Author Archives: mherron1

Feb
26
2014

Chances of Blindness from Glaucoma Nearly Halved

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Glaucoma is a disorder that causes blindness. It is caused from unusually high pressure from aqueous humor accumulation in the anterior cavity of the eyeball. According to Gerard Tortora and Bryan Derrickson, “the aqueous fluid compresses the lens of the eye into the vitreous body and applies pressure to the neurons of the retina” (Tortora and Derrickson 674). The disorder itself is painless and tends to be more prominent in the older generation.

Glaucoma has affected more than 2.7 million people in the U.S. alone that are aged 40 years or older. Researchers believe that advances in technology uses for diagnosis and therapy have caused the number of blindness from glaucoma to half since 1980. The study was conducted by a team from the MayoClinic where the researched reviewed 857 cases of open-angle glaucoma from 1965-2009 in Olmsted County, Minnisota. They found that the population of blindness in people within 10 years of diagnosis decreased from 8.7 per 100,000 to 5.5 per 100,000 [American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO)]

Arthur J. Sit,M.D. said that these results are promising to those suffering from glaucoma and their doctors. I have to agree with him on the outcome of the research conducted. I can’t imagine being blind and not being able to see what is going on in my everyday life. I feel that this could possibly lead to even a cure for the disease since they have found a way to decrease the number of cases by half.

 

American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO). “Probability of blindness from glaucoma has nearly halved.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 January 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140121104107.htm>.

Tortora, Gerard J., and Derrickson, Bryan. Principles of Anatomy & Phisiology .13th ed.  Hoboken: John  Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011. Print.

Dec
06
2013

Osteoporosis: A New Possible Treatment

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When we are young, our mothers always stress to us that we need to drink our milk so that our bones grow to be strong and healthy. What we don’t realize at the time is that our mom is right. When we are young, our bones grow and grow until we become an adult. What happens next is the question. According to Gerard Tortora and Bryan Derrickson, “osteoporosis affects 10 Million people a year in the United States” (Tortora and Derrickson 203). Osteoporosis is a bone disorder where your bones start to loose bone mass due to your body losing calcium. Osteoporosis primarily affects middle-aged and elderly women (Tortora and Derrickson  203).

Dr. Rhut believes he has found a way to use hormones in the body to help fight osteoporosis. In recent studies that Dr. Rhut has done, he has found that by using negative allosteric modulators to release parathyroid hormones into the bloodstream, this will stimulate new bone formation. When your concentration of calcium is too low, your body senses this. It will then release PTH. This will raise your calcium concentration until the calcium sensing receptors on the parathyroid cell are activated. Once activated, it reduces PTH release (arthritis foundation).

The negative allosteric modulators will take a quite a few more years before they will be passed to use on patients. If passed, this will definitely help cut down on the amount of people that have osteoporosis. This will reduce the risk of so many hip fractures, or fractures in general, in the elderly population. This will also help with bone shrinkage, height loss, hunched backs, and bone pain (Tortora and Derrickson).

 

 

Tortora, Gerard J., and Derrickson, Bryan. Principles of Anatomy & Phisiology .13th ed.  Hoboken:

John  Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011. Print.

“Turning on Hormones to Fight Osteoporosis.” Research Alert. Arthritis Foundation, 2008. Web. 6 Oct.

2013.

Dec
06
2013

Osteoporosis: A New Possible Treatment

Posted by

When we are young, our mothers always stress to us that we need to drink our milk so that our bones grow to be strong and healthy. What we don’t realize at the time is that our mom is right. When we are young, our bones grow and grow until we become an adult. What happens next is the question. According to Gerard Tortora and Bryan Derrickson, “osteoporosis affects 10 Million people a year in the United States” (Tortora and Derrickson 203). Osteoporosis is a bone disorder where your bones start to loose bone mass due to your body losing calcium. Osteoporosis primarily affects middle-aged and elderly women (Tortora and Derrickson  203).

Dr. Rhut believes he has found a way to use hormones in the body to help fight osteoporosis. In recent studies that Dr. Rhut has done, he has found that by using negative allosteric modulators to release parathyroid hormones into the bloodstream, this will stimulate new bone formation. When your concentration of calcium is too low, your body senses this. It will then release PTH. This will raise your calcium concentration until the calcium sensing receptors on the parathyroid cell are activated. Once activated, it reduces PTH release (arthritis foundation).

The negative allosteric modulators will take a quite a few more years before they will be passed to use on patients. If passed, this will definitely help cut down on the amount of people that have osteoporosis. This will reduce the risk of so many hip fractures, or fractures in general, in the elderly population. This will also help with bone shrinkage, height loss, hunched backs, and bone pain (Tortora and Derrickson).

 

 

Tortora, Gerard J., and Derrickson, Bryan. Principles of Anatomy & Phisiology .13th ed.  Hoboken:

John  Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011. Print.

“Turning on Hormones to Fight Osteoporosis.” Research Alert. Arthritis Foundation, 2008. Web. 6 Oct.

2013.

Dec
06
2013

A New Possible Treatment for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

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                Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is a group of muscle-destroying diseases that cause progressive degeneration of skeletal muscle fibers (Tortora and Derrickson 359).This disorder is a sex-linked inheritance. It affects boys more due to them only having one X chromosome, which carries the disorder. According to Gerard Tortora and Bryan Derrickson, this is a serious condition and usually makes walking impossible by time a boy is 12 years old.

                A new treatment shows promise! According to Science Daily and the Children’s National Medical Center, A preclinical study has found that a new oral drug shows early promise for the treatment of DMD. The new drug, VBP15, will decrease inflammation that causes discomfort and strengthen the muscles without having bad side effects. The current medicine now is glucocorticoids. This medicine is rarely given due to the impact it has on your immune system.

                Dr. Hoffman believes this new drug is very promising for treatment of DMD. If this drug is passed to be used, I believe this could really cut down on the amount of male babies who have DMD. It wouldn’t be a difficult treatment. A pill would be taken orally. Edward Connor, MD, CEO, and CMO of ReveraGen Biopharma and Director of Innovation Development at Children’s National say they are optimistic that the new drug will translate well to patients, and they are moving this forward as quickly as possible, but still assuring safety.

 

 

Children’s National Medical Center. “New muscular dystrophy treatment shows promise.” ScienceDaily,

17 Sep. 2013. Web. 1 Nov. 2013.

Tortora, Gerard J., and Derrickson, Bryan. Principles of Anatomy & Phisiology .13th ed.  Hoboken:

                John  Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011. Print.