Month: October 2023

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society held Light the Night on Thursday, an event dedicated to raising awareness and funds for blood cancer research and support. The event was held at the Henry Vilas Zoo for the first time, but the mission of LLS remains the same- no one has to fight blood cancer alone. “Light the night is a national fundraiser for lls that was actually started right here in Wisconsin 30 years ago,” explained LLS board member Steve Stumbris. “The greatest thing about tonight is really gives everybody the courage and strength to ask how they can help and how they can help put an end to blood cancers.” Sports Director Mike Jacques was once again the emcee for the event and was lucky enough to have his picture taken wtih four-time cancer survivor Liam Sanborn. Click here to download the NBC15 News app or our NBC15 First Alert weather app. Copyright 2023 WMTV. All rights reserved.

Eleni Thomas ❘ Published: 2023-10-13T02:23:36 ❘ Updated: 2023-10-13T02:23:50 TikToker Southerspore is going viral on the platform after revealing that he recreated the cordyceps mushrooms using his own flesh and blood, even going so far as giving the fungus a taste on the video. While the Cordyceps mushrooms do exist in the real world, The Last of Us cleverly mixes this reality with a zombie twist, implying that the effects that these mushrooms have been able to affect humans and in turn, transform them into the mindless infected that feature within the apocalypse of the game and television series. Article continues after ad One TikToker named Southerspore has now gone viral on the platform after revealing how he grew cordyceps using his own blood and skin. The video, which currently has over 800k views, has garnered some strong reactions from fans of The Last of Us. Article continues after ad In their bio, the content creator writes that they are a “mushroom man growing gourmet mushrooms.” However, this is the first time that they have ever attempted to recreate The Last of Us’ virus. Article continues after ad “This is cordyceps, the zombie fungus and I grew it off my own blood and skin,” begins Southernspore. The content creator then proceeded to take the fungus out of the jar he had grown it in, cutting it in half and breaking down the process of creating it. He zoomed in on his initial skin flakes he used in the creation and compared it to what it transformed into after merging with the fungus. Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more. Article continues after ad The microscopic images of the creation show visible differences between the skin before and after the cordyceps. After going through the science behind the creation, he then actually takes the mushroom, stating that it is “strangely sweet” and states that he would “eat it again.” Article continues after ad The video is filled with comments from fans of The Last of Us, many jokingly berating the content creator for fast-tracking the zombie apocalypse. One user wrote “Teaching cordyceps to consume human tissue, what could go wrong?” Others added “Bro tryna speedrun the last of us” and “Bro there’s a whole game on why this shouldn’t happen.” Article continues after ad At the end of the video, he says that he would be willing to do the experiment again. Therefore, we’ll be sure to keep you updated if and when he does and what the results turn out like the next time around. Article continues after ad For all the latest entertainment news and updates, be sure to check out Dexerto’s full coverage here.

image: Steve Gisselbrecht, a research specialist in the genetics division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is pictured donating platelets with technician Don Marks in accordance with the more inclusive blood donation process approved by the FDA and adopted at the Kraft Family Blood Donor Center on Oct. 6. Gisselbrecht, who hadn’t been permitted to donate blood products since high school, said “it hurt every time” he learned of an urgent need for blood but knew he would be disqualified from donating due to his sexual orientation. “Being first to donate [under the updated guidelines at the Kraft Center] wasn’t a goal. I just wanted to donate,” he said. “I would have been donating blood this whole time.” view more Credit: Courtesy of Kraft Family Blood Donor Center Boston – The Kraft Family Blood Donor Center, which provides lifesaving blood products to patients at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, announced today that it has finished implementing a more inclusive blood donation process, in alignment with updated guidelines issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that will allow many gay and bisexual men to donate blood and platelets. On May 11, 2023, the FDA changed its policy to reflect that deferring prospective blood donors based on sexual orientation is no longer supported by data. The Kraft Family Blood Donor Center announced its strong support of this policy change at that time and has now concluded the technical updates required to welcome many who were previously deemed ineligible to donate. “This policy change is long overdue in welcoming everyone who wishes to contribute to our collective humanitarian mission,” said Richard Kaufman, MD, medical director of the Kraft Family Blood Donor Center and Transfusion Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “The Kraft Family Blood Donor Center is proud to join the blood donation centers across the country in its commitment to treating all potential blood donors with equity and respect while ensuring a safe, sufficient blood supply for patients in need.” In alignment with the new donor criteria, The Kraft Family Blood Donor Center will continue to screen eligible donors through an individual risk-based questionnaire, which will be the same for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, sex or gender. Donors can make an appointment to give blood or platelets by calling 617-632-3206 or emailing [email protected]. Walk-ins are welcome at the center at 35 Binney St. in Boston, MA. ## Caption: Steve Gisselbrecht, a research specialist in the genetics division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is pictured donating platelets with technician Don Marks in accordance with the more inclusive blood donation process approved by the FDA and adopted at the Kraft Family Blood Donor Center on Oct. 6. Gisselbrecht, who hadn’t been permitted to donate blood products since high school, said “it hurt every time” he learned of an urgent need for blood but knew he would be disqualified from donating due to his sexual orientation. “Being first to donate [under the updated guidelines at the Kraft Center] wasn’t a goal. I just wanted to donate,” he said. “I would have been donating blood this whole time.” Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

Researchers have developed a more convenient way of measuring omega-3 fatty acid levels in the blood, an important biomarker of disease risk. The faster, simpler test will make it easier for healthcare professionals to obtain critical information about cardiovascular and cognitive health. Omega-3 fatty acids have been linked to health benefits, but our bodies don’t produce enough naturally, so we need to get it from what we eat. Two key omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), can only be derived from certain sources, such as oily fish and seafood, enriched foods and supplements. The omega-3 index (O3I) is the sum of the EPA and DHA found in the membranes of red blood cells. It is a novel biomarker of cardiovascular disease, sudden cardiac death, inflammation, and cognitive dysfunction, independent of traditional risk factors. However, existing tests to measure the O3I require a large amount of blood to be drawn and time-consuming, complicated laboratory work to analyze the omega-3 fatty acid content. As a result, most clinicians don’t routinely measure the O3I. Now, researchers from McMaster University in Canada have developed a simpler, more convenient test for this important biomarker. “Testing for the O3I is a complicated procedure, so it’s not routinely available for patient screening despite the popular use of fish supplements and promising clinical evidence of the many health benefits from optimal omega-3 fatty acid nutrition,” said Philip Britz-McKibbin, corresponding author of the study. “This should make it much more convenient to do routine testing since dosage levels and product formulations differ widely in their exact omega-3 fatty acid composition.” The researchers used multisegment injection-nonaqueous capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (MSI-NACE-MS) to identify circulating phospholipids, particularly phosphatidylcholines (PCs), as surrogate biomarkers of the O3I. MSI-NACE-MS provides faster results and requires only small volumes of blood to be taken. Study participants were given between three and five grams of fish oil, EPA, or DHA supplements daily. The researchers found that serum or plasma concentrations of two circulating PCs provided the strongest correlation to the O3I, reflecting local changes in red blood cells after receiving supplements for a minimum of 28 days. In high-dose fish oil and EPA-only trials, PC (16:0_20:5) was the most responsive phospholipid, whereas PC (16:0_22:6) was selective to DHA-only supplementation. They found that the sum of both PCs in fasting serum or plasma samples was positively correlated to the O3I following fish oil, EPA- and DHA-only supplementation. Overall, DHA was found to be more effective in improving the O3I in the study sample compared to EPA. “In general, if you have an O3I below 4% you may have a higher risk for a cardiovascular-related event,” said Britz-McKibbin. “Conversely, individuals with an O3I above 8% have a lower risk. But since O31 is a modifiable risk factor, you can change it through diet.” The newly discovered biomarkers of the O3I will make it easier to study omega-3 fatty acids from the perspective of population health. “By directly measuring only two specific biomarkers in a blood sample, we can rapidly assess the omega-3 index without time-consuming and costly sample workup protocols prior to analysis,” Britz-McKibbin said. The researchers will next work on identifying a biomarker present in urine, which would eliminate the need to draw blood entirely. The study was published in the Journal of Lipid Research. Source: McMaster University

<!– Hide Mobile side –> SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The need for blood never goes down. Over 60% of the American population is eligible to donate blood, but only about 3% does, according to America’s Blood Centers. After blood drives pretty much halted altogether during the pandemic, blood banks are still working to fully bounce back. The South Bend Medical Foundation (SBMF) now has a new center open on Ireland Rd. in the Erskine Village shopping plaza. This location, on South Bend’s South Side, was chosen to be centrally located where most of the city’s donors are. The South Bend Medical Foundation previously had locations on Lafayette Boulevard downtown and Edison Road in Mishawaka. Those two locations have closed, so now, the regular blood centers are on Ireland Road and Douglas Road in St. Joseph County. SBMF is the primary donor for local area hospitals. For all of October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, SBMF will donate $5 per donor to Hello Gorgeous!, a nonprofit that benefits those battling breast cancer. Nationally, the American Red Cross is pushing for more schools to bring blood drives back. Roughly 25% of donations used to come from educational organization’s blood drives. That figure dipped as low as 10% during the pandemic, according to Kristin Marlow, executive director of the American Red Cross Northwest Indiana chapter. “It’s bounced back to about 20%, but compared to 25, that 5% makes a huge difference,” Marlow said. She said it’s important to establish the next generation of blood donors! “When we get young donors at the high school age, at the college age, we find that it really increases the opportunity for them to be longevity donors,” Marlow said. “They also tend to advocate for the need for blood a little bit more actively.” Share this article:

Intensive care units can collect less blood for lab tests and thereby reduce transfusions for critically ill patients who may have blood drawn multiple times a day, suggests a large study that says switching to lower-volume tubes can preserve the blood supply and reduce strain on already fragile patients. Researchers note that 90 per cent of blood collected by a standard test tube — which can draw up to six millilitres — is wasted because only 0.5 ml of blood is needed for a typical lab test. They compared the use of regular and lower-volumetubes for tests involving 27,000 patients at 25 intensive care units in Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Manitoba between 2019 and 2021, minus a five-month delay during the pandemic. The study, published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found that using a tube that collects about half the amount provides more than enough blood for a typical lab test. The switch also saved one blood transfusion for every 10 patients in ICUs. The alternate tubes are physically identical to standard tubes but allow for a smaller draw because they contain less anticoagulants, which prevent blood from clotting, said lead author and hematologist Dr. Deborah Siegal of The Ottawa Hospital. She said it’s one of the reasons standard tubes can’t be partly filled. Lower-volume tubes also generate a weaker vacuum pullso automatically draw less blood, she added. Siegal said about 40 per cent of the sickest patients have repeated lab tests, resulting in significant blood loss thatcontributes to anemia, or low red blood cells. That leads to more blood transfusions. Smaller-volume tubes are used mostly in children anddon’t cost more, said Siegal. “Literally, the hospital staff went to storage areas in the intensive care units, swapped out the old tubes for the new tubes and put on a new bar code,” Siegal said of the study, which she started while at the Population Health Research Institute at McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences. “This was embedded right into practice by people actually doing the job of looking after patients.” The study shows it’s time to change protocols in ICUs and elsewhere to prevent excessive blood draws from patients who end up having more transfusions, she added. “Ninety per cent of the blood that they take is thrown into the garbage. This is a way to reduce transfusion so that (blood) is available for people who need it, for surgeries or cancer treatment. There are ongoing shortages of blood in Canada. This is a worldwide problem.” Patients in the study received more than 36,000 blood transfusions. The small-volume tubes may have saved about 1,500 units of blood, Siegal said. One unit of blood equals half a litre. Using standard tubes to draw blood from critically ill ICU patients has long been criticized as a wasteful practice. It was even dubbed “ICU vampirism” by Mayo Clinic researchers in a report published a decade ago in the British Journal of Haematology. They suggested hospitals adopt restrictive blood draw protocols. Ashley Ruelland of Ottawa agrees. She had countless lab tests and more than 100 blood transfusions over a two-month ICU stay after suffering multiple injuries in a head-on crash in March 2015. Ruelland said doctors ordered blood tests for various reasons, including to determine whether her organs were functioning properly, if she was getting enough nutrients and if she had infections. “And they were testing for anemia, which seems counterproductive, while I was getting the blood transfusions,” said Ruelland, whose vehicle was struck when she wasdriving the bride-to-be and another friend to a bachelorette party. “It seems like a no-brainer,” Ruelland said of the suggestion that hospitals transition to smaller-volume tubes. “When I heard about this study I thought of how much less stressful it would have been on my body to have had less blood taken. When I was not sedated, seeing the amount of blood leaving my body was also traumatic after what happened to me.” Dr. Jeannie Callum, a hematologist and director of transfusion medicine at the Kingston Health Sciences Centre in Ontario, said that while blood transfusions are life-saving, they can have negative consequences, including infections and allergic or flu-like reactions. Callum said she knew about some of the study’s findings several months ago and has helped to gradually transition all units at the hospital from standard to “pediatric tubes.” “Last week, the entire hospital got done, everything — outpatients and in-patients, everybody,” said Callum, who initially faced some pushback from staff who worried the move might compromise test results. But she said her experience working with Siegal had convinced her that if such a switch was beneficial in ICUs, it could also be used in other units. Staff at Kingston also spoke with some researchers aboutthe JAMA study, Callum added. “The paper is a game changer for hospitals because now they know there’s no downside. You’ve got to have a pretty good reason for not doing this.” This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 12, 2023. Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.