Spinal cord tissue regeneration success
Researchers from California have successfully produced tissue scaffolds that mimic the 3D architecture and mechanical properties of spinal cord tissue. Spinal cord injury affects hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, with no treatments currently available. Healing is hindered by the lack of nerve regeneration in the injured spinal cord due to factors such as inflammation and glial scarring. But researchers from the UC San Diego School of Medicine and its Institute of Engineering in Medicine have now produced a spinal cord scaffold utilising micro-scale continuous projection printing. Fabrication techniques such as 3D printing provide a means to generate scaffolds that can support and guide nerve regeneration. These scaffolds can be designed and produced to match the size and shape of the injury site.
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Sweetened drinks pose post-menopausal stroke risk
Key to the scaffold production was biomimicry - mimicking the natural structure and mechanical characteristics of the spinal cord. The researchers used rats with spinal cord injury to test their 3D printed scaffolds. The researchers examined the animals six months after transplantation and saw significant physical improvement in the group implanted with scaffold and cells compared with the controls. Spinal cord injuries often carry high morbidity and poor prognosis, owing to insufficient regeneration of nerves following injury. This new technology may provide a significant step towards improved treatment by creating an environment that can be tailored to specific injuries to foster natural nerve repair. The research team is currently looking to conduct trials on larger animal models, and aims to take the technology into human trials soon.
Artificially sweetened drinks may lead to increased risk of stroke among women over 50, according to new findings. The observational US study found that women drinking more than one diet soda or other kind of artificially sweetened drink, every day, had a higher risk of strokes caused by a blood clot. The Women’s Health Initiative study was headed up by Yasmin Mossavar-Rahmani, PhD, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and was recently published in industry journal Stroke. In an effort to cut calories many people opt for sweetened drinks, however this research and others have shown that these artificially sweetened beverages may not be harmless and high consumption is associated with higher risk of stroke and heart disease. Data from 81,714 post-menopausal women aged 50-79 in a study tracking health outcomes for an average 11.9 years was analysed. Participants reported how much diet drinks, sodas, low calorie, artificially sweetened colas/soda/pop and fruit drinks they had consumed. Women who drank two or more artificially sweetened beverages a day were 23% more likely to have a stroke; 31% more likely to have a clot-caused stroke; 29% more likely to develop heart disease/fatal or non-fatal heart attack; and 16% more likely to die from any cause, than those who drank diet drinks less than once a week or not at all.