Category Archives: Eczema

PARIS Drugmakers Sanofi and Regeneron said on Saturday results from a one-year test of their Dupixent product aimed at adults with eczema or moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis (AD) had been positive.

"In the CHRONOS study, Dupixent used with topical corticosteroids showed significantly greater clearance of skin lesions and overall disease severity compared to topical corticosteroids alone, which are commonly prescribed for moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis," Andrew Blauvelt, the principal investigator of the study, said in a joint statement from the companies.

"This study provides positive long-term data for Dupixent, which is important given atopic dermatitis is a chronic inflammatory disease," he said.

A biologics license application (BLA) for Dupixent was accepted for Priority Review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in September 2016.

(Reporting by Matthias Blamont; writing by John Irish; Editing by Clelia Oziel)

MAIQUETIA, Venezuela Venezuelan plumber Marcos Heredia scoured 20 pharmacies in one day but could not find crucial medicines to stop his epileptic 8-year-old from convulsions that caused irreparable brain damage late last year.

(Reuters Health) - - Obese people in the U.S. may not receive the same kind of care at the end of their lives as people who are thin or normal weight, suggests a new study.

Johnson & Johnson said on Friday that a state court jury in Missouri had returned a verdict in its favor in the latest trial to arise out of thousands of lawsuits alleging the company's talc-based products can increase the risk of ovarian cancer.

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Sanofi, Regeneron say latest Dupixent eczema drug tests positive - Reuters

Nemolizumab significantly reduced the itch and improved appearance of skin

WebMD News from HealthDay

By Steven Reinberg

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, March 2, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- An experimental drug may significantly reduce the itching and improve the appearance of moderate to severe eczema, a new, preliminary trial finds.

Nemolizumab is a man-made, injectable antibody that acts against the protein that has been identified as playing a part in eczema, the international team of researchers said.

"The treatments for atopic dermatitis [eczema] have been disappointing because of their lack of efficacy and the long-term side effects," said Dr. Doris Day, a dermatologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. She had no role in the study.

"There are also issues with compliance, since the products often need to be applied to broad areas multiple times a day," she added.

Since this is a chronic condition, continued treatment is usually needed to maintain results, Day explained.

"The goal is to find a non-steroid treatment that is easy to follow, and with reliable results and minimal adverse effects," she said.

While the hope is always for a cure, the results of this trial "are encouraging and give hope to those suffering from moderate to severe atopic dermatitis [eczema] for an effective treatment to control their condition with good long-term outcomes," Day said.

The study was published March 2 in the New England Journal of Medicine and was funded by Tokyo-based Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., the maker of nemolizumab.

Most types of eczema cause dry, itchy skin and rashes on the face, inside the elbows, behind the knees, and on the hands and feet. Scratching can cause the rash to turn red, swell and itch even more, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Eczema is not contagious. Its cause is not known, but is likely due to both genetic and environmental factors. It may get better or worse over time, but it is often a long-lasting disease.

In this 12-week trial, a team lead by Dr. Thomas Ruzicka, from the department of dermatology and allergology at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany, randomly assigned 264 patients with moderate to severe eczema to one of three injectable doses of nemolizumab or placebo.

Read the rest here:
New Eczema Drug Promising in Early Trial - WebMD

New U.K. research suggests that stress before conception can increase the risk of eczema in children.

Carried out by the Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, the study is the first to link maternal stress before conception with the risk of atopic eczema in future children.

For the research the study assessed the stress levels of women recruited to the Southampton Women's Survey before they were pregnant.

Participants were asked to report how stressed they were in their daily lives with a sub-group also asked about their psychological wellbeing.

Around 3,000 babies were born to women taking part in the survey, who were then assessed for eczema at the ages of six months and 12 months.

The results showed that more than one in six women reported that stress affected their health 'quite a lot' or 'extremely' before falling pregnant, with the analysis showing that the infants of these mothers had a 20 per cent higher likelihood of developing atopic eczema at age 12 months when compared with the children of other participants.

The results also suggested that stress and low mood experienced closer to the time of conception may have an even greater impact on eczema risk.

The team believe the findings support the idea that eczema partly originates as a baby develops in the womb, with Dr Sarah El-Heis, the study's lead researcher explaining, "maternal stress can release certain hormones that can have an effect on the baby's immune response, leading to an increased risk in conditions like eczema."

The research, published in the journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy, could now reveal ways of reducing the risk of the skin condition.

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Stress During Pregnancy Linked To Eczema In Children - Huffington Post Canada

New UK research suggests that stress before conception can increase the risk of eczema in children.

A first-of-its-kind study that links maternal stress before conception with the risk of atopic eczema in future children has been carried out by the Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton in the UK.

For the research, the study assessed the stress levels of women recruited to the Southampton Womens Survey before they were pregnant. Participants were asked to report how stressed they were in their daily lives with a sub-group also asked about their psychological wellbeing.

Around 3,000 babies were born to women taking part in the survey, who were then assessed for eczema at the ages of six months and 12 months.

The researchers say maternal stress can release certain hormones that can have an effect on the babys immune response. (Shutterstock)

The results showed that more than one in six women reported that stress affected their health quite a lot or extremely before falling pregnant, with the analysis showing that the infants of these mothers had a 20% higher likelihood of developing atopic eczema at age 12 months when compared with the children of other participants.

The results also suggested that stress and low mood experienced closer to the time of conception may have an even greater impact on eczema risk. The team believes the findings support the idea that eczema partly originates as a baby develops in the womb, with Dr Sarah El-Heis, the studys lead researcher explaining, maternal stress can release certain hormones that can have an effect on the babys immune response, leading to an increased risk in conditions like eczema.

The research, published in the journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy, could now reveal ways of reducing the risk of the skin condition.

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Stress, low mood before pregnancy increases eczema risk in ... - Hindustan Times

A new treatment may help reduce the itch of atopic dermatitis, which will reduce flare-ups. Meredith Rizzo/NPR hide caption

A new treatment may help reduce the itch of atopic dermatitis, which will reduce flare-ups.

People with moderate to severe eczema may benefit from new treatments that significantly reduce the intense itching that comes with the scaly skin disease.

A study published Wednesday finds that the antibody nemolizumab, given as a monthly injection, not only reduces itching significantly but also clears up many of the patches of dry, inflamed skin that are part of the disease. It appears in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"At 12 weeks there was very significant improvement," says dermatologist Jon Hanifin of the Oregon Health and Science University. "Not 100 percent, but patients were delighted not to have the itching that was keeping them up at night."

The study was done in 216 patients with moderate-to-severe eczema to determine the best dose of nemolizumab. They were randomized to receive either a placebo or a low, moderate or high dose of the drug, injected once a month.

Those who got the low dose reported a 44 percent reduction in itching, using a scale of 1 to 10. Patients who received moderate doses reported a 60 percent reduction in itching, while patients getting high doses reported 63 percent less itching.

"There was a consistent improvement across the dosing range and the best one was the moderate dose," says Hanifin. "So we may be able to treat patients with smaller doses" [than we thought.]

Eczema, also called "atopic dermatitis," is caused by a malfunction in the body's immune system, leading to a loss of the proteins needed to form a protective skin barrier.

About 35 million Americans are estimated to have some form of the disease. The majority have mild cases which are usually helped with moisturizers to prevent dry skin and sometimes prescription medications to reduce inflammation.

But about 10 percent of patients have moderate to severe eczema which, according to Hanifin, is a "conservative estimate."

For these patients, the severe itchiness can make it nearly impossible to sleep and the creams typically used to soften dry skin and relieve itching may not work very well. They often have to take time off work and see several doctors before finding one that can help treat the chronic disease.

In an editorial accompanying the study, pediatrician Lynda Schneider, who directs the Allergy Program at Boston Children's Hospital, says the new medication is uniquely promising because it targets the need to scratch. "If you can target the itching, this makes a big difference."

"If patients aren't scratching they are not disrupting the skin barrier," she says. When the barrier is broken, bacteria can pass through the skin, exacerbating the scaly rash. Therapies like this one that boost the immune system and help treat moderate to severe eczema are an exciting advance, Schneider says.

Nemolizumab is one of several drugs being studied in a new class of medications for eczema that act on the immune system. Researchers have focused in particular on the role of cytokines chemicals that are released when the immune system kicks into gear in response to a bacterial or viral invader.

In eczema and other autoimmune diseases, the immune system attacks itself. Cytokines called interleukins are released, which block the production of proteins that are needed to keep the skin's barrier properties intact.

Nemolizumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody developed to block the production of these interleukins and prevent the loss of the protective proteins.

The study's design and analysis was paid for nemolizumab's maker, Chugai Pharmaceuticals. A note in the article says the academic authors, which include Hanifin, vouch for the "completeness and accuracy" of the data.

Another drug, Dupilumab, works in a similar fashion and is undergoing a final review at the Food and Drug Administration. A decision whether to approve could come within weeks or months.

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Relief From Itchy Eczema May Come In The Form Of A Shot : Shots ... - NPR

Everyone has bad days. But usually online, we only see peoples good ones.

However, we all know thats not reality and thats precisely the inspiring message from Carys Gray, a fitness blogger whos being praised after sharing an honest makeup-free photo of herself during an eczema flareup.

MODEL'S AMAZING JOURNEY FROM PREGNANT TO 6-PACK

Gray, who has more than 148,000 followers on the social media platform, shows two photos of herself in the viral image: one with her eczema under control and makeup on her face, and another with her eczema flared up and her face makeup-free.

Social media/Instagram will show the good days, Gray wrote in part in the now viral post, which had garnered over 80,000 likes as of Tueday afternoon. But here's a reminder that next time you see something on social media that you think is 'goals' that it's not the full story, it's not how that person will look or be alllllll the time!

Eczema, or atopic dermatitis, is a chronic skin condition that causes redness and itchiness, according to the Mayo Clinic. It can occur at any age, and it does not have a cure.

THIS FIT MOM DROPPED 6 DRESS SIZES BY LOSING ONLY 2 POUNDS

In the caption of the post, Gray goes on to encourage her followers to have body confidence despite their imperfections.

I'm still struggling to accept myself on the right, it's a big insecurity of mine and that's fine, she wrote. I'm learning to accept myself knowing that everyone has their own struggles and insecurities and that's what makes us unique and special.

More:
Fitness blogger praised for sharing makeup-free photo after eczema flareup - Fox News

February 28, 2017 Womens stress levels before pregnancy could influence risk of eczema in child. Credit: University of Southampton

Infants whose mothers who felt stressed before they fell pregnant had a higher risk of eczema at age 12 months, new Southampton research has shown.

The study from the Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, is the first to link preconception maternal stress to the risk of atopic eczema in the child.

The researchers believe the findings support the concept that eczema partly originates as a baby develops in the womb and could reveal ways of reducing the risk of the skin condition.

The research, published in Clinical and Experimental Allergy, assessed the stress levels of women recruited to the Southampton Women's Survey before they were pregnant. They were asked to report how stressed they were in their daily lives. A sub-group were asked about their psychological wellbeing.

Around 3,000 babies born into the Survey were then assessed for eczema at ages six and 12 months.

Dr Sarah El-Heis, the study's lead researcher from the University of Southampton, comments: "We know that maternal stress can release certain hormones that can have an effect on the baby's immune response, leading to an increased risk in conditions like eczema.

"More than one in six women of the mothers in the Southampton Women's Survey reported that stress affected their health 'quite a lot' or 'extremely' our analyses showed that their infants had a 20% higher likelihood of developing atopic eczema at age 12 months when compared with the remainder of the study cohort. The findings also showed that stress and low mood experienced closer to the time of conception may have a greater impact on the risk offspring atopic eczema."

The research showed similar findings of an increased risk of infant eczema for the women who reported psychological distress before they became pregnant. The associations were robust to adjustment for other influences, including a history of eczema in the mother, smoking during pregnancy and infant gestational age, sex and breastfeeding duration.

Professor Keith Godfrey, Director of the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre in Nutrition, added: "Previous research has linked low maternal mood after delivery with an increased risk of eczema in the infant, but the new research showed no association between postnatal mood and eczema after taking account of preconception stress. More research is needed to investigate this interesting association, but the findings are further evidence of the influence preconception maternal health and wellbeing has on infants."

Explore further: Vitamin B levels during pregnancy linked to eczema risk in child

Infants whose mothers had a higher level of a particular type of vitamin B during pregnancy have a lower risk of eczema at age 12 months, new Southampton research has shown.

(HealthDay)People dealing with the itchy skin condition known as eczema may have other medical conditions to cope with as well, including heart disease, a dermatologist says.

(HealthDay)Atopic dermatitis (AD) is most commonly referred to as AD in the literature, according to a review published online July 8 in Allergy.

A*STAR researchers have shown that eczema has different risk factors depending on its age of onset, after evaluating more than 1,000 Asian newborns over in an 18-month study.

(HealthDay)Self- and caregiver-reported history of eczema is valid for identifying atopic dermatitis (AD), according to a study published online July 17 in the British Journal of Dermatology.

Children with eczema have a more diverse set of bacteria in their guts than non affected children, finds a new study in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Microbiology. The types of bacteria present were also more typical ...

Researchers at Cardiff University have discovered that genetic variation is the reason why some immune systems overreact to viruses.

Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have identified a new regulator of the innate immune responsethe immediate, natural immune response to foreign invaders. The study, published recently ...

A new discovery by researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle makes an important step in identifying which specific T cells within the diverse army of a person's immune system are best suited to ...

As much as we try to avoid it, we are constantly sharing germs with those around us. But even when two people have the same infection, the resulting illnesses can be dramatically differentmild for one person, severe or ...

Scientists propose in Nature blocking a molecule that drives inflammation and organ damage in Gaucher and maybe other lysosomal storage diseases as a possible treatment with fewer risks and lower costs than current therapies.

If you've ever wondered how a vaccine given decades ago can still protect against infection, you have your plasma cells to thank. Plasma cells are long-lived B cells that reside in the bone marrow and churn out antibodies ...

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Original post:
Women's stress levels before pregnancy could influence risk of ... - Medical Xpress

Cultivating 'friendly' bacteria from people's skin makes it possible to develop personalised lotions to treat skin conditions like eczema, a new study shows.

It's the latest evidence that beneficial bacteria in our microbiome can be used to treat infections spurred by harmful microbes, and could provide a new direction in antibiotics research: something we desperately need, in light of rising antimicrobial resistance.

While everybody's skin is populated with a mixture of healthy and harmful bacteria, the ratio of good to bad isn't always the same. This imbalance could help to explain why some people have conditions like atopic dermatitis (AD) the most common form of eczema, which produces inflamed and irritated skin, and affects almost 18 million Americans.

"People with this type of eczema, for some reason that's not quite known yet, have a lot of bacteria on the skin, but it's the wrong type of bacteria," dermatologist Richard Gallo from UC San Diego told the Associated Press.

"They're not producing the antimicrobials they need."

To find out about the makeup of these bacteria populations, Gallo and his team examined skin culture swabs taken from 30 healthy people and 49 subjects with AD.

After screening thousands of colonies of bacteria, they found that the skin of healthy people is rich in two bacterial species Staphylococcus hominis and Staphylococcus epidermis. Both of these are known to defend against a harmful kind of bacterium called Staphylococcus aureus aka Golden Staph, the precursor to the deadly superbug MRSA.

Dermatologists don't know if Staph actually causes AD, but it's been shown that the bacteria can help promote AD symptoms with studies going back as far as the 1990s demonstrating that the density ofS. aureus colonies corrolates with the inflammation and severity of eczema.

In Gallo's research, the team found that people with AD don't exhibit large populations of S. hominis and S. epidermis, while S. aureus was found to abundant.

To see if it would be possible to give people with low levels of these beneficial bacteria a boost, the researchers ran another experiment, isolating S. hominis and S. epidermis cultures from five participants with AD.

After isolating strains that counter S. aureus thanks to the production of proteins called antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), the team grew more of these bacteria in the lab.

Once they'd boosted the population counts of these healthy bacteria, the researchers mixed them into a moisturiser, giving each participant a personalised skin lotion sourced from their own microbiome.

Applying the lotion to participants' arms to give them about the same amount of beneficial bacteria as the healthy participants about 100,000 colony-forming units per square centimetre of skin saw S. aureus disappear completely in two patients within just 24 hours, while dropping significantly in the three others.

The researchers haven't announced if the physical symptoms of AD eased up in addition to the S. aureus count being reduced, but they are confident that they've found the basis of a working treatment here.

"We now have a rational therapeutic approach for atopic dermatitis by using bacterial transplant technology," Gallo said in a press release.

"It appears that people with this disorder will need to have it reapplied because their body does not naturally promote the growth of these organisms. The good thing is this is easy to do because it's just a cream."

Better still, compared with broad-spectrum antibiotics that kill a wide range of bacteria both good and bad the researchers' technique enables them to cultivate strains that only target harmful bugs.

"[Antibiotics] not only target S. aureus, but also kill beneficial bacteria," Gallo told Ed Yong at The Atlantic. "Our approach identified antimicrobials that have evolved to kill S. aureus while leaving the good bacteria alone."

We should keep in mind that this is a very small study so far, with the lotion just having been tested on five participants for a short period of time the participants only applied the cream once, with the results being checked 24 hours later.

But there are reasons to be optimistic, with the team now conducting a much larger clinical study, involving 60 patients using personalised lotions for longer periods up to weeks and months in duration to see how treatments pan out in the long term.

Until we hear those findings, we shouldn't get too carried away about the results of this study, but hopefully there's more good news to report on this in the future.

"It's a big step towards using microbial therapies to treat skin disease," immunologist Shruti Naik from Rockerfeller University, who wasn't involved with the study, told The Atlantic.

"It will be interesting to take it a step further, and test if the beneficial microbes can dampen or cure eczema."

The findings are reported in Science Translational Medicine.

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Scientists Are Making Personalised Eczema Treatments From People's Own Microbes - ScienceAlert

Teruaki Nakatsuji and Richard Gallo from the University of California, San Diego, have discovered that some bacteria which naturally live on human skin produce chemicals that kill S. aureus[a bacterium that can cause severe skin infections].

[The duo then] went after the bacteria themselvesisolating them from people with a skin disease called atopic dermatitis (eczema), growing them, and adding them to a cream. The result: a personalized ointment for killing S. aureusand hopefully treating eczemausing bacteria that come from a persons own skin.

The team focused on one [type of bacterium]a strain of S. hominis called A9Strain A9 produces several new antibiotics that seem to specifically suppress the growth of S. aureus, including the drug-resistant versions that we know as MRSA.

Protective staph strains like A9 dominate the skins of healthy people, buteven in people with eczema, the protective strains arent totally absent. Theyre still there. So what happens if you give them a boost?

As expected, the levels of S. aureus fell by more than 90 percent. In two cases, the troublesome microbe disappeared entirely.

Its a big step towards using microbial therapies to treat skin disease, says Shruti Naik, from Rockerfeller University.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post:A Probiotic Skin Cream Made With a Persons Own Microbes

Originally posted here:
Eczema-taming ointment could be made with bacteria from your own ... - Genetic Literacy Project

Infants whose mothers who felt stressed before they fell pregnant had a higher risk of eczema at age 12 months, new Southampton research has shown.

The study from the Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, is the first to link preconception maternal stress to the risk of atopic eczema in the child.

The researchers believe the findings support the concept that eczema partly originates as a baby develops in the womb and could reveal ways of reducing the risk of the skin condition.

The research, published in Clinical and Experimental Allergy, assessed the stress levels of women recruited to the Southampton Womens Survey before they were pregnant. They were asked to report how stressed they were in their daily lives. A sub-group were asked about their psychological wellbeing.

Around 3,000 babies born into the Survey were then assessed for eczema at ages six and 12 months.

Dr Sarah El-Heis, the studys lead researcher from the University of Southampton, comments: We know that maternal stress can release certain hormones that can have an effect on the babys immune response, leading to an increased risk in conditions like eczema.

More than one in six women of the mothers in the Southampton Womens Survey reported that stress affected their health quite a lot or extremely our analyses showed that their infants had a 20% higher likelihood of developing atopic eczema at age 12 months when compared with the remainder of the study cohort. The findings also showed that stress and low mood experienced closer to the time of conception may have a greater impact on the risk offspring atopic eczema.

The research showed similar findings of an increased risk of infant eczema for the women who reported psychological distress before they became pregnant. The associations were robust to adjustment for other influences, including a history of eczema in the mother, smoking during pregnancy and infant gestational age, sex and breastfeeding duration.

Professor Keith Godfrey, Director of the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre in Nutrition, added: Previous research has linked low maternal mood after delivery with an increased risk of eczema in the infant, but the new research showed no association between postnatal mood and eczema after taking account of preconception stress. More research is needed to investigate this interesting association, but the findings are further evidence of the influence preconception maternal health and wellbeing has on infants.

University of Southampton

Originally posted here:
Women's stress levels before pregnancy could influence risk of eczema in their future children - HealthCanal.com (press release) (blog)