Medicine U date
By: M. Anas
Advice Column
Impaired sense of smell an early indicator of
Alzheimer’s disease
It is known that neurodegeneration associated with Alzheimer’s disease impairs the brain control over a variety of
functions, also the studies assure that neurodegeneration occurs years before the onset of memory loss.
A study was conducted on four groups (one had normal cognitive functions, one had subjective cognitive impairment, one had mild cognitive impairment and the last one had Alzheimer’s disease), each one took a part in four
different tests to assess their ability to smell and recognize and differentiate between different odors.
As a result, participants who performed poorly in these tests shows neurodegeneration in the hippocampus and
entorhinal cortex, which is associated with Alzheimer’s disease also they were more likely to have a variation of the
APOE gene - known as APOE e 4 that is linked to increase likelihood for Alzheimer’s disease.
In conclusion, testing the sense of smell may be used for earlier detection of Alzheimer’s disease, however these
results should be generalized on larger group of patients.
References:
Roberts RO, Christianson TJH, Kremers WK, Mielke MM, Machulda MM, Vassilaki M, Alhurani RE, Geda YE,
Knopman DS, Petersen RC. Association Between Olfactory Dysfunction and Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment
and Alzheimer Disease Dementia. JAMA Neurol. 2016;73(1):93-101. doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2015.2952
Transgenic expression of mitochondrial chaperone TRAP1 accelerates
prostate cancer development
In a previous study, mice who lack TRAP1 were studied,
and the mice lived longer with fewer age related-diseases,
which suggested that TRAP1 has an important role in
developing certain diseases.
A new study was done on mice who showed overexpression of TRAP1 instead of mice lacking the protein,
also these mice was lack a copy of the gene that codes
for PTEN, a tumor suppressor gene, which is absent in
the prostate cancer, the study was trying to create an
environment as similar as possible to the one in human
prostate cancer.
The results showed that increased TRAP1 with loss of
PTEN led to early onset of invasive prostate cancer in the
mice, also it showed increased cell proliferation of tumor
cells and decreased apoptosis with increased epithelial cell invasion, so they conclude that TRAP1 help the
cancer cells to become more aggressive and resistant to
treatment, which suggests it could be a new therapeutic
target.
Reference:
Transgenic expression of mitochondrial chaperone
TRAP1 accelerates prostate cancer development, Sofia
Lisanti et al., The Journal of Biological Chemistry,
doi:10.1074/jbc.M116.745950, published online 17
16October 2016.
Male newborns conceived by IVF
may have infertility issues future in
life
Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) a procedure
help to treat infertility in men who have abnormal
sperm or low sperm count, is done by introducing
the best quality sperm into the mother’s egg to induce
normal fertilization, and then place it in the mother’s
womb, the technique was firstly done 20 years ago by
Prof. Van Steirteghemat.
However, an analysis of 54 men who were born by
ICSI, suggests a correlation between male infertility
and the procedure itself.
The analysis included 54 men -aged 18-22 - who were
conceived through ICSI compared with a control
group of men who were conceived naturally, the analysis showed that men conceived by ICSI had half the
sperm concentration as men conceived naturally with
twofold reduction in sperm count and increasing their
likelihood for future infertility problems.
However, the result can’t be generalized for all men
conceived through ICSI and more researches should
be carried out.
References:
Belva, F. et al. “Semen Quality of Young Adult
ICSI Offspring: The First Results”. Human Reproduction 31.12 (2016): 2811-2820. Web.
Hello! I’m year 1 student and I am
starting to worry if I can continue
in medicine since I always feel like
there’s a lot to memorize and I am
drowning in a sea of information.
How do I improve my memory?
1. Try to cluster (classify) the drugs into groups or
families that have something in common like prefix such as pril family for ACE-inhibitors, sartan
family for angiotensin receptor blockers, zocin
family for selective alpha-blockers
2. Prepare tables (prepared by the student herself)
in the form of comparison between drugs that
have opposite actions such as cholinergic drugs
and anti-cholinergics, adrenergics and antiadrinergics, selective and non-selective beta-blockers,.....etc. and sometimes I advise the students
to print these tables and put them on the wall in
their rooms and try to read them whenever they
go out or in the room
3. Read about the drugs from different sources
such as slides, reference books, internet, etc.
4. Try to initiate group discussion outside the
class or during the PBL sessions about drugs you
studied every week.
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By: Dr. Raafat AlAwady
Hi, I’m first year medical student
and I am having a little problem
with Pharmacology. I understand all the concepts clearly but
my problem is with remembering all the drug names and what
each of them do. Is there a trick
to it? Thanks.
Hello dear year 1 student. You need to take a break.
Stop working to the wee hours of the night. The
weight of the subjects you have been handed now
is a load and I can’t promise you and tell you that it
will get any easier, but if you work right, you will get
better at it. For now, don’t try and engulf everything,
just accept it, it’s okay if you can’t memorize everything, it’s one of these skills that not a whole bunch
of us are blessed with. A piece of advice though, stop
studying in the weekend, and stop stressing about it,
the weekend is the time for you to disconnect from
the maddening world of medicine, and connect with
everything else. Connect with people and activities,
have fun. Study all through the week, try your best to
finish up your lectures week by week, and if a lecture
is overwhelming, at least get familiar with it, read
it and skim through, once, twice, and thrice, soon
enough you will be well acquainted with it and will be
able to memorize it at an easier pace.
So, to answer your question in brief, or anything but
brief, de-stressing is key. Unwind and relax. Rush
yourself and work hard through the week, and then
reward yourself all through the weekend. Find a passion, pick a hobby, medicine who?
By: Fatima Al Taei
17