Body of Wealth

A relatively healthy 36-year-old Jolee Mohr, died this week after a gene therapy experiment went wrong.

Mohr was taking part in a voluntary experiment to find out if gene therapy might be a safe way to ease the pain of rheumatoid arthritis. As part of the experiment her right knee was injected with trillions of genetically engineered viruses. She fell ill the very next day and died three weeks later of internal bleeding and kidney failure.

Targeted Genetics Corp. of Seattle, the company that sponsored the experiment has halted all work on it. U.S. health officials are investigating Mohr’s death.

The concern is not just that the experiment went wrong, but is also about how much the volunteers like Mohr know of the risks involved with such experiments. The concern is understandable with over 800 gene therapy studies involving 5,000 U.S. patients.

Mohr had taken part in the experiment with the hope that she would be part of finding a cure for the chronic rheumatoid arthritis that she had suffered for 14 years.

As part of the study, she would be injected with a virus that can infect cells without causing human disease, the genetically engineered virus was used as a vehicle to carry a new gene into the body. Mohr was randomly selected to get the highest dosing level on both injection dates of the study. After receiving the second injection, she became violently sick the very next day.

After being admitted to University of Chicago Medical Center, Mohr experienced respiratory failure, her kidneys were shutting down and she was septic. Mohr’s death raises a lot of questions about the way experiments are conducted.

Experimenters need to think of possible problems with an experiment before trying it out on human subjects. Volunteers should not be treated like guinea pigs. Hopefully Mohr’s death will not be in vain, and the medical fraternity will take up more responsibility when conducting experiments on live human beings.

It has been previously found that some breast cancer cells, which were once triggered by estrogen, can be killed by the hormone itself. But, all set to find the culprit behind what triggers the cells’ development, researchers eventually traced back to family members to be responsible behind it. Yes, it’s a gene found active in fueling breast cancer cells to respond to estrogen.

Abortion always raises questions around rights and safety. Pregnancy has become a choice, thanks to various contraceptives in the market. Marie Stopes, the clinic that stepped in to offer safe abortion services in many countries all over the world is now facing a law and order issue in Cape, South Africa.

It has long been proved that laughter is a good medicine Dr. Madan Kataria came up with the idea of laughter yoga 11 years ago. Laughter yoga refers to simple tension-releasing laughter exercises. These exercises increase the net supply of oxygen to the brain and body.

A new research carried out at Queen’s University Belfast says that there is no need to go to the gym every day and pump iron in order to lose weight. Moderate, less frequent exercise can also reduce blood pressure and boost overall fitness, (published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health). In this study 106 people were divided into three groups. One group was put on a regimen of 30 minutes walk for 5days a week; another was asked to go for 30 minutes walk for 3days a week; and the remaining participants were asked to lead a normal life.

Air pollution is usually thought of as being outdoors, but the air in your house or any other enclosed space could also be polluted. Indoor air pollution refers to chemical, physical, or biological contaminants in indoor air. This type of air pollution has received negligible attention even though it kills up to 800,000 children each year, mainly from pneumonia.

It has previously been found that the cancer death rates among black Americans remain higher compared to the rates among their white counterparts.

As per the latest report - Cancer Facts & Figures for African Americans 2007-2008 — black men had a 35 percent higher cancer death rate than white men, and black women had an 18 percent higher rate than white women, in 2003.

But, it is only in a recent study; cancer death has also been linked to ‘education’. It says that less educated people living in the US are more than twice likely to die from cancer compared to their better-educated counterparts.

Thus, education seems to be a more significant factor in determining the risk of cancer death risk than race! - although socioeconomic status as well as income levels play a vital role in ‘healthcare access’, especially in the US.

The study authors led by Jessica Albano, an ACS scientist said,

The number of factors could influence the association between education level and cancer death rate, including access to medical care associated with lack of health insurance; the prevalence of exposure to important risk factors such as cigarette smoking and obesity; and the likelihood of cancer screening utilization.

Challenging the long-standing trend that white women with more education suffer higher breast cancer risk owing to later child-bearing, the new study claims that breast cancer death rates were eventually found higher in less-educated women!

And black men with 12 years of school or less are more than twice at the risk of dying from prostate cancer in comparison to more educated black men.

Thus, ‘cancer death’ is also linked to education, not just race and socioeconomic status.

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If you are over the age of 45, and frequently suffer from lethargy, mood swings, depression, or even loss of libido, anger or anxiety, check it out with your doctor - as you might be suffering from ‘Testosterone Deficiency.’

A very common condition, particularly among older women, ‘pelvic organ prolapse’ occurs when the pelvic floor muscles’ getting weaker or damaged, with no longer being able to support the pelvic organs.

With over 50 percent women affected with the disorder after childbirth; it is unfortunate that many women don’t seek help from their doctor! Thus, although the actual number of women affected by prolapse is unknown, around one in ten women have surgery and one third of these women need to undergo repeated operations for correcting the problem.

In a bid to find a solution to this, researchers have come up with a new way of identifying probable stem cells in the women’s womb-linings. The researchers have successfully identified two markers — CD146 and PDGF-Rß - which can be used for isolating mesenchymal stem-like cells (MSC) from endometrial tissue.

For making this finding, the scientists used a high speed cell sorting machine called the fluorescence activated cell sorting, or FACS. Amazingly, it was only 1.5 percent of the endometrial cells that were sorted be the new method expressed both the markers and.

The finding thus opens new horizons in tissue engineering applications - like building up prolapsed pelvic floors-repairing natural tissue - by using the stem cells, and perhaps would also reduce the number of cases with the disorder in a near future.

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Daniel Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe‘ may enjoy spending his days in desolation; but not you, as all it would bring to your health is wreak, nothing more than that, pushing you closer to death!