Advances in tech to help humans live healthier, longer

By Chukwuma Muanya How Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing healthcare delivery CREDIT: Netobjex

*Head device ‘can reverse memory loss’ using electromagnetic waves to break up clumps of toxic proteins *Stem cell injections boost recovery in 25 stroke patients by helping damaged nerve cells regrow in six months *Hat could reverse balding with built-in patch that sends electrical pulses to scalp to promote hair growth *Gene-editing technology that targets cancer, blood disorders, blindness, others enters its first human trials *AI technology for advanced heart attack prediction as fingerprint to tailor personalised treatment for people at high risk

SCIENTISTS have recorded giant breakthroughs in technologies that could help people live healthier and longer lives. Top on the list is a head device that zaps the brain with electromagnetic waves, which reversed the effects of Alzheimer’s (age-related mental decline) in a trial.

Eight patients with mild or moderate forms of the brain-destroying disorder took part in experimental transcranial electromagnetic treatment (TEMT).

It involved them wearing a skullcap of magnets, which sent electric pulses to break down build-ups of proteins known to stop nerve cells working properly.

Seven of the patients showed a ‘highly significant improvement’ in tests of their memory, language, attention, behaviour and moods.

Neuroem Therapeutics, a private company, which develops the TEMT headsets in Arizona, United States (U.S.), carried out the small trial.

Its results have been so promising, it said, that the trial was extended for 17 months because the patients didn’t want to give the equipment back. During the tests patients used the TEMT headsets twice a day for an hour at a time.

TEMT works by breaking up toxic clumps of proteins called amyloid-beta and tau, the formation of which is thought to be the cause of Alzheimer’s. When these are cleared, previously blocked nerve cells in the brain are, in theory, able to return to functioning as normal.

The research was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The Neuroem team said they have evidence this works but the extent to which it will be able to reverse or prevent the decline caused by Alzheimer’s isn’t known.

Also, pioneering stem cell injections boost recovery in 25 stroke patients by helping damaged nerve cells regrow within six months.

Twenty-five survivors had their marrow cells infused back into their blood and saw their recovery boosted by one point on a six-point scale.

Researchers at the University of Texas in Houston now hope to move forward with broader tests of the experimental therapy. The stem cells, which are essentially blank building blocks for the body to heal itself with, appear to have helped nerves regrow in the brain.

The trial comes after former Formula One champion

Michael Schumacher was last week believed to have had stem cell treatment to help his brain recover from a coma he entered after a skiing accident in 2013.

The 25 patients were all given injections of their own bone marrow cells within 72 hours of turning up at a hospital with stroke symptoms. Their recovery progress was compared to 185 patients who didn’t have the infusions and was found to be moving faster.

On the Modified Rankin Scale, which measures stroke survivors’ conditions on a scale of zero to six (from perfectly healthy to dead), the stem cell patients ranked a point lower – thus less disabled – than the group which received standard treatment.

Also, an implant that resembles the wire over a champagne cork could offer a new way to tackle high blood pressure. The tiny cage-like device is implanted in an artery in the neck where specialised nerves are located that are key to the body’s natural blood pressure control mechanism.

The nerves, called baroreceptors, act as sensors that detect when artery walls are under pressure — a sign that blood pressure is rising too high — and then relay this information to the brain. As a result, the heart rate drops, causing blood vessels to dilate or widen which lowers blood pressure.

But research suggests that long term raised blood pressure can cause the baroreceptors to malfunction so the nerves stop responding to tension building in the artery walls — and start to interpret high blood pressure as ‘normal’.

The new device, developed by U.s.-based Vascular Dynamics, puts pressure on the sensors that resets them, so the brain believes that blood pressure is permanently raised and takes steps to bring it back down. More than 200 people are taking part in a clinical trial of the device following research showing it significantly lowered dangerously high blood pressure in a small group of patients.

A study reported in The Lancet two years ago involving 30 patients in The Netherlands and Germany who would had the device put in, showed that in the majority of patients, blood pressure reduced towards a normal level within a few months.

A trial is now under way with about 200 patients whose high blood pressure has not been controlled by medication.

Also, scientists have developed an electronic nose could spare thousands of lung cancer patients from enduring brutal side effects of immunotherapy. A trial of the gadget found it could sniff out whether patients will have an adverse reaction to the pioneering drugs with 85 per cent accuracy.

Patients breathe into the device, which then uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and takes just one minute and to identify whether or not the patient is likely to respond to immunotherapy.

Dutch researchers said the ‘enose’ could smell volatile organic compounds (VOCS), chemicals that make up about one per cent of our exhaled breath.

The findings were published in the cancer journal Annals of Oncology.