“A groundbreaking discovery by researchers from The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) suggests a promising avenue for tackling” “devastating conditions” like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s diseases ,using “an unlikely source – used coffee grounds,” reports The Brighter Side News.
A “research team…has unveiled a potential game-changer in the fight against neurodegenerative diseases. Their work centers around caffeic-acid based Carbon Quantum Dots (CACQDs), derived from discarded coffee grounds, which may offer protection to brain cells against the damage triggered by various factors including obesity, aging, and exposure to toxic environmental chemicals. The team’s findings are documented in a paper published in the journal Environmental Research.
“Caffeic-acid based Carbon Quantum Dots have the potential to be transformative in the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders,” says UTEP researcher Jyotish Kumara, who aims to find a cure for these awful diseases rather than merely manage their symptoms. “Our aim is to find a cure by addressing the atomic and molecular underpinnings that drive these conditions.”
As the Brighter Side News explains:
Neurodegenerative diseases are characterized primarily by the progressive loss of neurons or brain cells. This debilitating process impairs fundamental functions such as movement, speech, as well as more intricate tasks like bladder and bowel control and cognitive abilities.
In their early stages, when influenced by lifestyle and environmental factors, these disorders exhibit shared characteristics. Among them, elevated levels of free radicals—harmful molecules known to contribute to various other ailments such as cancer, heart disease, and vision loss—in the brain, and the accumulation of fragments of amyloid-forming proteins that can lead to the formation of plaques or fibrils within the brain.
Kumar and his team discovered that CACQDs exhibited neuroprotective properties across a spectrum of experiments, including test tube studies, cell line models, and other representations of Parkinson’s disease induced by the pesticide paraquat. Notably, CACQDs demonstrated the ability to neutralize or prevent the damage caused by free radicals, while also inhibiting the aggregation of amyloid protein fragments without inducing significant side effects.
The researchers speculate that in the early stages of conditions like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s in humans, CACQD-based treatments could effectively prevent the progression of the disease….
Caffeic acid, a compound within the polyphenol family, is a notable player in this breakthrough. Polyphenols, found in plants, are renowned for their antioxidant properties, particularly their ability to scavenge free radicals. Caffeic acid, however, possesses a unique characteristic—it can penetrate the blood-brain barrier, thereby exerting its effects on brain cells, elucidates Narayan
The methodology employed by the team to extract CACQDs from used coffee grounds aligns with the principles of “green chemistry,” characterized by its eco-friendliness. Within their laboratory, coffee grounds are “cooked” at 200 degrees for four hours, a process that restructures the carbon arrangement of caffeic acid, leading to the formation of CACQDs. The sheer abundance of coffee grounds makes this process both economically viable and sustainable, according to Narayan…..
With promising results in hand, the researchers are now seeking additional funding to support further testing and development of this groundbreaking approach. While acknowledging that the finish line remains distant, Narayan and Kumar are resolute in their pursuit of a solution—a medication, possibly in pill form—that could prevent the vast majority of neurodegenerative disorders originating from factors other than genetics.
In other good news, scientists recently discovered a new antibiotic that can kill drug-resistant bacteria.
But it may be many years before this antibiotic is available in the United States. The Food and Drug Administration can take many years to approve life-saving drugs and medical devices.
“The FDA is responsible for more deaths on an annual basis than any other government agency. Here’s one of its victims,” noted Paul Matzko of the Cato Institute, pointing to a recent example. Researchers are “curing multiple cancers right now,” yet “the FDA is acting like it’s business as usual” and dragging its feet on approving cures.
Here is one story of how the FDA needlessly delays the approval of lifesaving drugs, from “Why the FDA Has an Incentive to Delay the Introduction of New Drugs“:
“In the early 1980s, when I headed the team at the FDA that was reviewing the NDA for recombinant human insulin, . . . we were ready to recommend approval a mere four months after the application was submitted (at a time when the average time for NDA review was more than two and a half years). With quintessential bureaucratic reasoning, my supervisor refused to sign off on the approval—even though he agreed that the data provided compelling evidence of the drug’s safety and effectiveness. ‘If anything goes wrong,’ he argued, ‘think how bad it will look that we approved the drug so quickly.’”
FDA employees commonly take years to approve life-saving drugs. That results in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people who could have been saved by earlier approval of those drugs. For example, at least a hundred thousand people died waiting for the FDA to approve beta blockers. One of the FDA officials involved in delaying their approval was John Nestor. Nestor was notorious for following rules in ways designed to frustrate and inconvenience other people. As the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons notes:
Nestor had the unique habit of getting into the leftmost lane [on the highway] with his cruise control set at 55 mph, the posted speed limit. He would drive at this speed regardless of what came up behind him. Cars would zoom up close to his rear bumper; drivers would flash their lights and blast their horns,some swerving around him on the right while giving him the finger—none of this fazed Nestor in the least. As he explained it, 55 mph was the law, and he had a right to drive in whichever lane he chose: “Why should I inconvenience myself for someone who wants to speed?”
Nestor followed this rigid mindset in his work at the FDA. He was very good at using agency red tape, and minor risks or side effects of drugs, as an excuse to avoid approving life-saving drugs.
The FDA didn’t approve a home test for HIV until 24 years after it first received an application. According to an FDA advisory committee, the test “holds the potential to prevent the transmission of more than 4,000 new HIV infections in its first year of use alone.” That means thousands of people likely got infected with AIDS as a result of the delay in approving it. As Roger Parloff of Fortune notes, the FDA’s delay in approving the home HIV test is a “scandal.” It likely caused the deaths of thousands of people, given the mortality rate from AIDS. It may also have caused billions of dollars in additional costs for taxpayers, given that AIDS is a costly and debilitating disease to treat, resulting in treatment costs of perhaps $600,000 per AIDS sufferer.
