Fighting Alzheimers Disease

One and three people in the United States know someone affected with Alzheimers Disease. Since this disease is so painful many people are contributing to the reasearch of this horrible disease. Alzheimers Disease comes from building-up plaque that is present in the brain . Doctors Doctors in Quebec have recently learned a fundamental reason for which the plaque may be developing in Alzheimer's patients, and this explanation could lead towards more accurate ways of fighting the disease. The cell in the brain, microglia, is the cell that naturally defeats the plaque in the brain. When this cell is afflicted with the disease it can no longer defeat the plaque and this is when the plaque grows and leads to the eventual complete loss of the patient's mental processes. Now doctors are trying to find a cure to make the microglia cell to successfully fight off plaque. They turned to a different type of microglia found in a different part of the body - inside bone marrow. They used mice to test their hypothesis, the scientists were pleased to find that the microglia from the bone marrow successfully fought off the plaque caused by Alzheimer's. This would be a huge advancement if the microglia cell works successfully in human trials. If the human trial is successful this won'tcure the Alzheimer's disease completely because the disease is not just invloved with the plaque in the brain. But this will allow patients to live with the disease for a longer period of time without as much cognitive loss.

Freezing Your Body?!

Would you ever freeze your body to help with medical advancements?! A man named Richard Leis Jr is trying to get a second chance at life if it gets cut short. Meanwhile, he's paying $22 a month into a life insurance policy that would provide $250,000 if he dies young.That's enough freeze his body at minus 196 degrees Celsius and store it indefinitely at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. He hoping for a medical advances that could bring him and others back to life. . The minimum cost for freezing and storing a body is $150,000 and the minimum cost for only the head and brain is $80,000. Living members are required to pay annual membership fees ranging from about $100 to $400. Many are saying cyronics is another advancement to bring yourself back to life. There was a recent test on a rabbit's kidney that was thawed and transplanted back in correctly. Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, has thought about people being frozen should think about what it would be like to come back into life. For example, a person revived in the future wouldn't have any idea what is going on in that time. There are many beliefs that cryonic will work and if it does it will save many lives.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/12/08/20081208cns-frozen1208.html

Penicillin

The next topic I reasearched has been one the biggest medical advancements in history. In 1928, Sir Alexander Fleming observed that colonies of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus could be destroyed by the mold Penicillium notatum, proving that there was an antibacterial agent there in principle(http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventions/a/Penicillin.htm). Penicillin was rediscovered and lead to other medicines that could kill certain types of disease-causing bacteria inside the body. Alexandra Flemming observed and grew the mold in a pute culture and found that it produced a substance that killed a number of disease-causing bacteria. The use of penicillin was not used until the 1940s. As the destruction of the war grew, so did interest in penicillin in laboratories, universities and drug companies on both sides of the Atlantic. The scientists knew they were in a race against death, because an infection was as likely to kill a wounded soldier as his wound(http://herbarium.usu.edu/fungi/FunFacts/penicillin.htm).

Penicillin kills bacteria by preventing it from forming new cell walls. Today, In the United States the percent of people with baterial infections have decreased since the 1900's. Before penicillin existed, anyone could die from an infection that started with a simple scratch or cut. To find the side effects for penicillin go to this website:

http://www.drugs.com/penicillin.html

Stem Cell Research?

Today, The medical research that we developed is helping our society today. Conducting medical research is one way our society addresses health concerns. I want to reasearch new medical advances that are helping people today. For example, the discovery of Stem Cell Research. I will also research the positive and negatives and how they effect people.

Here is a link to a time line of medical advances:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0932661.html

The first medical advancement I examined was Stem Cell research. Stem Cell research is a discovery of a new technology to take primitive human cells and develop the human cells in to 220 varieties of cells in a human body. Since Congress has passed the law for Stem Cell research there has been lots of controversy between the pros and cons. What are some pros and cons of Stem Cell reasearch? One of the postive studies of stem cell reserach is the fact it could help in many medical fields. For example, neural cells in the brain and spinal cord that have been damaged can be replaced by stem cells. In the treatment of cancer, cells destroyed by radiation or chemotherapy can be replaced with new healthy stem cells that adapt to the affected area, whether it be part of the brain, heart, liver, or lungs. (http://www.allaboutpopularissues.org/pros-and-cons-of-stem-cell-research.htm) Billions of dollars can be put into this reasearch. The negative effects of stem cell reaserach come into play when the embryonic stem cells for reasearch involves the destruction of blastocysts formed from laboratory-fertilized human eggs.(http://biotech.about.com/od/bioethics/i/issuestemcells_2.htm) The people who valume human life at conception do not believe in embryonic stem cell research because the devolpment of stem cells from this type of an embryo requires its destruction. Some believe this could be considered murder because it is considered a human life being killed. What do you think about Stem Cell Research? Do you believe this a good medical advancement?