Pulse Beat

Prof Dr BM Hegde 16 January 2017

Anaemia May Be a Reason For Hearing Loss

A recent paper in Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that anaemia could be one of the significant causes of hearing loss, at all ages but more so in the elderly. This was revealed in a large study done at Penn State University (Pennsylvania, USA).

There is an association between iron deficiency anaemia (IDA) in adults and hearing loss. The next steps are to better understand this correlation and whether promptly diagnosing and treating IDA may positively affect the overall health status of adults with hearing loss. To find out the connection between the two, the researchers postulated that reduction of the blood’s oxygen carrying capacity could be one such factor. But the most important factor seems to be the lack of myelin sheath that covers the nerves.

Since both are common diseases, it is important to know the connection of treatable hearing loss with anaemia. Generally, hearing loss is sudden but it could also be gradual. This is an eminently treatable problem.

Why Cancer Immunotherapy May Fail in Many Patients

A weight loss condition that affects patients with cancer has provided clues as to why cancer immunotherapy—a new approach to treating cancer by boosting a patient’s immune system—may fail in a substantial number of patients. Ayurveda relies on this in cancer treatment.

Cancer immuno-therapies involve activating a patient’s immune cells to recognise and destroy cancer cells. They have shown great promise in some cancers; but, so far, have only been effective in a minority of patients with cancer. The reasons behind these limitations are not clear.

Now, researchers at the at the University of Cambridge have found evidence that the mechanism behind a weight loss condition that affects patients with cancer could also be making immuno-therapies ineffective. The condition, known as cancer cachexia, causes loss of appetite, weight loss and wasting in most patients with cancer, towards the end of their lives. However, cachexia often starts to affect patients with certain cancers, such as pancreatic cancer, much earlier in the course of their disease.

In research published recently in the journal Cell Metabolism, scientists have shown in mice that even at the early stages of cancer development, before cachexia is apparent, a protein released by the cancer changes the way the body, in particular the liver, processes its own nutrient stores.

“The consequences of this alteration are revealed at times of reduced food intake, where this messaging protein renders the liver incapable of generating sources of energy that the rest of the body can use,” explains Thomas Flint, co-first author of the study from the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine. “This inability to generate energy sources triggers a second messaging process in the body—a hormonal response—that suppresses the immune cell reaction to cancers, and causes failure of anti-cancer immunotherapies.”

Chemo Brain

This is not an unusual complication of chemotherapy. People with chemo brain, often, report loss of mental sharpness, including increased lapses in concentration, difficulty in remembering certain things and problems finishing tasks.

A recent study—led by Michelle C Janelsins, an assistant professor of surgery in the Wilmot Cancer Institute at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York—has thrown more light on this problem. The study has been published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Researchers have various terms for chemo brain, such as cancer treatment-related cognitive impairment, cancer-therapy associated cognitive change and post-chemotherapy cognitive impairment. But many questions remain unanswered. We do not know when and why chemo brain arises and who is most at risk.

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