Tag: liver

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Vitamin D, cod liver oil supplements may not protect against COVID-19

Vitamin D, cod liver oil supplements may not protect against COVID-19

People wearing face masks against COVID-19 are seen through the reflection of a window inside a public transportation vehicleShare on Pinterest
Consuming vitamin D may be beneficial to health but this may not translate to a protective effect against disease. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
  • Vitamin D has many health benefits such as building strong bones and boosting a person’s immune system.
  • Two new studies report that vitamin D supplements do not offer protection against acute respiratory infections or a SARS-COV-2 infection.
  • Despite disappointing results, researchers plan to continue to follow study participants to see if there are any additional health outcomes from vitamin D supplementation.

Vitamin D is most known for its role in promoting strong bones by ensuring the body absorbs calcium properly. However, researchers also believe vitamin D helps boost a person’s immunity and may provide protection against developing diseases like diabetes and asthma.

Additionally, past research has shown that vitamin D may help protect the body from respiratory tract infections. There has also been research conducted on a link between vitamin D deficiency and a greater chance of developing COVID-19.

Now, two new clinical studies recently published in the journal The BMJ report that vitamin D supplements do not help reduce acute respiratory infections or infection by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The first clinical study took place in the United Kingdom and was conducted by a research team from the Queen Mary University of London. Researchers enrolled 6,200 people ages 16 and over who were not currently taking vitamin D supplements.

Following a blood analysis of their vitamin D levels, researchers administered either a low or high dose of vitamin D to the study participants. After a six-month follow-up, scientists found at least one acute respiratory tract infection of any cause occurred in 5.7{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of the low-dose vitamin D supplement group and 5{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} in the higher-dose group.

Additionally, 3.6{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of participants in the low-dose vitamin D group and 3{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} in the higher-dose group developed COVID-19, compared to 2.6{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of participants not offered a vitamin D supplement.

The second study was conducted by a research team from Oslo University Hospital in Norway.

“We were trying to prove that vitamin D actually could prevent COVID-19 and other respiratory tract infections,” principal investigator Dr. Arne Søraas in the Department of Microbiology at Oslo University Hospital explained to Medical News Today.

“There has been a lot of research into vitamin D as a ‘booster’ for the immune system and even meta-analyses that have shown it to be effective in preventing such infections. There was, therefore, a hope that it could also prevent COVID-19 which is also an airway infection.”
— Dr. Arne Søraas

This study focused on the use of a cod liver oil supplement to prevent acute respiratory infections and COVID-19. Cod liver oil contains high amounts of vitamin D, vitamin A, and omega-3 fatty acids.

Dr. Søraas said he also led the Norwegian Corona Cohort study where scientists followed 200,000 Norwegians through the pandemic.

“There we observed that cod liver oil users were less likely to catch COVID-19,” he said. “Cod liver oil is a widely used supplement in Norway.”

Dr. Søraas and his team administered cod liver oil or a placebo to about 34,600 adults not currently taking vitamin D supplements. After taking the cod liver oil or placebo for a median of 164 days, 1.31{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of cod liver oil takers had developed COVID-19, compared to 1.32{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of placebo takers. The cod liver oil group also had a higher percentage of those developing serious COVID-19 — 0.70{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} compared to 0.58{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} in the placebo group.

Additionally, the research team did not observe a reduction in the incidence of acute respiratory tract infections in those taking cod liver oil compared to those taking the placebo.

Dr. Søraas said the findings surprised him and his research team. “We would not have set up such a large project if we did not truly believe that we would find that vitamin D could prevent COVID-19,” he added.

“We will now follow all the participants for at least two years and study self-reported health outcomes, as well as health outcomes from national Norwegian registries, to identify any longer-term health effects of our intervention,” Dr. Søraas continued.

“Cod liver oil did increase vitamin D and omega-3 levels in the study — unsurprising, of course — and the study is a great opportunity to study rare side effects, as well other possible effects. All the 35,000 cod liver oil participants are also a part of the Norwegian Corona Cohort where we have a lot of the focus on long-COVID,” he added.

MNT also spoke with Dr. Jimmy Johannes, a pulmonologist and critical care medicine specialist at MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center in Long Beach, CA, about these two studies. He said he was not particularly surprised by the results of these studies.

“Prior studies evaluating vitamin D supplementation on the prevention of acute infections had mixed results. [I] think if there’s any effect, it would be small,” he said.

When asked about the next steps he would like to see for this research, Dr. Johannes said: “If you’re really looking for an effect, you might need a larger study that’s better controlled to find any effect.”

“Having said that, [if] we think there’s an effect [and] it would be small, [it] therefore [raises] the question, would this effect be clinically important? And should we spend the expense of doing this kind of clinical trial that would be very expensive to do a well-controlled, large clinical trial to find this kind of effect?” he concluded.

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Doctors successfully transplant human liver treated in a machine

Doctors successfully transplant human liver treated in a machine

  • Just about every day, 17 people waiting for an organ donation die in the United States.
  • Investigate demonstrates prospective downsides to the classic cold storage technique for donated organs.
  • In a initially, the Liver4Life investigation crew in Zurich, Switzerland, stories the profitable transplantation of a liver saved in a perfusion machine for three days into a human recipient, who is performing effectively a single year afterwards.

Organ transplantation is a quite challenging health-related method. The organ has to be suitable with the recipient, and the method also will involve going a stay organ from donor man or woman to recipient and sustaining the organ in working order till the surgical procedures.

The conventional method of moving transplant organs includes storing them at a really very low temperature. However, this course of action has a time restrict and might hurt organ tissues.

For this purpose, scientists are performing on new techniques to maintain donated organs viable without the use of extraordinary chilly.

Just one this kind of team is the Liver4Lifestyle analysis group in Zurich, Switzerland, who applied a perfusion equipment to maintain a human liver alive for a few days.

Medical doctors then implanted the liver into a human affected person, who now, a person calendar year immediately after the procedure, is reportedly executing effectively.

The success of this process not too long ago appeared in the journal Mother nature Biotechnology.

According to the United Community for Organ Sharing, more than 41,000 transplants transpired in 2021 in the United States. The liver is the second most usually transplanted organ immediately after the kidney.

Just about every 9 minutes, a man or woman is positioned on an organ transplant ready listing. Whilst UNOS studies the share of men and women donating their organs has greater, there is continue to a shortage of readily available organs.

And an ordinary of 17 men and women die each working day waiting around for an organ transplant.

Usually, harvested organs moved for transplantation are stored at a really chilly temperature. This procedure is known as cold ischemia time.

Diverse organs can be stored in chilly storage for unique lengths prior to their tissues begin to crack down. For instance, a heart’s cold ischemia time is 4–6 hrs, whilst a kidney lasts much more time, for 24–36 hours. The liver can be saved in chilly storage involving 8 and 12 hrs.

In regards to the liver, past research demonstrates a prolonged cold ischemia time may perhaps harm liver transplantation. Other study identified that cold ischemia time extends a patient’s put up-transplantation clinic stay.

Researchers are finding out perfusion devices as an option process of storing organs outside the house the entire body. The equipment mimics the functions of the body’s heart and lungs, pumping blood and oxygen into the organ.

On top of that, health-related experts administer a cocktail of hormones and vitamins and minerals to the organ, just like it would receive from the intestines and pancreas in the human body.

Prof. Pierre-Alain Clavien, chairman of the Division of Visceral Surgical treatment and Transplantation at the University Hospital of Zurich (USZ) Switzerland, and the direct writer of this analyze said the perfusion device preserves a liver graft for not a handful of several hours but for several times.

“This will make it possible to change liver transplantation from an emergency procedure to an elective one particular,” he discussed for Clinical Information Currently. “Secondly, these kinds of extended time on the perfusion equipment lets for an in-depth treatment method of the liver prior to transplantation, which was so much not probable.”

“There are several methods in which the perfusion equipment can be used,” Prof. Clavien included. “The principal target is to handle people by supplying them a very good graft or even a regenerated liver segment for vehicle-transplantation soon after cure. [It’s also] very intriguing the probability this platform provides for toxicological scientific tests with out the need for human probands.”

As for the following measures in this new engineering, Prof. Clavien said his staff is at the moment scheduling a multicenter medical trial for transplantation of liver grafts extended-phrase preserved on their perfusion machine.

He also thinks the perfusion machine technology could one particular day be made use of for other organs. “This technological know-how is theoretically ideal for all organs transplanted now, even though some adjustments would have to be created in the circuit,” Clavien explained.

“In unique, we are also interested in perfusion of the kidney and uterus, which has now revealed to be feasible in our preclinical experiments,” he included.

MNT also spoke with Dr. Robert S. Brown, Jr., Vincent Astor Distinguished Professor of Medicine and main of the Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology at Weill Cornell Medicine, about this research.

He explained equipment perfusion of organs has an great potential to raise the range of organs obtainable for transplant:

“These very long durations truly offer the risk to consider an organ that would operate, but no one trusts that it performs, and boost the belief that it would work. And a foreseeable future capability to probably even manipulate the organ with medicines or […] a foreseeable future gene therapy to then get untransplantable organs and make them transplantable.”

“This has the possible to have a huge affect on the affected individual in phrases of growing organ accessibility by producing additional organs out there for transplants, and rising organ high quality by getting beforehand untransplantable organs and earning them transplantable, or marginally transplantable organs and generating them into good organs,” Prof. Brown included.

“I would check out this as an enjoyable evidence of thought that requirements even further validation, but if validated would be a major phase ahead.”

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More cases of unusual liver damage reported in the U.S.

More cases of unusual liver damage reported in the U.S.

Doctors at Cincinnati Kid’s Hospital in Ohio say they have dealt with at least six scenarios of severe hepatitis in formerly healthier younger youngsters aged 18 months by means of 10 a long time. A single necessary a liver transplant.

These circumstances incorporate to a rising variety of puzzling reviews of youthful little ones globally who are producing acute hepatitis devoid of a recognised result in.

Dr. Jorge Bezerra, director of the Pediatric Liver Care Heart at Cincinnati Children’s Clinic, stated that his workforce has seen an increasing selection of this sort of clients considering the fact that December.

“We have witnessed six,” Bezerra instructed NBC Information Wednesday. “Currently, we’re going to be viewing a seventh patient,” he claimed. “They’re however coming.” The children dealt with for the liver disorder at Cincinnati Kid’s are all from Ohio.

No just one has been in a position to figure out why these kids are building hepatitis, which just means swelling of the liver.

“There is certainly no hyperlink to 1 geographic region, widespread publicity to particular foods or animals, vacation or to contaminants,” Dr. Philippa Easterbrook, an infectious condition doctor with the Entire world Health and fitness Group, claimed throughout a media briefing Wednesday.

At the very least 228 this sort of conditions have been described in 20 countries, she stated. Ten percent of the kids have required liver transplants.

The regular suspects, hepatitis viruses A through E, have been dominated out. Youngsters are not displaying up with proof of Covid-19, and most are much too young to have acquired the Covid vaccines.

A lot of but not all the kids have analyzed beneficial for an adenovirus.

Adenoviruses can cause a selection of symptoms — from the sniffles to diarrhea — and, in uncommon conditions, hepatitis. These intense cases are usually found in little ones with fundamental health and fitness troubles or immune deficiencies, Bezerra mentioned.

But the kids addressed at Cincinnati Children’s are in any other case healthful.

“We are all putting our heads together to attempt to comprehend what is likely on,” Bezerra stated.

When did hepatitis scenarios start off?

At minimum nine other states have suspected scenarios: Alabama, Delaware, Ga, Illinois, Louisiana, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

Officials in Wisconsin are investigating the loss of life of one little one.

Scenarios started popping up in Alabama past October. Bezerra stated his workforce in Ohio is now examining instances that may have introduced as early as June 2021.

“I believe I’m obtaining that the quantity of clients is going to exceed 10,” he stated.

Bezerra sees about 10 this kind of people in a regular calendar year. “To have 7 to 10 in the very first quarter of the calendar year is higher than standard.”

In April, the Facilities for Illness Control and Prevention issued a wellbeing notify so medical professionals nationwide could be on the lookout for this kind of abnormal situations of pediatric hepatitis.

Other than liver transplant in extreme situations, there is no specific cure for impacted youngsters. They ordinarily will need to be monitored and supported with correct hydration and nourishment to give their liver time to mend.

What are indicators of hepatitis?

Physicians say that people frequently have vomiting, as very well as delicate abdominal ache, diarrhea, fever and nasal congestion.

People indicators, nevertheless, are quite prevalent in youthful children who routinely produce stomach bugs.

But Bezerra mentioned that if individuals indications last extended than a number of days and are accompanied by yellowing of the skin and eyes, it can be time to call the medical doctor.

“The most vital factor is, if there is an onset of jaundice, or yellow discoloration of the eyes,” he mentioned, “seek out healthcare assistance.”

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Erika Edwards is a well being and health-related information writer and reporter for NBC Information and “Now.”

Marina Kopf contributed.