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A common energy drink ingredient has been linked to the progression of the blood cancer leukemia, prompting researchers to voice concerns about the consumption of those beverages. Taurine — an amino acid that occurs naturally in proteins like meat and fish — is a common ingredient in energy drinks like Red Bull. As the Mayo Clinic explains it can help balance fluids, salts and minerals. But according to research published in Nature, taurine may promote leukaemogenesis — the development of leukemia cells — and “identifies taurine as a key regulator of myeloid malignancies,” which, like leukemia, are cancers that begin...

Scientists have discovered a surprising new connection between gut health and blood cancer risk—one that could transform how we think about aging, inflammation, and the early stages of leukemia. As we grow older—or in some cases, when gut health is compromised by disease—changes in the intestinal lining allow certain bacteria to leak their byproducts into the bloodstream. One such molecule, produced by specific bacteria, acts as a signal that accelerates the expansion of dormant, pre-leukemic blood cells. The study suggests that this mechanism may reach beyond leukemia to influence risk for other diseases and among older people who share a...

Scientists could be on the verge of a medical breakthrough in understanding what's driving a rise in blood cancers among older adults. Research has long suggested that the colony of trillions of bacteria living in our digestive systems – known as the gut microbiome – could be the key to our overall health. The more diverse those microscopic colonies are, the better our immunity to a host of diseases from heart disease to dementia. But US researchers have now discovered that patients with leukemia — an aggressive form of blood cancer — have higher levels of one specific bacteria in...

Sustained research funding is essential to progressI don't usually talk about my cancer diagnosis. But as a physician-scientist who survived leukemia at 18 years old and now cares for people facing their own cancer diagnoses, I feel compelled to share my story -- because it speaks directly to what's at stake in medicine today. The clinical trial that saved my life wouldn't have existed without robust investment in biomedical research. And as debates over federal research funding continue, I think about whether future patients will have access to the same life-saving opportunities I did. It was the summer of 2007....

An international study provides hope for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients with a new all-tablet treatment showing impressive results. The AMPLIFY clinical trial included more than 800 never-before-treated CLL patients and compared a standard chemotherapy-based treatment to a new all-tablet approach. Standard chemotherapy treatments for CLL, plus the immunotherapy treatment rituximab, require patients to undergo a lengthy infusion and can cause prolonged immune suppression and other unpleasant side-effects. "Our study indicates a new treatment combination of two or three targeted therapies—acalabrutinib-venetoclax, with or without obinutuzumab—can significantly prolong progression free survival compared to the previous standard chemotherapy treatment regimens," says Professor...

On Jan. 24, 2017, PBS aired a two-hour special on Rachel Carson, the mother of the environmental movement. Although the program crossed the line from biography to hagiography, in Carson’s case, the unbridled praise was well deserved – with one exception. Rachel Carson was an American hero. In the early 1960s, she was the first to warn that a pesticide called DDT could accumulate in the environment, the first to show that it could harm fish, birds, and other wildlife, the first to warn that its overuse would render it ineffective, and the first to predict that more natural means...

Just days before his fourth birthday, Santiago was diagnosed with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL), the most common cancer in children. He began chemotherapy the next day, and the outlook was promising—disease-free survival rates for B-ALL are among the highest for pediatric cancers, at 80 to 85%. However, limited progress has been made over the last 15 years, and relapsed B-ALL remains a leading cause of cancer death among children. Santiago's parents enrolled him in a trial, which included over two hundred sites across four countries, combined standard chemotherapy with two cycles of blinatumomab, an immunotherapy already used for children...

Researchers leading the SWOG S1712 clinical trial have found that adding ruxolitinib to standard tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) treatment for patients with chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CP-CML) significantly increased the percentage of patients who had a molecular response deep enough to warrant discontinuing treatment. CML is often treated with a class of drugs known as tyrosine kinase inhibitors. But leukemic stem cells can hide from TKIs in a patient's bone marrow. Preclinical data suggested that a drug called ruxolitinib can alter the bone marrow microenvironment to sensitize these stem cells to TKIs. In clinical trial S1712, they randomized 75 eligible...

According to researchers, 80% of patients with previously untreated or relapsed/refractory advanced-phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CML)—including both accelerated or myeloid blast phases of the disease—or Philadelphia chromosome-positive acute myeloid leukemia (AML) achieved a bone marrow remission when treated with a novel combination of decitabine, venetoclax and ponatinib. Findings from the Phase II clinical trial represent an important step forward for patients with advanced-phase CML, who tend to have poor outcomes. "Over the last decade, there have been very few studies that evaluated a regimen to treat this rare disease and identify a potential standard-of-care treatment," said Nicholas Short, M.D. "It...

Researchers found that a targeted gene therapy may make acute myeloid leukemia (AML) more sensitive to chemotherapy, while also protecting the heart against toxicity often caused by cancer treatments. Acute myeloid leukemia is the most common type of leukemia in adults and the resulting chemotherapy treatment can put patients at an increased risk for cardiac damage. Dr. Xunlei Kang led a study looking at similarities between leukemia and cardiovascular disease. They found a shared target—AGTR1, a receptor responsible for cell reproduction, was overabundant in the blood cells of patients with leukemia. The researchers used losartan, a common medicine for treating...

Toddler twin daughters, a husband and countless others are mourning the loss of a woman gone too soon.LayCee Barnett, 28, who had just learned she was expecting another child, felt what her husband Josh Barnett described as flu-like symptoms on Jan. 10. Days later, she got news that shook her world — and then immediately took her from it. "The Wednesday before the 15th, LayCee started getting sick, so we waited a couple of days with things not changing," Josh Barnett recalled. "Fevering started happening and then her legs got really weak, so we went to the Instacare,

Yesterday the Expose published an article which highlighted just a few of the various diseases that were found to be potentially caused by parasites, including cancers. A recent review of nine published research papers by Doctor William Makis further supports the views in the article, but Dr Makis is more qualified to say “it is a reasonable hypothesis that COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Turbo Cancer patients could benefit significantly from anti-parasitic drugs.” One anti parasitic drug in particular, Fenbendazole, however, has not been sanctioned for human use by the FDA, but despite lacking “official” approval, it is cheap, safe and more...

Researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso have identified a novel pharmaceutical compound that successfully kills leukemia and lymphoma cancer cells, potentially paving the way for new forms of therapy. Renato Aguilera, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, is the principal investigator on the project that identified the promising compound, called thiophene F-8. His team's findings were published in the journal PLOS One. "The main goal of my research is to discover new anticancer drugs that can eventually treat distinct cancer types," Aguilera explained. "This research not only had amazing results, it also led to...

Selenium-enriched diets may help ward off myeloid leukemia, and a new study led by researchers has described the mechanism by which this occurs. The findings eventually could help lead to drug therapies that target some types of leukemia—including acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the researchers said. Penn State scientists previously found that supplementing the diets of mice with selenium—a trace mineral naturally found in varying amounts in many foods—stimulated the production of compounds known as cyclopentenone prostaglandins, which appeared to kill or suppress leukemia stem cells. Their latest study shows that these prostaglandins, called CyPGs, bind to and activate a gene,...

Investigators have found that dasatinib, a drug commonly used to treat chronic myeloid leukemia, is strongly associated with kidney injury. The study team strongly believes this study will impact clinical practice significantly, changing standard of care and possibly introducing new black box warnings for dasatinib. Furthermore, the researchers point out that the incidence of kidney injury is a previously unknown severe side effect for this drug. This side effect, they report, is advertised to be rare; however, they observed it in 10% of all participants taking dasatinib. Of concern, they say, is that patients taking dasatinib are currently not screened...

A dying 10-year-old whose last wish was to get married 'tied the knot' with her childhood sweetheart - days before passing away from leukemia. Emma Edwards was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in April last year but parents Alina, 39, and Aaron, 41, said they were hopeful that she'd be able to beat the illness. But in June the family were given the heartbreaking news that Emma's cancer, an aggressive form that affects white blood cells, was incurable and she only had days to live. Emma sadly passed away on July 11. Alina said Emma's dream was to marry boyfriend...

Carter owes the people of Iran an apology. ... Carter's critics always point to his handling of the Iran hostage crisis as the most glaring flaw in his time in office. During the course of that 444-day nightmare, a student mob held 52 U.S. diplomats and civilians hostage, and no amount of negotiation—or attempted military action—could get them released. Thankfully, that sad chapter finally ended on Jan. 20, 1980, the day President Ronald Reagan took the oath of office at the U.S. Capitol. But Carter's true transgression—the original sin that has complicated and shaped U.S. policy in the Middle East...

Anew cancer therapy developed at Jerusalem’s Hadassah-University Medical Center had a 90% response rate in a new clinical trial, with over half of patients going into total remission. The CAR-T therapy — which arms the body’s own immune cells to fight cancer — was able to send multiple myeloma, an extremely deadly cancer that impacts the immune system, into remission. The therapy is the result of years worth of experiments conducted by the hospital’s bone-marrow transplant and immunotherapy department, the Jerusalem Post reported. “We have evidence of a very positive overall response rate with minimal side effects, and they are...

His father, Ken Limper, initially brought his son to urgent care for back pain after Kyle played basketball before taking him to Jefferson Hospital. “They told me in a couple of days, if he doesn’t get better, to bring him back. Well, in a couple of days he couldn’t even stand up,” the grieving dad said. “He couldn’t even get out of bed and I had to help him up and stand him up, then he fell right back down on the bed.” Limper was eventually rushed to St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, where doctors said the multi-sport athlete’s organs...

A distraught Philadelphia family is living a “nightmare” after their 16-year-old son died within 24 hours of being diagnosed with leukemia. Kyle Limper died peacefully on April 13 from a blood infection caused by the cancer that was discovered that same day, according to his obituary and a report. “Before April 13th, he was a completely healthy and happy young man with no sign of illness,” his obituary states. “It just came and took him in the same day.” His father, Ken Limper, told Fox 29 that he initially brought his son to urgent care for back pain after Kyle...