Aspirin as a Cancer Prevention

We take aspirin is used to reduce fever and relieve mild to moderate pain from conditions such as muscle aches, toothaches, common cold, and headaches. It may also be used to reduce pain and swelling in conditions such as arthritis. Researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City have found that aspirin could be used as a cancer prevention for colorectal cancer. In the study they found statistically significant changes in a metabolite that has been found to drive cancer development, 2-hydroxyglutarate, which was reduced by 12%. This study is important because it shows that aspirin has some level of cancer prevention for corolectal cancer. The next step in this study is to see if aspirin has any effect of prevention on other cancers. One thing to keep in mind is that Aspirin is acting as a prevention not a cure.

here is the link to the article:

http://www.news-medical.net/news/20151119/Identifying-new-mechanism-for-aspirin-in-cancer-prevention.aspx

Advancements in Cancer detection

Today while I was looking for articles I came across one that I found really interesting. A research team from the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis was able to see early-developing cancer cells deeper in tissue. The way they achieved this was using two embodiments of photoacoustic tomography that they developed themselves. Photoacoustic tomgraphy is an analysis technique busing photoacoustic imaging, which uses ultrasonic emissions to take images of the tissue. This method uses red or near-infrared light, as well as sound to take high resolution images. For this method they used a protein called BphP1. According to this article, this protein has the ability to sense different types of light and shift its absorption properties accordingly. This is why they used red or near-infrared light. they subtracted the image created from the red light scan from the infrared light scan and recovered an image that revealed the cancer cells deep in the tissue. This research is important because it provides a way to better detect cancer as well as detect it early. This article was interesting because this method could potentially save lives. However, this method does no good if people do not go to get checked out.

here is the link to the paper. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151109134457.htm

The importance of sleep on a cellular level

Sleep is very important. its recommended that a person should get around 8 hrs of sleep. But as a college student getting 8 hours of sleep is rare. A research conducted by team at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville revealed how not getting enough sleep effects us on the cellular level. the researchers state that not getting enough sleep can "short-circuit your system and interfere with a fundamental cellular process that drives physical growth, physiological adaptation and even brain activity". They based this claim off a prior study conducted on protein synthesis in plants. This study showed that "protein synthesis activity changed over the course of the day, but also that it was under the influence of the circadian clock". When we disrupt our circadian clock by studying all night or staying up till 2 or 3 in the morning watching netflix, it affects some of our bodily functions such as muscle contraction, and brain activity. The researchers stated that these functions depend on proteins that are regulated like those that were looked at in the study conducted on plants, therefore they claimed that if the regulation of proteins that deal with these functions are disrupted this could possible lead to side effects on a cellular level. This study has not incorporated any human test subjects. I am interested in how they plan to proceed with this study, and what the results of human studies could mean. 

here is a link to the article
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20151030/Lack-of-adequate-sleep-can-interfere-with-fundamental-cellular-process.aspx