Being a modern dad isn’t easy, as it turns out the job requires a wide array of different skills, according to a new survey.

The research, commissioned by Braun ahead of Father’s Day, found that modern dads must know a multitude of information and topics – including how to navigate social media and the lyrics of hit songs.

But having an Instagram is far from the only knowledge required of a modern dad.

According to the researchers, dads should also be adept at “traditional” dad talents such as fixing bikes and updating computers.

Additionally, “must-have” skills include taking turns on the “night feed” with the baby, doing the school run, and knowing how to braid hair.

Also featured high on the list of dad-skills to know? Being able to cook dinner, knowing how to build flatpack furniture, and providing a platform for a good education.

The importance of knowing how to successfully navigate “the chat” is also a crucial trait for a dad to master – as is the ability to set up a new game console.

Zbyszek Kalenik of Braun said of the results: “Fatherhood today demands that dads get to grips with all manner of tasks and challenges, including those that were once the preserve of mum.”

And a quarter of dads agree that the requirements of fathers today are much tougher than they were in the past.

Of the 1,200 fathers that participated in the study, eight in 10 agreed that “modern dads” have to know significantly more skills compared to their own dads, with technological-based knowledge accounting for a large portion.

For two-thirds of dads, it was the cost of living, toys, and hobbies that added pressure – while more than half believed society’s demands on fathers to be present and actively involved in their children’s upbringing has increased.

But the new pressures have proven to be beneficial – 57 per cent agreed that they spend more time with their children compared to their own fathers.

However, only one-fifth of dads believed themselves to be in the “cool” dad category.

Clinical and laboratory results document psoriatic arthritis in a 56-year old patient. The symptoms did not resolve with standard treatments (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, steroids and methotrexate). TNF-alpha inhibitors (certolizumab pegol and adalimumab) were added to the treatment regime, with some adverse effects. A trial of human umbilical cord stem cell therapy was then initiated. The stem cells were enriched and concentrated from whole cord blood, by removal of erythrocytes and centrifugation.

The patient received several infusions of cord blood stem cells, through intravenous and intra-articular injections. These stem cell treatments correlated with remission of symptoms (joint pain and psoriatic plaques) and normalized serologic results for the inflammatory markers C-reactive protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rate.

These improvements were noted within the first thirty days post-treatment, and were sustained for more than one year.

The results of this trial suggest that cord blood stem cells may have important therapeutic value for patients with psoriatic arthritis, particularly for those who cannot tolerate standard treatments.

The original article can be viewed here.

Stem cells are undifferentiated cells which have the ability to self-renew and differentiate into mature cells. They are highly proliferative, implying that an unlimited number of mature cells can be generated from a given stem cell source.

On this basis, stem cell replacement therapy has been evaluated in recent years as an alternative for various pathologies. Degenerative retinal diseases cause progressive visual decline which originates from continuing loss of photoreceptor cells and outer nuclear layers. Theoretically, this therapy will enable the generation of new retinal cells from stem cells to replace the damaged cells in the diseased retina. In addition, stem cells are able to perform multiple functions, such as immunoregulation, anti-apoptosis of neurons, and neurotrophin secretion.

With recent progress in experimental stem cell applications, phase I/II clinical trials have been approved. These latest stem cell transplantation studies showed that this therapy is a promising approach to restore visual function in eyes with degenerative retinal diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa, Stargardts’ macular dystrophy, and age-related macular degeneration. This review focuses on new developments in stem cell therapy for degenerative retinal diseases.

Read the original article here.

To investigate the clinical efficacy and safety of umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell (UCMSC) transplantation for treating multiple sclerosis (MS), the patients with MS were recruited and treated with UCMSC.

The procedure of preparing UCMSC was in accordance with the standards formulated by the International Society for Cell Biology. Cell surface markers, multiple differentiation potential and safety of UCMSC for transplantation were detected.

The number of cells in each infusion was 1 to 2×10⁶ cells/kg. Patients were recruited in accordance with the standards of the International Mesenchymal Stem Cells Transplantation Study Group. After treatment, the clinical therapeutic effects including symptoms, vital signs, clinical attacks, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), neurological function scores and adverse reactions such as fever, dizziness, and vascular irritation were monitored and evaluated. In addition, the regulatory effects of UCMSC on immune system of patients were also assessed.

The results showed that the patients’ symptoms were improved after UCMSC transplantation. No clinical attacks occurred during transplantation. MRI revealed a reduced number of foci and Expanded Disability Status Scale scores were decreased. Some of patients had adverse reactions after transplantation. These adverse effects were not serious and lasted short duration, thus no intervention was conducted and let it be eliminated by itself. The mRNA expression of CD86, IL-2, CTLA-4, and HLADRB1 in peripheral blood was significantly decreased after UCMSC transplantation (P < 0.05).

Based on our present studies, UCMSCs would be considered as a safe and alternative option for treatment of MS.

Continue reading the original article here.

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is announcing participation in the first-ever clinical trial using stem cells from umbilical cord blood to delay or even prevent heart failure in children born with a rare congenital heart defect that leaves them with half a heart.

“It is very exciting that Children’s Hospital Los Angeles has joined the HLHS consortium. It means that individuals with HLHS now have more options when it comes to participating in groundbreaking clinical trials and other research”

The Phase I study is part of a multi-center collaboration dedicated to employing innovative therapies to improve outcomes for children with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a congenital heart defect in which the left ventricle is severely underdeveloped. The HLHS Consortium, launched at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota in 2017, involves four regional centers. CHLA, the only West Coast member, makes the initiative bicoastal.

“We’re proud to be part of this select group of institutions,” says Vaughn Starnes, MD, co-director of the Heart Institute at CHLA and chair, Department of Surgery, at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. “As a leading center for medical and surgical treatments for HLHS, we want to be at the forefront of the next transformative therapy for treating this complex condition.”

In addition to the Mayo Clinic, other Consortium members include Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Minnesota Children’s Hospital.

“It is very exciting that Children’s Hospital Los Angeles has joined the HLHS consortium. It means that individuals with HLHS now have more options when it comes to participating in groundbreaking clinical trials and other research,” says Timothy Nelson, MD, PhD, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Todd and Karen Wanek Family Program for Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome.

In HLHS, the left ventricle of the heart can’t pump oxygen-rich blood from the lungs to the rest of the body. Without surgical intervention, HLHS is fatal. Children undergo a series of three surgeries in their first three years to make the right ventricle the heart’s main pumping chamber and improve blood flow.

This first-of-its-kind clinical trial combines pioneering surgical techniques with regenerative medicine. “This is one of the earliest efforts at harnessing the power of stem cell technology for the care of children with a serious cardiac disease,” says Ram Kumar Subramanyan, MD, PhD, a cardiothoracic surgeon who is heading the HLHS study in CHLA’s Heart Institute.

CHLA first performed HLHS surgery in 1992. In the decades since, doctors have found that as children with HLHS reach adolescence, their reconstructed hearts are deteriorating. For some, that means heart failure and the need for a heart transplant. “We are looking for novel approaches to this vexing problem,” says Starnes.

At the time of delivery, newborns enrolled in the study will have their umbilical cord blood collected and sent to the Mayo Clinic where the stem cells are removed. Within a few hours of birth, the baby arrives at CHLA and has the first HLHS surgery 2 to 5 days later.

The second open-heart surgery, the Glenn procedure, takes place at about six months of age, when the baby’s own stem cells are injected back into their heart. The hypothesis is that stem cells will stimulate the heart muscle to grow during the critical first year of life, when cardiac cells still have the ability to proliferate. At about three years of age, the child then has the third surgery, the Fontan procedure.

All children in the study will be followed long-term, as doctors look for signs that their hypothesis is working to produce a stronger heart for these at-risk children.

Together, the HLHS Consortium members hope to recruit about 20 children for the Phase I umbilical cord blood study. CHLA investigators already have enrolled several families.

Funding for CHLA’s participation in the Consortium has been provided in part by the Taglyan Family.

A consistent sleep schedule is key to unlocking healthy benefits such as skin that feels fresh and rejuvenated and a strong heart and immune system. A new study says that you can catch up on sleep on the weekend and undo some of the damage caused by lack of zzz’s Monday through Friday—like feeling like you’re drunk at work.

The findings were published in the Journal of Sleep Research, which analyzed the relationship between sleep and mortality rates; it examined data from more than 38,000 adults in Sweden who answered a medical survey in 1997 and then were tracked for 13 years through a national death register. According to the results, people younger than 65 who got five hours of sleep or less seven days a week had a 65 percent higher morality rate than people who got a healthy six or seven hours of sleep. (In case I hadn’t stressed this enough, sleep really is important!) But they also showed that people who got five hours of sleep a night during the week and then caught up on weekends by snoozing for eight hours or more a night experienced the same mortality rate as those who consistently slept six or seven hours nightly.

However, too much regular sleep (eight or more hours nightly) was linked to a 25 percent higher mortality rate than those who slept six or seven hours nightly—but that may be because oversleeping can be an indicator of health problems, as lead author of the study, Torbjörn Åkerstedt, PhD, a professor and director of Stress Research Institute, told The Guardian.

Although busy bees will be pleased to hear their hectic lifestyles won’t negatively impact their longevity (at least where zzz’s are concerned), you should know that the study is limited: Participants were only asked about their sleep habits once in 1997, and they self-reported them, which sacrifices accuracy. Still, Stuart Peirson PhD, associate Professor in the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology, said the results make sense, since the longer you are awake the more sleep you need—your “sleep debt” needs to be “paid off,” he told The Guardian.

Hopefully, additional research will find further evidence to support the ethos of work hard, sleep hard.

McMaster University researchers have found cord blood that has been stored through freezing for long periods of time has the potential to be used as a treatment for breast cancer.

The research comes as McMaster health scientists seek additional medical opportunities for frozen, or cryopreserved, cord blood currently in storage around the world, since this reservoir is most commonly used for stem cell transplants.

The results were recently published in The Journal of Immunotherapy.

“It is important to explore ways we can utilize the vast quantities of long-term cryopreserved cord blood and understand its full potential as a therapeutic product,” said Ali Ashkar, corresponding author and professor of the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine with McMaster’s Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.

Comparing 10.5 and 2.5 year-old cryopreserved blood to fresh cord blood, researchers derived what are called ‘natural killer’ cells. This is a type of white blood cell that is important in eliminating tumour and virus-infected cells. 

Based on experimentation conducted outside of the human body, known as ex vivo, researchers measured the ability to generate vast quantities of activated natural killer cells and their effectiveness in destroying breast cancer cells.

The results showed long-term cryopreservation had no negative effect on the expansion potential or function of the activated cord blood natural killer cells. The research also indicated these cells had a particular effectiveness in attacking primary breast cancer cells.

“We demonstrated it is possible to obtain an exponential amount of natural killer cells from older cryopreserved cord blood,” said Ashkar. “This makes it a viable source of cells for the advancing field of natural killer cell cancer immunotherapy, especially as it applies to breast cancer.”

There are currently more than 600,000 units of cord blood stored globally, with that number expected to increase as storage technology develops. To date, there have been approximately 30,000 cord blood transplants performed.

“Cord blood can be stored at birth so that in the event it is needed, it can later be used to help treat the child,” said Tina Nham, lead author of the study and a second-year McMaster medical student. “This study demonstrates that instead of discarding cord blood samples when the child is grown, cord blood can be cryopreserved and later harnessed as an immunotherapy with the potential to treat a variety of illnesses including breast cancer.”

“It is unclear what happens to publicly or privately-banked cord blood samples that are stored for extensive periods of time,” said Ashkar. “We suggest the ability to store cord blood samples that maintain functionality after decades of cryopreservation, as this raises the possibility of housing vast, diverse and long-lasting donor libraries where readily available sources of therapeutic natural killer cells can be harvested.”

Additional authors on the study came from McMaster University’s Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, McMaster Immunology Research Centre and the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

The original article can be viewed here.

Another reason to save your baby’s cord blood stem cells today. 

Stroke is a major cause of death and long-term disability, affecting one in six people worldwide. The only currently available approved pharmacological treatment for ischemic stroke is tissue plasminogen activator; however, relatively few patients are eligible for this therapy.

We hypothesized that intravenous (IV) infusion of banked unrelated allogeneic umbilical cord blood (UCB) would improve functional outcomes in patients with ischemic stroke. To investigate this, we conducted a phase 1 open-label trial to assess the safety and feasibility of a single IV infusion of non-human leukocyte antigen (HLA) matched, ABO matched, unrelated allogeneic UCB into adult stroke patients. Ten participants with acute middle cerebral artery ischemic stroke were enrolled. UCB units were matched for blood group antigens and race but not HLA, and infused 3-9 days post-stroke. The adverse event (AE) profile over a 12 month postinfusion period indicated that the treatment was well-tolerated in these stroke patients, with no serious AEs directly related to the study product.

Study participants were also assessed using neurological and functional evaluations, including the modified Rankin Score (mRS) and National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS). At 3 months post-treatment, all participants had improved by at least one grade in mRS (mean 2.8 ± 0.9) and by at least 4 points in NIHSS (mean 5.9 ± 1.4), relative to baseline.

Together, these data suggest that a single i.v. dose of allogeneic non-HLA matched human UCB cells is safe in adults with ischemic stroke, and support the conduct of a randomized, placebo-controlled phase 2 study. Stem Cells Translational Medicine 2018.

The original article can be viewed here.

A new study in Royal Society Open Science found that moods spread across friend groups like a “social contagion.”

Researchers surveyed more than 2,000 middle and high school students in the USA over  a period of six months to a year.

 As part of the check-ins, depression screenings were administered to identify any common thread among the moods, feelings, and levels of happiness in the friends.

The study found evidence that moods – happy or sad, spreading across friend groups like wild fire. (But though low moods were found to be socially catching, clinical depression was not).

So while misery may well love company –  being around an upbeat person will make your outlook sunnier.