pill

In 1962, a Mexican child found a radioactive pill and took her home. All the father died but

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27 years before Chernobyl disasterMexico City lived in its meats the effects of ionizing radiation. With a clear parallelism with the death of Marie Curie About 30 years before, a Mexican family disappeared after being exposed for days to a radioactive capsule that they found out there. And the worst thing is that he never clarified as something so dangerous ended in that house. The case. In March 1962, a family composed of five members (father, pregnant mother, paternal grandmother, a daughter and a son) moved to a new house in Mexico City. It is estimated that, playing in a garden, the child found a ‘capsule’ and took it. With about ten years, I was unable to know what it was, but the capsule is not that it had an easily recognizable badge. The cell. They did not know that this small cobalt-60 capsule of just a few centimeters had an activity of 200 gigabequerelios (GBQ). To put it in context, it is a radiation between hundreds and thousands of millions smaller than the one in Chernobilbut enough to wreak havoc without proper protection. And, of course, the manipulation was far from being correct. Like Marie Curie 30 years before with her radioactive tubes, the little one took the capsule for a few days Cobalt-60 In the pants pocket, absorbing more than directly the ionizing radiation. The mother took her and kept her in a kitchen drawer. Now We still have problems with radiation in Chernobyl And they are built great sarcophagi to contain itso a wooden drawer had little to do. The piece Tragic outcome. A few days later, the mother began to notice that glass vessels began to change color. It is a phenomenon called radiation solarization which occurs when transparent materials such as glass are subjected to high energy radiation (such as X -rays or gamma). Depending on the color of the glass and its composition, the new hue varies, but the effects are patent. It also began to cause mysterious symptoms in different family members, such as tiredness at the beginning and vomiting. He outcome It was expected. At the beginning of April, a few days after the finding of the radioactive pill, the child died. It was the one that received the biggest doses, which caused great damage to the bone marrow, infections and necrosis in the areas of maximum exposure. The mother, who was the one who spent the longest in the kitchen, died in July due to hemorrhages in hematopoietic tissues. The two -year -old younger sister died in August after developing respiratory infection, anemia, leukopenia and thrombocytopenia. The grandmother was the last one: in October of that year and for causes similar to those of the girl. The father received a high dose, but as time was spent at home for work, he survived. A plane of the house, about 25 m². The location of the pill in the kitchen is marked with the “radiation” symbol Explanations? In just eight months, that little radioactive battery ended five family members and here the most interesting question is how something like that, especially when there was already knowledge of the danger of the radioactive material, ended without protection in the garden of a house. The most serious thing is that 60 years have passed and there is no official version. The capsule, after being obsolete, was removed from a hospital where it was used in radiology equipment and was not transported with the necessary protection measures. There begin the versions that point that he arrived at a landfill next to other waste, but without signaling about the danger it represented and, in some way, ended in that garden. A Report Medical of the 1964 pointed out that the piece was in a lead container that was granted to the family for their care, but without informing its content or danger. The only clear thing is that he left the hospital without proper surveillance and the head of that cobalt capsule was not found. Was not the only one. That mystery has given rise to conspiracy theories such as ensuring that it was a premeditated event that ended in that family, but they are still that: theories. And, although it would have been a perfect story for some film with supernatural component (mysterious deaths, change of color in objects), nothing was done with it. Nor are there great documentaries, contrary to what happened with another radiation case with a cobalt capsule-60: that of Ciudad Juárez in 1984. The protagonist was another radiotherapy unit with Cobalt-60, but on this occasion, an improperly dismantled. Destined to the garbage dump, when the operators pierced the unit with cobalt-60, the particles were shot, contaminating thousands of tons of metal destined to create construction pieces and metal bases for tables. During the next months, hundreds of houses were built that had to be demolished, and tons of contaminated metals that had been distributed throughout Mexico and the southern United States were also recovered. It is estimated that some 4,000 people were exposed, without catastrophic consequences, but leaving a valuable lesson about the risk of recycling obsolete medical machinery. Images | IAEA, V1ADIS1AV In Xataka | The place where the US created atomic bombs has a problem. Plutonium has shot at the Chernobil level

There is a ‘good’ fat that hides a secret to aging better and being fit. It only remains to get the pill

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Aging is inevitable, and with it it comes A progressive loss of physical capacity that causes it to be more difficult to walk or stand up. This makes Stay fit It becomes much more difficult and therefore the resistance begins to decline. But … what if this decline can be slow down? This is precisely what science is focused on. Fat as anti -aging. Researchers at the Rigers New Jersey Medical School They have discovered That a special type of adipose tissue, known as brown fat, could be the key not only for healthier old age, but also Improve physical performance. A study of great relevance, since it can open a new route in the anti -aging field. The team that has led this research has been able to identify an unusually powerful form of this ‘good fat’ in mice, which not only Increased his life expectancybut improved its exercise capacity by an impressive 30%. Now, the race has begun to be able to replicate these same effects in humans through a drug. Not all fat is bad. When we think of fat, the White fat or white adipose tissue. Its main function is to store excess calories in the form of triglycerides and is the one that can bother us aesthetically throughout our lives. Although in essence it is a large energy deposit. But, nevertheless, there is another type of fat that is much more interesting: brown fat or Brown adipose tissue. Unlike white, brown fat is specialized in burning calories to generate heat in a process called thermogenesis. This is possible thanks to the fact that their cells are full of mitochondria, which are the organelles that act as cellular power plants and that give it its characteristic brown color. In our life where we have more fatty fat in our body is when we are babies, since here it is crucial for Keep body temperature. But when we grow, the brown fat is lost until some cracks are around the neck and shoulders. But here the white fat is the one that dominates our body completely. One step further. Knowledge about brown fat already has a long journey in scientific literature. But it is now when this study goes further to point that it is linked to having a healthier longevity and with a much more appropriate physical exercise. How they knew it. To get to this conclusion, the researchers worked with a genetically modified mouse model to lack a protein called RGS14. The mice without this protein lived approximately 20% than their normal partners, and curiously the females lived more than the males in a pattern similar to that followed by humans. Even at the advanced ages, these mice avoided the typical signs of aging such as body atrophy, hair loss or the graying of the fur. But it does not stay here, since when submitting them to physical tests, the modified mice showed a 30% higher performance, both in distance traveled and in resistance. And all this because mice without RGS14 developed a dense and powerful brown fat than who expressed the protein correctly. The definitive test. To confirm that it was brown fat, and not another effect of genetic modification, scientists conducted a crucial experiment: transplanting the brown ‘supergras’ of mice without RGS14 to normal and healthy mice. The results were overwhelming. The mice that received this transplant improved their ability to exercise in just three days. On the other hand, when brown fat was transplanted from a normal mouse to another, an improvement was also observed, but much more and with eight weeks ahead to manifest its effects. Something that showed that the fat of the genetically modified mice was exceptionally powerful. Because? The mechanism seems to reside in an improvement in blood circulation. The indications suggest that brown fat promotes the creation of new blood cases in the muscles that improves the flow of blood and oxygen during exercise. The goal. Research suggests that this brown fat not only improves physical performance, but also protects against a series of ailments associated with age, such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disorders and even cancer and Alzheimer’s. Vatner’s team is already working with collaborators to develop a drug that imitates the effects of this powerful brown fat, hoping to have a compound ready to be tested in approximately one year. But the idea is not only to increase life expectancy, but “healthy life expectancy.” That is, even if you live longer, these ‘extra’ years enjoy good physical and mental health. While we expect that future pill, there are techniques such as deliberate exposure to cold (the famous ice baths) that can naturally increase our brown fat levels. However, as Vatner points out, most people would prefer to take a pill to take an ice cream bath. Images | Tatiana Zanon In Xataka | Our brain has its own backup. It is already known how to create copies in parallel of each memory

We are far from getting the pill that can replace food. The reason we may not get it is very simple

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Today we can find a huge variety of Nutrients in the form of pill or in a similar format: vitamins, minerals and other compounds that our body generally obtains from food, in a more “practical” format. Some of these pills in fact incorporate a wide variety of these nutrients. This leads us to raise an issue: why not everyone. Is it possible to concentrate all micro- and macronutrients, and all the energy contribution that our body needs in a simple format? And if it is, are we close to achieving it? If someone hoped that the answer to this last question was something different from a resounding “no”, he was wrong. To understand why it is so difficult we have to understand a key detail: not all nutrients are the same and some simply do not fit in a single pill. The first thing we should know for understand the great difficulty to which we would face if we wanted to create A pill to feed It is how we classify nutrients. We usually distribute them into two groups. The first is that of macronutrients that covers three categories: fat or lipids, carbohydrates, and proteins or amino acids. The second, that of micronutrients, which covers the vitamins and minerals that our body requires for its function. The difference between the categories can be intuited by name (and advances the great reason why it is difficult to concentrate the food in a pill), is the amount. We can see food as a mechanism of our body to obtain two things. The first, chemical elements and compounds that you need in your daily function such as amino acids, minerals or vitamins. The second is energy, which obtains mainly through two key macronutrients: carbohydrates and fats (although our body can “recycle” its own proteins as an emergency energy source). Energy is the main problem, and even the most energy concentrated foods, FatsThey require relatively large volumes to be able to provide us with the energy we need (Between 1,600 and 3,000 calories a day in adultsdepending on our body and our habits). The idea of lipid supplements It is not new, but concentrating the necessary amount of fat to replace a meal in a single pill (in which we would also have to include other compounds) does not seem viable, so in the best case we would become dependent on the consumption of several pills to consume throughout the day. “Human beings are never going to eat pills such as food … pills can never be made in a way that contain enough caloric volume,” he explained in an article published in 1936 in the Jefferson City post-tribune (according to He collected more recently The British chain BBC) The professor of the University of Comumbia Milton A. Bridges. “Experfically plausible to provide all the necessary vitamins and minerals in a meal in the form of a pill. But you cannot achieve calories if it is not eating food.” We still have no food in pill but we do have products that try to offer us all the micro and macronutrients that our body needs in a more bulky formatthe milkshake. Slopes of this type are not new: a decade ago they began to popular formulas Like Soylent or Joylent. Is it possible to subsist and stay healthy with these formulas? We do not know, but there are two reasons that lead us to doubt. The first is that human nutrition is very complex. We know a lot about it but it is possible that our bodies require traces of some micronutrient that we have not considered. This is not necessarily the case, but it is a possibility. To know this we would have to put this type of test formulas in rigorous experiments and long term. Something is complicated today. The second issue has to do with the diversity of our bodies: people of different age, sex or body mass would need specific formulas for adapt to your body’s requirements. Even controlling these variables we would also find a huge diversity caused by health disorders and conditions, habits and daily activities, and other factors very difficult to introduce if we would like to customize the pills or The smoothies To consume. Reducing our diet to a series of pills would undoubtedly have their advantages. But it would be difficult to make us lose, as a species, our taste for gastronomy. This way of feeding ourselves is today science fiction and for many surely of the subgenre focused on dystopia: after all, these formulas, practices on a day -to -day basis, eliminate the agency and the feeling of having free will. This does not mean that these options could not have their niche, for example facilitating food in Interplanetary trips or in other contexts in which access to food could be more complicated. In Xataka | We have asked two nutritionists to blind a weekly menu created with GPT-4. It has been very well stopped Image | Danilo.Alvesd

We are very close to having a “ozempic in pill.” His main competitor has developed it

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The success of drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy either Zepbound He has unleashed a career in pharmaceutical laboratories around the world. These are based on compounds originally devised as treatments against type 2 diabetes but have devastated as weight loss formulas. Orforglipron. The American pharmaceutical has successfully overcome The third phase of your clinical trials. As the company explains, this formula is the first drug in its class to pass this test, the first oral agonist of LPG-1 receptors of a small molecule that can be consumed without restrictions on water or food consumption. GLP-1 agonist. Orforglipron, such as the semaglutida on which Ozempic and Wegovy are based, is an agonist of the peptide receptors similar to glucagon-1 (LPG-1), that is, it is based on a molecule that emulates this hormone that produces our body. LPG-1 is a peptide that is released in our body when we eat and transmits the message that we have eaten two recipients for two different purposes. On the one hand, this message transmits to the pancreas so that it begins to segregate the insulin that our body will require to metabolize the sugar consumed. Hence, this type of compound is used in patients with type 2 diabetes. The second message is transmitted to the brain, which interprets it as a feeling of satiety. Achieve The Achieve-1 trial, framed in the Achieve program, was carried out with the objective of evaluating the safety and efficacy of Orforglipron, contrasting its administration with the administration of a placebo in adults with type 2 diabetes and inappropriate glycemic control. The experiment also studied different dosages in the participants. The responsible team observed that, after 40 weeks, the average blood glucose levels They differ satisfactorily between the experimental group and the control group. The study also showed a reduction in the body mass of those who consumed the drug. “It is a pleasure to see that our last medicine (…) meets our expectations of safety and tolerability, glycemic control and weight loss, and we are waiting for additional readings of the data throughout this year,” indicated in a press release David A. Ricks, President and CEO of Lilly. The details of these clinical trials will be presented in the scientific sessions of the ADA (American Diabetes Association), as well as in a magazine in an article reviewed by pairs. Adverse effects. One of the most important purposes of clinical trials is the detection of possible adverse effects with which to evaluate whether the drug involves any important risk and if its possible adverse effects are compensated or not by their medical benefit. The side effects detected are not very different from those already found in treatments such as Ozempic. The most common adverse effects were gastrointestinal and “generally between soft and moderate in severity”: diarrhea, nausea, dyspepsia vomiting (indigestion or empacho) or constipation. Those responsible for the study indicated that no hepatic security problems were detected. A key step. Overcoming this third phase of clinical trials is a fundamental step for the arrival of the drug to pharmacies but does not imply its immediate approval. The final green light will have to give it the regulatory agencies of pharmacological products such as the US FDA or the European EMA. In Xataka | Ozempic will soon become a thing of the past: this is what we know about the new generation of drugs for weight loss Image | JESHOTS.com

Some researchers have created a pill that mimics the effects of the lack of oxygen. They have a good reason

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Height evil is one of the problems that professional mountaineers and occasional visitors who decide to ascend to certain altitudes must face. This disorder is related to the lack of oxygen, hypoxia, which occurs in these environments, but now a pharmaceutical company wants to turn it around. Turn that “evil” into a “good.” Hypoxystat. Transform the mountain air, or rather, the absence of air of the mountain, into a pill It is the proposal of the Gladstone Institute and Maze Therapeutics laboratories. The new drug has received the name Hypoxystat and its goal is to fight against metabolic disorders such as Leigh Syndrome. Mountain air. It might seem crazy idea, but reducing the amount of oxygen that enters our body can make sense in certain senses beyond high performance sport. Living in a mountainous area can benefit people with Leight syndrome, a mitochondrial disease that affects childhood. This disorder occurs when the mitochondria, the organelle in charge of feeding the rest of the cell is not able to consume all the oxygen it receives. This leads to a dangerous accumulation of oxygen that ends with cells and tissues and, ultimately, with the patient’s life. “It is not practical for each patient with this disease to move to the mountains,” Explain in a press release Isha Jain, who has led the recent study of the drug. “But this drug could be a controlled and safe way to apply the same benefits to patients.” 2016. Almost a decade ago, a team, in which Jain herself participated, discovered that mice with this syndrome responded well when they were exposed to air with a lower amount of oxygen, the equivalent of that which can be found at heights of 4,500 meters (a upper altitude in almost a kilometer to the Teide peak). The lack of oxygen caused it to stop accumulating in the cells. The new compound could achieve a similar effect in a different way: focusing on hemoglobin, the molecule that transports oxygen in our blood. The new compound causes oxygen to be linked more easily to hemoglobin which may sound contraintuitive, they explain. However, this fact also makes it difficult for the molecule to deliver oxygen to the cells of our body. Concept test. The new drug has been developed Maze Therapeutics to fight anemia. The Gladstone Institute team, from the University of California San Francisco, found the substance when looking for a compound capable of reinforcing the bond between hemoglobin and oxygen. As a treatment, Hypoxystat is still in early development, but has already begun to succeed in mice. The details of these tests have been published recently in an article in the magazine Cell. Promising results. Although for now the studies are limited to rodents, they invite cautious optimism. The team observed, for example, that the compound had therapeutic capacity both in cases where it was administered before the appearance of symptoms and in cases where mice were already in advanced stages of the disease. In Xataka | We did not know why some superbacteria were resistant to antibiotics. This AI has found it in two days Image | Gladstone Institutes

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