Blood Test for Pain

According to Science Daily, an article called "Breakthrough toward developing blood test for pain" introduces a test which can measure pain biomarkers in blood. This study was influenced by the opioid crisis in Indiana. This blood test, would allow more accuracy for doctors to treat the patient in pain. Since pain is only sensed by the patient, it is hard for physicians to measure the level of pain the patient has, they can only go by what the patient says.

Opioid epidemics occur because addictive medications were overprescribed due to the fact that there was no objective measure whether someone was in pain or how severe the pain was. The biomarkers are like fingerprints, the doctors will match it against a database and see which compound would normalize the signature.

This blood test will allow the patient to be matched to the right drug, without overprescribing medication. Doctors and researchers believe that this will end the opioid epidemic and will allow future monitoring of the patients health. Doctor and researcher Niculescu of this blood test is hoping to raise some money in order to further this study and allow it to be put into action.

I think that this is a good invention, a lot of doctors would much rather prescribe medication to treat pain, not fully knowing the severity of pain and if there are signs of pain. I actually had a personal experience where I had horrible knee pain and in order to rid of the pain, a doctor prescribed opioids. I was later diagnosed by another doctor with a torn meniscus. I, personally, never took the opioids and stuck to over-the-counter medication for pain. But it is the idea that, I never asked for opioids, nor did I wish to take them, however the doctor thought it was best for pain.  Hence why the opioid epidemic is a serious issue, not only in United States but all over the world.

Asthma Causes Genetic Damage in Circulating Blood

     Until now, doctors have thought that the genetic damage caused by asthma was limited to the lungs. However, recent research at University of California, Los Angeles has shown that it negative affects the genes of peripheral, or circulating, blood in the body. 

     The study was conducted in an animal model that mimicked human asthma. Robert Schiestl, the senior author of the research, was the first to asses the role of IL-13 in genetic damage to cells. IL-13 is interleukin 13, a type of cytokine known to mediate inflammation. The research focused primarily on the over-expression of this IL-13. The results from Schiestl's studies have shown that IL-13 increases important elements of the inflammatory response, such as reactive oxygen species molecules. The research team found that reactive oxygen species-derived oxidative stress induced genetic damage with four main types of systemic effects in the peripheral blood. They are oxidative DNA damage, single and double DNA strand breaks, micronucleus formation, and protein damage. All of these effects cause the chromosome to become unstable, which can result in a variety of other diseases. 

     Schiestl and his team hope to use chemicals to repair the DNA of damaged cells. Their goal in doing this is to determine whether doing so will make asthma less damaging by reducing genetic instability in circulating blood. 

Robert Schiestl is a professor of pathology and radiation oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

     I found this article interesting because it is scary to learn that asthma affects the whole body more drastically than people think. Many people experience asthma and do not have it properly treated. It effects more than 150 million people throughout the world. This research shows how serious the disease can be. 

Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141104153551.htm