Public officials and media worldwide have paid considerable attention recently to developments around the H7N9 influenza, which, according to officials in China where the outbreak started, has killed 7 people and infected 24 others, most of whom suffered mild flu-like symptoms.  The virus is known to come from birds, like SARS back in 2003, but its genetic code has yet to permit it to jump from human to human – only from chickens to humans. Health officials at the Centers for Disease Control in the U.S. and the World Health Organization (WHO) are closely monitoring the viral outbreak.

All the news from China, notwithstanding, other developments have received much less attention but are likely to be much more impactful.  For instance, a new and mysterious coronavirus has surfaced in the Middle East, killing 11 people and infecting an unknown number so far.  The source of the virus is unknown, but it is killing those known to be infected at a rate of 40 percent. Meanwhile, medical researchers are noting that we face “nightmare bacteria” that are rapidly mutating beyond current antibiotic capabilities.  Roughly 5,000 patients die each year in English hospitals from drug-resistant sepsis.  In addition, the Centers for Disease Control reports that one-tenth of all infections from one family of bacteria, Klebsiella and 4 percent of all enterobacteriaceae infections are now antibiotic resistant, a fourfold increase in 10 years with a potent 40-percent kill rate.

The steady stream of media attention to developments around the H7N9 virus seems rather odd, given the larger and more risky outbreaks elsewhere in the world.  The issue is stranger because the very public focus on a Chinese virus, which has no cure, seems to be coming at the expense of human awareness of killer bacteria, where cures could be developed. 

But then, the chances of finding a cure for troubling bacteria have been declining lately. Since 2009, 8 major drug companies have abandoned research on and production of antibiotics, preferring, instead, to focus their research money on more lucrative chronic illnesses (e.g., diabetes and high-blood pressure).  Level-three studies for promising antibiotics often get postponed because of cost, and so, the three companies remaining in the field of antibiotic development have not received FDA approval for anything new lately, and thus, drug-resistant bacteria move forward. 

Nature seems to be taking advantage of human vulnerabilities, while companies that could address the problem are looking elsewhere.  Will governments need to step in?

Share this post

We are slowly but steadily increasing our understanding that many of the maladies being suffered by children (and adults) are of our own making. In these kinds of areas, will knowledge be sufficient to change behavior?  Will public officials or regulators get involved?

Share this post

In eFocus 702 earlier this year, we noted how researchers are increasingly using viruses as “vectors” to reprogram patients’ DNA to cure hard-to-treat diseases, and we noted that in many such treatments, patients’ own immune systems are being prodded to treat the disease, rather than using powerful drugs. As 6-year-old girls start being saved in experimental versions of such treatment, we wonder if an era of increased medical efficiency and effectiveness is at hand.

Share this post

That is what some researchers are calling a new connection between Alzheimer’s and diabetes discovered during research from Rhode Island Hospital.  Interfering with her lab animals’ insulin uptake, researcher Suzanne de la Monte not only triggered obesity in the animals but a disorientation that signaled dementia.  Poor sensitivity to insulin is usually associated with type 2 diabetes, which the lab animals expressed when their bodies failed to respond to the insulin hormone. But the confusion and disorientation they expressed suggested a progressing link between obesity, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

This new connection adds to existing research that has demonstrated how neurons in the brain need insulin to extract energy, especially in the hippocampus and frontal lobe, areas of the brain associated with memory and learning. The growing consensus of recent research is saying that the “epidemic” of diabetes sweeping theU.S. will likely be followed by an equally large epidemic of dementia.

Can the current healthcare system deal with that?

Share this post

With more than a twenty percent increase in diabetes in just one year and with a genetic predisposition towards diabetes, the Indian healthcare system will soon be severely impacted by the effects of diabetes. And since 80 percent of Indian health care is paid for privately today, the effects of no treatment should be expected to explode over the next several years.

The U.S. has been facing an obesity crisis for years (and the diabetes issues that can come with it), but could attitudes towards healthier eating now be changing?  In U.S. restaurants, servings of kids’ meals with toys were down 6 percent for the year ended December 2011, from about 1.3 billion servings to 1.2 billion servings – the fourth straight year of such declines.

Is this an ongoing signal that parents are changing their buying pattern to decrease the amount of fast food their children eat, or is this trend capturing the desire of parents to save money by ordering off the dollar menu?

Share this post