TTHealthWatch is a weekly podcast from Texas Tech. In it, Elizabeth Tracey, director of electronic media for Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, and Rick Lange, MD, president of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, take a look at the leading medical stories of the week.
Today’s subjects consist of distinctions in donor heart approval by race and gender, medication for self-managed abortion, aspirin and MASH, and identifying Parkinson’s with a skin biopsy.
Program notes:
0:40 Aspirin for fatty liver illness
1:40 Low dosage aspirin for 6 months
2:40 Primary avoidance?
3:03 Donor heart approval
4:03 Just shy of 14,000 donors
5:03 More most likely to have antibodies
5:45 Diagnosing Parkinson’s with skin biopsy
6:45 Could find in between 92-100%
7:45 Diagnosis of Lewy body dementia
8:45 Medication abortion before and after Dobbs
9:46 Provisions increased
10:46 Sued the FDA
12:12 End
Records:
Elizabeth: What are the distinctions in donor heart approval by race and gender?
Rick: Detecting Parkinson’s illness with a skin biopsy.
Elizabeth: Taking medications for self-managed abortion.
Rick: And can low-dose aspirin aid fatty liver?
Elizabeth: That’s what we’re speaking about today on TTHealthWatch, your weekly take a look at the medical headings from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso. I’m Elizabeth Tracey, a Baltimore-based medical reporter.
Rick: And I’m Rick Lange, president of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, where I’m likewise Dean of the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine.
Elizabeth: Rick, today it’s all JAMA all the time. Why do not we begin– due to the fact that I see numerous clients who have liver failure secondary to what we’re now calling metabolic severe steatohepatitis. Can aspirin aid with that?
Rick: This is called metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver illness, or fatty liver due to metabolic syndrome. That’s normally weight problems connected with irregularities in cholesterol and triglycerides, and high blood pressure and prediabetes. That’s the metabolic syndrome.
This can add to fatty liver illness. As much as one third of those people advanced to establish frank swelling, fibrosis, and sadly that can cause cirrhosis, liver cancer also, and to death.
In preclinical research studies, they have actually revealed the important things that starts this is platelets– that’s our blood cells that are normally associated with clotting– penetrate the liver and when they do they promote swelling. Aspirin is an antiplatelet representative and likewise deals with swelling. The concern is, can aspirin lower fat in individuals that have this metabolic-associated fatty liver illness?
This is a stage 2 randomized scientific trial; 80 people that had metabolic-associated fatty liver illness and half of them got simply low-dose aspirin (81 mg) for 6 months and half of them got placebo, and determined the fatty material in the liver. What they discovered is that those that got aspirin had a decrease in the fat, and those that got placebo had a small boost, so in general there had to do with a 10% distinction in fatty material.
Elizabeth: With regard to this syndrome, beginning at the start, utilizing weight reduction and blood sugar level management, modifications in diet plan, enhancements in workout, etc are actually techniques that are well worth attempting. How would you state that low-dose aspirin suits this? The other concern is, what about the danger of bleeding in these folks?
Rick: When these individuals have proof of heart disease or increased danger, we put them on low-dose aspirin anyhow. A minimum of in a little group of clients, there were no increased security problems. This in fact requires to be verified in a bigger trial.
Elizabeth: . I would like you to, however, still discuss this idea of what I’m going to call main avoidance with regard to this, which is let’s simply handle all of those aspects relative to metabolic syndrome.
Rick: We require to manage these other things: cholesterol, lower weight problems, boost exercise, and control diabetes. This is another thing in the armamentarium. It’s low-cost, it’s easily offered, and it’s safe. Now, this might be main avoidance of steatohepatitis.
Elizabeth: Let’s turn now to distinctions in donor heart approval by race and gender of clients who are on the transplant waiting list. This research study tried to examine whether race or gende