5 Things You Should Know About Living With Lupus

 

Living with lupus is not easy. It can be a challenge to manage the disease on a day-to-day basis, and there are many things that people with lupus need to know in order to live as comfortably as possible. Here are five important things that everyone should know about living with lupus.

 

By Rachelle Wilber

Lupus Basics

Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disorder that can cause overwhelming fatigue, extreme joint pain, and a variety of other symptoms that can last for long periods of time. The exact cause of lupus remains unknown, however, it does seem to involve an abnormal response from the body’s immune system, in which the body mistakenly attacks its own healthy tissue.

 

Lupus can affect any person at any age however it is most commonly found in women between the ages of 15 to 40. There is no cure for Lupus yet, but many treatment options are available along with lifestyle changes that can help manage symptoms. If you or a loved one lives with Lupus, you can show your support by wearing Lupus Awareness Pins. It's also important to stay informed and discuss any new developments or treatment options with your doctor in order to ensure the best possible care plan.

Common Symptoms of Lupus

Lupus is a serious condition that can have wide-ranging effects on everyday life. It typically causes fatigue, joint pain, and the classic symptom of a butterfly-shaped rash across the cheeks and nose. While diagnosing it can be difficult due to the mild symptoms, it is important to visit your doctor if you experience any of these signs. With proper treatment, lupus does not have to have an overwhelming effect on daily life. Your doctor can start you on a course of managing the symptoms to mitigate their impact and help you attain a better quality of life.

Difficult to Diagnose

Lupus can be a tricky disease to diagnose due to its symptoms often resembling those associated with other illnesses. Because of this, doctors must perform thorough examinations, tests, and evaluations in order to rule out other potential causes as they narrow in on lupus as the culprit. Although there is no single test used to definitively diagnose lupus, one useful tool doctors use is blood tests that detect the presence of proteins called antinuclear antibodies. These antibodies are commonly found in patients with lupus and can distinguish it from other autoimmune diseases. Therefore, while diagnosing lupus may take time and patience, with proper testing and examination the right call can be made.

Treatments Can Help With Symptoms

Unfortunately, there is currently no cure for lupus. However, treatments are available to assist people in managing their symptoms and decreasing their chances of experiencing future flares. People who take medications as prescribed, manage stress levels, and follow a healthy lifestyle can generally improve their quality of life. Furthermore, support groups are in place to help those affected by Lupus to cope with all of the social and emotional challenges that can come with living with a chronic illness. It's important to remember that even though lupus cannot be cured right now, there are options available for helping those suffering from it lead more manageable lives.

See a Doctor Regularly

For those living with lupus, it's important to remember that seeing a doctor regularly and taking preventive measures to protect your health is a key part of staying well. Regular visits provide an opportunity for your doctor to monitor your condition and keep track of any changes in your health or lifestyle so that they can develop personalized treatment plans tailored to you. Additionally, engaging in healthy habits such as eating nutritious foods, exercising regularly, reducing stress levels, and getting plenty of rest can greatly help build up the immune system and lessen the impact the condition may have on day-to-day life. Taking care of yourself means taking steps towards managing lupus—and that starts with regularly visiting a doctor.

 

Although there is no cure for lupus, it is possible to manage the symptoms with treatments. If you have lupus, it's important to see a doctor regularly and take steps to protect your health. There are many helpful resources available online if you want to learn more about lupus, including the Lupus Foundation of America website.

 

Pharmaceutical Microbiology Resources (http://www.pharmamicroresources.com/)

The Future of Synthetic and Lab-Grown Psilocybin for Treating Mental Illness

 Image:Pixabay

What if you went to a therapist for help with depression, and they said, “Would you be willing to try magic mushrooms?” Well, they might not say that exactly. But they may suggest psilocybin, the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms.”

By Indiana Lee

Psilocybin is moving up the list of viable treatment options for medically resistant anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Before we discuss the future of psilocybin in treating mental illness, let’s briefly touch on where it's been.

Where Did Therapeutic Psilocybin Come From?

Albert Hofmann identified psilocybin in magic mushrooms in the late 1950s. From there, doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists entered into years of research on the effects of psychedelics in treating mental health and physical ailments.

 

However, by the late 1960s, government officials cracked down on the use and research of psychedelics, eventually stopping it entirely. And by 1970, psilocybin was deemed a Schedule 1 controlled substance according to the Controlled Substances Act.

 

In the mid-1990s, psychedelic research and its use in the medical field were revived. And psilocybin, as a serious treatment for medically resistant mental illnesses, has since taken off.

 

Doctors, researchers, and mental health professionals are proving the potential of psilocybin in treating pain and alleviating the symptoms of varying mental health conditions. As a result, people are becoming less scared and judgemental of it and more open to its medical use, at the very least.

Embracing Synthetic Psilocybin

While natural psilocybin is derived from fungi, synthetic psilocybin is created by scientists in a controlled setting like a lab. Elements of the natural psilocybin are combined to produce a nearly identical substance that can thrive outside of where it would be naturally made.

 

The most significant benefit of synthetic psilocybin is that scientists control how it’s produced. They can manipulate, change, use, and understand psilocybin in ways that aren’t possible with natural psilocybin.

 

That said, natural psilocybin produces the mystical, magical experience often associated with taking mushrooms. This kind of experience opens people’s minds. It allows them to see the world and their life from an elevated perspective—something so crucial to adopting new behaviors that could positively impact their journey with mental health challenges.

The Production Concerns

Those on the production end of pharmaceutical psilocybin, in particular, face an uphill battle.  Producing and distributing the substance is an intricate process that will take years to come to full fruition, let alone it becoming widely accepted in healthcare and among the public. Here’s why.

FDA approval is slow

Yes, we’re close to getting FDA approval for some psychedelic treatments. The FDA granted psilocybin a Breakthrough Therapy designation in 2018, and many clinical trials are underway to prove its safety and efficacy in mental health treatment.

 

That said, there aren’t any psilocybin medicines with current approval from the FDA, even with their expressed support of the substance. This may change soon. But what won’t is psilocybin’s designation as a controlled substance. 

 

As long as psilocybin remains illegal federally, it’ll be difficult to consistently get the funding and support needed to back clinical research and human trials and move FDA approvals along.

Separating the good from the bad

People flock to “magic mushrooms” because of the mystical experience we mentioned above. However, what often comes with that experience is hallucinations. Hallucinations can be frightening and trigger harmful behaviors in the people having them.

 

This is the last thing patients with severe mental illnesses need. So, the concern lies in whether scientists can remove the hallucinatory aspects of psilocybin or separate them from the therapeutic properties.

 

In addition, can scientists eliminate the qualities in psilocybin that lead to harmful side effects like acute hypertension, the potential for addiction, and decreased therapeutic effects with repeated use?

 

Separating the good from the bad is critical in producing effective psilocybin medication and treatment.

Dosage, Where Patients Are Dosing, and Who’s Involved Must Remain a High Priority

How psilocybin is sourced, made, and distributed is obviously critical to its future success. But the recommended dosage, where patients dose, and who’s involved in the process is just as vital.

 

Pharmaceutical manufacturers can’t mass-produce synthetic psilocybin pills, hand them over to medical professionals, and say, “have at it.” There need to be strict yet clear guidelines for dosage, first and foremost. How much should a patient take, and how often. 

 

There also needs to be strict guidelines for where the treatment is administered. For example, many people partake in micro-dosing at home, taking a fraction of a regular dose of psychedelic substances.

 

But even as it becomes more widely used, micro-dosing isn’t the most effective route to consuming psilocybin with the purpose of making a mental illness more manageable. It’s much safer for a patient to be treated with psilocybin in a controlled environment, overseen by a mental health professional certified in conducting this particular treatment.

 

Finally, manufacturers need to be extremely transparent about the potential side effects of psilocybin. It won’t work for everyone, and it will do different things for different people. Patients need to understand this in detail before ever embarking on such a treatment journey. 

Conclusion

Many would say the future of synthetic psilocybin for mental illness treatment is bright.

 

We have a long way to go before psilocybin is decriminalized and publicly accepted as a positive, safe substance. But researchers, scientists, medical staff, and mental health professionals worldwide are fighting to make this happen. 

 

Pharmaceutical Microbiology Resources (http://www.pharmamicroresources.com/)

Understanding biofilms: The life and death of an 'altruistic' bacterium

Unknown author. Source: http://ober-proteomics.pnnl.gov/bioapps/organisms.stm

Public Domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39355477   

 

A new study from the University of Montreal shows how some bacteria living in a biofilm sacrifice themselves to ensure the survival of the community.

   

Living in a biofilm provides numerous advantages to bacteria: things like resource sharing, shelter from predators, and increased resistance to toxic compounds such as antibiotics. Yet the option to leave the biofilm when environmental conditions deteriorate can also be of benefit to bacteria, allowing them to relocate to a more hospitable environment.

 

 

For the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus, the biofilm becomes a kind of prison in perpetuity: once cells are attached to a surface through a strong adhesive at one end of the cell, they cannot leave the biofilm. However, when these attached cells divide, their unattached 'daughter' cells have a choice of joining the biofilm or moving away.

 

Caulobacter crescentus is a Gram-negative, oligotrophic bacterium widely distributed in fresh water lakes and streams. The bacterium has a characteristic crescent shape. Caulobacter was the first asymmetric bacterium shown to age. Reproductive senescence was measured as the decline in the number of progenies produced over time.

 

What is of interest to microbiologists is with how cells decide to stay or leave the biofilm. When Caulobacter cells die in the biofilm, they release their DNA, which inhibits daughter cells from joining the biofilm, hence promoting relocation from environments where death rate increases.

 

The researchers have set out to determine if cell death occurred randomly as the environmental quality declined or if it was a regulated process responding to a specific signal. This reveals that Caulobacter uses a programmed cell death mechanism that causes some cells to sacrifice themselves when the conditions inside the biofilm deteriorate. This is known as a toxin-antitoxin system.

 

The mechanism uses a toxin that targets a vital function and its associated antidote, the antitoxin. The toxin is more stable than the antitoxin and when programmed cell death is initiated, the amount of antitoxin is reduced, resulting in cell death. The toxin-antitoxin system is activated when oxygen becomes sparse as the biofilm becomes larger and cells compete for the available oxygen.

 

The resulting death of a subset of cells releases DNA, which promotes the dispersal of new cells to potentially more hospitable environments, thereby preventing overcrowding that would further reduce environmental quality in the biofilm.

 

The reference is:

 

Cecile Berne, Sebastien Zappa, Yves V Brun. eDNA-stimulated cell dispersion from Caulobacter crescentus biofilms upon oxygen limitation is dependent on a toxin-antitoxin system. eLife, 2022; 11 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.80808

Posted by Dr. Tim Sandle, Pharmaceutical Microbiology Resources (http://www.pharmamicroresources.com/)