Can We Edit Parkinson’s Disease?

…and other items from this week’s health news:

A new approach for treating Parkinson’s?

In Parkinson’s, a protein (α-synuclein) clumps together in brain cells, causing damage, analogous to that of β-amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s.

Researchers used brain cells made from stem cells of Parkinson’s patients and exposed them to harmful forms of α-synuclein. This triggered immune responses and activated an enzyme (ADAR1) that edits RNA. Normally, ADAR1 helps control immune responses during infections, but in Parkinson’s, this study shows that it becomes overly active in genes linked to inflammation.

What this means in practical terms is that ADAR1 could be a new target for treatments, offering a fresh way to tackle brain inflammation in Parkinson’s disease.

Read in full: Editing Parkinson’s disease—discovery of an inflammatory RNA editing enzyme

Related: Norepinephrine vs Alzheimer’s Disease

In the summertime, when the weather is high…

…then people might also be, depending on drug use—a team of researchers in Japan found that metabolism of many drugs (including prescription and recreational ones, and notably including alcohol) varies by season. This was an animal study, using close primate cousins of ours, but importantly: they have the same genes when it comes to the genes that are affected by this:

❝Their analysis, reported in Nature Communications, identified multiple “seasonally variable genes” from a comprehensive gene expression map of more than 54,000 genes expressed in 80 tissues.

The study identified seasonal fluctuations in genes responsible for drug metabolism, particularly CYP2D6 and CYP2C19, which affect a quarter of common medications. Several widely used pharmaceuticals may be affected by these seasonal variations, including treatments for cancer, diabetes, high cholesterol, psychiatric conditions, hormonal therapies, and immunosuppressants used in organ transplantation.❞

As for alcohol, by the way: it’s tolerated better in winter, with intoxication in summer being quicker in its onset, and slower in recovery—in other words, alcohol’s effects are stretched out at both ends in summer.

The researchers note that this may also explain why hospitalizations for alcohol overdose are much more common in summer, despite people drinking just as heavily if not more heavily (based on alcohol sales) in winter.

Read in full: Seasonal changes affect alcohol tolerance and your waistline

Related: An Unexpected Extra Threat Of Alcohol

The end to the biological arms race between pathogens and vaccines?

Since the invention of the vaccine, humans and pathogens have been locked in an ongoing biological arms race, as each tries to outdo the other. From the pathogens’ side, of course this is completely unthinking and without malice, just a case of mutating and thus finding versions that aren’t “unnaturally deselected” by the previous round of vaccines. And, while this race hasn’t showed signs of slowing, the fact that the battle is being fought, has saved millions of lives.

However! One thing that’s critical is rolling vaccines out as soon as they’re ready. Yes, they have safety checks first of course, but once they’re good to go, they need to be out there not only saving people, but also reducing the infection rate by virtue of herd immunity (which occurs when most people are vaccinated).

The latest plan from the US Health & Human Services department is to require placebo testing of all new vaccines. Placebo trials typically last for months or years, depending on what it is. In the case of vaccines, then what’s being tested would be “is this vaccine more effective than placebo at stopping infection” so we’d need to wait until infection numbers roll in, tally how many get infected on each side, how many die on each side, and then if the numbers support its use (which based on pretty much any vaccine’s historic stats, they will) it’ll be rolled out to the general populace.

However, this means that (for example) when flu season rolls around, scientists will develop the appropriate vaccine, but instead of getting rolled out after safety testing, it’ll go into placebo trials instead, and be rolled out sometime the following year. Which is just not how a helpful response to “flu season” goes; it’d be like if your house were on fire so they send the fire crew out next week.

Read in full: US government to require placebo testing of all new vaccines: How will it affect updated COVID shots?

Related: Vaccine Mythbusting

Take care!