BBC reporter Rory Cellan-Jones urges 'openness' on Parkinson's

May 30, 2019

Rory Cellan-Jones 

The BBC's technology correspondent is encouraging people to be open about their illnesses.

Rory Cellan-Jones revealed on Thursday he has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

Concerned TV viewers contacted the corporation after noticing his hand shaking during a report on 5G technology on BBC Breakfast.

"I wanted to be frank about it," he told BBC Radio 5 Live on Friday morning, urging others to do the same.

Symptoms of Parkinson's - a degenerative brain condition - include involuntary tremors and stiff muscles.

"A few months ago I was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and it wasn't a huge shock to me as I'd noticed a few things in the last year changing," he told 5 Live host Nicky Campbell.

"But I was aware that people were noticing on air occasionally this tremor in my right hand. Live broadcasting is always pretty hairy, because we were doing a live broadcast over 5G.

"I got on the train with my producer to head to Birmingham to do more and we had a little chat and she put the idea in my head of going public about this because she'd obviously noticed the shaking on air and few other people had.

"So I just put it out there really wanting to be up front about it because some people were worried a couple of people had actually contacted the BBC and suggested I should see a doctor and I'd already done that and I wanted to be frank about it."

He added: "I've had loads of lovely messages, including a few from people who've also had Parkinson's.

"One person wrote to me saying, 'I work in PR and I haven't told my clients, I'm not sure what they would think'. And I think that's really sad.

"I was with a great Parkinson's nurse the other day and she told me about a client of her's who'd been diagnosed really young and he'd lost his job because he began to slow down a bit and he hadn't told his employers about it.

"You need that information out there."

Cellan-Jones went on to say that he's now on medication and also taking part in medical research into the disease, which has so far manifested itself in a slight limp, hand tremors and his typing getting worse.

"I'm getting good treatment and the symptoms are mild right now," he wrote on Twitter a day earlier, "so I'm carrying on as normal. Onwards and upwards!"

His BBC colleagues and MPs were among those to offer messages of support on social media, with Brussels reporter Adam Fleming writing: "True public service to be so open about it. Best wishes." 

Julie Dodd, a director at Parkinson's UK, said: "Being diagnosed with Parkinson's can be a scary and isolating time, so it is fantastic to hear that Rory is receiving the treatment he needs and is able to approach his diagnosis with such a positive attitude.

"Parkinson's will affect one in 37 of us in our lifetime, but it remains a little understood condition. 

"While most people associate it with a tremor, there are actually more than 40 symptoms and it affects everyone differently."

Cellan-Jones started his BBC career as a researcher on Look North and became the business and economics correspondent in 1990.

After the dot-com crash of 2000, he wrote the book Dot.bomb and has reported on the growth of websites and internet companies.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-48458468

Chicago hospital using martial arts to treat Parkinson's disease

MAY 30, 2019      By Sylvia Perez

CHICAGO (Fox 32 News) - We all know karate is a martial arts discipline that is also a great form of exercise. But what about using it as a treatment for a debilitating disease?

One local hospital is taking an unusual approach to treating Parkinson’s disease.

Patients at Rush University Medical Center are kicking away the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease by practicing Karate. It all started as part of a clinical trial to see if the kicks and movements of Karate could benefit Parkinson’s patients. It was a 10-week study in which the patients trained in Karate twice a week.

"We found a significant change in how often people were falling which is wonderful, that's a huge predictor of problems and it's a big risk factor in people with Parkinson’s,” said Dr. Jori Fleisher.

Parkinson's disease is a progressive nervous system disorder that affects movement and can include tremors, stiffness, trouble walking, and it can also affect facial expression and speech. There is no cure, but medications can make a big difference and research has shown regular aerobic exercise might reduce the risk.

But the study from Rush is the first of its kind to actually look at the benefits of Karate and Parkinson’s.

One of the things that patients learn is how to properly fall.

John Fonseca is the owner of Fonseca Martial Arts. His company has partnered with Rush for the study.

"Karate has large movements and challenges peoples balance and coordination. It's a total body workout. What you do on one side, you do on the other,” Fonseca said.

One unexpected surprise from the study is the sense of community it created. Once strangers, the patients came together to fight a debilitating disease that can often leave its victims feeling secluded and alone.

For more information: call (312) 563-2900 (Press 4/Code: Karate)

To see video:

http://www.fox32chicago.com/health/chicago-hospital-using-martial-arts-to-treat-parkinsons-disease

Effects of Agent Orange, burn pits take center stage in veterans' town hall in Billings

 MAY 31, 2019     By MIKE KORDENBROCK

Vietnam Voices: 'We got even more Agent Orange than guys who were drinking the water on the land'

Don Lorash was in the U.S. Navy from 1965 to 1968. He lives in Boyd. He went to school in Joliet. This is part of his Vietnam story. 

Lorash: "When I got drafted in 1965, my dad had just had a heart attack and he needed help at home and we went to the draft board and got me a 90-day deferment so that I could finish up the fall work because my brothers were all younger than me and they were all in school. So, during that 90-day deferment, I had heard about the Navy Reserves which allows you to drill for a year and you go to boot camp and you drill for a year and then you go for two years of active duty. That worked out really well with dad being sick and me being able to help him at home. That's what I did. I joined the Navy Reserves in fall 1965."

https://youtu.be/xdeQqozA6LM

He went on active duty in October 1966. He was an engineman, a diesel mechanic. Many of the assignments for the typical engineman were on swiftboats being used in the "Brown Water Navy" in Vietnam's rivers.

Lorash: "When I found out that I would be going overseas, it wasn't a real good feeling. You go through lines of shots for days when you go over there. You get everything from smallpox and whatever. We got our orders and I knew I was going overseas, but when I got my orders, I went to the Current, which was a rescue/salvage ship. That's because the main propulsion guys were electricians and diesel mechanics. I lucked out for most enginemen. I wasn't assigned to a swiftboat in the middle of the Mekong Delta, being cannon fodder for the Viet Cong. Anyway, it was a very interesting job for me because I enjoyed the mechanics part of it. But, you're on a ship that's 140 feet long, 40 feet wide, flat-bottomed. It's like riding a cork in a bathtub."

"When you're that small and flat-bottomed, you're just bobbing and weaving and whatever and when you look past the fan tail of the ship, and one time all you can see is the dirtiest, muddiest, stinking water you've ever seen and you can't see above those waves. Then the next thing you see is this cloudy gray sky and you'd have to look over the edge of the boat to see the water beneath you. Then when you go off the wave, those twin screws that are built for power, they come out of the water, and when you go back into it, those four blades on the props and start hitting the water, that old ship, she just shudders and you go down and up the other side. We'd do that sometimes for days, going around the typhoons. You're stuck with 85 to 90 guys like the size of three normal houses, you know? You sometimes get tired of each other. And you're working -- a lot of times because you were shorthanded -- you'd be six hours on, six hours off. You did have some stuff you had to do if you were doing the 4 to 10 watch, then during the day, they had stuff, normal maintenance stuff, it was very interesting ship for me.... I was in the A gang, which was out of the machine shop, (taking care of) the divers, their compressors, which were 125-pound compressors that supplied air for the divers when they went down in hard suits or to fill their bottles for their scuba gear. ...My job when we were at sea was to run the evaporator, making fresh water. You bring cold water in to this pressure cooker and there's steam running through coils, and the fresh water comes up off the brine, then it goes over the top and gets the cooler. That's how we made fresh water at sea... When George Bush decided that us blue-water sailors were not included in the contamination of Agent Orange, they found out — the Australians did a terrific study on that — that because we concentrated the ocean water, that we got even more Agent Orange than guys who were drinking the water on the land. That was one of the things that we did. We were the support group for the guys were on land in Vietnam. We brought ships that were aground, we got them floated again. We had a tanker setting in the bay that the Viet Cong sabotaged and sunk it. We had to patch that hole and pump all the water out of it, and get everything out of it that they had had."

"Because we were built for power, not speed, our top speed was 13 mph. If we were towing something, that dropped us five or six. It took us forever to get anywhere we were trying to go."

Gazette: You spent a lot of time traveling?

Lorash: "We did. We spent a lot of time at sea. When the only thing you can see out there is water and you came from the hills of Montana here, and the biggest body of water was Cooney Dam, then you get out in the middle of the ocean and all you can see is water and sky, it's kind of unnerving at times. We never saw anybody else. It isn't like you travel in groups like the aircraft carrier guys."

About a fourth of the personnel on Lorash's ship were divers.

Don Lorash served on the USS Current in Vietnam.

Gazette: So if something goes down, because of enemy fire or if something runs aground, or sinks, it's your job to go get it and salvage it?

Lorash: "That's what we did. The ship that the Viet Cong blew a hole in and sunk, that was a fuel tanker. They had unloaded, luckily. But, they sabotaged it so that it couldn't go back and get more fuel. You need food not only for the troops, but you need fuel, which is the food for the mechanical stuff, tanks, whatever. But the merchant vessels and that one tanker and the rest of them were merchant vessels with — I don't know what was on there because I was always under deck — I didn't see what they brought off the ships. It was cargo. It could have been anything from ammunition to food for the troops. But, it would take days to off-load them onto barges and take them in. A couple of times we weren't that close (to land). One vessel went aground 200 miles north of Da Nang. They were a long ways from port when they went aground. They were a long way from port when they went aground. The tugs come up with the barges and you load the barges and you take it back to where it was supposed to go or go to the nearest port."

Gazette: It's kind of hard to imagine these ships running aground.

Lorash: "I can tell you they're not supposed. That's how that goes, you know. You don't know why. It's like running into a chuckhole on a road. There's a coral reef, you know they're there. You're in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and you're off three or four miles, you know, that's not a long way. But, if there's a coral reef there, you better know where that is and you better steer around it. That's what happened to them. A couple of them were coming into the harbor and they hit a mudbar. One of the ships that was right in the mouth of the harbor, hit on the mudbar and we had to drag it off that. That ship sat there for a week with the tide and everything rolling it back and forth, so it just kept on sinking deeper and deeper and deeper. That was one of the longest times that we ever worked on one, when that was stuck on the mud. When they were on the coral, then you get the high tide and get them off loaded, once you get it to start moving, there's only so much noise because the coral is so coarse, it's kind rubbing it on sandpaper, so once you get enough force and start moving, that vibration came through the tow cable and it was just piercing on your ears. You knew — you knew when that outfit you were pulling on started to move because you could hear it. I don't care where you were. Engines were roaring and we were at full speed and sometimes we'd do that for six or eight hours, just as hard as those old engines could run with just as much electricity as they would generate for those main motors. When it moved, you knew it, there was no doubt. Man, there was pandemonium. Everyone was doing high-fives and whatever

"It takes everybody to make something like that work. When we went over there and pulled them off a reef or a mudbar, we were doing our part to support those guys that were on the ground in Vietnam."

****

Jeff Ferguson wants local veterans to be proactive in seeking help for themselves and for future generations whose lives could be affected by exposure to Agent Orange and burn pits.

That's why he's hosting a town hall meeting from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at Petro Hall at Montana State University Billings. Other organizations involved with the town hall event include Vietnam Veterans of America and the MSUB Military and Veterans Success Center.

"There's a lot of medical problems going on from generation to generation, so we're encouraging all the dependents and veterans to come on out and hear all the effects that are happening," Ferguson said. "There's a lot of stuff out there that was totally unsafe for soldiers and it's affecting more than just the soldiers. It's being carried down the line."

Ferguson is the chapter commander for the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association Chapter 46-3. He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, military operations that were part of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that began in 2003 and 2001.

Those wars remain ongoing today.

A main topic will be getting veterans and their dependents to submit information to registries documenting medical issues they believe are connected to Agent Orange or exposure to burn pits.

Agent Orange is a chemical mixture the United States sprayed in massive quantities as an herbicide during the Vietnam War. The mixture is now known to be harmful to humans, containing chemicals like dioxin, a carcinogen.Ferguson also wants to encourage people to submit information to the VA's burn pit registry, an information collection program meant to better understand health effects of waste and trash disposal burn pits and other airborne hazards for veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation New Dawn, Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. The same registry also collects information from military members who were in Djibouti, Africa after Sept. 11, 2001, or in the Southwest Asia theater of operations after Aug. 2, 1990.

https://billingsgazette.com/news/local/effects-of-agent-orange-burn-pits-take-center-stage-in/article_f8bf719e-44fe-5857-9fc9-63034ef9bd50.html

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Daily isradipine is ineffective at slowing Parkinson’s disease

Clinical Pharmacist31 MAY 2019

In a study of more than 300 people with early-stage Parkinson’s disease, researchers found that there was no significant difference in disease progression between those taking isradipine and those given placebo.

The blood pressure therapy isradipine does not slow disease progression in people with early-stage Parkinson’s disease (PD), findings presented at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting (2 May 2019) have shown^[1].

The study involved 336 people with PD (mean time since diagnosis: 0.9 years) who were randomly assigned to isradipine 10mg daily or placebo for 36 months. Disease progression was measured by the change in the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale Part I–III from baseline (mean: 23.1 points) to 36 months.

There was no significant difference between the two groups, with scores increasing by 2.99 points and 3.26 points, respectively. There was also no significant difference in secondary outcomes, such as time to initiation of dopaminergic therapy or onset of motor complications.

The trial followed data from observational studies indicating people who took isradipine had a reduced incidence of PD.

Tanya Simuni, chief of movement disorders in the Department of Neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, and lead author of the study said: “Unfortunately, the people who were taking isradipine did not have any difference in their Parkinson’s symptoms over the three years of the study compared to the people who took a placebo.” 

References:

^[1] Simuni T (Parkinson Study Group). A phase III study of isradipine as a disease modifying agent in patients with early Parkinson’s disease (STEADY-PD III): Final study results. Presented at American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting; 4–10 May 2019; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Available at: https://www.aan.com/PressRoom/Home/GetDigitalAsset/12929 (accessed May 2019)

Citation: Clinical Pharmacist, online, online | DOI: 10.1211/CP.2019.20206615

https://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/news-and-analysis/research-briefing/daily-isradipine-is-ineffective-at-slowing-parkinsons-disease/20206615.article?firstPass=false

MJFF Awards Casma Therapeutics $370K for Innovative Therapies to Slow PD Progression

 MAY 31, 2019    BY MARY CHAPMAN IN NEWS.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) has awarded Casma Therapeutics $370,000 to advance an innovative class of therapies aimed at slowing disease progression.

The grant will promote the biotechnology company’s investigation into compounds that activate the calcium channel TRPML1 to accelerate autophagy — a natural cellular way of disposing of pathogens and toxic proteins. The hope is that boosting autophagy will protect and rescue damaged neurons. It’s widely believed that Parkinson’s disease (PD) results from neuronal buildup of toxic proteins.

Casma will test its novel TRPML1-activating treatments using human-induced pluripotent stem cell-derived dopaminergic neurons, which model Parkinson’s disease. The neurons will be generated by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) from patient samples collected at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Induced pluripotent stem cells are derived from either skin or blood cells that have been reprogrammed back into a stem cell-like state. This allows for the development of an unlimited source of any type of human cell needed for therapeutic purposes.

The study is in collaboration with co-MJFF grantee Ellen Sidransky, MD, a Parkinson’s expert and top NHGRI researcher.

“Inducing the natural process of autophagy to clear toxic proteins is a promising new approach to treating Parkinson’s,” Daniel Ory, MD, Casma senior vice president, translational medicine, said in a press release. “We share the foundation’s sense of urgency, and we’re eager to move our program forward.”

New discoveries are revealing the fundamental role of autophagy and lysosomal flux in maintaining cellular health, according to a Casma webpage. Lysosomes are special compartments within cells that digest and recycle different types of molecules. Research has shown that inadequate or aberrant autophagy contributes to genetic diseases, including Parkinson’s.

The company believes that restoring cellular balance may arrest or reverse disease progression.

”Funding therapies against emerging targets such as TRPML1 is a crucial plank in our effort to find a cure for Parkinson’s,” said Liliana Menalled, PhD, MJFF senior associate director of research programs. “We are committed to leaving no stone unturned as we pursue therapies that will help the more than 6 million people worldwide living with this disease.”

The Parkinson’s Foundation, which says approximately 60,000 Americans are newly diagnosed each year, puts the global figure even higher, estimating that more than 10 million people live with the disease.

https://parkinsonsnewstoday.com/2019/05/31/casma-therapeutics-awarded-370k-mjff-grant-advance-novel-pd-treatments/

UCB Launches Phase 1b Trial Testing UCB0599 for Parkinson’s Disease Treatment

MAY 31, 2019    BY IQRA MUMAL IN NEWS.

UCB has announced the start of a Phase 1b clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of its therapeutic candidate UCB0599 for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.

This multicenter clinical trial will take place across the United States.

Current treatments for Parkinson’s, which include levodopa and dopamine agonists, can help manage early motor symptoms associated with the disease. However, as the disease progresses and neurons continue to degenerate, these therapies ultimately become less effective at treating the symptoms.

Many neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s, occur due to the accumulation of toxic protein aggregates known as prions.

In the case of Parkinson’s, misfolding and the subsequent aggregation of a protein known as alpha-synuclein results in the formation of Lewy bodies, which are toxic and lead to disease symptoms and progression.

By preventing alpha-synuclein from clumping into Lewy bodies, clearing them out, or stopping their spread from cell to cell, researchers believe they can prevent or slow Parkinson’s progression.

Developed as part of a collaboration between Neuropore Therapies and UCB, UCB0599 is designed to inhibit alpha-synuclein misfolding.

UCB0599 is a small molecule compound that is taken orally and can penetrate the blood-brain barrier, which is a semipermeable membrane that separates the blood from the cerebrospinal fluid and protects the brain from the outside environment. This membrane is an obstacle for the efficient delivery of therapies that need to reach the brain.

“We are pleased to reach the milestone of advancing into Parkinson’s patients for the first time with UCB0599, a therapeutic candidate arising from our collaboration with UCB,” Errol De Souza, president and CEO of Neuropore Therapies, said in a press release. “We believe that inhibition of alpha-synuclein misfolding and oligomerization with an orally active, brain penetrant, small molecule represents a potential advantage over antibody therapeutics that are currently in development.”

In January 2015, Neuropore Therapies granted UCB a license to develop and commercialize therapies that target alpha-synuclein in all indications around the world. It is thought that alpha-synuclein aggregation also plays a role in other neurodegenerative diseases.

https://parkinsonsnewstoday.com/2019/05/31/ucb-launches-phase-1-parkinsons-trial-testing-ucb0599/

Is Parkinson’s Disease Associated with Increased Mortality, Poorer Outcomes Scores, and Revision Risk After THA?

May 31, 2019

Findings from the Swedish Hip Arthroplasty Register

BACKGROUND:

Neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s disease are commonly accepted as a risk factor for an increased likelihood of undergoing revision surgery or death after THA. However, the available evidence for an association between Parkinson’s disease and serious complications or poorer patient-reported outcomes after THA is limited and contradictory.

QUESTIONS/PURPOSES:

(1) Do patients with a preoperative diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease have an increased risk of death after elective THA compared with a matched control group of patients? (2) After matching for patient- and surgery-related factors, do revision rates differ between the patients with Parkinson’s disease and the matched control group? (3) Are there any differences in patient-reported outcome measures for patients with Parkinson’s disease compared with the matched control group?

METHODS:

Data were derived from a merged database with information from the Swedish Hip Arthroplasty Register and administrative health databases. We identified all patients with Parkinson’s disease who underwent THA for primary osteoarthritis between January 1, 1999 and December 31, 2012 (n = 490 after exclusion criteria applied). A control group was generated through exact one-to-one matching for age, sex, Charlson comorbidity index, surgical approach, and fixation method. Risk of death and revision were compared between the groups using Kaplan-Meier and log-rank testing. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), routinely recorded as EQ-5D, EQ VAS, and pain VAS, were measured at the preoperative visit and at 1-year postoperatively; mean absolute values for PROM scores and change in scores over time were compared between the two groups.

RESULTS:

The risk of death did not differ at 90 days (control group risk = 0.61%; 95% CI = 0.00-1.3; Parkinson’s disease group risk = 0.62%; 95% CI = 0.00-1.31; p = 0.998) or 1 year (control group = 2.11%; 95% CI = 0.81-3.39; Parkinson’s disease group = 2.56%, 95% CI = 1.12-3.97; p = 0.670). At 9 years, the risk of death was increased for patients with Parkinson’s disease (control group = 28.05%; 95% CI = 22.29-33.38; Parkinson’s disease group = 54.35%; 95% CI = 46.72-60.88; p < 0.001). The risk of revision did not differ at 90 days (control group = 0.41%; 95% CI = 0.00-0.98; Parkinson’s disease group = 1.03%; 95% CI = 0.13-1.92; p = 0.256). At 1 year, the risk of revision was higher for patients with Parkinson’s disease (control group = 0.41%; 95% CI = 0.00-0.98; Parkinson’s disease group = 2.10%; 95% CIs = 0.80-3.38; p = 0.021). This difference was more pronounced at 9 years (control group = 1.75%; 95% CI = 0.11-3.36; Parkinson’s disease group = 5.44%; 95% CI = 2.89-7.91; p = 0.001) when using the Kaplan-Meier method. There was no difference between the control and Parkinson’s disease groups for level of pain relief at 1 year postoperatively (mean reduction in pain VAS score for control group = 48.85, SD = 20.46; Parkinson’s disease group = 47.18, SD = 23.96; p = 0.510). Mean change in scores for quality of life and overall health from preoperative measures to 1 year postoperatively were smaller for patients in the Parkinson’s disease group compared with controls (mean change in EQ-5D scores for control group = 0.42, SD = 0.32; Parkinson’s disease group = 0.30, SD = 0.37; p 0.003; mean change in EQ VAS scores for control group = 20.94, SD = 23.63; Parkinson’s disease = 15.04, SD = 23.00; p = 0.027).

CONCLUSIONS:

Parkinson’s disease is associated with an increased revision risk but not with short-term mortality rates relevant to assessing risk versus benefit before undergoing THR. The traditional reluctance to perform THR in patients with Parkinson’s disease may be too conservative given that the higher long-term risk of death is more likely due to the progressive neurological disorder and not THR itself, and patients with Parkinson’s disease report comparable outcomes to controls. Further research on outcomes in THR for patients with other neurological conditions is needed to better address the broader assumptions underlying this traditional teaching.Level of Evidence Level III, therapeutic study.

https://www.docwirenews.com/abstracts/rheumatology-abstracts/parkinsons-disease-associated-mortality/

Most biomedical research is done on male animals—that's a public health problem

MAY 31, 2019    by Laura Castañón, Northeastern University

Credit: Hannah Moore/Northeastern University

According to 60 years of scientific research, when rats are scared, they freeze. Or at least, the male rats do.

Rebecca Shansky, a neuroscience researcher at Northeastern, was studying how rats handle stressful experiences when one of her graduate students noticed the female ratsresponding differently. Male rats almost always held perfectly still, but some female rats would dart around the cage, looking for a way out. They were handling their fear differently.

"This is why you have to study females," says Shansky, who is an associate professor of psychology. "They're going to do different things. Their brains work differently."

Rodents and other animals are often used in research as models for humans. Understanding how different sexes of mice react to a medication, for example, can help researchers predict adverse side effects in men and women. But most biomedical research has been done on exclusively male animals.

"It's really important that we that we understand how things work in both sexes," says Shansky, who was recently invited to write an article for Science on the subject. "If you only understand the mechanisms in males, and then you want to translate that work to help, say, people with PTSD, people with Alzheimer's, people with Parkinson's, your drugs might not work in women. That's a public health problem."

Stress-related illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder occur twice as frequently in women as they do in men. But for many years, researchers failed to include female animals in their studies out of fear that their changing hormones would muddy the data, Shanksy says.

Female mice go through an estrous cycle, which is like a faster version of the human menstrual cycle. Their hormone concentrations change in a four-to-five day schedule. If female mice are at different points in their estrous cycle, researchers have argued, their responses will vary too much to be of use to scientists.

But male hormones vary too, Shansky says. When male mice are kept in groups, as is often the case, they establish a dominance hierarchy. The average dominant male mouse has five times more testosterone circulating through its body than subordinate males. This is about the same variation found in female mice through their estrous cycles. Recent analyses have shown that data from female mice doesn't vary any more than data from male mice.

"It's not that hormones aren't important," Shansky says. "But they are not specifically important for women, or for female rodents."

In 2016, the National Institutes of Health issued a mandate that new grant proposals either incorporate animals of both sexes, or demonstrate a good reason not to. But old perceptions of female mice as essentially deviant versions of male mice are still coloring how some studies are structured, Shansky says. Researchers have proposed tracking the individual estrous cycle of every mouse in a study, or removing the ovaries altogether so that hormones are no longer a factor in females, without taking similar measures to compensate for changes in males.

"It seems crazy to say that you're sexist against female mice," Shansky says. "But the reality is that if you're using these animals as a model for human neural processes, then the idea that hormones are so important for females, but males are just this blank slate, the default way that the brain is, that's sexist."

Other researchers have suggested conducting a study on males first, then repeating the study with females to see if the results are different, says Shansky. But that still perpetuates the idea that males are the standard, and females are more complicated, she argues.

Instead, she proposes that researchers use equal numbers of male and female animals in their studies and then examine the data for potential sex-related differences. If there are any, researchers can conduct follow-up studies looking at differences in both dominance hierarchies in males and estrous cycles in females.

"It will make us better scientists to have to widen our scope," Shansky says. "Science will get more creative, more rigorous, and ultimately, I think you will get better outcomes."

Provided by Northeastern University

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-05-biomedical-male-animalsthat-health-problem.html