your relationship, there are a number of red flags that you should be aware of.

Researchers from Florida State University have discovered several main predictors that can indicate when your partner will cheat.

The study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, involved 233 newlyweds who were monitored for three and a half years. During this time, researchers documented their intimate details about their relationships, including overall satisfaction, commitment, whether they cheated, and if they still remained together.

The study focused mainly on a number of psychological processes called “attentional disengagement” and “evaluation devaluation”. These processes were tested while the participants had to look at subjects photos of various highly attractive and average-looking men and women.

According to the researchers, “ attentional disengagement” involves directing one’s attention away from someone who is good-looking. “Evaluation devaluation” occurs when someone tricks themselves into thinking someone is less good-looking than they are. Both processes are common among people in a committed relationship who stop themselves from being distracted and tempted by other suitors.

The study revealed that those who didn’t look at the photos for long intervals had a lower chance to cheat while the people who took longer to direct their attention were more likely to.

According to Jim McNulty, lead author of the study and a psychology professor at FSU, people are not always aware of what they’re doing when they think about cheating or actually cheat.

“These processes are largely spontaneous and effortless, and they may be somewhat shaped by biology and/or early childhood experiences,” said Professor McNulty.

In addition to these processes, there were other predictors that would point to someone’s desire to cheat including, a person’s age, and their sexual history. Unsurprisingly, young people were found to be more likely to cheat on their partner. Men who’d had more short-term sexual partners were more likely to cheat. Women who had a similar past were found to do the opposite.

Researchers also found that people who were satisfied with their sexual relationship had a higher chance to have an affair. They speculate that people who enjoy sex, seek out more regardless if it’s with another person.

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Those suffering from schizophrenia were able to alleviate symptoms of the disease by playing a specific video game. The approach was reported to affect a part of the brain associated with verbal hallucinations.

According to the study, published in the journal, Translational Psychiatry, the technique could help schizophrenia patients who do not respond to traditional treatments.

Schizophrenia is thought to affect more than 21 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

The National Institute of Mental Health classifies schizophrenia as a severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves. Symptoms of the disease usually become apparent between ages 16 and 30 and include hallucinations, delusions, thought disorder, and everything that can be associated with losing touch with reality.

Approximately 70 percent of those suffering from the condition also hear voices. While medication for this disease exists, it is not effective for about 30 percent of these patients.

The study detailing the new approach was conducted by researchers from King’s College London. Lead author of the study, Dr. Natasza Orlov asked 12 schizophrenic patients to play a video game while in an MRI scanner. All of the participants were reported to experience verbal hallucinations on a daily basis.

The video game involved moving a computerized rocket, a feat which required the patients to use their own mental strategies. The goal was for participants to land the rocket down on Earth.

Researchers claim that the rocket represented the patient’s neural activity in the speech-sensitive area of the brain. After four sessions, the schizophrenia patients were reported to have reduced neural activity. This means that the participants managed to calm themselves to a state where they had control over their hallucinations. The video game ultimately helped the participants learn coping strategies for their hallucinatory symptoms.

“These findings suggest that patients with AVH have the ability to alter activity and connectivity in speech and language regions, “ the researchers noted.

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A cancer vaccine based on two immune-stimulating agents was able to completely eliminate cancerous tumors in mice, claims a team of researchers at Stanford University. Their project has now passed in its next phase: trials on human volunteers.

 

Researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine injected mice with substances that activated the T cells in their tumors. According to the scientists, this helped eliminate regular and spontaneous tumors and even distant metastases.

 

The team is thrilled with the results and is now recruiting volunteers with Lymphoma for clinical trials. Out of the two agents targeted by the researchers, one has already been approved for human usage.

 

“When we use these two agents together, we see the elimination of tumors all over the body. This approach bypasses the need to identify tumor-specific immune targets and doesn’t require wholesale activation of the immune system or customization of a patient’s immune cells”, declared MD Ronald Levy, an oncology professor.

 

When discussing how this could change cancer treatments, the researchers stated that their approach might turn into a quick and inexpensive therapy. One that might also come with smaller side effects than the body-wide immune stimulation.

 

The Outline of the Cancer Vaccine

 

The cancer vaccine tested on the mice helped rejuvenate the immune system T cells that normally fight cancer. These usually attack the tumor, but this, in turn, develops ways to overpower them and grow back.

 

However, the experiment injected these immune boosters directly into the lymphoma tumor and saw the destruction of the cancer cells.

 

Professor Levy conducted the experiment on 90 mice, and the vaccine proved successful for 87 among them. These subjects were declared cancer-free.

 

The cancer was recurrent in three of the mice, but after a new dose of immune boosters, they also saw a regression. This cancer vaccine targeted melanoma, breast, and colon tumors.

 

Professor Ronald Levy is a pioneer in cancer treatment research as he also discovered rituximab, which was among the first monoclonal antibodies approved as therapy for human use.

 

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