Tag Archives: Survivors

Health

Study finds role of iron in chronic heart failure in 50% of heart attack survivors

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Heart failure occurs when the heart muscle stops pumping the amount of blood it should.

The study says around 50% of the people suffering from myocardial infarction or heart attacks develop chronic heart failure. These people, who have survived the heart attack after reperfusion or reopening of arteries, succumb to chronic heart failure within a 5 year period.

It highlights that the incidence of heart failure following a heart attack has increased in recent decades with more than 300,000 deaths every year in the US.

“While advances across populations have made survival after a heart attack possible for most, too many survivors suffer long-term complications like heart failure,” said Subha Raman, MD, who is physician director of the Cardiovascular Institute. “Dr. Dharmakumar’s breakthrough science illuminates who is at risk and why and points to an effective way to prevent these complications.”

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World

Survivors of Russian occupation recount harrowing stories of rape

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Kherson region, Ukraine
CNN
 — 

Day after day, in town after town, a police officer and prosecutor go door to door in Ukraine’s Kherson region.

Treading muddy streets, past homes damaged by artillery strikes, they look for those left behind. The two men form a specialist unit that’s traveled from the capital, Kyiv.

A mother and daughter come out to their yard. “We are looking for sexual crimes,” the prosecutor, Oleksandr Kleshchenko, says.

Until early October, this area of the country was occupied by Russian troops. Burnt-out cars litter the fields. The letter ‘Z’ – a symbol used by Russian forces – marks the walls.

The scars of war run deep here. Russia has used sexual violence as a “weapon of war” – a deliberate “military strategy” – in its conquest of Ukraine, United Nations investigators have said. They have even relayed allegations of Russian soldiers carrying Viagra.

Russian authorities have denied accusations of war crimes in Ukraine.

In two weeks of work in the Kherson region, the team from Kyiv has documented six allegations of sexual assault. The real number is almost certainly much higher, they say.

Tatiana, age 56, says she is one of the victims. CNN is withholding her last name and that of her village to protect her identity.

Walking over broken glass, she shows us into her brother’s house, where she says two Russian soldiers forced their way through her door on August 26.

“They walked around those rooms,” she says. “One stayed there, and the other one, who raped me, came in here. He came in, walked a little bit around the room and here in this place, he started groping me.”

“I told him, ‘No, no, I am not of the age that I can give you something, look for younger girls.’”

He pinned her against the wardrobe, she says, and tore at her clothes. “I was crying, begging him to stop, but with no success,” she says. “The only thought I had was to stay alive.”

He warned her not to tell anyone, she recalls. “I didn’t tell my husband right away,” she says, in tears. “But I told my cousin, and my husband overheard. He said, ‘You should have told me the truth, but you kept silent.’”

“I was very ashamed,” she says. “I wish that he and all his kin were dead.”

She spent three days at home, in a daze, too ashamed to step outside. Then, in an extraordinary act of bravery, she says she confronted the Russian soldier’s commander.

“His commander found the head of his unit. He came to see me and told me, ‘I punished him severely, I broke his jaw, but the most severe punishment is ahead.’ Like shooting. The commander asked me, ‘Do you mind this?’ I said, ‘I don’t mind, I wish all of them will be shot.’”

Although the prosecutor, Kleshchenko, and police officer Oleksandr Svidro are looking specifically for evidence of sexual crimes, everywhere they go they are confronted with the horrors of occupation.

In these liberated villages, nearly every building has been damaged by war. Many homes were reduced to rubble.

At their first stop on the day CNN accompanied the investigators, in Bila Krynytsya, a crowd waiting for food handouts surrounded the prosecutor.

The village was behind Russian lines, but never directly occupied. Those gathered round shout that they’ve been abandoned for months, with no help from either Russia or Ukraine.

“Did you report [the damage] to anyone?” the prosecutor asks. “Who would we report it to?” replies a man in the crowd.

A man in the crowd tells the investigators that he was held by Russian soldiers and subjected to mock execution. It’s hard to hear, tales of torture like this are common here, but that’s not the subject of their work today.

Despite the dissatisfaction of these villagers, Ukraine’s counteroffensive in this part of the country has buoyed public hopes that victory might actually be possible – or at least that Kyiv might liberate key Russian-held cities, such as Kherson.

Starting slowly at the end of the summer, and then in large measure at the beginning of October, Ukrainian forces have regained hundreds of square miles of territory that Russia held since the early days of its full-scale invasion.

A short drive down roads pockmarked by shelling, in Tverdomedove, a mother and daughter tell Kleshchenko that they have not heard of any sexual crimes in their one-road hamlet.

Their neighbor, 71-year-old Vera Lapushnyak, sobs uncontrollably. The Russians were kind when they first arrived, she says.

“They said they came to protect us,” she recalls. “But from whom, why – we didn’t know.”

She was widowed more than 30 years ago – she says her husband died in a motorcycle accident – and her son joined the military soon after Russia’s invasion on February 24. She decided to leave, she says, about three months after Russian troops occupied her village.

Months later, after the Ukrainian military liberated her village in a lightning counteroffensive, she returned. Shelling had reduced her roof to its rafters.

“I don’t know where to sleep now,” she says, in tears. “There are no windows or doors. I sleep like a bum.”

She shows us inside. The ceiling of her bedroom has completely collapsed. She’s moved her bed to the only room that still has an intact window.

“I don’t know where to put it so that (the ceiling) won’t fall on my head,” she says. “If it would fall and kill me that would be better, so I won’t suffer. But I want to see my son again.”

As the sun sets at the end of a long day, the two-man team arrives in Novovoznesens’ke, a village where they’ve uncovered two more cases of rape, allegedly by Russian soldiers. The next day, they return to Kyiv, to submit their findings.

Of course, many of these allegations will be impossible to prove; many do not even have a suspect. For now, the team files its reports, and its investigators continue their work, hoping to be able to file charges in the future.

The United Nations says it has investigated cases in Ukraine of “sexual and gender-based violence” against people ranging from 4 to 82 years old. As of September, 43 criminal proceedings had been initiated, according to the UN.

The police officer, Svidro, says most cases of sexual violence go entirely unreported.

The work takes its toll. “It’s psychologically difficult,” he says. “You understand every person is distressed. But this is important work.”

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Health

Black Death plague survivors’ genetic traits tied to autoimmune diseases: study

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The Black Death, the 14th-century bubonic plague that killed some 1 in 3 people in Europe and an estimated 200 million across the world, has left another long-lasting mark: on the immune systems of people living today.

Four DNA variants appear to have helped boost survival rates from the plague — caused by a bacterium, “Yersinia pestis,” carried by small mammals and their fleas — in the mid-1300s and in recurring bouts of plague in later centuries, according to a recent study published in the journal Nature.

Researchers from the University of Chicago, McMaster University in Ontario and the Pasteur Institute in Paris say at least two of those variants associated with surviving the Black Death can be linked to autoimmune conditions common in modern society — including Crohn’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

Hendrik Poinar, a professor of anthropology at McMaster University and senior co-author on the study, said in the release that the research offered insight into “how pandemics can modify our genomes but go undetected in modern populations.”

Poinar noted that while the genes “provided tremendous protection during hundreds of years of plague epidemics,” they are linked to autoimmune disorders. “A hyperactive immune system may have been great in the past but in the environment today it might not be as helpful,” he said.

Having “two copies of a specific variant of one gene in particular, ERAP2, was strongly associated with surviving the plague,” according to a video published by the University of Chicago to explain the findings. People who survived the Black Death eventually passed the genetic variant to their children. Individuals who inherited such mutations were about 40 percent more likely to survive the plague, the research found.

Luis Barreiro, a professor of genetic medicine at the University of Chicago, said in a release on the study that the group’s findings served as “evidence that this one single disease event was enough to lead to selection in the human immune system.”

Barreiro said the findings were one of a kind. “This is, to my knowledge, the first demonstration that indeed, the Black Death was an important selective pressure to the evolution of the human immune system,” he said.

The medieval plague remains a topic of fascination among researchers and historians due to its “extensive demographic impact and long-lasting consequences,” the study notes, some 700 years after the deadliest pandemic recorded in history.

Researchers involved in the study analyzed high-quality genetic variation in more than 200 DNA samples extracted from the bones or teeth of individuals from Denmark and London who lived before the plague, died of it or lived between one and two generations after it swept the world.

There are different clinical forms of plague, though the most common are bubonic, pneumonic and septicemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Black Death, also referred to as the Pestilence, was a bubonic plague pandemic. Symptoms included skin tissue darkened by gangrene and swelling of lymph nodes, or buboes — the source of the term “bubonic.”

DNA evidence reveals where the Black Death began

The plague strain eventually evolved into a less-dangerous variety, and today the protective variant is present in about 45 percent of British people, according to the 1000 Genomes database, Science Magazine reported in a write-up of the study. Deadly plague outbreaks remain a threat in some areas, but prevention and treatment methods have improved drastically, especially through the use of antibiotics.

Bubonic plague was so deadly an English village quarantined itself to save others

The findings have raised the question: Will the coronavirus pandemic have a big impact on human evolution?

Fortune magazine reported that Barreiro is not convinced. The Black Death was far deadlier, he said, killing on scale orders of magnitude beyond the effects of covid-19, and had a more devastating effect on the young, killing people before they could pass on their genes.

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Technology

Roguelite Vampire Survivors 1.0 gets two new modes, Twitch integration

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Vampire Survivors’ official release adds even more content to the surprisingly beefy game. Developer Poncle shared the full patch notes on the game’s Steam page, and it includes new achievements, a new weapon, a new event stage, more music, and two new terrifying modes that aren’t for the faint of heart — one of which adds Twitch integration.

Inverse mode is exactly what it sounds like; the stage layout is now upside down. Players make more money and are luckier, but enemies are also far more deadly with a starting buff of +200% max health and an additional 5% max health every minute. For those who are truly dedicated, there’s an Endless mode that restarts enemy waves as soon as the Reaper would normally arrive. Enemies spawn in greater numbers and with more damage, making survival an even tougher task.

Players can also put their runs in the hands of Twitch chat. Twitch mode is available in the options menu; type your Twitch channel name in the text box and connect, and you’ll be good to go. Viewers can choose level-up decisions, special commands like reroll, and secret events.

Vampire Survivors had a humble start and exploded into massive popularity. In the patch notes, Poncle briefly discusses the future of the studio, saying “support for VS will carry on. As anticipated in the v1.0 announcement, we’ll need to do some QOL improvements on niche mechanics like Eggs and Limit Break, plus finishing the engine port. But brand new features are also in the works… […] We’ll be done with VS for real only once I – or you – get tired of it.”

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Entertainment

Kim Kardashian Claims Kevin Keith Is Innocent. His Survivors Say He’s Not.

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Kim Kardashian’s latest podcast venture, The System, explores the life and crimes of convicted triple murderer Kevin Keith, making an impassioned plea for his release from prison. But those that survived his crimes say Kardashian never spoke to them. Quanita and Quentin Reeves were two of the six people shot by Keith in 1994, witnessing the brutal end of their cousin Marichell Chatman, 24, her daughter Marchae, 4, and her aunt Linda Chatman, 39. Reeves claims that he witnessed Keith murder the trio with his own eyes when he and his sister were just six and four, and alleges that no one from Kardashian’s team reached out to speak with them, despite the podcast twisting their testimony. “She did not contact us, not one time,” Reeves told the Daily Mail. “If Kim Kardashian wants to get involved, she should come and meet us face-to-face.”

Editor’s Note: This cheat has been updated to reflect that Keith was accused of shooting a total of six people, three fatally.

Read it at Daily Mail

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US

Hurricane Ian’s death toll rises as crews in Florida go door-to-door in search for survivors in decimated neighborhoods

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CNN
 — 

After Hurricane Ian obliterated communities in Florida, rescue crews going door-to-door in search of survivors are reporting more deaths, and residents grappling with the losses are facing a long, daunting recovery.

As of Monday, at least 101 people have been reported killed by the hurricane in Florida – 54 of them in Lee County alone. Ian also claimed the lives of four people in North Carolina.

Ian slammed into Florida as a furious Category 4 hurricane last Wednesday. Days later, there are residents of island communities cut off from the mainland, hundreds of thousands of people without power, and Floridians who have found themselves homeless.

In some cases, government officials dealing with recovery efforts are among those who lost their homes.

Fort Myers Beach City Councilman Bill Veach said his 90-year-old cottage is in ruins, with only one section that was a recent addition left standing. Pieces of his home were found two blocks away, he said.

“When you are walking around the ruins, it’s an apocalyptic scene,” Veach said of his neighborhood.

Still, even in the wreckage, there have been moments of hope, he said.

“You see a friend that you weren’t sure was alive or dead and that brings you joy. A joy that is so much more than the loss of property,” Veach added.

Rescuers throughout the state have been coming to the aid of trapped residents via boat and aircraft. More than 1,900 people have been rescued as of Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a news conference.

Some residents who were anxiously waiting to hear from their loved ones have received unimaginable news.

Elizabeth McGuire’s family said they last spoke with her Wednesday and had been having trouble reaching her. They learned Friday that the 49-year-old had been found dead in her Cape Coral home.

Police told her family she died in her bed holding her cell phone and it looked like she died instantly, her son Andrew Chedester said.

McGuire’s mother, Susan McGuire, said the destruction of the storm “is massive.”

“One hundred blizzards will not cost you what one hurricane will cost you,” said Susan McGuire, who moved to Florida from Maryland a few years ago. “My husband’s business whipped out, my daughter is dead … I never had a blizzard take anything away from me.”

On Sanibel Island, now cut off from the Florida peninsula after Ian wiped out a portion of the roadway connecting them, every house shows damage, Sanibel Fire Chief William Briscoe said.

“There are a lot places that are not livable. There are places off their foundation, and it’s very dangerous out there,” Briscoe said. “There are alligators running around, and there are snakes all over the place.”

Crews have evacuated 1,000 people from Sanibel since Hurricane Ian ripped through the island, according to Briscoe.

A similar situation is playing out on nearby Pine Island, the largest barrier island on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Just days ago, it was a tranquil fishing and kayaking destination known for its small-town atmosphere. Now it is a scene of carnage, with cracked roadways and destroyed homes.

Ian destroyed the only bridge to Pine Island, making it only accessible by boat or aircraft.

Supplies are now being air dropped to the island by helicopter as some residents choose to stay, authorities said.

“Food is being delivered to Pine Island. Now, is it enough to sustain them over a long period of time? I can’t say that yet, none of us can,” Lee County Manager Roger Desjarlais said Monday.

Emergency physician Dr. Ben Abo, who joined rescuers on Pine Island, said crews are encountering residents who were in denial the storm would hit the area and are now running out of supplies.

“I’m seeing a lot of despair, but I’m also seeing hope,” Abo said. “I’m seeing urban search and rescue, fire rescue, bringing hopes to people that we’re going to get through this. But we have to do it in stages.”

Work is underway to install a temporary bridge for Pine Island and the goal is to have it completed by the end of the week, DeSantis said Monday.

“This is not necessarily going to be a bridge you’re going to want to go 45 miles per an hour over maybe, but at least you’ll have connectivity to the mainland,” the governor said.

The National Guard will also be flying power crews to Sanibel and Pine islands to start working on restoring power.

At Fort Myers Beach, power may not be restored on for 30 days due to damage to the electrical infrastructure, according to Desjarlais.

He painted a somber picture of the area, describing thousands of destroyed boats and vessels that have ended up in yards, in mangroves, and sunk in shallow waters and environmental hazards from leaking diesel and fuel.

After Ian slammed into Florida’s west coast, a Naples man trekked through nearly half a mile of floodwater to save his 85-year-old mother.

Johnny Lauder, a former police officer, told CNN he sprang into action after his mother, who uses a wheelchair, called in a panic and said water was rushing into her home and reaching her chest.

He arrived at her home to find her neck-deep in floodwater, but happy to see her son.

“The water was up to the windows, and I heard her screaming inside,” Lauder said. “It was a scare and a sigh of relief at the time – a scare thinking she might be hurt, a sigh of relief knowing that there was still air in her lungs.”

Lauder was able to bring his mother to safety as floodwaters began to recede.

It’s unclear how many people remain unaccounted for after the storm. Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said authorities are working to consolidate a list of the missing.

Tonia Werner is among those waiting to hear news about a loved one. It’s been three days since she heard anything about her father, David Park, who was admitted to ShorePoint ICU in Port Charlotte days before Hurricane Ian made landfall.

“As of Friday he was on a ventilator and that’s the last contact,” Tonia told CNN. “No phones, nothing. I don’t even know if he’s alive. I have reached out every which way I can think of, begging for information because we’re stuck. And there’s no way to get to him.”

Tonia lives nearly an hour away from Port Charlotte and is cut off from being able to reach the area by flooding in Arcadia, which has blocked access for anybody to get across town, she said.

Hospitals in Florida have been experiencing “significant pressure” on capacity since Ian hit, said Mary Mayhew, president and CEO of the Florida Hospital Association.

Emergency departments have sustained damage, staffing has been impacted as many hospital workers have been displaced or lost their vehicles in the hurricane, and facilities lost reliable access to water.

Hospitals also don’t typically discharge patients who don’t have a place to go, whether their homes were damaged in the storm or their nursing homes were evacuated and temporarily closed.

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US

Hurricane Ian: More deaths reported in Florida as search for survivors continues in the state facing an arduous road to recovery

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CNN
 — 

Days after Hurricane Ian tore through Florida, wiping out neighborhoods and turning streets into rivers, rescue crews searching for survivors are reporting more deaths as recovery efforts continue.

Officials confirmed Ian has killed at least 76 people in Florida after it made landfall last week as a Category 4 storm, decimating coastal towns, flooding homes, collapsing roofs, flinging boats into buildings and sending cars floating. Four other people died in storm-related incidents as Ian churned into North Carolina.

More than 1,600 people have been rescued from Hurricane Ian’s path in parts of southwest and central Florida since last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office said Sunday.

Now, as blue skies return, Floridians who took shelter while the hurricane raged have emerged to find unrecognizable communities and face the daunting task of rebuilding; many of them still without power or clean drinking water.

More than 689,000 homes, businesses and other customers in Florida still did not have power as of Sunday evening, according to PowerOutage.us. Many are without clean tap water, with well over 100 boil-water advisories in places around the state, according to Florida Health Department data.

In Naples, Hank DeWolf’s 4,000-pound boat dock was carried through a condo complex by the powerful hurricane, landing in his neighbor’s yard. And the water brought someone’s car into his own backyard. He doesn’t know who it belongs to or how to remove it.

As crews in Naples comb through the wreckage to make sure no one is still trapped, residents are experiencing an “emotional roller coaster” as they face the enormous task ahead to clean up and restore the city, Jay Boodheshwar, city manager of Naples told CNN.

“People need to take care of their emotional and mental health, because we’re really going to need to work together on this,” Boodheshwar acknowledged.

Naples received record-high storm surge, when the hurricane sent rising ocean water flooding into the city’s streets and tearing through its infrastructure.

“The amount of water that we received and the height of the surge affected a lot of the infrastructure,” Boodheshwar explained. “So there are transformers that are fried. It is not simply rehanging lines. There are things that may need to be replaced.”

Similar scenes are playing out in other communities. Hurricane Ian – expected to be the most expensive storm in Florida’s history – devastated neighborhoods from the state’s western coast to inland cities like Orlando.

In some cases, emergency workers out searching for signs of life are at the same time contending with losing their own homes.

“Some of the guys on Pine Island, they lost everything, but they’re doing what they can,” said emergency physician Dr. Ben Abo, who was preparing to join first responders on a rescue mission Sunday near decimated Sanibel Island and Pine Island.

And the flooding isn’t over yet.

Seminole County continues to experience significant flooding in certain neighborhoods, with families being rescued from waist-high waters over the weekend.

Days after the hurricane left, flooding continues to increase in areas near the St. Johns River, Lake Monroe, and Lake Harney, with an additional 100 homes suffering floodwater damage over the last 24 hours, Seminole County emergency management officials told CNN affiliate WESH.

FEMA alone cannot rebuild and provide assistance to all the communities impacted by Hurricane Ian, former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate told CNN Sunday. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development, otherwise known as HUD, can provide grants to communities impacted by hurricanes and other natural disasters to help people get back on their feet, Fugate added.

“It’s just not the coast of Florida that’s been impacted. We’ve got impacts all the way through Orlando, up to the East Coast. Places like St. Augustine had devastating flooding,” Fugate stressed.

Hurricane Ian wiped away parts of the Sanibel Causeway, which connects Sanibel Island to the mainland, stranding residents as their only link became impassable.

Responders were going door-to-door searching properties for anyone who may need to be evacuated.

About 400 people evacuated from Sanibel Island over the weekend, City Manager Dana Souza reported Sunday evening, adding authorities will begin turning their attention to providing medical services to the people who are choosing to stay on the island, rather than evacuations.

Abo told CNN he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the death toll significantly increases as rescue and recovery efforts continue on Sanibel Island.

US Coast Guard Commander Rear Admiral Brendan McPherson offered a stark assessment of the damage to Sanibel Island.

“That area is going to be out of commission for some time,” McPherson remarked. “It was hit very hard, it does not have water, it doesn’t have the basic infrastructure.”

Amy Lynn was at her friend’s home on Sanibel Island when Ian hit, forcing her to hide in a closet with seven dogs, praying and holding the door shut as the hurricane roared outside.

When she came out, the home had been badly damaged, with walls blown off, video showed.

“I prayed for 6 solid hours and came to peace that it may be my time to go. It wasn’t. God is good. We made it out alive,” Lynn wrote on Facebook. “We lost everything. My car is gone. I haven’t seen my home on Sanibel, i’ve been told it’s destroyed.”

Lynn said she was thankful to be alive, but wrote, “This is so much more than devastating. The heart of the swfl coast is forever changed.”

Many of the Ian-related deaths – 42 fatalities – have been reported in southwestern Florida’s Lee County, which includes Fort Myers and Sanibel Island.

Lee County officials have been facing criticism about why the first mandatory evacuations weren’t ordered until a day before Ian’s landfall, despite an emergency plan which suggests evacuations should have happened earlier.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Lee County officials acted appropriately when they issued their first mandatory evacuations on Tuesday, less than 24 hours before Hurricane Ian made landfall on the state, and a day after several neighboring counties issued their orders.

Lee County Commissioner Kevin Ruane also defended the timing of the orders, calling reports about a possible delay in issuing a mandatory evacuation “inaccurate.”

“As soon as we saw the model shift northeast, we did exactly what we could to encourage people to” evacuate, Ruane said Sunday.

Ruane added people became “complacent” and many didn’t evacuate to shelters.

“I think the most important thing that most people need to understand is we opened up 15 shelters. During Irma there were 60,000 people in our shelters. There’s 4,000 people in the shelters right now,” Ruane said.

In addition to the 42 deaths in Lee County, Hurricane Ian also contributed to the deaths of 12 people in Charlotte County, eight in Collier County, five in Volusia County, three in Sarasota County, two in Manatee County, and one each in Polk, Lake, Hendry and Hillsborough counties, officials said.

Around 65% of all power outages in Florida from the storm had been restored as of early Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us.

But some residents and businesses in storm-damaged counties may not be back on the grid for “weeks or months” because of the structural damage caused by the hurricane, said Eric Silagy, president and CEO of Florida Power & Light Company.

In Cape Coral, just southwest of Fort Myers, 98% of the city’s power structure was “obliterated” and will need complete reconstruction, Fire Department Chief and Emergency Management Director Ryan Lamb told CNN’s Jim Acosta.

Florida is also working with Elon Musk and Starlink satellite to help restore communication in the state, according to DeSantis. “They’re positioning those Starlink satellites to provide good coverage in Southwest Florida and other affected areas,” DeSantis said.

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Health

Long-Term Study Supports Link Between Inflammation and Cognitive Problems in Older Breast Cancer Survivors

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Summary: Higher levels of the inflammatory C-reactive protein were discovered in older breast cancer survivors who experienced cognitive issues. The study is one of the first long-term assessments linking chronic inflammation to cognitive decline in breast cancer survivors.

Source: UCLA

Scientists are still trying to understand why many breast cancer survivors experience troubling cognitive problems for years after treatment. Inflammation is one possible culprit.

A new long-term study of older breast cancer survivors published today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and co-led by UCLA researchers adds important evidence to that potential link.

Higher levels of an inflammatory marker known as C-reactive protein (CRP) were related to older breast cancer survivors reporting cognitive problems in the new study.

“Blood tests for CRP are used routinely in the clinic to determine risk of heart disease. Our study suggests this common test for inflammation might also be an indicator of risk for cognitive problems reported by breast cancer survivors,” said study lead author Judith Carroll, an associate professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences and faculty member of the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at UCLA and the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. 

The study, called the Thinking and Living with Cancer (TLC) Study, is one of the first long-term efforts to examine the potential link between chronic inflammation and cognition in breast cancer survivors 60 and older, who make up a majority of the nearly 4 million breast cancer survivors in the United States.

Previous research has focused largely on younger women and women immediately after therapy, making it difficult to draw conclusions about CRP’s role in long-term cognitive problems among older breast cancer survivors.   

In TLC, teams of researchers from around the country talked to, and obtained blood samples from, hundreds of breast cancer survivors and women without cancer up to 6 times over the course of 5 years. The study was motivated by hearing from survivors and advocates that cognitive problems are one of their major worries. 

“Cognitive issues affect women’s daily lives years after completing treatment, and their reports of their own ability to complete tasks and remember things was the strongest indicator of problems in this study,” said co-senior study author Dr. Jeanne Mandelblatt, a professor of oncology at Georgetown University who is the lead of the TLC study.   

“Being able to test for levels of inflammation at the same time that cognition was being rigorously evaluated gave the TLC team a potential window into the biology underlying cognitive concerns,” said Elizabeth C. Breen, a professor emerita of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at UCLA, who also served as co-senior study author. 

Cognition, from the perspective of each woman, was evaluated through a commonly used questionnaire assessing how the women perceive their ability to remember things like names and direction, ability to concentrate, and other aspects of everyday life.

Higher levels of an inflammatory marker known as C-reactive protein (CRP) were related to older breast cancer survivors reporting cognitive problems in the new study. Image is in the public domain

The study found higher CRP levels among survivors were predictive of lower reported cognitive function among breast cancer survivors. There was no similar relationship between CRP levels and reported cognition in the women without cancer. 

Cognitive performance, as measured by standardized neuropsychological tests, failed to show a link between CRP and cognition. The authors say this may indicate women are more sensitive to differences in their everyday cognitive function, self-reporting changes that other tests miss.

The authors said their study supports the need for research on whether interventions that can lower inflammation – including increased physical activity, better sleep, and anti-inflammatory medications – may prevent or reduce cognitive concerns in older breast cancer survivors. 

Other study authors include Zev M. Nakamura, Brent J. Small, Xingtao Zhou, Harvey J. Cohen, Tim A. Ahles, Jaeil Ahn, Traci N. Bethea, Martine Extermann, Deena Graham, Claudine Isaacs, Heather S.L. Jim, Paul B. Jacobsen, Brenna C. McDonald, Sunita K. Patel, Kelly Rentscher, James Root, Andrew J. Saykin, Danielle B. Tometich, Kathleen Van Dyk, and Wanting Zhai. The authors declared no conflicts of interest. 

About this cancer, cognition, and inflammation research news

Author: Jason Millman
Source: UCLA
Contact: Jason Millman – UCLA
Image: The image is in the public domain

Original Research: Closed access.
“Elevated C-Reactive Protein and Subsequent Patient-Reported Cognitive Problems in Older Breast Cancer Survivors: The Thinking and Living With Cancer Study” by Judith Carroll et al. Journal of Clinical Oncology

Abstract

See also

Elevated C-Reactive Protein and Subsequent Patient-Reported Cognitive Problems in Older Breast Cancer Survivors: The Thinking and Living With Cancer Study

PURPOSE

To examine longitudinal relationships between levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) and cognition in older breast cancer survivors and noncancer controls.

METHODS

English-speaking women age ≥ 60 years, newly diagnosed with primary breast cancer (stage 0-III), and frequency-matched controls were enrolled from September 2010 to March 2020; women with dementia, neurologic disorders, and other cancers were excluded. Assessments occurred presystemic therapy/enrollment and at annual visits up to 60 months. Cognition was measured using the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Cognitive Function and neuropsychological testing. Mixed linear effect models tested for survivor-control differences in natural log (ln)-transformed CRP at each visit. Random effect–lagged fluctuation models tested directional effects of ln-CRP on subsequent cognition. All models controlled for age, race, study site, cognitive reserve, obesity, and comorbidities; secondary analyses evaluated if depression or anxiety affected results.

RESULTS

There were 400 survivors and 329 controls with CRP specimens and follow-up data (average age of 67.7 years, range: 60-90 years). The majority of survivors had stage I (60.9%), estrogen receptor–positive (87.6%) tumors. Survivors had significantly higher adjusted mean ln-CRP than controls at baseline and 12-, 24-, and 60-month visits (all P < .05). Higher adjusted ln-CRP predicted lower participant-reported cognition on subsequent visits among survivors, but not controls (P interaction = .008); effects were unchanged by depression or anxiety. Overall, survivors had adjusted Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Cognitive Function scores that were 9.5 and 14.2 points lower than controls at CRP levels of 3.0 and 10.0 mg/L. Survivors had poorer neuropsychological test performance (v controls), with significant interactions with CRP only for the Trails B test.

CONCLUSION

Longitudinal relationships between CRP and cognition in older breast cancer survivors suggest that chronic inflammation may play a role in development of cognitive problems. CRP testing could be clinically useful in survivorship care.

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Technology

Vampire Survivors Is Once Again the Most-Played Steam Deck Game in September 2022

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For the second month in a row, Vampire Survivors has risen above the likes of Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077, and Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered to become the most-played Steam Deck game in September 2022.

Valve shared the news on Twitter, confirming that Vampire Survivors, which is set to get its v1.0 update on October 20, was the most-played game in terms of total hours played. While we weren’t given an exact number, we do know that it held off the behemoth that is Elden Ring to take the top spot.

Behind those two games, in order, were Stardew Valley, Cyberpunk 2077, Hades, No Man’s Sky, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, Cult of the Lamb, and Disney Dreamlight Valley.

When compared to August, some of the newcomers to the list include Cyberpunk 2077 and Disney Dreamlight Valley. Cyberpunk 2077 has seen a bit of a resurgence as of late following the release of Netflix’s Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime, news of its first major expansion, and multiple updates that have been released for the game.

CD Projekt recently revealed Cyberpunk 2077 had at least one million people playing the game during the week of September 22 and total sales of the game have surpassed 20 million. All of these details help reveal why it placed fourth on this Steam Deck list.

The 10 Best Steam Deck Games