Health

A Valuable Resource or Children’s Health Risk?

Published

6 months ago

March 21, 2024

March 21, 2024 – For Courtney Stinson, ensuring her daughter’s comfort is a constant battle against the challenges of congenital myopathy. At 9 years old, she relies on a ventilator to breathe, has multiple respiratory treatments daily, and is under the constant care of rotating skilled caregivers. Last year alone, she endured 36 doctor appointments.

To ease her daughter’s struggles with sleep, and after consulting a pediatrician, Stinson turned to melatonin, a hormone naturally produced by the body to manage sleep. She gave her daughter a low dose of melatonin and saw significant improvement in her ability to settle down, especially when her mind raced.

“She would have such a hard time sleeping when everything is swirling in her head,” said Stinson, a mother of two who lives in Milan, MI. “It’s really been helpful when her brain is moving 100 miles an hour.”

Melatonin is sold without a prescription as a sleep aid in the form of a supplement. For some parents, especially those whose children have complex needs, melatonin can be a valuable resource – but the rise in melatonin across otherwise healthy populations has had its consequences, too, according to pediatric sleep experts.

Recent data from the CDC illustrates one of these drawbacks: a significant surge in accidental melatonin ingestion among young children over the past 2 decades.

Between 2012 and 2021, poison center calls related to pediatric melatonin exposures skyrocketed by 530%, while emergency department visits for unsupervised melatonin ingestion by infants and young children surged by 420% from 2009 to 2020, according to the CDC report.

Between 2019 and 2022, an estimated 10,930 emergency room visits were linked to 295 cases of children under the age of 6 ingesting melatonin. These incidents accounted for 7.1% of all emergency department visits for medication exposures in this age group, according to the report.

The share of U.S. adults using melatonin increased from 0.4% during 1999 to 2000 to 2.1% during 2017 to 2018.

Doctors say the escalating number of melatonin-related incidents underscores the need for increased awareness and safety measures to protect young children from unintentional overdose, which can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, and confusion.

“I do think there is a safe way to use it in certain children, but it should only be used under the guidance of a physician,” said Laura Sterni, MD, director of the Johns Hopkins Pediatric Sleep Center. “There are dangers to using it without that guidance.”

Almost 1 in 5 Children Use Melatonin

Nearly 1 in 5 school-age children and preteens take melatonin for sleep, according to research published last year in JAMA Pediatrics, which also found that 18% of children between 5 and 9 take the supplement.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine issued a warning in 2022 advising parents to approach the sleep aid with caution.

“While melatonin can be useful in treating certain sleep-wake disorders, like jet lag, there is much less evidence it can help healthy children or adults fall asleep faster,” M. Adeel Rishi, MD, vice chair of the Academy of Sleep Medicine’s Public Safety Committee, warned on the the academy’s site. “Instead of turning to melatonin, parents should work on encouraging their children to develop good sleep habits, like setting a regular bedtime and wake time, having a bedtime routine, and limiting screen time as bedtime approaches.”

What’s the Best Way to Give Kids Melatonin?

Melatonin has been found to work well for children with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, or other conditions like blindness that can hinder the development of a normal circadian rhythm.

But beyond consulting a pediatrician, caregivers whose children are otherwise healthy should consider trying other approaches to sleep disruption first, Sterni said, and things like proper sleep hygiene and anxiety should be addressed first.

“Most sleep problems in children really should be managed with behavioral therapy alone,” she said. “To first pull out a medication to treat that I think is the wrong approach.”

Sterni also recommends starting with the lowest dose possible, which is 0.5 milligrams, with the help of pediatrician. It should be taken 1 to 2 hours before bedtime and 2 hours after their last meal, she said.

But she notes that because melatonin is sold as a supplement and is not regulated by the FDA, it is impossible to know the exact amount in each dose.

According to JAMA, out of 25 supplements of melatonin, most of the products contained up to 50% more melatonin than what was listed.

Dangers of Keeping It Within Reach

One of the biggest dangers for children is that melatonin is often sold in the form of gummies or chewable tablets – things that appeal to children, said Jenna Wheeler, MD, a pediatric critical care doctor at Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children.

Because it is sold as a supplement, there are no child-safe packaging requirements.

“From a critical care standpoint, just remember to keep it up high, not on the nightstand or in a drawer,” Wheeler said. “A child may eat the whole bottle, thinking, ‘This is just like fruits snacks.’”

She noted that the amount people need is often lower than what they buy at the store, and that regardless of whether it is used in proper amounts, it is not meant to be a long-term supplement – for adults or for children.

“Like with anything that’s out there, it’s all about how it’s used,” Wheeler said. “The problem is when kids get into it accidentally or when it’s not used appropriately.”

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Health

Walmart Is Selling a $300 Power Tower for Just $128, and Shoppers Say It's 'Surprisingly Sturdy'

Published

17 hours ago

September 7, 2024

Michael Charboneau

Men’s Journal aims to feature only the best products and services. If you buy something via one of our links, we may earn a commission.

When building a home gym, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the equipment options, especially when you’re working with limited space and a tight budget. But when you focus on versatile gear and hunt for deals, creating a useful setup is easily doable. Thankfully, Walmart has been slashing prices on a ton of fitness equipment, including its bestselling adjustable dumbbells and even a complete home gym system. Now, it’s reduced the price of a popular power tower by over $170, and it even ships for free.

The Pooboo Body Champ Multifunction Power Tower is on sale for $128, a 57% discount on its normal price of $300. This incredibly versatile workout station has earned nearly 250 five-star ratings from Walmart shoppers who’ve praised its “strong and sturdy” build and “quality fit and finish,” and it’s currently one of the top 5 bestselling models on the site.

Pooboo Body Champ Multifunction Power Tower, $128 (was $300) at Walmart

Don’t let the brand’s bizarre name fool you—this power tower is a well-made piece of gym equipment. It features steel construction and is rated to hold up to 480 pounds (the tower itself weighs 66 pounds). A nearly 42-inch H-shaped base gives it excellent stability, so it won’t wobble or shake when you’re exercising, and anti-slip feet on the bottom keep it securely planted on the floor. It’s also adjustable (from 71.4 inches to 94 inches) to accommodate users of varying heights. And, once it’s set up, you can use it for a huge range of exercises, including dips, pull-ups, chin-ups, push-ups, vertical leg raises, knee raises, and more.

According to Walmart reviewers, the Pooboo Body Champ stands out for its solid build and usefulness. “It’s a surprisingly sturdy piece of equipment,” a shopper said. “Everything about this fitness tower is perfect. I originally purchased this with the intention of only doing pull-ups on it, but after quickly assembling the power tower, I came to realize just how versatile it is. It has cushions for knee and leg raises, it’s sturdy, and the perfect width for dips.” Another shopper agreed, saying, “This was a much-needed addition to my home gym.”

“This thing is amazing and worth every penny,” said another, who added that it’s “easy to install and can hold a lot of weight.”

At just $128, this Pooboo power tower is a screaming deal, and it’s sure to get lots of use during your workouts. But this discount won’t last long, so grab one today before the price pumps back up.

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Health

Alzheimer’s Drug May Save Lives Through ‘Suspended Animation’

Published

1 day ago

September 7, 2024

Harvard Gazette

By Lindsay Brownell | Wyss Institute Communications | Harvard Gazette

Could buy patients more time to survive critical injuries and diseases, even when disaster strikes far from a hospital

Donepezil, an FDA-approved drug to treat Alzheimer’s, has the potential to be repurposed for use in emergency situations to prevent irreversible organ injury, according to researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.

Using Donepezil (DPN), researchers report that they were able to put tadpoles of Xenopus laevis frogs into a hibernation-like torpor.

“Cooling a patient’s body down to slow its metabolic processes has long been used in medical settings to reduce injuries and long-term problems from severe conditions, but it can only currently be done in a well-resourced hospital,” said co-author Michael Super, director of immuno-materials at the Wyss Institute. “Achieving a similar state of ‘biostasis’ with an easily administered drug like DNP could potentially save millions of lives every year.”

This research, published Thursday in ACS Nano, was supported as part of the DARPA Biostasis Program, which funds projects that aim to extend the time for lifesaving medical treatment, often referred to as “the Golden Hour,” following traumatic injury or acute infection. The Wyss Institute has been a participant in the Biostasis Program since 2018, and has achieved several important milestones over the last few years.

Using a combination of predictive machine learning algorithms and animal models, the Wyss’ Biostasis team previously identified and tested existing drug compounds that had the potential to put living tissues into a state of suspended animation. Their first successful candidate, SNC80, significantly reduced oxygen consumption (a proxy for metabolism) in both a beating pig heart and in human organ chips, but is known to cause seizures when injected systemically.

In the new study, they once again turned to their algorithm to identify other compounds whose structures are similar to SNC80. Their top candidate was DNP, which has been approved since 1996 to treat Alzheimer’s.

Achieving a similar state of ‘biostasis’ with an easily administered drug like DNP could potentially save millions of lives every year.

–Michael Super

“Interestingly, clinical overdoses of DNP in patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease have been associated with drowsiness and a reduced heart rate — symptoms that are torpor-like. However, this is the first study, to our knowledge, that focuses on leveraging those effects as the main clinical response, and not as side effects,” said the study’s first author, María Plaza Oliver, who was a postdoctoral fellow at the Wyss Institute when the work was conducted.

The team used X. laevis tadpoles to evaluate DNP’s effects on a whole living organism, and found that it successfully induced a torpor-like state that could be reversed when the drug was removed. The drug, however, did seem to cause some toxicity, and accumulated in all of the animals’ tissues. To solve that problem, the researchers encapsulated DNP inside lipid nanocarriers, and found that this both reduced toxicity and caused the drug to accumulate in the animals’ brain tissues. This is a promising result, as the central nervous system is known to mediate hibernation and torpor in other animals as well.

Although DNP has been shown to protect neurons from metabolic stress in models of Alzheimer’s disease, the team cautions that more work is needed to understand exactly how it causes torpor, as well as scale up production of the encapsulated DNP for use in larger animals and, potentially, humans.

“Donepezil has been used worldwide by patients for decades, so its properties and manufacturing methods are well-established. Lipid nanocarriers similar to the ones we used are also now approved for clinical use in other applications. This study demonstrates that an encapsulated version of the drug could potentially be used in the future to buy patients critical time to survive devastating injuries and diseases, and it could be easily formulated and produced at scale on a much shorter time scale than a new drug,” said senior author Donald Ingber, the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, and the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Bioinspired Engineering at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

This research was supported by DARPA under Cooperative Agreement Number W911NF-19-2-0027, the Margarita Salas postdoctoral grant co-funded by the Spanish Ministry of Universities, and the University of Castilla-La Mancha (NextGeneration EU UNI/551/2021).

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This story is reprinted with permission from The Harvard Gazette.

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Health

Can Stuff in Rosemary Extract Fight Cocaine Addiction?

Published

2 days ago

September 5, 2024

Futurity

Researchers have discovered that an antioxidant found in rosemary extract can reduce intakes of cocaine by moderating the brain’s reward response, offering a new therapeutic target for treating addiction.

September 5, 2024 by Futurity Leave a Comment

By Pat Harriman-UC Irvine

The study in the journal Neuron describes researchers’ focus on a region of the brain called the globus pallidus externus, which acts as a gatekeeper that regulates how we react to cocaine.

They discovered that within the GPe, parvalbumin-positive neurons are crucial in controlling the response to cocaine by changing the activity neurons releasing the pleasure molecule dopamine.

“There are currently no effective therapeutics for dependence on psychostimulants such as cocaine, which, along with opioids, represent a substantial health burden,” says corresponding author Kevin Beier, an associate professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of California, Irvine.

“Our study deepens our understanding of the basic brain mechanisms that increase vulnerability to substance use disorder-related outcomes and provides a foundation for the development of new interventions.”

Findings in mice revealed that globus pallidus externus parvalbumin-positive cells, which indirectly influence the release of dopamine, become more excitable after being exposed to cocaine. This caused a drop in the expression of certain proteins that encode membrane channels that usually help keep the globus pallidus cell activity in check. The researchers found that carnosic acid, an isolate of rosemary extract, selectively binds to the affected channels, providing an avenue to reduce response to the drug in a relatively specific fashion.

“Only a subset of individuals are vulnerable to developing a substance use disorder, but we cannot yet identify who they are. If globus pallidus cell activity can effectively predict response to cocaine, it could be used to measure likely responses and thus serve as a biomarker for the most vulnerable,” Beier says. “Furthermore, it’s possible that carnosic acid could be given to those at high risk to reduce the response to cocaine.”

The next steps in this research include thoroughly assessing negative side effects of carnosic acid and determining the ideal dosage and timing. The team is also interested in testing its efficacy in reducing the desire for other drugs and in developing more potent and targeted variants.

Scientists from the University of West Virginia and the University of Colorado participated in the study.

Support for this work came from the National Institutes of Health, One Mind, the Alzheimer’s Association, New Vision Research, BrightFocus Foundation, and the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.

Source: UC Irvine

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Previously Published on futurity.org with Creative Commons License

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