Recently, Libella Gene Therapeutics, LLC, a company that is currently working on developing products to control and reverse the effects of aging in humans, announces an institutional review board (IRB)-approved pay-to-play clinical trial in the South American state of Colombia. The trial will be based on incorporating gene therapy in order to treat the negative impacts associated with the process of aging. This development could possibly lead to Libella providing the first-ever treatment to reverse signs of aging by twenty years.

Under the newly designed pay-to-play model, each one of the participants of the trial will be selected in the country they are residing in after they pay around one million. After the payment and enrollment, the participants are required to travel to Colombia in South America to sign a consent form as well as start their gene therapy in specified treatment centers that strictly have hospital environments.

Previously, the appearance of signs of aging was deemed as a natural phenomenon that is beyond the control of humans. However, scientific research on the subject has link the process of aging to the shortening of telomeres which are a human bodys biological clock.

The telomeres in a cell short with each division and division and efficiency of the cell both reduce with time. Hence, viewing aging as a disease or a health condition that requires prevention is common.

Read also: Sparks Biomedical Initiates Trial For The Treatment Of Opioid Withdrawal

There are a number of peer-reviewed studies that look at the impact of the length of telomeres on human health and corroborate the claim on the association between the aging and telomere length. In addition, some even provide models on how aging can be controlled simply by maintaining or lengthening the telomeres.

The gene therapy used in the new pay-to-play trial also aims to target the length of telomeres. It has been developed by Bill Andrews, who is also Libellas Chief Scientific Officer. Prior to the new trial, Andrewss therapy has been tested to be safe for usage with minimal potential side effects in around two hundred trials.

Secondly, he was also a part of the initial studies that were based on human telomerase, telomerase induction as well as its role in cancer and led the research at Geron Corporation for twenty years.

In the previous trials, telomere gene therapy was demonstrated in mice which resulted in fewer signs of aging and an increase in longevity. The new trial uses a proprietary AAV Reverse (hTERT) transcriptase enzyme to lengthen telomeres in humans which will reverse aging for up to twenty years.

Now, Libella is the first gene therapy company with a clinical trial focusing on reversing the process of aging that appears in the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM)s clinicaltrials.gov database.

According to the president of Libella Gene Therapeutics, Dr. Jeff Mathis, the trial will also be easier to conduct due to its location. He adds that trials within the US, can take years to happen and may cost billions of dollars. In Colombia, there can be a much more efficient trial with the needed technology, physicians, lab workers, and scientists.

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New Gene Therapy Aims At Reversing Signs Of Aging - TheHealthMania

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At four months old, Zack was diagnosed with CF a genetic disease that causes severe damage to the lungs, digestive system and other organs. Rachel was diagnosed as a carrier of the CF gene at 23.

According to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, 98 percent of males with CF are infertile. Those who are just a carrier of the gene, like Rachel, are not at risk of their own health being impacted, but are at an increased risk of having a child with CF.

When we decided to start our family planning, we knew we would likely need in vitro fertilization (IVF) assistance and we knew the importance of pregenetic testing to increase the chances of our baby not inheriting CF, Rachel said. We did our research and thats when we learned about Dr. Deaton and his fertility groups success.

As a middle school science teacher in Randolph County, Rachel, 29, teaches her students about genetics. She was aware of the challenges that she and her husband could face on their journey to start a family.

Since Rachel is a carrier of the CF gene and Zack has CF, the odds of their baby having cystic fibrosis were significantly increased to 50 percent, said Jeff Deaton, M.D., director of the Center for Fertility, Endocrine and Menopause at Wake Forest Baptist Health.

In the Cashatts case, 41 eggs were extracted from Rachel; 16 of those matured to the next process, then four were suitable for the preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) process which showed that only one of those would not result in CF, Deaton explained.

We waited to see if the embryo would take and it did nine months later, Rachel and Zack had a healthy baby boy who does have the CF gene, but will not develop the disease, Deaton said.

Rachel and Zacks son, Oliver, was born in March of this year.

Oliver is such a happy baby and, most importantly, healthy, Rachel said. We wanted to do everything in our power to ensure he didnt have the same disease as my husband and through this technology and expertise, thats exactly what we received. Sometimes its still hard to believe.

PGT is a procedure used in conjunction with IVF implantation to help identify genetic defects within embryos. This process serves two purposes:

To increase the odds of a successful implantation.

To prevent certain genetic diseases or disorders from being passed on to the child.

Wake Forest Baptist is continuously ranked as one of the most successful fertility treatment centers in the state and nation, according to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology.

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Couple overcomes infertility and 50 percent chance of baby having cystic fibrosis - Asheboro Courier Tribune

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Mister Weasley has had an exciting life in the last year, he got a new home, a new family and discovered that he is not a hen but is actually a rooster!

The rooster was adopted by Niamh Guibe and her family at a hen run organised by LittleHill Animal Rescue and Sanctuary in Bandon last year.

The rescue centre aims to re-home hens who have reached the end of their peak productive lives with the male chicks being destroyed after a few days of life.

Niamh went to the hen run hoping to adopt two more to add to the four the family already had at home and she explained to us that roosters were never brought to hen runs as they do not lay eggs and therefore have no place at a factory.

She told CorkBeo about the moment she saw Mister Weasley for the first time and how he became the newest member of the family.

"In the first crate they opened there were a few hens and then I saw this big bird with wattles and a big comb and I said to the people running the run 'that's a rooster not a hen'".

"They said that maybe he was just a weird looking hen but then they looked him over and decided that he was in fact a rooster".

"They decided to take him back to Little Hill and I put the two hens in the car to take them home but I couldn't stop thinking about him. He had been with these hens his whole life and I just couldn't leave him there"

"He looked really sad and lonely so we took him home. We came home with three animals instead of two but I just couldn't leave him behind".

"Before we went to the hen run, my kids and I decided that we were going to name them Molly and Ginny Weasley but then obviously we came back with a male too so he became Mr Weasley".

Niamh explained to us how Mister Weasley may have started off as a hen and evolved in to a rooster, but there is also a possibility that he was born male and just mixed in with a crowd of hens.

"The vet thinks that he is a genetic male but sometimes if a hen only has one ovary they can transition to male so he might be one of those. I think he is just a confused rooster".

He doesn't really behave like a rooster so in terms of his behaviour I think he is halfway between a hen and a rooster. It doesn't really matter what he is, he is just such a lovely creature and we are very glad that we have him. He has enriched our lives".

"Mister Weasley is a gentle giant and he looks after all the hens making sure that they get shelter and if there is a fight he gets in between them".

On Sunday, LittleHill Animal Rescue will travel to Fermoy and Youghal with hundreds of rescued hens who are seeking their forever homes. The charity is appealing to kind-hearted people throughout Cork city and county to take home a few of these quirky creatures, as they will otherwise be sent to slaughter.

To acquire feathered friends of your very own, send a private message to the charitys Facebook page, LittleHill Animal Rescue & Sanctuary stating the number of hens you would like to adopt and the collection town for this Sunday the 26th: Youghal or Fermoy.

People without a Facebook account can ask a relative or friend to reserve hens on their behalf. A small adoption fee of six euro per hen applies.

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Meet Mister Weasley - the rescue rooster who started life as a hen - Cork Beo

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People's experiences of humor vary, and humor servesmany different functions in our daily lives. Sometime we use humor as a coping mechanism when things are not going well, andother timeswe enjoy a good laugh with our friends. Researchers use various scales to assess our experiences of humor, butby far the mostcommon one is the Humor Styles Questionnaire. The scale,developed by Rod Martin and his students, is used to assesshow people usehumor in their daily life and has been used in hundreds of studies.

People are asked to ratehow much they agree or disagree with various statements(e.g., "I enjoy making people laugh."). Their answerscreate a score onfour humor styles. The styles are:

Affiliative Humor: Tendency to share humor with others, tell jokes and funny stories, make others laugh, use humour to facilitate relationships, put others at ease.

Self-Enhancing Humor:Tendency to maintain a humorous outlook on life even when not with others, use humor in coping with stress, cheer oneself up with humor.

Aggressive Humor:Tendency to use humor to disparage, put down, or manipulate others; use of ridicule, offensive humor; potentially use sexist and racist jokes.

Self-Defeating Humor: Tendency to amuse others at ones own expense, self-disparaging humor; laughing along with others when being ridiculed or teased; using humor to hide ones true feelings from self and others.

You can take the testfor yourself and see how you score on each ofthe four humor styles.

A recent study looked at the relationship between these styles anddepression.Depression is a serious mental illness that affects millions of people around the world. Scoring high on the two positive humor styleshasbeen linked with various positive health outcomes, such as being happier and having healthier relationships. On the other hand, having high scores on the negative humor styles can have a negative effect on one's health.

The current study looked at the relationships between the four humor styles and depression. The researcherswanted to test whether people diagnosed with depression score high on the two negative humor styles, and low on the two positive styles. In addition, they looked at whether there is a genetic underpinning to the relationship between humor styles and depression.

Sad girl

Source: darksouls1/Pixaby

To do so, they recruited a sample of 1,154 Australian twins. Three hundred thirty-nine of themwere identical, and 236 were non-identical. All were same-sex twins, with both male and female pairs represented. Of the whole sample, 145 individuals werediagnosed with depression. All twins completedthe Humor Styles Questionnaire and in addition, answeredthree questions pertaining to depression. These questions were taken from different scales and are in line with items used to diagnosedepressive disorder, though no official diagnosis was performed.

The results of the study showed first, that women were two and half times more likely than men to suffer from depression, a fact that has beenfound in other studies. Second, as predicted, people diagnosed with depressionused self-defeating humor more than non-depressive people. In addition, depressive twins used the two positive humor styles (affiliativeand self-enhancing) less then non-depressive twins, also as hypothesized. Contrary to the prediction, there were no differences in the use of aggressive humor among the depressive and non-depressive twins.

Next, the researchers looked at the possible genetic and environmental factors that may account for these correlations. Comparisons between identical andnon-identical twins allow us to extract the relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors to a given trait or correlation byusing behavioral genetics tools. Such analyses revealed that 26% of the differences in the depression scores were attributed to additive genetic factors, while 74% were due to non-shared environments (e.g., the twins being in different classrooms, having unique friends). Shared environments (e.g., raised by the same family) had 0% influence.

Other results showed that the positive correlation between the depression scale and self-defeating humor, and the negative correlation between the depression scale and self-enhancinghumor, each have an underlyinggenetic factor influencing the correlations.

In sum, the study not only established that humor styles are correlated with depression, but also that at least some of these correlations are theresultof some underpinninggenetic influences (thoughnot identifiable yet). The researchalso highlights the fact that humor is not always good for us, and in some cases mighthave severe negative effects.

Correlations, of course, do not imply causation, and it is unclear what they mean exactly.Do people suffering fromdepression choose to use more negative styles of humor and not try to improve their situation by using a more positive humor style? Or perhaps using a negative humor styleis influencing depression? The third and likely possibility is that certain factors (both genetic and environmental) affectdepression and the use of negative styles, but more research is needed on this topic.

Excerpt from:
The Relationship Between Humor and Depression - Psychology Today

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DUARTE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Persons who inherit Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS) have an extremely increased risk of developing cancer. For instance, females with the syndrome have a 50% chance of developing cancer by the age of 30 and a 90% chance over their lifetime; males with the syndrome have a 70% chance of cancer over their lifetime.

LFS was first described 50 years ago, and 30 years ago the syndrome was linked to inheriting a mutation in the TP53 gene. City of Hope scientists and others worldwide have made advances in identifying and treating people with the syndrome, but more work remains to be done.

A new $8.5 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health seeks to advance research and treatment for this serious syndrome, which can cause multiple cancers, including sarcomas, brain and breast tumors, and adrenocortical cancers.

This is a devastating syndrome to have weve cared for families with babies who had brain tumors at 18 months, said Jeffrey Weitzel, M.D., director of City of Hopes Division of Clinical Cancer Genomics, the Dr. Norman & Melinda Payson Professor in Medical Oncology and the grants co-principal investigator. City of Hope and our partner institutions are determined to develop a better understanding of the cancer risks associated with different TP53 mutations so we can better tailor screening, prevention and treatment for these patients. We are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel but more research is needed.

The project, termed LiFTUP (Li Fraumeni and TP53 Understanding and Progress), which is co-led by Judy E. Garber, M.D., M.P.H., of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Christopher I. Amos, Ph.D., of Baylor College of Medicine, will provide the largest and most comprehensive examination of TP53-associated cancer risk.

Traditionally, clinical TP53 testing was limited to individuals and families who met specific criteria (typically multiple cancers at very young ages). With the introduction of next-generation-based multigene panel testing, which sequences a persons genome faster and is less costly than previous genetic tests, TP53 testing is now performed on large numbers of people who do not meet the syndromes criteria. However, the testing has also raised concerns about false positives, or a test result that incorrectly indicates the syndrome is present.

Thats because blood samples are often used for genetic testing and people may develop TP53 gene mutations in rapidly growing blood cells as they age. Researchers will also examine this group of people to find out why some people in this group develop blood cancers while others do not.

The inherited syndrome is rare. Only about 1,000 children and adults nationwide are included in the Li-Fraumeni Exploration Consortium, and researchers working on this project will also recruit TP53 carriers identified through broader, more agnostic approaches to testing, including commercial genetic testing laboratories, the Geisinger MyCode project, the PROMPT study of individuals with germline mutations and the ORIEN tumor/germline sequencing project.

Carriers of true germline TP53 mutations may bear the psychological, medical and financial costs of striking personal and family cancer risks, the burden of intensive surveillance, the high risks of cancer deaths at disproportionately young ages and the weight of possibly passing TP53 variants to offspring, according to the team.

Consequently, a crucial question researchers want to answer is why some people with a TP53 mutation develop cancer while others do not.

Were looking at thousands of markers across the whole genome to find out if there are patterns that influence why two TP53 carriers with the same mutation have different outcomes, Weitzel added. We will do a clinical and molecular interrogation of the factors that influence the development of cancer.

Our hope is that by focusing more research on children and adults with the TP53 mutation, we will be able to take better care of these individuals, Weitzel said.

About City of Hope

City of Hope is an independent biomedical research and treatment center for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases. Founded in 1913, City of Hope is a leader in bone marrow transplantation and immunotherapy such as CAR T cell therapy. City of Hopes translational research and personalized treatment protocols advance care throughout the world. Human synthetic insulin and numerous breakthrough cancer drugs are based on technology developed at the institution. A National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center and a founding member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, City of Hope is the highest ranked cancer hospital in the West, according to U.S. News & World Reports Best Hospitals: Specialty Ranking. Its main campus is located near Los Angeles, with additional locations throughout Southern California. For more information about City of Hope, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram.

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City of Hope to lead national research aimed at improving testing/treatment for devastating cancer-causing syndrome - Business Wire

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Fort Worth is such a warm and friendly city and is a great place to raise children. I am very excited to be able to help people in the Fort Worth area achieve their dreams of parenthood.

FORT WORTH, Texas (PRWEB) November 22, 2019

Fertility Specialists of Texas (FST), known for maintaining consistently high pregnancy and birth rates, continues to expand access to high-quality fertility care with the opening of a new office in Fort Worth, Texas.

The move into Fort Worth the centers fifth office and second in Tarrant county was driven by a desire to increase its ability to offer comprehensive fertility services tailored to the unique needs of thousands of couples who battle infertility in the community.

Statistically, 1 in 8 couples in the United States are unable to achieve or maintain a pregnancy, says Dr. Jerald S. Goldstein, FST Medical Director and Founding Partner. If you apply this number to Tarrant County, it equates to more than 40,000 couples who are desperate to have a biological child and need the assistance and support FST delivers.

Our Southlake office has been instrumental in serving this community and the opening of our Fort Worth location dramatically increases the ease and accessibility of quality care.

FST is committed to helping all couples in Tarrant County realize their dreams of parenthood by delivering the same level of dedication melded with the latest technology and individualized protocols it has been delivering for more than a decade.

Our strong success rates are attributable to many factors, including our cutting-edge IVF laboratory, the use of genetic screening with in vitro fertilization (IVF) and the more than 100 years of combined experience among our team of fertility specialists, says reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Barbara J. Stegmann.

With a dedicated clinical team, FSTs Fort Worth fertility center provides a wide range of onsite services delivered with a proactive, patient-focused approach.

Fort Worth is such a warm and friendly city and is a great place to raise children, says Dr. Stegmann. I am very excited to be able to help people in the Fort Worth area achieve their dreams of parenthood.

Fertility Specialists of Texas Fort Worth is in the Baylor All Saints Professional Pavilion, 1250 8th Avenue, Suite 245, Fort Worth, Texas 76104. For more information on the new office and services provided by Fertility Specialists of Texas, visit FertilityTexas.com

About Fertility Specialists of TexasFertility Specialists of Texas is a leader in the field of reproductive medicine in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, with offices in Frisco, Dallas, Rockwall, Southlake and Fort Worth, Texas. The practice specializes in in vitro fertilization (IVF), male factor infertility, cryopreservation, third-party reproduction and genetic screening.

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Fertility Specialists of Texas Expands Access to High-Quality Treatment for Thousands of Infertile Couples in Fort Worth - PR Web

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According to Word Health Organization, Infertility is the inability of a sexually active, non-contraception couple to achieve pregnancy in one year. About 15% of couples do not achieve pregnancy within 1year and seeking for infertility medical treatment. Less than 5% of world population is unwillingly childless. Approximately 90% of male infertility cases are seen mainly due to low sperm counts, and poor sperm quality. The remaining cases of male infertility can be caused by a number of factors including anatomical problems, hormonal imbalances, and genetic defects.

Access Report Details at: https://www.themarketreports.com/report/global-male-infertility-treatment-market-research-report

The global Male Infertility Treatment market is valued at xx million US$ in 2018 is expected to reach xx million US$ by the end of 2025, growing at a CAGR of xx% during 2019-2025.

This report focuses on Male Infertility Treatment volume and value at global level, regional level and company level. From a global perspective, this report represents overall Male Infertility Treatment market size by analyzing historical data and future prospect. Regionally, this report focuses on several key regions: North America, Europe, China and Japan.

Key companies profiled in Male Infertility Treatment Market report are Emd Sereno, Aytu Bioscience, Bayer, Cadila, Intas Pharma, Halotech Dna, Scsa Diagnostics, Andrology Solutions and more in term of company basic information, Product Introduction, Application, Specification, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2014-2019), etc.

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Table of Content

1 Male Infertility Treatment Market Overview

2 Global Male Infertility Treatment Market Competition by Manufacturers

3 Global Male Infertility Treatment Production Market Share by Regions

4 Global Male Infertility Treatment Consumption by Regions

5 Global Male Infertility Treatment Production, Revenue, Price Trend by Type

6 Global Male Infertility Treatment Market Analysis by Applications

7 Company Profiles and Key Figures in Male Infertility Treatment Business

8 Male Infertility Treatment Manufacturing Cost Analysis

9 Marketing Channel, Distributors and Customers

10 Market Dynamics

11 Global Male Infertility Treatment Market Forecast

12 Research Findings and Conclusion

13 Methodology and Data Source

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Global Male Infertility Treatment Market: Development History, Current Analysis and Estimated Forecast to 2025 - Market Research Reporting

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The worlds biggest gorilla is developing webbed feet as a result of inbreeding among its dwindling population, according to a new study.

A Grauers gorillas chances of being born with harmful mutations that cause fused digits have soared in the last 100 years.

Loss of genetic diversity in the critically endangered ape species, which grow to 6.1ft tall and weigh 460 pounds, has also seen losses of male fertility and disease resistance.

The findings were made by comparing genes taken from the primate, which is native to forests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from 100 years ago to present day.

Only a few thousand of the gorillas remain in the wild after poaching and habitat destruction saw its population plummet by 80 per cent in recent decades.

The mutations increase the risk that the magnificent beast is wiped out completely due to disease.

Lead author Tom van der Valk, a PhD student at Uppsala University in Sweden, said: We found that the genetic diversity in Grauers gorilla has declined significantly in just a few generations.

The results from the comparison of historical and modern genomes show that this decline has led to increased inbreeding and a loss of genetic variation.

This in turn means that Grauers gorillas have likely become less able to adapt to future disease outbreaks and changes in their environment.

In addition, the scientists identified several mutations that are probably harmful and that have increased in frequency over the past four to five generations as a consequence of the decline in population size.

He added: Some of the potentially harmful mutations that have increased in frequency were found in genes that affect disease resistance and male fertility.

In addition, the researchers identified mutations leading to loss of function in genes associated with finger and toe development, which likely explains why present-day gorillas sometimes have fused digits.

His international team of researchers made the findings after comparing 11 genome sequences from present-day gorillas and collections stored in museums over the last century.

Co-author Professor Love Daln, at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, said: This recent increase in harmful mutations really emphasises the need to reverse the ongoing population decline in Grauers gorillas.

The researchers also found the closely related mountain gorilla, however, did not suffer any significant genetic changes over the same period.

This suggested its genetic viability has remained stable over the past 100 years.

Mr van der Valk explained: Interestingly, the reason why Grauers gorillas have been more severely affected than mountain gorillas may lie in their deeper history.

A study published in January 2017 warned that for most of the worlds 504 primate species, it is now the 11th hour on earth with nearly two thirds facing extinction and 75 per cent of populations in decline.

Researchers have warned the worlds primates are in danger from human activities

Behind the collapse in numbers is an increase in industrial agriculture, large-scale cattle ranching, logging, oil and gas drilling, mining, dam building and road construction.

The illegal trade in bushmeat killing apes and monkeys for their flesh is also decimating the animals, as is changing climates and diseases spread from humans to apes.

Growing trees to produce palm oil used in many popular foods is a particular threat to primates in Indonesia, as is mining for gold and sapphires in Madagascar.

With many species living in rainforests, the cutting down of millions of acres of forest to supply the increasing demand for timber or to clear land for agriculture is destroying their habitat and making populations more fragmented.

While Grauers gorillas went through a major increase in numbers between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago, mountain gorillas have been rare for several thousands of years.

This long-term small population size may have enabled natural selection to remove harmful mutations before mountain gorilla numbers started to decline in the 20th century.

Co-author Assistant Professor Dr Katerina Guschanski, of Uppsala University, added: Our study highlights that historical museum specimens constitute a unique resource for monitoring recent changes in the genetic status of endangered species.

The results have been published in Current Biology.

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Gwen Aloia is among the plaintiffs who sued a now-shuttered Phoenix body donation company. A jury in Phoenix decided that 10 of the 21 plaintiffs will be awarded $58 million.(Photo: Stephanie Innes/The Republic)

PHOENIX Ten of 21 plaintiffs who sued a now-shutteredPhoenix body donation company will be awarded $58 million, a Maricopa County Superior Court jury decidedTuesday.

Of the jury's award, $50 million was punitive damages, and $8 million was compensatory.

This is a landmark verdict, said Michael Burg, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

The jury began deliberating Nov. 12 whether to award up to $13.2 million each to plaintiffs who said the bodies of their deceased loved ones were mishandled and disrespected byBiological Resource Center of Phoenix.

Stephen Gore, the owner ofBiological Resource Center,was not in the courtroom Tuesday, and his lawyer declined comment.

The 21 plaintiffs in the civil action, filed in Maricopa County Superior Court in2015, saidthat theremains of their family members were obtained through "false statements," that body parts were sold for profitand that they were not stored, treated or disposed of with dignity or respect.

The plaintiffs saidGore was deceptive for not telling donors that their bodies would be cut up into pieces and sold to middlemen. In some cases, the bodies were used for ballistics testing and as crash test dummies.

Burgsaidthe civil case against Gore is the first of its kindand shouldsend a message to the body donation industry about what happens when a company deceives donors. He estimatedthe nationwide industry is worth $1 billion.

'Coolers full of genitalia': 'Frankenstein' head, buckets of limbs found in raid of Phoenix body donation company

Arizona is a regulatory-free zone for the body parts industry.Atleastfourbody donation companies operatein the state, in addition toa nonprofit cryonics company thatfreezes people after they die with the intent of one day bringing them back to life.

Gore started his company in 2004 and never set out to defraud anyone, his lawyer Timothy O'Connor said during closing arguments.

O'Connor said all the plaintiffs signed consent agreements that they would donate their bodies to Biological Resource Center. The consent agreements clearly stated the bodies could be "disarticulated," he said, adding that Biological Resource Center was not the only body donation company to use such language.

One of thepoints Burg made during the two-week trial was that Gore misled prospective donors and their families by conflating organ donation and body donation, going so far as to mention the Donor Network of Arizona and its Donate Life slogan on his company literature, though the two entities had no relationship.

In 2016, HB 2307, which requires regulation of the body donation industry, was signed into law. The bill was revised in 2017 but never implemented. Arizona Republic

Organ donation and body donation are not the same thing, though it's a common source of confusion. Organ donation is highly regulated, whereas body donation is not.

Organ donationinvolvestransplanting organsinto living humans, and donors may sign up to do that through the Donor Network of Arizonaor check the appropriate boxthrough the Arizona Department of Transportation's Motor Vehicle Division when ordering a duplicate driver's license/identification card.

In body donation, the cadaveris used for medical research, education and training. The head, arms and legs could be cut off, and no part of the body is ever transplanted into a living human.

There is no regulatory framework that requires body donation companies to disclose what they intend to do with the bodyor what happened with the body.

Biological Resource Center was private and for-profit.

Like many body donation companies, Biological Resource Center picked up bodies and returned the unused cremated remains to families free of charge.The company did outreach to hospitals and hospices across the state.

A cross-country criminal investigation into Biological Resource Center began after U.S. Customs officials found a shipmentfrom the company on a Delta cargo flightthat contained15 severed human heads dripping blood in plastic ice coolers, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich told the Arizona Republic in 2016.

An FBI officialwho participated in a raid of the company's Phoenix headquarters described seeing severed limbs, heads and a cooler full of penises. He said some of the FBI personnel who participated in the raiddid not want to go back into the building after what they'd seen.

In his closing arguments, Burg said there was never any evidence uncovered that showed what Biological Resource Center was doing with the male genitalia. He said there must have been a reason they were cut off, andthey weregoing to be used for"something."

Stephen Gore, right, is represented by lawyer Timothy O'Connor.(Photo: Stephanie Innes/The Republic)

Gore pleaded guilty in October 2015 to the charge of "illegally conducting an enterprise" after accusations that he provided vendors with contaminated human tissue andused body parts in ways that the donors had not permitted.

In aletter to Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Warren Granville before his sentencing in December 2015, Gore wrote that he felt overwhelmed, working in an industry with"no formal regulations." to guide him.

Gore was sentenced to four years of probation and a deferred sentence of one year in jail, which he did notserve because of good behavior.

Reacting to the Biological Resource Center case, Arizonapassed a lawin 2017 that says body donation companies are not allowed withouta state license.The law has not been implemented or enforced.

Follow Stephanie Inneson Twitter:@stephanieinnes.

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Body donation company that used cadavers as crash dummies ordered to pay $58M to families - USA TODAY

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A bizarre Disney theory has been floating around since the release of Frozen in 2013, and people just cant... let it go.

The theory shows up on Reddit,on Twitter,and its regularly perpetuated in articles about Frozen.

The people demand to know:Did Disney name the movie Frozen so stories about Walt Disneys frozen head would stop showing up on a Google search?

Google screenshotIs Walt Disney's head really frozen?

The legend of Walt Disney being cryogenically frozen is easily one of the most enduring pop culture conspiracy theories. Its impressive considering all indications are that he was cremated. But no matter how many times the notion has been put on ice in the last 50 years, it keeps being revived, popping up again and again, serving as the butt of jokes in TV shows such as 30 Rock and Family Guy.

With Frozen 2 coming to theaters on Nov. 22, now seems as good a time as any to find out if the franchise had anything to do with the theory.

The answer, according to writer/director Jennifer Lee? Hell snow.

In a 2018 interview about another one of her movies, A Wrinkle in Time, HuffPost asked if shed heard about the theory.

I have heard that one, Lee said. These are things where Im like, we called it Frozen for thematic reasons, and we called it Disneys Frozen because Disney made the film. Disney paid for the film and distributed it.

Lee, who heads Disney Animation Studios, said all her creative energy went into the movie itself. She added with a laugh, I wish I were that clever.

Walt Disney Animation StudiosFROZEN 2

The rumor that Walt Disney was frozen after his death has a few possible origins.But the theory seems to have been traced back to a 1972 interview between The Los Angeles Times and Robert Nelson, a former TV repairman who was enamored with cryonics and became the president of the Cryonics Society of California.

In comments from the interview surfaced by Los Angeles Magazine, Nelson mentions that Disney wanted to be frozen but claims he missed out. Weeks after his death in December 1966, a man named James Bedford became the first to freeze. (Hes still chilling today.)

In Nelsons 2014 memoir, Freezing People Is (Not) Easy, he recalled his rise and fall in the field of cryonics including a scandalin which nine bodies Nelson was preserving in a cemetery vault in Chatsworth,a Los Angeles suburb,had thawed out. He also describes how he believes the Disney legend started.

According to the book, shortly before Disneys death, Nelson received a call from a woman who described herself as an associate of the Walt Disney Studio. The Disney rep had called to get information on cryopreservation, including what facilities there were, what doctors were involved and how many people had been frozen.

Nelson wrote that his heart sank. No one had been frozen yet, and no cryogenic facility existed. He gave the rep the names of two doctors, Dr. Dante Brunol and Dr. Renault Able, who were scientific collaborators. She thanked him and the call ended.

Nelson died in 2018 and is currently frozen at the Cryonics Institute. But in researching the origins of the Disney story, we were led to Dr. Michael Perry, a historian of cryonics, whos been interested in the field since the 1960s and is a member of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Perry, whod known Nelson since 1990, had helped him with his memoir, performing such tasks as fact-checking.

Perry confirmed Disney wasnt frozen.

As far as any of us knows, and according to all the claims I have ever seen, he was cremated, not frozen, he told HuffPost.

He also said Nelsons description of the Disney call is accurate.

Disney studios did briefly contact him, Perry said. It was before his organization, Cryonics Society of California, had frozen anybody. They didnt have any real facilities. They had a couple of doctors they worked with, but theyre not really doing it yet. And thats pretty much it. Apparently, that was the only contact (Nelson) had, just that one phone call.

One call was enough, it seems, to perpetuate the rumor.

Some rumors just wont die down, and I think it just captures peoples attention, and they keep it going, Perry said. Maybe people find it intriguing that Disney might be frozen.

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I have a four-foot-tall robot in my house that plays with my kids. Its name is Jethro.

Both my daughters, aged 5 and 9, are so enamored with Jethro that they have each asked to marry it. For fun, my wife and I put on mock weddings. Despite the robot being mainly for entertainment, its very basic artificial intelligence can perform thousands of functions, including dance and teach karate, which my kids love.

The most important thing Jethro has taught my kids is that its totally normal to have a walking, talking machine around the house that you can hang out with whenever you want to.

Given my daughters semi-regular use of smartphones and tablets, I have to wonder how this will affect them in the future. Will they have any fear of technologies like driverless cars? Will they take it for granted that machine intelligences and avatars on computers can be their best friends, or even their bosses?

Will marrying a super-intelligent robot in 20 years be a natural decision? Even though I love technology, Im not sure how I would feel about having a robot-in-law. But my kids might think nothing of it.

This is my story of transhumanism.

Courtesy of Zoltan Istvan

My transhumanism journey began in 2003 when I was reporting a story for National Geographic in Vietnams demilitarized zone and I almost stepped on a landmine.

I remember my guide roughly shoving me aside and pointing to the metal object half sticking out of the ground in front of me.

I stared at the device that would have completely blown my legs off had my boot tripped the mine. I had just turned 30. The experience left me shaken. And it kept haunting me.

That night as I lay tense and awake in my hotel room, I had the epiphany that has helped define the rest of my life: I decided that the most important thing in my existence was to fight for survival. To put it another way: My goal was to never die.

Because I was not religious, I immediately turned to the thing that gave meaning to my world: science and technology. I took a leap of faith and made a wager that day. I later called this (and even later, dedicated a book to it) the transhumanist wager.

The life extension business of transhumanism will be a $600 billion industry by 2025.

My idea for an immortality wager came from Pascals Wager, the famous bet that caught on in the 17th century that loosely argued it was better to believe in God than not to, because you would be granted an afterlife if there was indeed a God. My transhumanist wager was based in my belief that its better to dedicate our resources to science and technology to overcome death while were still aliveso we dont ever have to find out whether there is an afterlife or not. It turns out I wasnt alone in my passion to live indefinitely through science. A small social movement, mostly of academics and researchers, were tackling similar issues, starting organizations, and funding research.

Some of them called themselves transhumanists.

Fast-forward 16 years from my landmine incident, and transhumanism has grown way beyond its main mission of just overcoming death with science.

Now the movement is the de facto philosophy (maybe even the religion) of Silicon Valley. It encapsulates numerous futurist fields: singularitarianism, cyborgism, cryonics, genetic editing, robotics, AI, biohacking, and others.

Biohacking in particular has taken offthe practice of physically hacking ones body with science, changing and augmenting our physiology the same way computer hackers would infiltrate a mainframe.

Its pretty obvious why it has emerged as such a big trend: It attracts the youth.

Not surprisingly, worrying about death is something that older people usually do (and, apparently, those younger people who almost step on landmines). Most young people feel invincible. But tell young people they can take brain drugs called nootropics that make them super smart, or give them special eye drops that let them see in the dark, or give them a chip implant that enhances human ability (like the one I have), and a lot of young people will go for it.

In 2016, I ran for the US presidency as the Transhumanist Party nominee. To get support from younger biohackers, my team and I journeyed on the Immortality Busmy 38-foot coffin-shaped campaign busto Grindfest, the major annual biohacking meet-up in Tehachapi, California. In an old dentists chair in a garage, biohackers injected me with a horse syringe containing a small radio-frequency-identification implant that uses near-field communication technologythe same wireless frequency used in most smartphones. The tiny deviceits about the size of a grain of ricewas placed just under the skin in my hand. With my chip, I could start a car, pay with bitcoin, and open my front door with a lock reader.

Four years later, I still have the implant and use it almost every day. For surfers or joggers like myself, for example, its great because I dont have to carry keys around.

One thing I do have to navigate is how some religious people view me once they understand I have one. Evangelical Christians have told me that an implant is the mark of the beast, as in from the Bibles Book of Revelations.

Even though Im tagged by conspiracy theorists as a potential contender for the Antichrist, I cant think of any negatives in my own experiences to having a chip implant. But as my work in transhumanism has reached from the US Military to the World Bank to many of the worlds most well-known universities, my chip implant only exasperates this conspiracy.

While people often want to know what other things Ive done to my body, in reality becoming a cyborg is a lot less futuristic and drastic than people think.

For me and for the thousands of people around the world who have implants, its all about functionality. An implant simply makes our lives easier and more efficient. Mine also sends out pre-written text messages when peoples phones come within a few feet of me, which is a fun party trick.

But frankly, a lot of the most transformative technology is still being developed, and if youre healthy like me, theres really not much benefit in doing a lot of biohacking today.

I take nootropics for better brain memory, but theres no conclusive research I know of that it actually works yet. Ive done some brainwave therapy, sometimes called direct neurofeedback, or biofeedback, but I didnt see any lasting changes. I fly drones for fun, and of course I also have Jethro, our family robot.

For the most part, members of the disabled community are the ones who are truly benefiting from transhumanist technologies today. If you have an arm shot off in a war, its cyborg science that gives you a robot arm controlled by your neural system that allows you to grab a beer, play the piano, or shake someones hand again.

But much more dramatic technology is soon to come. And the hope is that it will be availableand accessibleto everyone.

I asked to be added to a volunteer list for an experiment that will place implants in peoples brains that would allow us to communicate telepathically, using AI. (Biohacking trials like this are secretive because they are coming under more intense legal scrutiny.)Im also looking into getting a facial recognition security system for my home. I might even get a pet dog robot; these have become incredibly sophisticated, have fur softer than the real thing (that doesnt shed all over your couch or trigger allergies) and can even act as security systems.

Beyond that, people are using stem cells to grow new teeth, genetic editing to create designer babies, and exoskeleton technology that will likely allow a human to run on water in the near future.

Most people generally focus on one aspect of transhumanism, like just biohacking, or just AI, or just brainwave-tech devices. But I like to try it all, embrace it all, and support it all. Whatever new transhumanist direction technology takes, I try to take it all in and embrace the innovation.

This multi-faceted approach has worked well in helping me build a bridge connecting the various industries and factions of the transhumanist movement. Its what inspired me to launch presidential and California gubernatorial campaigns on a transhumanist platform. Now Im embarking on a new campaign in 2020 for US president as a Republican, hoping to get conservatives to become more open-minded about the future.

The amount of money flowing into transhumanist projects is growing into many billions of dollars. The life extension business of transhumanism will be a $600 billion industry by 2025, according to Bank of America. This is no time for transhumanism to break apart into many different divisions, and its no time to butt heads. We need to unite in our aim to truly change the human being forever.

Transhumanistsit doesnt matter what kind you arebelieve they can be more than just human. The word natural is not in our vocabulary. Theres only what transhumanists can do with the tools of science and technology they create. That is our great calling: to evolve the human being into something better than it is.

Because transhumanism has grown so broadly by now, not all transhumanists agree with me on substantially changing the human being. Some believe we should only use technology to eliminate suffering in our lives. Religious transhumanists believe we should use brain implants and virtual reality to improves our morality and religious behavior. Others tell me politics and transhumanism should never mix, and we must always keep science out of the hands of the government.

We need unity of some significant sort because as we grow at such a fast rate there are a lot of challenges ahead. For example, the conservative Christian Right wants to enact moratoriums against transhumanism. The anarcho-primativists, led by people like the primitivist philosopher and author John Zerzan (who I debated once at Stanford University), want to eliminate much technology and go back to a hunting-gathering lifestyle which they believe is more in tune with Earths original ecology. And finally, we must be careful that the so-called one percent doesnt take transhumanist technology and leave us all in the dust, by becoming gods themselves with radical tech and not sharing the benefits with humanity.

I personally believe the largest danger of the transhumanist era is the fact that within a few decades, we will have created super-intelligent AI. What if this new entity simply decides it doesnt like humans? If something is more sophisticated, powerful, intelligent, and resilient than humans, we will have a hard time stopping it if it wants to harm or eliminate us.

Whatever happens in the future, we must take greater care than we ever have before as our species enters the transhumanist age. For the first time, we are on the verge of transforming the physical structure of our bodies and our brains. And we are inventing machines that could end up being more intelligent and powerful than we are. This type of change requires that not only governments act together, but also cultures, religions, and humanity as a whole.

In the end, I believe that a lot more people will be on board with transhumanism than admit it. Nearly all of us want to eliminate disease, protect our families from death, and create a better path and purpose for science and technology.

But I also realize that this must be done ever so delicately, so as not to prematurely push our species into crisis with our unbridled arrogance. One day, we humans may look back and revel in how far our species has evolvedinto undying mammals, cyborgs, robots, and even pure living data. And the most important part will be to be able to look back and know we didnt destroy ourselves to get there.

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What it means to be a cyborg in 2019 - Quartz

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When Amber Freed first told doctors her baby boy wasnt able to move his hands, they said that wasnt possible.

Freed had given birth to twins in March 2017. While her baby girl, Riley, squirmed and babbled and crawled through the first year of her life, her fraternal twin, Maxwell, was different. He didnt crawl or babble like Riley did. I would fill out their baby books each month, and Riley had met all of these milestones. Maxwell didnt reach one, she said. Most alarmingly, however, Freed noticed that he never moved his hands.

She knew the news was going to be bad when they sent her to the sad room at the hospital, a featureless conference space filled with grim-faced doctors, to hear the diagnosis.

You take your baby to the doctor and you say, He cant move his hands. And they look at you and they say, Of course he can, said Freed.

Then they look for themselves, and you can see from the look on their faces that they have never seen anything like this.

On June 14, 2018, at the Children's Hospital Colorado in Denver, Maxwell was diagnosed with a genetic disease called SLC6A1. The diagnosis explained why the infant hadnt moved his hands or learned how to speak for the first year of his life, while Riley was thriving. But it didnt explain much else: All the doctors who diagnosed Maxwell knew about the genetic disease came from a single five-page study published in 2014, the year of its discovery. It was too rare to even have a name, she was told, so the doctors just called it by the name of the affected gene: SLC6A1.

Now her 2-year-old son is at the center of a multimillion-dollar race against time, one thats come to include genetics researchers whom Freed personally recruited, paid for by $1 million that Freed and her husband, Mark, have raised themselves. At the center of their research will be specially crafted mutant mice that Freed paid scientists in China to genetically alter to have the same disease as Maxwell. The four mice are scheduled to arrive stateside next week, but Freed said shes prepared to smuggle them into the US disguised as pets if there are any problems.

In total, Amber and Mark will need to raise as much as $7 million to test a genetic treatment for their child. And unless they can find and fund a cure, SLC6A1 will condemn Maxwell to severe epileptic seizures, most likely starting before he turns 3. The seizures may trigger developmental disabilities for a lifetime, often accompanied by aggressive behavior, hand flapping, and difficulty speaking.

And the Freeds will have to do it largely alone there are only an estimated 100 other people diagnosed with SLC6A1 in the world. This is the rarest of the rare diseases, pediatric geneticist Austin Larson of the Children's Hospital Colorado told BuzzFeed News.

SLC6A1 is just one of thousands of untreatable rare diseases, and the perilous path it has set up for Freed, half science quarterback and half research fundraiser, is one that few parents can follow. My dream is to create a playbook of how I did this for those that come after me, said Freed. I never want there to be another family that has suffered like this.

You can think of SLC6A1 as a vacuum cleaner in the brain, genetic counselor Katherine Helbig of the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, told BuzzFeed News. Helbig will speak at the first conference on the gene at the American Epilepsy Society meeting in Baltimore on Dec. 5, an effort organized by Freed.

The protein made by the gene acts as a stop sign to message-carrying chemicals in the brain, halting them by vacuuming them up once they reach their destination brain cell, Helbig explained.

When one of the two copies of the SLC6A1 gene in every brain cell is damaged, like in Maxwells case, too little of its protein is available to perform its vacuuming duties, leading to miscommunication between cells, developmental disorders, autism-like symptoms, and, often, severe epileptic seizures.

Maxwell is about the age when epileptic seizures typically start in kids with the genetic disease, said Helbig, adding, There probably are many more children out there who have it, but they just havent had the right test to find it. At least 100 similar genetic defects cause similar kinds of epilepsy, afflicting about 1 in 2,000 kids, she said.

I was the one who presented this diagnosis to Amber, said Larson of the Children's Hospital Colorado. There was no medicine or diet or any other treatment for SLC6A1. It wasnt an easy conversation. Most of the time when we present a diagnosis for a genetic condition, there is not a specific treatment available.

At that moment, it was just vividly clear that the only option was for me to create our own miracle, said Freed. Nobody else was going to help.

Half the battle with a rare genetic disease is getting researchers interested, said Helbig.

At that moment, it was just vividly clear that the only option was for me to create our own miracle. Nobody else was going to help.

So that is what Freed set out to do. She quit her job as a financial analyst and started making phone calls to scientists, calling 300 labs in the first three months. For those who didnt respond, she sent them snacks via Uber Eats.

Her search, and a rapid-fire education on genetic diseases, led her to conclude the best hope for helping Maxwell was an experimental technique called gene therapy.

All the roads zeroed in on one scientist: Steven Gray of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. In 2018, a team headed by Gray reported the first human experiments of gene transfer by spinal injection, conducted in 5 to 10 children with mutations in a gene called GAN that causes swelling in brain cells.

The GAN gene transfer in that experiment, first tested in mice, attached a corrected version of the damaged gene to a harmless virus. Viruses reproduce by infecting cells and hijacking their DNA machinery to reproduce their own genes, making more viruses. The gene therapy virus in turn leaves behind a corrected gene in the DNA of cells they infect. Injected into the spinal cord, Grays virus can travel straight to the brain, leaving behind the corrected gene after the virus has run its course.

I gave him my 30-second equity analyst pitch. I told him why Maxwell was a good patient, that we would raise $4 million to $7 million, and quarterback every step of the research, she said. And it worked. He agreed to make it a priority if we could raise the money.

The SLC6A1 researchers with the Freeds at a science meeting. From left: Terry Jo Bichell, Frances Shaffo, Amber Freed, Katty Kang, and Mark Freed.

Less than a month after meeting Gray, Freed contacted a lab at Tongji University in Shanghai that was also researching SLC6A1. The lab agreed to develop a mouse with Maxwells specific mutation for less than $50,000, using a gene modification technology called CRISPR that has revolutionized genetic engineering in the lab. CRISPR mice are much more expensive in the US, and this lab had experience with the gene, said Freed.

By July of this year, an experiment with a gene therapy virus that corrects SLC6A1 was tested on normal lab mice, which showed no sign of a toxic response, an encouraging sign. And by September, a line of CRISPR mice with Maxwells exact genetic mutation had been created at Tongji University.

It is the literal mouse version of him, said Freed. Testing a therapy in this mouse is as close as science can get to testing in my son directly.

To pay for all this, Maxwells family started fundraising last November and organized the first medical symposium on SLC6A1 in New Orleans that same month. They opened a GoFundMe account, which has raised $600,000, and held 35 fundraisers, which raised an additional $400,000 by October. In one charity competition, Larson from the Colorado Childrens Hospital, who diagnosed Maxwell, personally helped her raise $75,000.

It is the literal mouse version of him. Testing a therapy in this mouse is as close as science can get to testing in my son directly.

That money is helping to pay for the next step getting the CRISPR mice to Grays lab to test the SLC6A1-correcting virus on them. But its not as simple as putting the mice in a box and shipping them by mail. The mice will be transferred through a lab at Vanderbilt University headed by Katty Kang, an expert on the neurotransmitter disrupted by Maxwells mutation.

Amber is helping us to advance science, and everyone is making this a priority because of the young lives at stake not just Maxwell, but other children this could help, Kang told BuzzFeed News.

Once the four mice arrive, they will spend several weeks in quarantine, be tested to make sure they have Maxwells specific point mutation in the SLC6A1 gene, and breed with normal lab mice to produce generations of mixed-inheritance mice to serve as controls in future experiments. The mutant mice will be closely monitored before they head to UT Southwestern to make sure that they demonstrate the same problems and genetics as human patients with SLC6A1 and can therefore be used in any future clinical trials of gene therapy.

Right now at UT Southwestern, results from a safety test of the gene therapy virus conducted by Grays lab on young, normal lab mice is awaiting publication. If that works out, once the Chinese mice are sent over, they will also receive the gene-correcting virus. His team will see if their symptoms improve and to what extent their brain cells accept the corrected gene.

Maxwell's brain cells seen through a microscope (left), and a sample of his cells in a petri dish.

And then, Freed just needs another $5.5 million. Half a million dollars will go to test the virus in a second SLC6A1 animal model, likely a rat, as another safety step. Two million dollars will go toward creating more of the gene-correcting virus for a human safety study if that proves to be safe. And finally, if all that works out, $3 million will be needed to conduct the experiment on Maxwell and other children next year, following the path of the GAN clinical trial led by Gray.

Its a really horrible realization that the only thing standing in the way of a cure for your 2-year-old is money, said Freed.

Freed acknowledges that she has only been able to pursue a cure for Maxwell because her family has the resources to do so which she would never have had growing up in small towns in Texas, Montana, and Colorado in a poor family affected by alcoholism. I grew up visiting my parents in rehab and knew what to say to put a family member on a 72-hour psychiatric hold by age 12, she said. She dug herself out to build a career in finance, and hoped her kids would never have to experience the struggles she did growing up.

Even so, the fight hasnt been easy on them or on Maxwells sister, Riley.

Freed worries her daughter is growing up in doctors' waiting rooms, waiting on treatments for her brother to end. Maxwells disease has progressed, causing him to constantly clench his fingers, and sometimes pull his sisters hair. His 3-year-old sister will gently remind him, Soft hands, Maxie.

Families like the Freeds are at the forefront of efforts to turn diagnoses of rare genetic ailments, which often used to be the stopping point for medicine, into treatments. A similar case saw the family of a 3-year-old girl, Mila Makovec, raise $3 million for gene therapy to cure her Batten disease, a deadly genetic brain disease that affects 2 to 4 of every 100,000 children born in the US.

In a New England Journal of Medicine editorial on that case published in October, FDA officials questioned how high the agency should set the safety bar for such treatments, meant for severe diseases affecting so few people. In these cases, parents are often collaborators in developing treatments, and might not want to stop efforts that come with high risks. Even in rapidly progressing, fatal illnesses, precipitating severe complications or death is not acceptable, so what is the minimum assurance of safety that is needed? wrote senior FDA officials Janet Woodcock and Peter Marks.

This is way beyond what anyone expects of families.

Finally, Woodcock and Marks wrote, finding sustainable funding for such interventions may prove challenging, because the cost of production can be quite substantial, particularly for gene therapies.

In our era of financial inequality, the specter of wealthy parents buying custom genetic treatments for their childrens ailments while other parents desperately resort to GoFundMe accounts, or else do nothing looms as a possibility.

This is way beyond what anyone expects of families, said Larson. The pathway has been opened up by the brave new world of improved genetic diagnoses, and the coming of age of rapid genetic engineering tools like CRISPR.

But only 20 years ago, an experimental gene therapy that relied on a harmless virus killed an 18-year-old volunteer, Jesse Gelsinger, in a research misconduct case that brought gene therapy to a standstill. Now more than 2,500 gene therapy clinical trials have been conducted, and more than 370 are underway. The human genome was not sequenced until 2000; today, mapping an entire human gene map costs around $700. In this new era, customized treatments for rare genetic diseases like Maxwells are suddenly possible.

What I hope is that we are paving the way for other parents to help their children, said Freed.

Families of children with rare genetic diseases are also working together to make treatments like the one Freed is spearheading possible, said Larson.

They support each other and work together, he said. The best example might be the families of children with cystic fibrosis, who through the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the discovery of the gene responsible for the disease in 1989 have pushed for the discovery of new drug treatments. In October, the FDA approved a breakthrough pharmaceutical that could treat 90% of cases.

It is easier working with FDA on this kind of approach rather than starting from scratch, Gray told BuzzFeed News by email. After all, he said, its easier to follow a path that youve already walked down.

Similarly, Freed hopes the SLC6A1 Connect advocacy group she started can lead to similar treatments for other children with genetic epilepsies caused by the gene.

I dont think any parent should be expected to single-handedly cure his or her childs rare disease, said Helbig. Amber is a very tenacious and persistent person, and she will fight tooth and nail for her kids. But a lot of people dont have the resources and they shouldnt have to.

Helbig says that cautious optimism is appropriate on the chances of research yielding a genetic therapy for children like Maxwell. For SLC6A1, its really too early to say whether this is going to work.

But if it works, it might lead many more parents to get genetic tests for children that will reveal undiagnosed problems, she said. Many doctors discourage extensive genetic tests, thinking they wont find anything helpful. In the absence of known treatments, insurers are also reluctant to pay for such tests, discouraging all but the most fortunate and resourceful parents. Even for them, there are no guarantees.

The other tough reality is the possibility this treatment wont be completed in time to help Maxwell, said Freed. I love him with every ounce of my being, and I want him to know that I did everything humanly possible to change his outcome.

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This Mom Is Buying Mutant Mice From China To Find A Cure For Her Sons Rare Genetic Disease - BuzzFeed News

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By David Bjorkgren, Senior Editor

Special to the Hellenic News

Dr. Despina Siolas has wanted to build an arsenal to fight cancer ever since her mother was diagnosed with colon cancer in the late 1990s.

Because of undergoing this experience growing up, I decided I wanted to work on cancers, specifically gastrointestinal cancers, Dr. Siolas says.

She has always had a scientific curiosity about the world so it was a natural transition to shift to the medical field when she saw how cancer affected the life of her mother and family.

Fortunately, her mom responded well to treatment and she has been cancer-free for 23 years.

Not everyone has had access to effective cancer treatments, however.

In todays world, treatments have been largely ineffective against pancreatic cancer because of that cancers unique biology.

Dr. Siolas would like to change that.

My specific research looks at the immune system in pancreatic cancer and how pancreatic cancer avoids immune detection, she explains.

Pancreatic cancers ability to hide from our own immune systems makes it particularly deadly. It is projected to be the second highest cause of cancer related deaths by next year.

Around the tumor there are immuno-suppressant cells, cells that make it unrecognizable to the immune system, she explains. Were trying to see what the change is in the immune armor that would make cancer evident to the immune system.

Others are enthusiastic about her work. The National Cancer Institute recently gave her the NCI Mentor Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award.

This prestigious award includes a five-year grant to fund pancreatic cancer research.

Theres not that many recipients. Im the second person in history to receive it for medical oncology.

Immunotherapy, using ones own immune system to eradicate cancer cells, is a relatively new therapy, in use a little less than 10 years.

Its more potent than a lot of chemotherapies and it has the potential to cure the patient. Thats why its very attractive as a therapy, Dr. Siolas says.

But so far its only been largely successful in a handful of cancers, specifically melanoma, lung and bladder cancer. Through her research she hopes to add pancreatic cancer to the list.

Obesity and smoking are two of the key risk factors in contracting pancreatic cancer. Pancreatitis is another way.

Because the obese population is increasing we are seeing an increase in incidents of toxic pancreatic cancer, she says.

Still, there are plenty of those who arent obese or smokers, but are still diagnosed.

Some have a genetic-predisposition for pancreatic cancer, though that doesnt necessarily mean theyll get it.

The big push in the pancreatic cancer field right now is to screen for patients who have an inherited gene, or DNA, that makes them susceptible to getting cancer.

At NYU Langone Medical Center, where Dr. Siolas works, theres a free simple blood test that can screen for the pancreatic cancer gene. Its available to everyone who has a first degree relativea father, mother, sister, brother, daughter or son with pancreatic cancer.

As early detection improves, patients are being treated for smaller tumors that are easier to control and manage.

Cancer treatment overall has improved in the past 10 years, but theres more to do.

Even though our treatments have improvedits not a six-month death sentence it used to be, we have a lot more work to do if we want to cure patients.

Seeing what her mom went through and the effect cancer and treatments had on the family has made Dr. Siolas particularly sensitive to a patients needs.

A life-altering diagnosis brings anxiety to the patient and their families. She takes time to reassure, explaining in understandable terms whats happening to them and what kind of treatments are available.

Ultimately, its their decision on how they want to proceed.

Treating physicians need to know the patients background and circumstances, to help them find the best social support system.

I have a patient who lives alone, has no family so theres no one to check in on him. Theres no one to call him up. We know hes going to have a harder time than a patient who lives with family members who are able to say, hey, youre not feeling well, let me make you something.

These days, there are many more support systems available to cancer patients. Dr. Siolas says places like Penncare and the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. Theyre really good. They have a lot of programs. They have information to help patients better understand, connect talk to others, she says.

Theres also symptomatic oncology, a relatively new branch of medicine focusing on treating the symptoms of cancer. Patients have access to nutritionists, massage therapist, yoga, acupuncture, even culinary classes.

Whether its treating patients or conducting pure cancer research, Dr. Siolas brings the influences of her parents and her Greek background with her.

It was her father, John Siolas that spurred her interest in science. Holding a Ph.D. in bilingual education, he worked on curriculum development for the New York public school system. He also worked with Greek teachers and the Greek Archdiocese on Hellenic education, devising the Greek Regent Exams, and Greek proficiency tests for students. He lives in Queens today.

He actually has a couple of childrens books in Greek. He also co-authored a Greek childrens magazine in Greek and English.

John Siolas was born in Arcadia, Greece and came to the United States in the 1960s at age 20. An aunt in the United States sponsored him and his siblings to come over.

He started life here in a pizzeria, but studied at night to get his bachelors degree, then his masters. He taught himself English. He was translating words to Greek to understand what they meant, Dr. Siolas says.

John Siolas wanted to go into medicine but that wasnt an option for him back then because of his socio-economic status, she explains.

Her mother, Catherine Siolas, has a masters in Byzantine history at Queens College. She taught Greek at the college level. Today, shes also a licensed real estate broker and a contributing writer to a local news outlet.

Her mother was born in the United States. So were Dr. Siolas grandparents. It was her great-grandparents who immigrated to the United States from Greece in 1922.

Today, Dr. Siolas carries her heritage with her.

Because both of my parents valued the Greek language, arts and culture they instilled in me a respect for ancient and modern Greek language and culture.

Dr. Siolas is married to Laurentino Ibarra, who works for the Federal Reserve. They have a daughter, Penelope Cleopatra Ibarra, 1-year four-months-old. They plan to raise her with a deep love and appreciation of Greek culture and the church.

Dr. Siolas says her Hellenic background lets her connect with other ethnic groups and understand their role in history and the world. Also, having this connection with Greek Americans, with the Greek people, youre never really alone.

Continue reading here:
Greek-American Doctor's Research Tackles the Tough Armor of Pancreatic Cancer - Hellenic News of America

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Image:False-coloured, high magnification, scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of a three dimensional multi-cellular prostate tumour spheroid (cluster of cells). Credit:Izzat Suffian, David McCarthy & Khuloud T. Al-Jamal. License:CC BY 4.0

Our first news on male cancers in the past year was from a study led by scientists here at The Institute of Cancer Research. They showed that testicular cancer in families is usually caused by the accumulation of minor genetic changes that have only a small effect on their own, but together can add up to a significant risk.

The important study showed that a mixed set of common, single-letter changes to the DNA code, each of which slightly increase a mans risk of testicular cancer, plays the biggest role in causing the disease rather than lifestyle factors, or small numbers of major genetic mutations that each have a big impact on risk.

Study leaderProfessor Clare Turnbull, Team Leader inMolecular and Population Geneticsat the ICR, said:

Our study uncovers the genetic basis for familial cases of the most common type of testicular cancer, and represents an important step forward in our understanding of the disease.

In the short term, our discovery will help in counselling men who might be worried about their risk of developing testicular cancer. In the longer term, it could help inform future screening programmes for testicular cancer that might diagnose it earlier.

Read the story in full

In February we shared news about a new way to plan radiotherapy that could help shape treatment away from sensitive organs near tumours to reduce side-effects.

The technique was developed by physicists at the ICR and our partner hospital,The Royal Marsden, and involves using complex mathematical formulae to spare sensitive organs from radiation damage.

Study leaderProfessor Uwe Oelfke, Head of theJoint Department of Physicsat the ICR and The Royal Marsden, said:

Radiotherapy is a very effective treatment for cancer, but the damaging effect of radiation on healthy tissue can lead to challenging side-effects that can affect a patients quality of life. Treatment margins are necessary to ensure the whole tumour is targeted, but a safe reduction of these margins is key to further improving outcomes for patients.

Read the story in full

In April we revealed that a new panel of genes could identify men at highest risk of aggressive prostate cancer.

The study was the largest of its kind so far, both analysing all known DNA repair genes, and including a comparison with healthy men to determine the effect of gene changes on prostate cancer risk.

Our wide-ranging programme of prostate cancer research is helping men to live longer, improving their quality of life and increasing cure rates.

Find out more

In the future, the panel could be developed into a test for use in screening services so that high-risk men could be closely monitored, increasing the chance of catching the disease early.

Professor Ros Eeles, Professor ofOncogeneticsat the ICR, said:

At the moment, men can receive a diagnosis of prostate cancer without really knowing how the disease is likely to affect them, but in future a test could pick out those who are likely to develop aggressive disease and need intensive treatment.

Testing for genes linked with aggressive prostate cancer could be especially helpful for informing treatment decisions in men already diagnosed with the disease.

Read the story in full

During the ASCO 2019 cancer conference, we shared news about how olaparib, a pioneering gene-targeted drug already licensed for breast and ovarian cancer, can also benefit some men with prostate cancer.

The results showed the benefits of olaparib, which is from a family of drugs called PARP inhibitors, for men with prostate cancer and DNA repair defects in their tumours.

Dr Nuria Porta, Principal Statistician on the TOPARP-B trial in theClinical Trials and Statistics Unitat the ICR, said:

Our trial shows that PARP inhibitors could be effective in some men with prostate cancer potentially widening out their use beyond ovarian and breast cancer.

We also found that these drugs could be effective in men with several different DNA repair mutations, and in men with genetic faults in their tumours rather than just the smaller group of men with inherited mutations.

Read the story in full

At Septembers European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)Congress, we announced further news about olaparib.

The drug was shown to be more effective than modern targeted hormone treatments at slowing progression and improving survival in some men with advanced prostate cancer, according to the findings of a phase III clinical trial called PROfound.

Professor Johann de Bono, Regius Professor of Cancer Research at the ICR and Consultant Medical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, who co-led the PROfound trial, said:

Our clinical trial shows that olaparib, a pill without the side-effects of chemotherapy, is able to target an Achilles heel in cancer cells. Olaparib is able to kill cancer cells with faulty DNA repair genes while sparing normal cells.

This study is a powerful demonstration of the potential of precision medicine to transform the landscape for patients with the commonest of male cancers.

Read the story in full

Last month a new study showed that taking a fingerprint of the mix of bacteria in the gut can indicate how susceptible individual cancer patients are to gut damage as a result of radiotherapy for prostate and gynaecological cancers.

The research is the first to explore the protective effects of the microbiome in prostate cancer patients and at preventing the late effects of radiotherapy.

Professor David Dearnaley, Professor of Uro-Oncology at the ICR and Consultant Clinical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden said:

Our study is the first to show that gut bacteria have an important influence on how susceptible patients are to gastrointestinal side effects from radiotherapy. If microbial treatments such as faecal transplants are found to reduce damage, for example, it could substantially improve patients quality of life.

Read the story in full

We are building a new state-of-the-art drug discovery centre to create more and better drugs for cancer patients, including for male cancers.

The centre is a 75m project and we now have less than 14m to raise.To make our building a reality, we urgently need your philanthropic support.

Support our appeal

Original post:
Science Talk - Men's Health Awareness Month: 12 months of progress into male cancer research at the ICR - The Institute of Cancer Research

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Researchers from the University of Exeter have studied leadership in guppies by selectively breeding the fish that differed in how likely they were to lead a scouting party to examine a predator.

The team of researchers created 30 breeding pairs of the males and female most likely to lead, in addition to 30 breeding pairs of the fish that showed the lowest levels of leadership.

After three generations, researchers tested males and female from these lines, researchers found that there were pronounced differences in leadership tendency among the two groups, with descendants of leaders being more likely to lead.

The male fish that were bread for low leadership presented more aggressive and less sociable traits. Alternatively, the male that were bread for high leadership should positive sign of social development with the females not being affected by the experiment.

We wanted to know how much leadership is an inherited characteristic, and whether its linked to other traits, said Sylvia Dimitriadou, of the University of Exeter.

It seems leadership among guppies is partly inherited around a third can be explained by their pedigree, with other factors such as their social and physical environment also key.

Among males, this appears to be linked to other social traits such as lower aggression (measured by whether fish share food or try to push rivals away) and sociability (moving as part of a shoal and switching between shoals).

In females, leadership also passed down the generations, but without observable changes to other aspects of behaviour.

Its not clear why this is. In guppies, female and male cooperative and social behaviour differs, so its possible that certain traits co-evolve or co-develop differently among females and males.

Traits such as boldness and tendency to explore did not diverge between the two breading line, meaning it was only social traits that seemed to differ alongside leadership in males.

See the rest here:
Leadership in the genes of guppies - SciTech Europa

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. Rachel and Zack Cashatt knew they always desired to be parents but were unsure of their odds to conceive and their chances of having a baby without cystic fibrosis (CF).

Zack was diagnosed with the genetic disease which causes severe damage to the lungs, digestive system and other organs at 4 months old.

Meanwhile, Rachel was diagnosed as a carrier of the CF gene at 23.

According to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Ninety-eight percent of males with CF are infertile.

However, those who are just a carrier of the gene, like Rachel, are not at risk of their own health being impacted but are at an increased risk of having a child with CF.

When we decided to start our family planning, we knew we would likely need in vitro fertilization (IVF) assistance and we knew the importance of pregenetic testing to increase the chances of our baby not inheriting CF, Rachel said. We did our research and thats when we learned about Dr. Deaton and his fertility groups success.

Rachel, 29, a middle school science teacher, teaches her students about genetics. She was aware of the challenges that she and her husband could face on their journey to start a family.

Since Rachel is a carrier of the CF gene and Zack has CF, the odds of their baby having cystic fibrosis were significantly increased to 50%, said Jeff Deaton, M.D., director of the Center for Fertility, Endocrine and Menopause at Wake Forest Baptist Health.

Deaton went on to explain that in the Cashatts' case, 41 eggs were extracted from Rachel; 16 of those matured to the next process, then four were suitable for the preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) process which showed that only one of those would not result in CF.

PGT is a procedure used in conjunction with IVF implantation to help identify genetic defects within embryos. This process serves two purposes: to increase the odds of a successful implantation and to prevent certain genetic diseases or disorders from being passed on to the child.

We waited to see if the embryo would take and it did nine months later, Rachel and Zack had a healthy baby boy who does have the CF gene, but will not develop the disease, Deaton said.

The Cashatts' son Oliver was born in March of this year.

Oliver is such a happy baby and most importantly, healthy, Rachel said. We wanted to do everything in our power to ensure he didnt have the same disease as my husband and through this technology and expertise, thats exactly what we received. Sometimes, its still hard to believe.

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Couple Overcomes Infertility And 50% Chance Of Baby Having Cystic Fibrosis - WFMYNews2.com

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A person's tongue is generally flat and free of significant grooves. Fissured tongue causes a person to develop one or more grooves on the top portion of their tongue. Fissured tongue is neither contagious nor painful. However, other conditions, such as geographic tongue or food caught in the groove, can cause pain.

Fissured tongue is a common condition. Approximately 5% of people in the United States have it, and the numbers vary considerably in countries throughout the world. Fissured tongue may appear for no apparent reason, but some people may have an underlying condition that doctor or dentist may need to rule out.

Keep reading to learn more about the causes and treatment for fissured tongue.

Fissured tongue is when one or more grooves appear on the surface of the tongue. These grooves can be shallow or deep. Usually, the primary fissure occurs in the middle of the tongue.

In some cases, the fissures may be large and deep, making the tongue look like it has distinct sections. The tongue may also have a cracked appearance.

A person may also have geographic tongue. Geographic tongue is when patches on the tongue become free of papillae, which are the tiny bumps on the surface of the tongue. When a person has geographic tongue, smooth, red patches, which often have raised borders, replace the papillae. The condition gets its name because the tongue resembles a map.

Learn more about geographic tongue here.

Fissured tongue is most common in older people, although anyone can develop it. Males are also more likely than females to develop fissured tongue.

Doctors are not certain what causes fissured tongue. However, there may be a genetic link that means certain people are more likely to develop it.

One article published in Allied Academics looked at the frequency of fissured tongue in people in South Africa and Israel. In South Africa, only 0.6% of the population had fissured tongue, compared to nearly 30.6% of the people in Israel. Researchers believe that this could be evidence of a genetic factor.

However, the study in South Africa involved children and, therefore, does not reflect the entire population. However, the idea that a genetic component may play a role in fissured tongue development remains a possibility.

Fissured tongue often first appears in childhood. However, the condition typically becomes more pronounced as the person ages.

Fissured tongue may have links to other conditions, including:

Malnutrition may also cause fissured tongue to occur. But this is less common.

A fissured tongue does not typically require treatment. Often, it does not have any symptoms, and a person may not know they have the condition until a dentist discovers it during a routine checkup.

Complications of fissured tongue typically occur if food or other debris get caught in the grooves. If this happens, it can cause irritation or allow bacteria to grow. The bacteria trapped in the fissures can cause bad breath or promote tooth decay.

In extreme cases, Candida albicans may infect very deep grooves. Anyone who develops this complication will require treatment with a topical antifungal medication.

The best prevention against fissured tongue is to practice proper oral hygiene, including cleaning of the mouth at least twice a day and regular visits to the dentist.

In most cases, fissured tongue will not cause any symptoms, so a person may not visit the dentist for this purpose. A person may not visit a dentist unless they are experiencing pain. However, it is a good idea to visit the dentist twice a year for routine care. People should also go to their dentist if they have any oral pain or discomfort that does not go away.

Fissured tongue is not a major cause for concern. It can lead to minor to moderate complications, such as bad breath, tooth decay, or mild infections in rare cases.

A person may develop fissured tongue as a child, but it can become more pronounced as the person ages.

Fissured tongue does not usually cause additional symptoms in most people.

Treatment typically involves routine oral care.

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Fissured tongue: Causes and treatment - Medical News Today

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Plenty of people drink alcohol in a way that doesnt lead to lasting dependency. But for millions of people, a casual drinking habit can transform into a compulsive one, leaving scientists wondering where people go off the rails and how to stop them.

Detecting signs of an alcohol problem before it actually emerges may help. A new analysis involving binge-drinking male mice could represent the first step in understanding how the spiral starts.

Kay Tye, a neuroscientist at Salk Institute for Biological Studies and lead author of the study, tells Inverse that the very first time certain mice were exposed to alcohol, they showed patterns of brain activity consistent with those that underpin compulsive drinking. Several weeks later, these mice had become binge drinkers.

The neural activity was so different during initial alcohol exposure, when the behavior looked indistinguishable, Tye says. The degree of reduced neural activity in this key circuit could so accurately predict the future development of compulsive behavior, weeks later!

The analysis was published this week in the journal Science.

When scientists search for biological causes of alcohol abuse, they tend to look at genes for clues. There are hundreds of genes associated with alcohol use, but genetics alone cant account for all the reasons that some people develop problems with alcohol and others dont.

In this study, researchers turned instead to the brain. They found that in mice who went on to develop a drinking problem, alcohol triggered different responses in neurons running through a brain circuit stemming from the prefrontal cortex, which plays a role in decision-making, to an area of the brain stem known as the dorsal periaqueductal gray, which is involved in more fundamental brain processes.

When mice that didnt develop an alcohol problem drank for the first time, they saw that this circuit seemed particularly active. But in the mice that did become problem drinkers, the circuits activity was tamped down.

These differences were obvious before the mice started behaving differently around alcohol, says Cody Siciliano, who is assistant professor at Vanderbilt University and a study co-author.

The mice started to change their behavior after one critical experience one that many of us humans experience in our lifetimes, too.

The thing that really produced these individual differences was when we allowed them to have a binge drinking experience, Siciliano tells Inverse.

In the experiment, Tyes team followed genetically identical mice as they experimented with alcohol. This started with one or two drinks here and there. After a period of getting the mice used to these small amounts of alcohol, the researchers let the mice go off the rails, allowing them to drink unlimited amounts of alcohol for two hours straight.

That binge experience proved to be transformative but especially for the mice who had shown lower-than-expected responses to alcohol in the prefrontal cortex-brain stem circuit. These mice didnt have casual relationships with alcohol anymore. Instead, they showed more compulsive drinking than their cage-mates

Little could put the binge-drinking mice off the booze, the researchers found. Mixing the alcohol with quinine to give it a bitter taste or giving the mice foot shocks after they drink did not stop them from compulsive drinking.

The findings suggest that drinking inhibits an aversive signal in the brains of compulsive drinkers. In mice who did not compulsively drink, that aversive signal was associated with steering clear of too much alcohol. But alcohol may also cloud a mouses ability to make a judgement call, the researchers say.

What we think is happening is that in some animals this neural circuit from the prefrontal cortex into the dorsal periaqueductal gray is basically susceptible to the effects of alcohol, Siciliano says. We think that this pathway is important for decision-making in a number of different contexts. It doesnt very well after this binge drinking experience.

A mouse brain is not a human brain, so it could be years before these findings lead to a kind of treatment for alcoholism. But the results are promising, the researchers say.

The same brain circuit may hold clues to treating the problem. To see whether this was the case, the team used optogenetics to alter the binge-drinking mices brain activity to mimic that seen in the non-alcoholic mice.

Activating the circuit appears to decrease drinking activity in the mice in a lasting way, Siciliano says.

If there was a way to do that in humans that could be therapeutically advantageous and have a lasting effect, he says.

Manipulating human brains using the same technique isnt a viable option. But in the future, the team hopes that they might be able to find a target which would allow them to manipulate the neural activity using drugs tackling alcohol addiction before it even starts.

Abstract:

What individual differences in neural activity predict the future escalation of alcohol drinking from casual to compulsive? The neurobiological mechanisms that gate the transition from moderate to compulsive drinking remain poorly understood. We longitudinally tracked the development of compulsive drinking across a binge-drinking experience in male mice. Binge drinking unmasked individual differences, revealing latent traits in alcohol consumption and compulsive drinking despite equal prior exposure to alcohol. Distinct neural activity signatures of cortical neurons projecting to the brainstem before binge drinking predicted the ultimate emergence of compulsivity. Mimicry of activity patterns that predicted drinking phenotypes was sufficient to bidirectionally modulate drinking. Our results provide a mechanistic explanation for individual variance in vulnerability to compulsive alcohol drinking.

Read more here:
Scientists discover "just one drink" is more accurate than they thought - Inverse

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Examining the ways in which animals communicate

Sex in the animal kingdom is serious business as Robin M. Tinghitella, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Denver, presented her research on how animals communicate the urge to reproduce on Nov. 15.

Tinghitellas presentation also described how animals, specifically crickets and three-spined stickleback fish, communicate with one another within changing environments .

To start, Tinghitella discussed how evolution was initially thought to have been a historical process that takes place over long periods of time.

She then explained that within the last 20 to 30 years, it was discovered that evolution can happen on contemporary time scales, meaning it can happen within a few months or years.

The causes of rapid evolution include invasions of new habitats, the rise and fall of natural enemies, competitors and resources, along with anthropogenic change which results from human actions and pressure.

Tinghitella explained that in her lab the main focus is on how the conditions of rapid evolution can impact the communication between animals in relation to mating calls.

That means that we studied sexual signals, things like frog calls and bird plumage, that are typically used by males to attack and convince females to mate with them, Tinghitella said.

Another area Tinghitellas lab focuses on is sexual selection within the environment. Almost all organisms now live in environments that are impacted to some degree by humans whether thats habitat loss and fragmentation, introducing new species, harvesting, pollution or climate change.

All of these things have in common is that they change the environment in which males and females are communicating.

Tinghitella went on to explain that when environments change rapidly, successful mating is affected by the new environmental change and local population extinction. This is just because not having offspring is the genetic equivalent of death.

When faced with environmental changes, Tinghitella explained that organisms can leave that area or stay and adapt to the new environment through rapid evolutionary responses.

Tinghitella then discussed how the outcomes of her studies varied from what was originally thought to have happened. One of the things that I find really intriguing about my treats of choice is the incredible variation that we find not only among populations of species but also within populations of species.

After discussing rapid evolution, Tinghitella described the organisms her lab studied starting with crickets and their mating call.

Male crickets use calling songs to attack females by using their wings which creates pulses of sounds.

For the last 15 years, Tinghitella has been studying the sexual signaling of a coastal species of crickets in the Kalaupapa National Park in Hawaii. Tinghitella chose this location to see how the environment would affect how the crickets acted since it was a quieter area.

During her work, she looked at a parasitoid fly that is attracted to the sexual signaling of these crickets saying, When males call to attract females, they also risk attracting this parasitoid fly.

When the female fly finds the male cricket, they will spray larvae onto the male which will then burrow themselves into the body of the cricket, eventually killing him.

Tinghitella then described an adapted cricket called the silent winged cricket which doesnt produce any sound, meaning they are protected from the parasitoid fly. It was found that the mutation to these crickets spread throughout the island in fewer than 20 generations.

On her trip, Tinghitella found a colony of crickets in one location on the park to examine. After catching the native crickets thinking they would be silent, Tinghitella realized that those particular crickets made a purring noise.

Tinghitella went on to describe the importance of their findings saying, Sexual signals are frequently the only or the most divergent trait between closely related species and that strongly implicates sexual selection.

When signals change, we can quickly get reproductive isolation if preferences change instead.

Tinghitella explained that the evolution of a new sexual signal has only been studied once before in jewel wasps.

On the topic of mating, Tinghitella and her team found that female crickets were attracted to the purring crickets over the silent male crickets as she said that it could be possible that in Kalaupapa, the crickets have become adapted to the purring song.

Tinghitella then discussed the three-spined stickleback fish and the experiments her lab conducted to how female sticklebacks pick a mate.

Within their research, Tinghitella and her lab looked into the offspring of three-spined sticklebacks in regards to their parental relationships and whether that affects who they choose to mate with.

Within the experiment, either the mother, father, both or neither were exposed to a predator to see if they shared the information with their offspring and if it changed the mating decisions of their daughters when they grew up.

Once the offspring were fully grown, Tinghitella and her team found that when the parents were exposed to a predator, it affected the daughters behavior, preferences and the males they chose to mate with.

Tinghitella first explained that female sticklebacks typically prefer males with a bright red throat with contrasting blue eyes since it usually indicates that the male is in good condition, is parasite resistant, is able to defend the nest and is successful when mating.

The results found that daughters who had one parent exposed to a predator were attracted to male sticklebacks with duller colors while daughters with both parents exposed to predators were typically attracted to the bright red throat and blue eyes that a typical female stickleback would be attracted to.

One of the things that I find really intriguing about my treats of choice is the incredible variation that we find not only among populations of species, but also within populations of species

This leads us to think a lot about this idea that parental effects on mating could facilitate reproduction in changing environments, but we shouldnt actually assume that parental effects are going to be adapted.

To end her presentation, Tinghitella emphasized how rapid evolution can give us an idea of how animals can respond to rapidly changing environments while studying, [The] persistence, formation and collapse of boundaries between species.

More here:
Changes in animal communication - NDSU The Spectrum

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The information provided on the show is for general information purposes only. If you have a health problem, medical emergency, or a general health question, you should contact a physician or other qualified health care provider for consultation, diagnosis and/or treatment. Under no circumstances should you attempt self-diagnosis or treatment based on anything you have seen on the show.

For the past few days,Your Morning has been looking at the effects of heart disease and stroke, and the differences between men and women. According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, women who have had a stroke have outcomes worse than those of men. Staff cardiologist at Mackenzie Health and spokesperson for Canadas Heart and Stroke Foundation Dr. Sherryn Rambihar stopped by to share that, when it comes to heart disease and stroke, women continue to be under-researched, under-diagnosed, under-treated, under-supported and under-aware of the risks. The research gap means we lack critical information about the impact of differences between womens and mens hearts and brains.

See below for some of important information of womens cardiovascular health, and be sure to click on the video above for even more vital facts from Dr. Rambihar.

Mitral valve regurgitation is the most common form of valvular heart disease in North America. Left untreated, it can result in heart failure and increased mortality rates. While women are more likely to have significant mitral regurgitation, they are less likely to receive surgery than men, and when they do receive surgery, they have worse outcomes. The aims of the research are to explore sex differences in current recommended echocardiographic triggers for surgery in the management of chronic mitral regurgitation; to examine sex differences in cardiac remodeling before and after intervention and their implications on management; and to study the impact of the hemodynamic stress of pregnancy on cardiac remodeling and outcomes. This research will also consider the impact of pregnancy on mitral valve regurgitation.

Spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) is the suspected cause of heart attacks in 25% to 40% of young women, in which the inner layers of an artery separate, resulting in impaired blood flow to the heart. SCAD often strikes young women who do not have the standard heart disease risk factors. Those who have had SCAD are also more likely to experience it again. Patients with diseases that weaken blood vessels walls are at higher risk for SCAD and many of these diseases are inherited. As the genetics behind SCAD have not been fully examined, this research will determine if SCAD is a genetic condition and what its genetic markers may be. The largest of its kind, this study will draw on subjects of the Canadian SCAD Study. DNA analysis will be conducted on samples from SCAD patients who have had heart attacks. In addition to looking for common genes linked to SCAD, the team will administer more specific testing on a subset of higher risk patients to uncover rare genetic markers.

The main objective of this research is to measure how a womans health during her pregnancies affects her later risk of cardiovascular disease. This research will use a hospital admissions data base to identify a group of women who were ever pregnant and follow their data over time for any hospitalizations for cardiovascular disease. The researchers will look for pregnancy related outcomes including disorders of the placenta, birth defects in infants as well as postpartum depression, and use this information to calculate how cardiovascular disease risk changes based on a womans health during her pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum period. By exploring the understudied area of the connection of reproductive outcomes to heart disease and stroke, this research has the potential to identify a greater number of women that are at increased risk of later cardiovascular disease.

Heart and Strokeis, too, working to close the research gap between men and women. If you want to learn more and lend your support to their Womens Campaign, join the #RedList here.

See more here:
What's being done to close the research gap when it comes to men's and women's cardiac health - The Loop

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This is a societal expectation that goes back centuries. "Historically speaking, the first mention of how women should be seated was in the 1300s," says Myka Meier, the founder of Beaumont Etiquette, an education consultancy specialising in social graces and corporate protocol. According to antique etiquette manuals, women of that era were coached to keep their knees pressed together to signal virginity.

Observe men: They're usually sitting with their legs slightly apart and pressed slightly outward.

The symbolic gesture persisted through the Victorian era before slightly abating during the Jazz Age, when hemlines were raised and legs were liberated from the oppression of heavy skirts. Pants came into fashion among women for practical reasons during World War II, but the backlash to women's work in the 1950s marked the return of so-called traditional values and feminine silhouettes.

Even when hemlines began to rise in the Swinging Sixties, the idea that a respectable woman sat with her knees pressed together stuck. Crossed legs and ankles remain a social expectation and postural norm today.

"There are definitely anatomical features that are more common in women and cause women to be more at risk for certain musculoskeletal problems," says Chisa Hidaka, a physician who trained in orthopaedic surgery and has taught applied anatomy of human movement in the dance school at Barnard College for more than a decade.

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"It's helpful to say, 'What are the social and cultural things that could be causing that?' because something that's a cultural or social influence could be classified as a modifiable risk factor."

This is Bergin's goal: To make women realise that sitting habits can be a risk factor for musculoskeletal problems, and that they may be able to avoid particular aches, pains and conditions by refusing to sit with their legs pressed together, crossed or otherwise anatomically scrunched. (Note: Sitting with crunched legs does not cause varicose veins; "that's more of a genetic predisposition," Bergin says).

"Observe men: They're usually sitting with their legs slightly apart and pressed slightly outward," Bergin says. Be mindful of inward rotation. Let the outer thigh relax. When you stand up, don't let your knees collapse inward it puts pressure on the joints in a way that can contribute to wear and tear over time. Don't overcompensate, either. "A lot of my patients will say: Oh, you want me to 'manspread'. That's too far the other way," Bergin said. "We want [your legs at] about 11 and 1 o'clock."

Charla Fischer, an orthopaedic surgeon at New York University's Langone Spine Centre, notes that particular postures among women can also be problematic when they're on their feet.

"The way men stand is with equal weight on both legs, so there's no hip curvature," she says. "The way women often stand, with their weight on one side and one foot forward, [can] put undue stress on both the leg you're standing on and also the leg you're not standing on because it's working really hard to hold the pelvis up."

A lot of my patients will say: Oh, you want me to 'manspread'. That's too far the other way. We want [your legs at] about 11 and 1 o'clock.

Bergin adds that high heels are another gender-specific culprit of musculoskeletal problems. "If you see 100 people with painful bunions or hammer toes, 95 of them are women, and it's from jamming [their toes] down into tight, pointy shoes," she adds, lamenting the fact that heels are still a staple of professional corporate dress codes. "We are definitely better off not wearing heels or wearing them as little as possible."

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Meier, the etiquette expert, teaches gender-neutral practices across the board. For example, she tells male students to say "Please, after you" rather than "Ladies first." In terms of posture, she advises sitting positions that are focused on maintaining good posture, no crossed knees need apply.

"When you take one leg and cross it over, you naturally start to lean back and you lose that power pose," Meier says. "There are still a lot of thought processes out there that say 'Ladies should sit this way because they are ladies'." But she sees more than a danger of physical aches and pains. By sitting with crossed legs, "I think we're putting ourselves back in a position we fought so hard to get out of."

The Washington Post

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Why this orthopaedic surgeon insists women should 'sit like a man' - Sydney Morning Herald

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By Black Health Matters

One daily soda can heighten significantly a persons risk of developing prediabetes, a recent study finds.

A person who drinks one can of sugar-sweetened beverage a day had a 46 percent increased risk of developing prediabetes, said Senior Researcher Nicola McKeown, a scientist with the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston.

Regular sugar intake can batter a persons body on a cellular level, according to McKeown. Cells need insulin, a hormone that breaks down sugar into energy. But too much sugar in the diet can overexpose the cells to insulin.

This constant spike in blood glucose over time leads to the cells not becoming able to properly respond, and thats the beginning of insulin resistance, McKeown said.

Once insulin resistance starts, blood sugar levels rise and damage every major system in the body. Prediabetes, a precursor to Type 2 Diabetes, means a person has elevated blood sugar but has not entered full-blown Type 2 Diabetes. The condition is reversible if a person cuts back on sugar.

The studys results show limiting sugary drinks is a modifiable dietary factor that could have an impact on that progression from prediabetes to diabetes, McKeown said.

For the study, McKeown and her colleagues analyzed 14 years of data on nearly 1,700 middle-aged adults who participated in the Framingham Heart Study, a federally funded program that has monitored multiple generations for lifestyle and clinical characteristics that contribute to heart disease. Participants did not have diabetes or prediabetes at the beginning of the study, and they self-reported consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.

Those who drank the highest amounts of sugar-sweetened beverages, on average, six 12-ounce servings a week had a 46 percent higher risk of prediabetes.

But the American Beverage Association suggests that sugar in beverages isnt the only risk factor for prediabetes. Credible health organizations such as the Mayo Clinic note that the risk factors for prediabetes include factors such as weight, inactivity, race and family history, the group said in a statement.

Authors of the new study noted prediabetes risk dropped when they included factors such as other dietary sources of sugar and the amount of body fat participants had. But it didnt fall that much, still adding up to about 27 percent.

The study was observational, and as such, it doesnt show a direct cause-and-effect link between sugary drinks and prediabetes. But experts say the association between the two makes sense. Keep in mind that a 20-ounce of bottle of regular soda may contain up to 18 teaspoons of sugar.

Earlier studies have linked diet sodas to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, but this study didnt find a connection.

Incorporating diet soda while they are weaning themselves off the habit wouldnt have any long-term negative health effects, McKeown said. But eventually the majority of a persons fluids should come from water.

See the article here:
Prediabetes: Rethink That Daily Soda - Afro American

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

(Left:Elena Mazzotta/EyeEm; Right: Achim Schfer/EyeEm)In Texas, the case of James Younger points to a disturbing trend in the treatment of gender-confused youth

His mother pulling him by one arm, his father pulling him by the other, seven-year-old James Younger, dressed in a skirt, looks distressed and confused. His mom, Anne Georgulas, wins the struggle and rests him on her hip. His dad, Jeffrey Younger, calls 911. Why? asks James. She was supposed to give me custody, his father replies. A video recording of this incident, which occurred on March 8, 2018, at Jamess elementary-school open house, was played before a jury in Texas last month. It is a larger symbol of how children such as James Younger have become pawns in the transgender debate.

The Younger case has gained much media attention, in the U.S. and beyond. The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the BBC all seem to cast the father as the villain, in particular for his refusal to agree that his child is transgender. Rolling Stone opines that the Younger story has become a terrifying right-wing talking point. Vox is worried about Republican state legislators trying to introduce bills prohibiting chemical and surgical interference with the sexual development of children who say theyre transgender, and what [this] could mean for families nationwide when legislators want to have a say in whether Luna Younger should be allowed to socially transition. For the Left, the Younger story is a tale of backwards attitudes victimizing a child.

In truth, its progressive attitudes that are victimizing the child, and James Younger is not an outlier. There are many more just like him, and some in even more dire straits. For years, the medical and legal establishments have been ignoring evidence and bending their standards to please transgender activists, some of whom are clinicians. There are three clinical approaches to helping children who exhibit symptoms of gender confusion. One involves a range of talk therapies and psychotherapies to address suspected underlying causes. A second, called watchful waiting, allows the childs development to unfold as it will, which may mean that he chooses to transition later or not at all.

Then there is a third option informed by an ideology according to which it is possible for a child to be born in the wrong body. In this option, clinical activists recommend a drastic response when a child expresses confusion about gender. First, parents should tell the child, however young, that he truly is the sex he identifies with. Second, parents should consider delaying his puberty through off-label uses of drugs that can have serious (and largely unstudied) side effects. Third, parents should consider giving their child the puberty experience of the opposite sex, through cross-sex hormonal injections and gels (which result in sterility). Finally, parents should consider greenlighting the surgical removal of their childs reproductive organs.

Since there are no objective tests to confirm a transgender diagnosis, all of this is arbitrary and dependent on a childs changeable feelings. To make aggressive treatment more acceptable, its advocates have come up with a media-friendly euphemism, gender affirmation. If its affirming, activists say, its also kindness, love, acceptance, and support. The opposite, trying to help a child feel more comfortable with his body, is a rejection: abuse, hatred, transphobia, or conversion therapy likely to lead to child suicide. This is a lie a lie designed to obscure a critical truth: that neither a child, nor his parents on his behalf, can truly consent to experimental, life-altering, and irreversible treatments for which there is no evidentiary support.

Hours before the incident at Jamess elementary-school open house, Georgulas had emailed her ex-husband, Younger, whose day it was to have custody of James and his fraternal twin, Jude. She had said that she would bring James to school as Luna, since thats what everyone there knew him as. I understand that you believe you are truly doing the best thing for your child, Georgulas wrote. But in the same way a little boy with his penis removed is still a little boy, a little girl who was born with a penis is still a little girl in her brain.

In October 2016, the court had established a Standard Possession Order, in which it was decided that the boys would live with Georgulas but that Younger would have custody and access rights, especially on weekends. The order also gave Georgulas the exclusive right, after notifying Younger, to allow medical and surgical treatment involving invasive procedures as well as psychiatric and psychological treatment and education.

Georgulas claims that James chose the name Luna after communicating a desire to be a girl at a young age by showing a preference for female pronouns and Disney princesses. Younger insists that Jamess transgender status is contrived, and he possesses a video of James at age three saying that Mommy told him he was a girl. He further believes that Georgulas is unhinged and intent on vengeance, disregarding Jamess well-being.

In an email dated August 5, 2017, with the subject line Heads Up, Georgulas wrote to Younger to explain that Luna, yes (I will refer to her that way, because that is what she wants to be called at my house), has decided to tell you she has a girl brain and a boy body and that she is transgender. She explained that they had been reading I Am Jazz as well as My Princess Boy and that in these books, although other people are occasionally mean or confused, the parents are affirming.

During the trial this October, Younger was asking the court to appoint him sole managing conservator, which would give him executive rights to the boys medical and psychological care. Georgulas was asking it to restrict possession and access for Younger and enjoin him from treating James as a boy, but she was not asking to be sole managing conservator. Although the jury decided overwhelmingly against Younger, by eleven to one, having heard the recommendations of custody evaluator Benjamin Albritton, a psychologist, the judge decided not to grant Georgulas a request to be the single conservator.

Judge Kim Cooks decided that the parents would have joint rights on all medical and psychological decisions, increased Youngers possession rights, and denied Georgulass petition to enjoin Younger from treating James as a boy. Cooks relied on the United States Constitution in her decision, specifically on the due-process rights afforded by the 14th Amendment familial association, specifically parental rights or in this case a fathers rights.

She stated that it is a liberty interest for parents to have the autonomy to raise their children and added that the state of Texas had no compelling interest to justify interference. Georgulass lawyers have moved for the recusal of Judge Cooks because she mentioned the case on Facebook.

Georgulass decision to socially transition James, which means treating him as a girl (as opposed to merely allowing him to dress like one), follows a new and experimental form of social-psychological treatment for the mental condition known as gender dysphoria. Looking ahead, Jamess pediatrician indicated that James would have an evaluation at the GENECIS gender clinic when he was closer to the age of eight or nine and would plan to see an Endo[crinologist] in 23 years for hormone suppression. Albritton, the custody evaluator, noted in his report that studies suggest that once an individual is launched on this medical pathway, the gender dysphoria is more likely to persist, especially in natal boys.

The definition of gender dysphoria has long been in flux. Beginning in the latter half of the 20th century, adults (normally men) who experienced a strong desire to be the opposite sex or took measures to more closely resemble the opposite sex were known as transsexuals. Male-to-female transsexualism, especially as it related to sexuality and fetishes, was initially seen as a perversion, then a disorder. Now its an identity, covered under a much larger umbrella term, transgenderism. Transsexual inclination in children, defined in the American Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as gender identity disorder (1994) and now as gender dysphoria (2013), was rare and poorly understood, generally manifesting itself in the form of disassociation from ones sex (in pre-pubertal children) and discomfort with ones sexual development (at puberty, especially among peers).

Other than one Dutch study looking at pubertal suppression in adolescents that suggests puberty blocker hormones might contribute to the persistence of gender dysphoria, there are no studies or long-term follow-ups in which social transition prior to puberty has been clinically examined. But we do have a significant body of eleven papers that examine desistance (that is, childrens growing out of such feelings) in children whose dysphoria began when they were between three and twelve years of age, and these children were followed up with at a later date.

Despite the differences in country, culture, decade, and follow-up length and method, notes James Cantor, a Canadian psychologist with decades of clinical and research experience in treating transsexuals, all the studies have come to a remarkably similar conclusion: Only very few trans-kids still want to transition by the time they are adults. From these studies, conducted prior to the cultural mainstreaming of gender-identity theory, it consistently appears that 80 percent of gender-confused children psychologically realign with their biological sex by young adulthood or sooner when supported through their natural puberty with non-invasive therapies such as watchful waiting. Realignment was (and, among more cautious professionals, still is) considered the ideal outcome, since it is obviously easier for a child to change his thinking than to try to change his sex.

In the 1990s, the Dutch began to experiment with puberty blockers which had originally been used to treat precocious (early) puberty for very extreme cases of childhood gender-identity disorders. The idea was that an acutely gender-distressed child would benefit from gaining extra time to come to terms with his body before puberty brought additional distress. The researchers called this the pause button. But as the first step in the gender affirmation process, it amounts to more of a nuclear button. On the gender-affirmation model, clinicians have put children as young as twelve on sterilizing cross-sex hormones, removed the healthy breasts of girls as young as 13, and peeled and inverted the penises of boys as young as 15. Is it too much to wonder why?

Humans are a sexually dimorphic species. Females produce eggs and bear offspring, while males produce sperm and impregnate females. The existence of disorders of sexual development (or, more imprecisely and potentially offensively, of intersex persons), and the need for greater social understanding of them, in no way collapses this distinction.

In the 1950s, the relationship between the terms sex and gender (the latter of which applied chiefly to grammar) began to change as sexologists coined the phrase gender identity to denote the sex that one believed one was. In the 1960s, to explore this concept, psychologist John Money conducted a twin study in which a male baby, Bruce Reimer, with a damaged penis was raised as a girl, while his brother, Brian, was raised as a boy. Money instructed the parents to raise their children to believe that Bruce was really a girl called Brenda. For over a decade, the experiment was lauded as a milestone in sexology to preserve the boys anonymity, it was called the Joan/John study and its reported success was used as a precedent for countless surgeries on children with disorders of sex development. But, decades later, a follow-up revealed that the Reimer brothers had been deeply unhappy with their treatment by Money and Bruce had reverted to his male identity in his teens, taking the name David. After going public, David and his mother (whom he forgave, believing her to have been loving but misled) appeared on Oprah Winfreys talk show in 2000:

Mrs. Reimer: During the whole journey of trying to create a feminine being, there were doubts along the way. But I couldnt afford to contemplate them because I couldnt afford to be wrong. I couldnt have faced the alternative.

Winfrey: And the alternative being what? That youd made this horrible mistake?

Mrs. Reimer: Yes.

Winfrey: Cause then what could you do?

Mrs. Reimer: Right.

After a lifetime suffering from depression, the brothers first Brian, then David killed themselves. In a tragic update, printed in a revised edition of As Nature Made Him, an investigative book on the Reimer story, John Colapinto recalls the moment when Davids father called him to say that David had shot himself: I cannot say it was a complete surprise. As more journalists shared the true nature of Moneys experiment, and as more and more intersex victims of unnecessary medical interventions came forward, the medical profession revised its standards with regard to children with disorders of sex development (in particular those with genital irregularities) so as to leave these childrens fully functioning bodies alone. But what about gender-confused children?

Today, it takes a bold and distinguished person to state the obvious answer to that question. One such person is Dr. C. Alan Hopewell, the senior clinical neuropsychologist in the state of Texas, whose decades of expertise in treating children of Jamess age led Younger to engage him as an expert witness.

At Jamess age, children cant make rational decisions and are very easily influenced, Hopewell stated in his September deposition for the trial. He also said that this settled science, pioneered by psychologist Jean Piaget, is at the level of Galileos statement of how the Earth revolves around the sun. While a child can express preferences Do I want the M&M or do I want the mushroom? a seven-year-old is incapable of decisions of the magnitude of trying to change your sex, which, at any rate, you cant do.

Georgulas testified that she felt justified in socially transitioning James into Luna by her own experience as a pediatrician, by researching the medical literature on the subject, and by the support she has received online from similarly situated parents.

In July, her lawyer, Kim Meaders, made the following opening remarks at a hearing in a Texas district court:

This case is about a little six-year-old girl. Its a little girl who knows she is a girl. Its a girl who wears cute, frilly, girlie clothes. She plays with super girlie bears and dolls and toys. . . . [Her] self-portraits of herself show herself with big, huge, ginormous eyelashes and hair down to the floor. . . . And the father in this case wants boys. He has twins, and the reality is, Luna, at birth, was given the gender identity as a boy, but she completely and totally identifies as a girl now.

But again, by all objective standards, and as acknowledged by the impartial court-appointed amicus attorney, it is clear that James Younger is not a girl but a boy. He is a little boy regardless of whether he knows he is a boy. A little boy with a penis which is referred to by Georgulas herself in one email to Younger: Luna has gotten a bug bite on the right side of her penis testes, a Y chromosome. He is a little boy regardless of how ginormous the eyelashes are in his self-portrait and irrespective of his wardrobe choices, however cute and frilly. Of course, the possibility exists that James is a little boy who fits the diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria (more about that in a moment).

On October 17, observers in the courtroom reported seeing someone sitting by Georgulass attorneys, passing notes and advising counsel. She was Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, the medical director of the largest transgender-youth clinic in the United States, one of four directors of a multi-million-dollar National Institutes of Health (i.e., taxpayer-funded) experimental study on early intervention in transgender youth, and one of the most prominent clinical activists in the United States.

It is difficult to say, exactly, how many transgender-youth clinics there are in the United States today. In 2006, there were none. But in 2014 the Human Rights Campaign, a gay and transgender lobby group, counted more than 40. It is possible, if not likely, that there are significantly more than that. Olson-Kennedys clinic in Los Angeles saw 80 young people, aged between four and 24, in 2009, and over 1,000 in 2019. The latter number comes from a Reuters report. By a crude estimate, then, there could be tens of thousands of young people being treated at such clinics. But we dont know.

The Centers for Disease Control says that 2 percent of American high-school students (around 300,000 adolescents) identify as transgender. Does that mean gender dysphoria is on the rise? Not necessarily. One board-certified psychiatrist, a graduate of a top medical school with over 15 years experience treating adolescents, told me that the numbers seem highly inflated. This is partly because gender clinics, like many specialist clinics, are essentially businesses with an interest in selling a uniform diagnosis. In his own practice, he prefers to talk big-picture first and not take a childs declared gender identity at face value.

If a patient comes in and tells me, Im having a strong desire to be the opposite sex, my next question is why? What does that mean? Whats your understanding of being the opposite sex? Are you nervous about being your own sex? Do you have anxiety? He also considers whether his patient might be on the autism spectrum, which is disproportionately common among those with gender dysphoria. Often, through talk therapy, something else comes out for example, that a girl is petrified about her menstrual cycle, or a boy about having homosexual inclinations and being bullied by his peers. The psychiatrist says that social anxiety is an underlying factor in most of these cases.

In his deposition in the James Younger case, Dr. Hopewell stated that youre not going to cut off [healthy] body parts unless somethings wrong with your thinking. But Dr. Olson-Kennedy again, the head of the largest transgender-youth clinic in the United States and one of the leaders of a publicly funded NIH study took a rather different view in her own deposition. Youngers lawyer, Logan Odeneal, asked Olson-Kennedy whether it is safe or ethical to remove healthy breast tissue from adolescent girls as young as 13, as has been recommended at her clinic.

Odeneal: Well, if you remove the breasts from a young woman, she will never be able to lactate or to breastfeed an infant; is that correct?

Olson-Kennedy: Well, I, I dont advocate removal for breast tissue from young women. I advocate for chest reconstruction in young men.

Odeneal: Well havent you referred girls to have the chest surgery from your clinic?

Olson-Kennedy: Theyre, theyre, theyre not girls. Theyre not girls. They dont identify as girls. So I have referred people who identify as transmasculine or as boys or young men for surgery, yes.

Odeneal: But do their birth certificates identify them as girls?

Olson-Kennedy: Sometimes, and sometimes theyve had their gender marker changed on their birth certificate.

Odeneal: How many patients have you referred for the chest surgery?

Olson-Kennedy: Probably about 200.

When Odeneal asked whether the procedure involved the removal of healthy breast tissue, Olson-Kennedy explained that she takes issue with the word healthy since its not healthy if its creating a lot of distress in their life. Elsewhere, she told an audience, If you want breasts at a later point in your life you can go and get them.

The National Institutes of Health study on early intervention in transgender youth that Olson-Kennedy oversees along with three others involves multiple sites and hundreds of participants. In a talk at an activist-clinician conference in September of this year, she explained that the study was observational and didnt have a control group (a group of participants receiving the standard, accepted treatment for the purposes of comparison). When we first put this grant into the NIH five years ago, they came back with primary concern that we didnt have an untreated control group. Yeah, so were not going to have an untreated control group, Im warning you right now, she said, prompting audience laughter.

Presumably, Olson-Kennedys reasoning for not having a control group is that it is unethical for a physician to treat (or not treat) a patient in a way he considers not to be in the patients best interests. Olson-Kennedy told Youngers lawyer, Odeneal, that the reason this study does not have a control group is because not treating people with gender dysphoria who are seeking treatment is unethical practice. Does this mean she considers treatments other than gender affirmation not treating patients? If so, to repeat, the evidence for gender affirmation is unclear and unconvincing, while the majority of children who have been managed under a watchful-waiting or talk-therapy strategy have apparently improved. The latter is the clinical standard for which there is the most substantial, albeit imperfect, evidence of effectiveness and safety. I have to speculate here because, although Olson-Kennedy agreed to an interview last summer, she twice failed to dial in at the appointed time to the conference number her office had emailed me. Her office has since gone dark.

Ordinarily, when investigating complicated and life-altering treatments emerging in medicine (and especially pediatrics), investigators must follow a series of steps: First, the researchers must demonstrate to their institutions Institutional Review Board that their treatment is credible and ethical. Second, the patients and parents of children must sign an informed-consent paper, with emphasis on the word informed, especially if the treatment is experimental. Third, the group of patients receiving the treatment must be paired with a control group that is treated in more standard fashion.

But why is the NIH facilitating this study on early intervention among trans youth in the first place? What do they hope to learn? What kind of information about risks has been given to parents and children? These are some of the questions to which I might have found answers if the relevant documents, which a concerned medical doctor obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, had not been so heavily redacted, most notably in the sections related to informed consent. Does the NIH, or do those in charge of this study, have something to hide? In a recent listening session held by the NIHs Sexual and Gender Minority Research Office, one activist inquired into whether it might be possible for the NIH to extend the study for another five years so that we can get even more longitudinal data, which would be helpful to show courts that the affirming parent is actually acting in the best interest of the child, since there has been a recent uptick in custody disputes involving transgender youth.

A study published in 2017 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine entitled Age Is Just a Number endeavored to investigate WPATH-affiliated surgeons views, experiences, and attitudes toward performing vaginoplasty, i.e., castration, inversion of the penis, and dilation of a cavity to form a pseudo-vaginal canal, on transgender minors in the United States. (WPATH is the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.) Of 20 surgeons who were interviewed, eleven reported having done the procedure 1 to 20 times on children under age 18. The youngest patient was 15.

One surgeon gave an indication as to why this might be a bad idea. He or she described the new clinical landscape as a new Wild West where a bunch of solo practitioners, basically cowboys or cowgirls who kind of build their little house, advertise and suck people in. In the U.K., the Times of London has covered a whistleblower scandal at Britains main clinic for gender-confused youth, from which multiple clinicians have resigned, citing dangerous, experimental, and inadequate care.

The authors of the Journal of Sexual Medicine study also remarked on the legal impossibility to obtain informed consent from the underage patient. But that isnt the only problem with relying on the feelings of minors.

Many of these underage patients are already damaged and vulnerable. At the Gender Infinity Conference (an Affirming Space to Empower Gender Diverse Individuals) in 2015 in Texas, Olson-Kennedy told an audience that a not-insignificant number of young people at her clinic have actually done sex economy, sex work, for a place to live or something to eat, and that a lot experience homelessness, precarious housing, and have been in foster care. This is consistent with her published research. A study from 2015 included transgender youths who had prostituted themselves, been homeless, and abused drugs; a follow-up study in 2018 failed to account for 41 percent of the participants, meaning that no one knows what has happened to them.

Perhaps having worked with prostitutes and homeless and drug-using youth has made Olson-Kennedy sensitive to the importance of mental-health screening for patients before they undertake life-altering hormone interventions or surgery. But on Facebook, she once wrote that the uptick in insurance companies asking for mental health NOTES and signed consents prior to covering blockers [is] ridiculous!! Still, she is considered a leader in the field. Her method is now finding popularity in the U.K. She was recently brought there on a teaching fellowship by the University of Bristol and invited by the British gender-youth charity Mermaids, which promotes child sex-change treatments, to partake in a Facebook livestream event titled If Your Child Thinks Theyre Transgender, They Probably Are. This event also featured Helen Webberley, a British doctor who, the Times of London reported, was criminally convicted for operating an unlicensed clinic that charged between 75 and 150 an hour to prescribe . . . sex-change hormones, which cause irreversible bodily changes and permanent loss of sexual function. Her husband, Mike Webberley, also a doctor, was similarly suspended and banned from practicing medicine in the U.K. after a tribunal found that his work for three young trans patients fell below the standards of care expected of a registered doctor. The Webberleys have now moved to Spain, where their private clinic will continue to dispense drugs online from its new base in Malaga, the Times of London reports.

In response to the James Younger case, the Pediatric Endocrine Society, which has a membership of 1,300 doctors, distributed a statement against public discourse that risks the well-being of transgender and gender diverse youth and their families. It wrote that this concerns a 7-year-old transgender girl in Texas whose mother (a pediatrician) is supportive of her gender identity but whose father is not. The statement continued:

The parents are involved in a custody battle that has drawn significant media attention. The father has reached out to conservative groups and lawmakers who are spreading misinformation about care of gender variant youth and are threatening to introduce legislation prohibiting the use of puberty blockers in transgender patients.

This is simply ill-disguised advocacy, but it is nonetheless of a piece with a recent policy statement on transgender and gender diverse children and adolescents from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Fewer than 30 committee members at the AAP, which represents 67,000 doctors, approved the statement, written by a doctor with (according to the PubMed database) no published papers in gender dysphoria. It favors affirming any childs self-expressed identity, disparages watchful waiting, and suggests that therapies designed to reconcile a child with his or her body are outside the mainstream of traditional medical practice.

In a rebuttal that has completed peer review and will appear in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, James Cantor, the Canadian clinical psychologist, who describes himself as openly gay and politically liberal (not that it ought to be relevant), explains:

Although almost all clinics and professional associations in the world use whats called the watchful waiting approach to helping gender diverse (GD) children, the AAP statement instead rejected that consensus, endorsing gender affirmation as the only acceptable approach. Remarkably, not only did the AAP statement fail to include any of the actual outcomes literature on such cases, but it also misrepresented the contents of its citations, which repeatedly said the very opposite of what AAP attributed to them.

Cantor told me that the AAP policy statement could be interpreted as malpractice writ large and that it calls into question their entire decision-making process. Kenneth Zucker, a clinical psychologist and expert in youth gender dysphoria whose work is among the most cited in the field and who has over 40 years of clinical and research experience, told me that the AAPs advice is so fundamentally flawed that one wouldnt even know . . . where to start.

How can this be possible? What or who is influencing these professional committees that advise and represent hundreds of thousands of doctors in the United States? During the James Younger trial, this question was answered during the deposition of Dr. Hopewell by Georgulass lawyer. The lawyer, Kim Meaders, asks whether Hopewell is familiar with the American Academy of Pediatrics stance on supporting and treating transgender individuals and that of the American Psychological Association, which also favors gender affirmation. He says that he is familiar but disagrees.

Meaders then asks how he can possibly disagree if he is a fellow of the American Psychological Association. Hopewell explains that, while most of the real doctors are out earning a living working, many of those who run the boards do so for political reasons: Just because an organization takes a stand really doesnt have anything to do with either science or the membership of the body itself.

Besides subjecting individual children to an ordeal, the gender-affirmation approach may be contributing to a social pathology. Lisa Littman, an assistant professor at Brown University, wrote a 2018 paper in the science journal PLOS ONE that reported the new phenomenon of teen girls suddenly identifying as boys despite having no prior history of gender dysphoria as a possible peer and social contagion.

The pertinence of Littmans observation is shown in the number of children reporting gender dysphoria to Britains largest gender youth clinic, a public institution. It is now around 2,500 a year. In 2009, it was fewer than 100 a year. There has been a 42-fold increase in the number of females at the clinic in the last decade.

A mother is now taking legal action against the clinic in an attempt to prevent it from giving puberty-blocking drugs to her 15-year-old autistic daughter. Her claim is that the clinic misinforms families and puts highly vulnerable children at risk. A former therapist at the clinic, who resigned for ethical reasons, has become a whistleblower, saying that staff in the clinic were under huge pressure to rush children into medical treatment after substandard evaluation, according to the Times of London.

Sky News reported that hundreds of young transgender people are seeking help to return to their original sex. The report focused on a woman, Charlie Evans, 28, who was born female but identified as a man for nearly ten years before returning to her original identity, a process that is called detransitioning. Similar stories of regret are receiving significant media attention in the U.K. Marcus Evans, the former governor of the British National Health Services London-based adolescent and adult clinical services, which oversees the largest gender youth clinic in the country, warned that the treatment of gender-dysphoric youth has become highly politicised and, in many ways, operates outside good medical practice. Evans handed in his resignation after 35 years, citing the gender clinics woeful care and saying it was not fit for purpose.

As with the clinicians who resigned from the London clinic, Lisa Littman, who was first to research the social contagion in teen girls, recently told me of her serious concerns about whether those being diagnosed with gender dysphoria actually have an underlying issue such as trauma, sexual assault, homophobia, homophobic bullying, misogyny, or a mental-health condition.

But both inside and outside the profession, clinical activists are ruthless in pursuit of their aims, and they accept no criticism. At the website of Psychology Today, a Harvard psychiatrist and medical researcher, Jack Turban, recently published a summary of some research that he said showed a link between conversion therapy by which he means therapies geared at helping a person psychologically accept his biological sex and suicide. Medical professionals posted their critiques of his work, suggesting the studies were fundamentally and dangerously flawed in their methodology and conclusions, but Psychology Today appears to have deleted their comments.

Sharon Dunski-Vermont, a pediatrician and member of the clinical advocacy group USPATH (U.S. Professional Association for Transgender Health) and the American Academy of Pediatrics who has written an op-ed for the Washington Post about her female-to-male transgender teenager, has posted misinformation elsewhere. In a Facebook group with over 8,000 members for parents transitioning their children, one parent expressed concerns about a report that an eight-year-old had been included in the NIH studys cross-sex-hormone cohort. NONE of this is true, Dunski-Vermont stated. We start Puberty blockers in early puberty, which at times could be 8-9 years old but NEVER cross gender hormones.

A group administrator then disabled further comments, offering the explanation that this story falls into the realm of flat-earthers and holocaust-deniers and is triggering to many. However, a 2017 progress report for the NIH study, which a doctor obtained through a freedom-of-information request, did state that the minimum age for the cross-sex hormone cohort inclusion criteria was decreased from 13 to 8 to ensure that a potential participant . . . could be eligible for cross-sex hormones. In such a new and exploratory field of medicine, certainty and censorship are a dangerous combination.

To give an idea of the vulnerability of the children in this Facebook group, consider that one parent posted a picture of a teen girl with Down syndrome who appears to have had her breasts removed. The parent asks to connect with the parents of other Down, trans children. Another picture shows a boy, seeming no older than six years old and wearing a dress, with his arm in a cast. His mother explains that her ex-husband (who was ambivalent about the childs gender transition) broke her arm. Another mother describes in detail how her ex-partner sexually abused her twelve-year-old daughter, who now thinks she is a transgender boy. The mother writes, My question is (and I dont know if this is allowed), has anyone else been through this? I feel like his dysphoria may have been amplified by the sexual abuse.

James Younger was first diagnosed as having gender dysphoria by his pediatrician. The diagnosis was confirmed by a solution-focused therapist serving the LGBT community at Rainbow Counseling, in Texas, and by the GENECIS gender clinic, which specializes in medical interventions for gender-confused youth. In his psychological assessment of Jeffrey Younger, Albritton, the custody evaluator, noted that James showed no signs of distress when dressed as a boy or as a girl.

Distress is one of the diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria. Yet in his assessment of James, Albritton noted that while James is consistently described and observed as playful, kind and creative, he is clearly at risk for social and psychological difficulties and challenges given his gender dysphoria. In an interview, James told Albritton that he is a boy at his fathers house and a girl at his mothers house. His mother brought him to interviews with Albritton dressed in high heels and stick-on earrings. His father brought him dressed in boys clothes and appropriately groomed.

Strikingly, however, Albrittons takeaway was that it is difficult, if not impossible, to entirely ferret out pressure from his father to conform with male ideals. He noted that Jeffrey Youngers profile fits that of someone experiencing a disconnection from reality, as well as psychotic symptoms of paranoia. He reported that Anne Georgulas presented as a friendly, outgoing woman who appears to be aware of her childrens needs and attempts to advance appropriate development. Albritton recommended that James be allowed to continue socially transitioning.

Though the jury was swayed by such arguments, Judge Cooks ultimately decided that both parents were fit to parent and they should work out Jamess medical care between them. But the deeper issue is that its impossible to sensibly adjudicate such cases when misinformation is being enshrined systematically in the medical and legal establishments and the mainstream media are failing so dismally to report on it accurately.

I am currently in contact with parents across America and Europe who face circumstances similar to Jeffrey Youngers and whose extensive documentation I have reviewed. One father in Minnesota has been denied a say in his ten-year-old autistic sons medical care. This boys mother is taking him to a gender therapist who has told the boy that he is not only a transgender female but a lesbian.

The Kelsey Coalition, a new nonpartisan grassroots organization, has collected testimony from parents of children identifying as transgender who have been harmed. Some of these parents are in custody battles in closed-door trials, such as two gay parents who are having a fight over a child the same age as James Younger and in which the contested claims are almost identical. Others have had their children placed in foster care because they refused to consent to medicalizing their childs treatment. Many parents are afraid to talk to the media for fear of being reported to child-protective services or held in contempt of court gag orders.

And so it goes. In a better world, James Younger wouldnt be the object of a tug-of-war between two parents. But it is beyond cynicism to accept that the legal and medical establishments may forcibly try to change a childs sex, against his interests, without the consent of both his parents, and in spite of the scientific evidence.

Editors Note: This article has been updated since its publication in print.

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The Tragedy of the 'Trans' Child - National Review

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Dont ride the highs too high and the lows too low I cant express enough how important this is. There can be very high highs and very low lows in business, especially in the startup phase. Let me give an example. Danielle and I recently had a call with a major celebritys buyer & assistant. It was a call revolving around a significant opportunity that could take our company to the next level. It was incredibly exciting, and all the energy was flowing! The next day we had a call with our (past) shipping company. During our transition to a new one that would take a few weeks, they had completely stopped shipping out our orders with no notice. This fulfillment situation caused immediate panic as we wondered how we would fulfill our customers orders in a timely manner and not lose their trust in the brand. Its important to stay realistically optimistic but not let highs hit too high and the lows hit too low or else it could crush your confidence as a leader and entrepreneur.

For my series on strong female leaders, I had the pleasure of interviewing Danielle Gronich and Kayleigh Clark of CLEARstem. Danielle Gronich, known as the acne guru, is a skin care expert, author and pioneer of the successful treatment of acne. Her clinic, San Diego Acne Clinic takes a holistic approach with a 98% success rate for getting people clear, and keeping them clear. Together with Kayleigh Clark, she is the co-founder of CLEARstem Skincare, a groundbreaking anti-aging, hormone balancing, scar revising and anti-acne skin care line. Gronich established the San Diego Acne Clinic after battling her own cystic acne for some 10 years. None of the typical methods antibiotics, lasers, hormonal modifiers, prescription creams, peels and even two rounds of Accutane worked for her, and the many physicians and dermatologists she consulted could not seem to crack the code. She left the corporate world, dove into clinical research, and went back to school to find the answers for herself, earning her license as a clinical esthetician and acne specialist. She learned that acne has multiple triggers that operate in tandem, and that thoroughly evaluating each case in a holistic way both internal and external is the only way to help truly manage skin. Today, her clinic has thousands of success stories to tell including celebrity clients. Gronich is a regular contributor for numerous health and wellness publications. Kayleigh Clark,the co-founder of CLEARstem Skincare, holistic nutritionist, and wellness expert with a keen understanding of the ingredients we put in our bodies for better or worse. She developed severe cystic acne in her mid-twenties and tried in vain to find a cure until she discovered the San Diego Acne Clinic, where she met Gronich. Not only did her acne clear up, but through their sessions, the duo discovered their mutual passion for helping other acne sufferers achieve clear skin without sacrificing their health. Thats when CLEARstem Skincare was born. Guided by a passion to make a positive impact, she studies the latest research and is a regular contributor for numerous health, wellness, and lifestyle media outlets. Clark is also a published author and the co-host of the Balancing Your Hustle podcast on iTunes and GooglePlay, which focuses on balancing career, passions, and wellness.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Covered in bright red, inflamed, painful cystic acne, I was a year out from my wedding feeling completely overwhelmed and at a loss with how to fix my skin.

I was overly stressed and spending thousands of dollars on skincare products, going to estheticians, and doctors I hoped and prayed would fix my skin. The worst part, I was a holistic nutritionist! Shouldnt I know how to fix my own skin?!

Thats when I met Danielle (my now co-founder in CLEARstem). Danielle owns San Diego Acne Clinic and is well known for having a 98% success rate for getting people clear among thousands of clients (including some celebrities!).

We immediately bonded over our love for whole body wellness and skincare. With Danielle, I learned all about the internal and external triggers for acne. This included supplements, secret pore clogging ingredients, foods, and a ton of other triggers that I had no idea about!

After achieving the clear skin I had been struggling with for years and learning so much in the process, Danielle and I decided to develop our own line for others who were dealing with the same issues and searching for real solutions.

Danielle had a connection with a world renowned chemist that took our idea on! We set out to create the very first anti-aging and anti-acne line with zero toxins. We wanted to help others get clear skin, especially because (despite what many think) people are not just dealing with acne as teens, but continue to struggle with it in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and even 60s!

Our founding belief: That people shouldnt have to choose between anti-aging products that clog your pores or acne products that age your skin. Why not have both??

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

In the beginning, before we had a packaging and fulfillment center, we had to fill, seal, package, and ship every bottle by hand. In the first year of business our largest amount of sales was on Amazon, and since we were doing Amazon FBA to get Prime status, that meant we had to fill, seal, package, and ship hundreds of bottles at a time to Amazon to keep up inventory.

On one occasion, we were cutting it really close to selling out on Amazon (which is a huge no-no). Our bottles were arriving just in time to hand-fill and get them shipped off (when I say just in time, I mean we had literally hours to fill and ship them back out).

The bottles arrived, I open up the boxes, and instead of our white and blue packaging, they were BRIGHT PINK! Panic set it. Amidst a minor panic moment- there was a silver lining. I ended up sharing this entire experience on social media and it was a HIT! Everyone loved the pink bottles and begged us to sell them.

We were able to fill all the bottles and get them off to Amazon in time, made a quick new image with the pink bottles that we switched out on Amazon. Crisis averted!

Moral of the story: Not everything will go to plan. You need to ready for bumps in the road, flexible and solutions oriented. Sometimes what seems like a problem can actually turn into an opportunity.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

There is nothing more humbling than filling 2,500+ bottles of your own product by hand! When we first started with a packaging and fulfillment center for our line, we were rookies. Neither Danielle nor I come from a product development or cosmetics background. So literally everything was new to us! When having our bottles filled, we did not know there was a choice between a cosmetic fill and a regular fill. Our facewashes automatically were filled regular. Which meant in a 6oz bottle (which we later found out holds 7.5oz of product), was filled with 6oz of product. Makes sense right? Wrong.

We had the majority of product shipped to our warehouse with a few bottles sent personally to us. When we opened up the box, our bottles looked half empty! Even though the 6oz bottles were filled with 6oz of product, the bottles didnt look filled all the way. We knew our customers would NOT be pleased.

What did Danielle and I do? We had thousands of bottled pulled from inventory, shipped to us, and we personally topped off and resealed every single bottle.

Lesson learned: There is a regular fill and a cosmetic fill in the beauty world! When working with a new packaging & fulfillment center, its always a good idea to have a person with expertise look over your order before its placed to ensure you are not making any rookie mistakes. Also, there is no such thing as too many questions, especially when starting out!

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

It is engrained in our companys DNA to provide education first and products second. We are here to make a difference and create positive change in peoples skin.

Danielle and I both are genetically prone to acne which means even though we manage our breakouts through nutrition, skincare, and wellness practices, we are still easily triggered to breakout. This is why we have devoted our lives to not only healing our own skin, but taking the knowledge we have gained and sharing it with everyone who needs it. We are our customer, we understand the major hits to self-esteem and confidence that acne causes, we get the bring-you-to-tears frustration that happens when you try everything possible, and we recognize the dedication it takes for a lot of people to create positive change in their skin.

Even though we sometimes wish we were not so acne prone, it brings us that much closer to our customer and allows us to support them in ways we may not have been able to if we didnt understand their skin battles.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

We are! We cant share too much, but we are teaming up with an incredible Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and creating a clear skin course! Our goal is to help more people clear their skin, and skincare is just 1 aspect of achieving amazing skin. Since we sadly cant have everyone come visit San Diego Acne Clinic to clear their skin, we want to bring all the educational benefits of the clinic to them! Our course will take you step-by-step through everything that affects your skin: nutrition, hormones, supplements, pore clogging ingredients, stress, and give you action steps within each module to make positive changes. We are so excited for this course to launch and know it will be a game-changer for many individuals looking to positively change their skin from the inside out.

What advice would you give to other female leaders to help their team to thrive?

Culturally as women we have been told to take care of everyone else around us first, then ourselves. Things have changed. I am a huge believer in always putting your oxygen mask on first. You cannot be of service or positively lead anyone if you yourself are burning out. There will always be endless to-do lists, those will never go away, so make sure you set aside time for yourself every single day. Even if you can only commit 1to 0 minutes some days, do it. The more you can manage your own stress, the more you can show up as your best self, and lead others to help them and their team thrive.

What advice would you give to other female leaders about the best way to manage a large team?

We are always evolving and learning. Its so important to realize that we are powerful, but we dont know everything. When managing a team, make sure that everyone voices are heard and valued. There is always something to learn, and other perspectives can be so valuable. I also highly suggest learning each team members enneagram, it is so helpful to know how people best receive information and how you can communicate best so both parties are heard and understood. Communication can be a make or break when managing teams!

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Danielle and I both value other leaders in the wellness and business community taking time to answer our questions and provide mentorship. It is how we have been able to learn so much and continue to grow. There have been three people that really stand out who I have been incredibly grateful for throughout our journey. It would be an injustice to leave any of these women out.

Christina Rice

Christina has been a CLEARstem supporter since day 1. Literally from the beginning of even forming the company, she was there encouraging, asking questions, and a huge supporter of both Danielle and I. Christina is extremely respected and an authority figure in the wellness space, she has used her platforms on social media and her podcast to educate about CLEARstem. We have had so many men and women transform their skin and when we ask where they heard about us, many times its from Christina. She has been a pivotal part of reaching and educating more people to positively change lives!

Glenn Rich

Glenn headed up all of marketing for Liquid IV and is now more on the brand strategy side.

She has been with Liquid IV from the very beginning so she has been a part of the process of going from startup to a multimillion dollar company. She had been an invaluable contact who evolved into a close friend over the years. Anytime we have questions about new marketing channels, ideas, or contact connects Glenn is always willing to hop on a call or make an introduction. We are forever grateful for her knowledge, guidance and support.

Kacia Fitzgerald

When you are feeling low in need of a You got this, you are changing the world and impacting so many people text. Kacia is there before you even know you need it yourself. I truly have never met anyone in my entire life that shows up so authentically herself, brings a high level of energy and gives 100% of herself to the people she supports. Kacia has an innate ability to see things from such unique perspectives and can completely transform any situation into a powerful learning lesson. She has been such an impactful part of our journey over the last year.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Success is not achieved alone, and we are full believers in giving back what we have received. Since we are entrenched in the startup and wellness space, we have used our success to support other startups and individuals in our space. This can be through collaborations, mentorship sessions, or simply giving 5 minute favors which is making a quick connection that helps someone else grow.

Support is incredibly important to us because when you feel supported you are less stressed, not operating out of fear, and motivation increases.

What are your 5 Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Experience and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. You dont know everything Having an open mind to other perspectives and being self-aware that you do not know everything is one of the single most important pieces of advice I have ever received. This has come into play many times, especially in Danielles and my business partnership. One of the reasons Danielle and I work so well together is because we know and understand each others strength and weaknesses, and we always take both of those into consideration when making decisions. For example, when we first started to focus heavily on social media, we didnt see exactly eye to eye. Instead of battling back and forth who was right vs who wasnt, we discussed reasons why we each felt certain ways, and understood we both had unique points of view on this topic. Each of us surrendered to understanding we didnt know everything when it came to social media and looked for guidance in others when building our platforms.

2. Learn to pivot Remember my story above about the pink bottles? I can tell you right now there are tons of times just like that one where we had to pivot. We were hit with something unexpected and instead of dwelling on something we couldnt control we quickly changed and took back control of the situation. In the pink bottle story, we pivoted by marketing and selling the bottles that our customers ended up loving. We were also able to partner with Holy Matcha Caf in San Diego to sell our pink bottles in their retail location and it was a huge hit!

3. Dont ride the highs too high and the lows too low I cant express enough how important this is. There can be very high highs and very low lows in business, especially in the startup phase. Let me give an example. Danielle and I recently had a call with a major celebritys buyer & assistant. It was a call revolving around a signficiant opportunity that could take our company to the next level. It was incredibly exciting, and all the energy was flowing! The next day we had a call with our (past) shipping company. During our transition to a new one that would take a few weeks, they had completely stopped shipping out our orders with no notice. This fulfillment situation caused immediate panic as we wondered how we would fulfill our customers orders in a timely manner and not lose their trust in the brand. Its important to stay realistically optimistic but not let highs hit too high and the lows hit too low or else it could crush your confidence as a leader and entrepreneur.

4. Focus on your strengths, delegate your weaknesses I recently was having a conversation with my friend Brandin Cohen (CEO of Liquid IV). He said tell me your pain points. I told him how we were struggling to really crush it and figure out Facebook/Instagram advertising. Then Brandin gave me some of the best advice. He said, Kayleigh, you could lock yourself in a room for a weak, learn everything there is to know about Facebook/Instagram advertising, and at the end of the day you would be a media manager. Is that what you want your roll to be? I said no. He responded by saying I know what I am good at, and I know what my weaknesses are, I choose to delegate my weaknesses so they are accomplished as strengths, and it leaves me time to focus on what I am best at day in and day out..

5. Always ask for referrals before signing a contract This has been a lesson learned and very tangible business advice. When Danielle and I were first looking for a warehouse to ship all of our online orders we were given a recommendation. We were so excited and on a bit of a time crunch, so we had a call, signed a contract, and started working with them. This ended up being one of our worst business decisions. This shipping company and CLEARstem were not a good match for one another. It led to significant profit margin being eaten up and severely stunted our cash flow. The reason for this mistake? We took one recommendation as truth and didnt ask for other referrals or do our own background research on the company. We have since changed shipping companies and now before committing to work with any other company or signing a contract we ask for 35 referrals that we can speak with before making a decision.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Something we have had in mind for a long time as individuals and as a company is to work with women coming out of domestic violence, poverty, and sex trafficking. All three of these situations severely damage a womans confidence. These women are rebuilding their lives, finding themselves, and many times starting out on their own. It is our goal to work with these women in some capacity whether it is partnering with an organization supporting these women, mentoring, or teaching business fundamentals classes to give women the confidence and skillset to pursue meaningful careers. This is still an aspect of our brand we are really looking to build out because of its deep importance to our hearts.

Can you please give us your favorite Life Lesson Quote? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

If you dont love what you are doing, leave Gary Vaynerchuck

This statement really hit home for me. Life is so short. I was once in a job that was not where I wanted to be, actually this happened with multiple jobs. I wondered for so long if I would ever find a career I could stick with, one that made me happy. I thought, maybe if I have an okay job with flexible hours, I could just have passions that I love and let my job just be a job. I quickly realized that I care way too much about being happy and living every day pursuing my passions to do this. There is such a cycle in society of I hate my job, but it pays, gives me security and benefits, so I will just stick it out until I retire mentality. The problem with this is, what if something happens before you retire? What if your life ends? And why should we suffer day in and day out in the prime of our lives In jobs that make us miserable? I dont want to live every day for the weekend and then dread when Monday comes. I want to live every day excited for what we are building, growing, learning, and pursuing what makes me happy. If you dont love what you are doing, leave.

Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them

Without a doubt, Sophia Bush. She is such an inspiration to us. I recently saw her speak and was blown away by her passionate for supporting women and diversity. She is creating change, breaking down barriers, and starting conversations that need to be had. Her undeniable passion for inclusion, women advancement, and entrepreneurship is incredibly inspiring. I look up to her as a leader, powerful businesswoman, and change-maker.

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Danielle Gronich & Kayleigh Clark of CLEARstem: Don't ride the highs too high and the lows too low - Thrive Global

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Thanksgivingis a special time of year to get together with family and friends and think about what youre most grateful for. But lets be honest its really all about the food, from the roast turkey, which typically takes center stage, and cranberry sauce to stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy. And lets not forget pumpkin pie.

With so many delicious dishes within reach, its hard not to get carried away by filling your plate and your belly to capacity. In fact, a typical holiday dinner like Thanksgiving can have around 3,000 calories, according to theCalorie Control Council, which is well above thetotal calorie recommendationsfor women and men in an entire day. So what happens when you overdo it at the Thanksgiving table?

Your stomach is about the size of a standard American football,Alaina Castro, clinical dietician with the Stanford Bariatric and Metabolic Clinic, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. When your stomach is empty, it typically only has room for about 2 ounces. The good news is that the stomach can definitely stretch, Diane Vizthum, registered dietitian and research nutritionist forJohns Hopkins University School of Medicine, tells Yahoo Lifestyle.

When you eat, the stomach can typically stretch to hold 1-1.5 liters (about the size of a quart and a half of milk), or even more depending on the individual. There are folds in your stomach called rugae, explains Vizthum. Theyre crumpled up and can expand when you eat. When the rugae have expanded enough, that sends a signal from the digestive system to the brain saying that youre getting full. Everyones capacity of where you start to feel that is a little bit different, says Vizthum. If you habitually eat large volumes, you can stretch it out a bit.

One of the first telltale signs that youve overdone it at Thanksgiving dinner is feeling physically uncomfortable. If you eat a really large meal and your stomach is really full, you can have discomfort from having your stomach stretched beyond its normal size, says Vizthum.

Along with gas, you can also experience some heartburn and acid reflux as the contents in your stomach push against the lower esophageal sphincter, which is like a portal that opens and shuts the top of your stomach, says Vizthum.

Of course, your body has to do the work of digesting, absorbing and storing all the nutrients you just ate. So your heart rate will go up a little bit to increase blood flow in your digestive system, explains Vizthum. Your body will have a lot of work to do, and that can make you feel tired, she says.

Talk turkey and its only a matter of time before someone brings up tryptophan an essential amino acid, which is a building block of protein, thats often blamed for Thanksgivingsleepiness. The tryptophan molecule itself is converted to [the feel-good hormone] serotonin and melatonin the hormone that regulates sleep, explains Vizthum. Thats how it gets the reputation for making you sleepy.

But heres the thing: Turkey isnt the only form of protein that contains tryptophan. Chicken, fish and shellfish, beef, pork and lamb all have similar tryptophan levels, points out Vizthum. So unless you start yawning after eating those other sources of protein, your Thanksgiving drowsiness may have more to do with the overall effect of eating a largeholidaymeal and not the turkey per se, says Vizthum.

Samantha Cochrane, registered dietitian atThe Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, agrees, telling Yahoo Lifestyle: Its a common myth that the tryptophan found in turkey is the reason we are all so tired after a Thanksgiving dinner. She adds: Very little of the tryptophan that we eat makes it to our brain and really shouldnt have an effect on our energy level. Whats really making us feel tired, however, is not tryptophan, but the quantity of food we eat. With a lot of food, comes a lot of digestion, making us want to rest.

Also, getting in some turkey or any form of lean protein is your ally on Thanksgiving. Thats because including protein in a meal can stabilize how quickly you digest carbohydrates for a slower release of energy, notes Vizthum.

Dinner rolls, other white breads and stuffing are often simple carbohydrates made from refined grains that are more easily and quickly digested than complex carbohydrates. High amounts of simple carbohydrates can cause blood sugar to rise more quickly than complex carbohydrates, explains Cochrane, which will require more insulin produced by your pancreas to allow the cells in your body to use that sugar for energy.

That quick rise and fall in blood sugar levels can leave people feeling tired or looking for more food for another pick-me-up, notes Vizthum. But, again, eating those carbs along with some protein, fat and fiber, such as from vegetables, helps slow down digestion and lets the body absorb sugar more slowly, she says. So if you eat turkey for your protein, plus one white roll for your carbohydrates whole wheat would be better and a side of green beans cooked in olive oil for your fat, you will have less of a blood glucose spike and stay fuller longer, explains Castro.

That influx of sugar can give you a quick energy boost, but thats usually followed by a rapid drop in energy. The influx of sugar causes the pancreas to produce insulin quickly to move the sugar from the bloodstream into the cell, explains Cochrane. Anything that isnt used fairly quickly for energy can be stored as fat, says Vizthum, who adds that were less likely to burn off that sugar since were typically relaxing, rather than being physically active, on Thanksgiving.

We tend to overdo it, says Vizthum. But there are some painless ways you can prevent yourself from overeating on the holiday. A good guideline, in general, for a healthy plate is to fill half of it with vegetables and some fruit, and the other half with protein and whole grains. For Thanksgiving, its a little tricky because its one meal and often a time when theres very special food around, says Vizthum.

She recommends being selective about what youre putting on your plate. Skip foods that arent that special to you, get some protein and non-starchy vegetables on your plate, and stick with small portions of the foods you really love. I am a big fan of people having a little bit of everything, says Castro. Make sure the main part of the plate is a protein turkey is great and some non-starchy vegetables like Brussels sprouts, green beans, salad, carrots, etc. Add some of the holiday favorites like stuffing or mashed potatoes, but try to limit their portions. Castro also says that adding some cranberry sauce and gravy is completely appropriate on Thanksgiving, too.

Also, pay attention to your bodys cues that youre getting full and know when to step away from the Thanksgiving feast. The big thing is not eating to the point of discomfort, says Vizthum, who recommends eating slowly since it takes about 20 minutes for signals to reach the brain that youre getting full, as well as munching mindfully, paying attention to flavors and textures.

And if you do get carried away? Dont beat yourself up. This is one meal out of the entire year, says Vizthum.

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Heres what eating Thanksgiving dinner does to your body - Yahoo Lifestyle

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith