Bronze Age Britons lived with 1m-long worms in their kidneys, scientists reveal - The Independent
Bronze Age Britons lived with 1m-long worms in their kidneys, scientists reveal - The Independent |
- Bronze Age Britons lived with 1m-long worms in their kidneys, scientists reveal - The Independent
- Is it really a 'kissing' bug? | Around Indiana - Greensburg Daily News
- Discovery of protein that may be key to treating tropical diseases - News-Medical.net
| Bronze Age Britons lived with 1m-long worms in their kidneys, scientists reveal - The Independent Posted: 16 Aug 2019 12:00 AM PDT  Bronze Age Britons were infected with a number of parasites including giant kidney worms that could reach up to one metre in length, analysis of 3,000-year-old faeces has revealed. Prehistoric people living in a settlement perched on freshwater marshes in eastern England were infected by intestinal worms caught from foraging for food in lakes and waterways, according to researchers from the University of Cambridge. The 900BC Bronze Age settlement at Must Farm – located near what is now the fenland city of Peterborough – was made of wooden houses built on stilts above the water. A wooden causeway connected islands on the marsh and inhabitants used dugout canoes to travel along the channels. Three-thousand years ago, a catastrophic fire burnt the village down, but artefacts from the houses such as food, clothes and jewellery were preserved in the mud. In this waterlogged sludge, scientists also found pieces of human faeces which contained ancient parasite eggs. Dr Piers Mitchell from Cambridge's Department of Archaeology told The Independent the find has given them a fascinating insight into how common certain diseases were at the time. He said: "We can start to see that pretty much everyone had some kind of intestinal parasite. "We have found the earliest evidence for fish tapeworm, Echinostoma worm, and giant kidney worm in Britain.
"These parasites are spread by eating raw aquatic animals such as fish, amphibians and molluscs. Living over slow-moving water may have protected the inhabitants from some parasites, but put them at risk of others if they ate fish or frogs." Fish tapeworms grow up to 10cm in length and live coiled up in the intestines. Echinostoma worms are much smaller – up to just 1cm in length. They cause inflammation in the intestinal lining. The giant kidney worm is a parasitic roundworm that in humans typically infects one kidney. They have been known to reach 1m in length and their presence normally causes severe kidney fibrosis. Scientists also found pig whipworm and Capillaria worm which probably originated from the butchery and the consumption of the intestines from other animals, although it is unlikely they caused any harm. The waste water around the site – sometimes referred to as "Britain's Pompeii" – would have been quite stagnant because of the reed beds, therefore allowing human waste to accumulate in the channels. This would have been a good breeding ground for parasites to infect local wildlife, which could have spread to the villagers if they ate raw or poorly cooked food, according to the study published in Parasitology. Dr Mitchell said: "They were getting most of their food from the water so they've got a completely different set of parasites to people in Dorset in the Bronze Age where you get a different pattern of diseases. "If you have a heavy load of lots of different parasites it can lead to malnutrition and it can contribute to your death. But the aim of these parasites is to keep you alive as long as possible so they keep spreading themselves. "So parasites in your intestines and kidneys are not designed to kill you but just to make you ill for a number of years." As writing was only introduced into Britain centuries later with the Romans, there is little record of how these people lived. "This research enables us for the first time to clearly understand the infectious diseases experienced by prehistoric people living in the Fens," said first author Marissa Ledger, also from Cambridge's Department of Archaeology. Researchers found that while some of the excrement was from humans, others were from dogs. "Both humans and dogs were infected by similar parasitic worms, which suggests the humans were sharing their food or leftovers with their dogs," said Dr Ledger. The parasites found at Must Farm tally with trends seen at other Bronze Age and Neolithic sites. "Our study fits with the broader pattern of a shrinking of the parasite ecosystem through time. Changes in diet, sanitation and human-animal relationships over millennia have affected rates of parasitic infection," said Dr Mitchell. 1/5 AN22302746Human-shaped-figu.jpgHuman-shaped figures and pendants of whale ivory strung on fine plaited coir cords. Probably presented to Lady Gordon, 1875 - 80, Fiji. Filian Art at the Museum of Archaeology, Cambridge 2/5 AN22302903Collectors-case-i.jpgCollectors case in Chiefs and Governors, Art and Power in Fiji. Filian Art at the Museum of Archaeology, Cambridge 3/5 AN22302752Sir-Arthur-Gordon.jpgSir Arthur Gordon, Governor of Fiji. Photographer unknown, collected by C. Gordon Cumming. 1875 - 77, Fiji. Filian Art at the Museum of Archaeology, Cambridge 4/5 AN22302775Shot-of-Chiefs-an.jpgShot of Chiefs and Governors, Art and Power in Fiji. Display evoking the dining room at Government House, from a photo c. 1875 Filian Art at the Museum of Archaeology, Cambridge 5/5 AN22302830Cakobau.-Vunivalu.jpgCakobau. Vunivalu (War Chief) of Bau. Photographed by Captain R.W. Stewart, 1876, Fiji. Filian Art at the Museum of Archaeology, Cambridge 1/5 AN22302746Human-shaped-figu.jpgHuman-shaped figures and pendants of whale ivory strung on fine plaited coir cords. Probably presented to Lady Gordon, 1875 - 80, Fiji. Filian Art at the Museum of Archaeology, Cambridge 2/5 AN22302903Collectors-case-i.jpgCollectors case in Chiefs and Governors, Art and Power in Fiji. Filian Art at the Museum of Archaeology, Cambridge 3/5 AN22302752Sir-Arthur-Gordon.jpgSir Arthur Gordon, Governor of Fiji. Photographer unknown, collected by C. Gordon Cumming. 1875 - 77, Fiji. Filian Art at the Museum of Archaeology, Cambridge 4/5 AN22302775Shot-of-Chiefs-an.jpgShot of Chiefs and Governors, Art and Power in Fiji. Display evoking the dining room at Government House, from a photo c. 1875 Filian Art at the Museum of Archaeology, Cambridge 5/5 AN22302830Cakobau.-Vunivalu.jpgCakobau. Vunivalu (War Chief) of Bau. Photographed by Captain R.W. Stewart, 1876, Fiji. Filian Art at the Museum of Archaeology, Cambridge However, the fish tapeworm seen at Must Farm have seen a recent resurgence in modern humans because of increasing popularity of sushi, smoked salmon and ceviche. "We now need to study other sites in prehistoric Britain where people lived different lifestyles, to help us understand how our ancestors' way of life affected their risk of developing infectious diseases," he said. In 2016 excavations from the site revealed that inhabitants of the settlement had a taste for high-end fashion. Excavations unearthed the earliest examples of superfine textiles ever found in Britain. University of Cambridge archaeologists unearthed more than 100 fragments of textile, unspun processed fibre and textile yarn at the site. Some of the yarn is of superfine quality – with some threads being just 100 microns (1/10 of a millimetre) in diameter, while some of the fabrics themselves are so finely woven that they have 28 threads per centimetre, fine even by modern standards. When the village was flourishing around 3000 years ago, textile manufacture seems to have been a key craft practised there.
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| Is it really a 'kissing' bug? | Around Indiana - Greensburg Daily News Posted: 30 Aug 2019 08:35 AM PDT  WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a warning regarding the Triatoma sanguisuga insect, more commonly known as the kissing bug. The statement said the bug could now be found in 12 states, including Indiana. Triatoma sanguisuga is best known for transmitting a parasitic disease known as Chagas, which can initially cause flu-like symptoms, but if left untreated can become chronic and even fatal. The kissing bug is native to Central and South America, where the CDC estimates roughly 8 million people are infected. The presence of a new vector-borne illness is always cause for alarm, but do Hoosiers need to be seriously concerned about the risks caused by kissing bugs? Catherine Hill, professor of entomology and vector biology, said not at this time. "Unless you're traveling to an area where Chagas is endemic, your risk of contracting the disease is very low. Currently, the CDC reports only one species that has the potential to transmit this disease in Indiana," Hill said. There have been no reports of locally acquired Chagas in Indiana, Hill continued. The behavior of the kissing bug and standard of housing construction in Indiana and around the United States already lower the risk of transmission compared with areas in Central and South America. "Kissing bugs are often associated with substandard housing. They're also typically most active at night. Often, they are found in sheltered spaces, like wood or rock piles, and can be common in some rural environments," Hill said. Many people believe Chagas, like Lyme disease, is transmitted through the insect's bite. This, however, is not the case. Kissing bugs pick up the disease from blood-feeding on an infected human, mammal, bird or other vertebrate, but Chagas is transmitted through the insect's feces, not its bite. "If you have an infected bug feeding on you it is likely to defecate during the feeding process," Hill said. "The feces can contain the parasite and if this is rubbed into the wound or introduced to the mucosal membrane then infection is possible." Entomologists throughout the state are still trying to determine the kissing bug's presence in Indiana. One challenge, according to Tim Gibb, professor of entomology, is that the kissing bug strongly resembles other home invading insect species, like the boxelder bug, which is common in Indiana but poses no public health risk. Often times when people report seeing a "kissing bug" it is only something that resembles it. Hill said the best way to lessen panic about Chagas and the presence of the kissing bug is for the public to educate itself through resources provided by the CDC and land-grant universities like Purdue. "Before capturing it and sending it someplace, you should educate yourself on what kissing bugs look like. Ask yourself if it really looks like a kissing bug," Hill said. If a person is fairly confident in their identification, Hill said, they should not touch the bug or squash it. Instead capture it in a bag or container and send it to an entomologist for identification. At Purdue, suspected bugs should be sent to the Plant and Pest Diagnostic Lab. If traveling to a country where Chagas is common, Hill advises the following precautions: Repellant won't work well, but staying in accommodations that are well-constructed is key, and arming yourself with information about where the bug is most prevalent can help you avoid those areas. If experiencing symptoms of Chagas after returning from a country where the disease is common, Hill advises seeking immediate medical treatment and getting tested. This will help prevent local transmission of Chagas. "There are two scenarios where I see the risk posed by Chagas increasing," she said. "That would be if we detect another species of kissing bug in the state that's a known vector of Chagas or if we detected local or domestic transmission." It's important, however, that the recent news about kissing bugs not distract from other vector-borne illnesses that currently pose a much more substantial risk than Chagas, like West Nile virus, Lyme disease and others. "We really don't want to take our eye off some of the higher-risk arthropods and diseases right now," Hill warned. "We're going into West Nile season and, in fact, West Nile has already been detected in several pools of mosquitoes around the state. As we move into late summer the risk of transmission to humans will only increase."  |
| Discovery of protein that may be key to treating tropical diseases - News-Medical.net Posted: 26 Aug 2019 11:17 PM PDT Neglected tropical diseases form a group of infectious parasitic diseases that affect a large percentage of the world population, mostly in emerging nations. Sleeping sickness affects millions in sub-Saharan Africa and is caused by the protozoan parasite, Trypanosoma brucei, which is transmitted by the tsetse fly. If left untreated, sleeping sickness is fatal. Animal trypanosomiases caused by other members of the genus Trypanosoma place additional financial and social pressures on the nations of this region. Current drugs used to treat sleeping sickness are restricted in their utility because of toxicity, severe side effects, and complicated administration. Moreover, neglected tropical diseases affect mostly those countries with the least financial or infrastructural resources to develop or deliver new therapies. Therefore, the identification of novel drug targets and the development of new drugs for these targets are pressing priorities. In a new study by researchers at the University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, they found a protein that could be the key in treating tropical diseases. The important protein in the cells of an infectious parasite may shed light on the disease pathology, and in time, open the door to less harmful treatments for millions of people.  (From left) Researchers Barbara Knoblach, Hiren Banerjee and Rick Rachubinski are now using their discovery to identify new, less toxic drugs to treat neglected tropical diseases that affect millions in Africa and South America. Image Credit: Ryan O'Byrne Protein that exists in parasites is key for viabilityA special protein, PEX3, is long believed not to exist in the parasite, trypanosome, which can be transmitted through insect bites. But, the researchers of the study published in Life Science Alliance, found that the protein is present in the parasite and is crucial for its viability. PEX3 is an important component of the cell biology of living things, including plants, humans, and trypanosome. It works by regulating peroxisomes that help in the break down of amino acids and fatty acids to create energy. In trypanosomes, they contain special peroxisomes that are important in one process – converting glucose in a host's body into energy. Hence, if therapeutics target PEX3, it could help in killing the parasite, without hurting or harming the host. PEX3 is vital for formulating new treatmentsIn light of the discovery, targeting PEX3 could be the key to finding the cure for various parasitic diseases like Chagas disease, African sleeping sickness, and leishmaniasis, which all threaten millions of people worldwide. "Finding PEX3 in trypanosomes has been very difficult. People have been looking for years and could not find it," Rick Rachubinski, a member of the U of A's Women and Children's Health Research Institute, said in a statement. "Some people said it didn't exist, that it was a different mechanism, but we believed that the simplest answer was that we just hadn't found it yet," he added. At present, the team is in the process of determining a drug treatment that could help cure tropical diseases caused by trypanosomes. They have determined a key protein that can be targeted to prevent the parasites from making enough energy to survive in the host's body. Current treatments for these diseases may become toxic to hosts. Hence, the discovery can help reduce the side effects. The search for treatments and therapies for neglected tropical diseases is a lifelong goal of one of the researchers, Rachubinski. "This one, to me, has been rewarding because it's been a constant theme throughout my career," Rachubinski said. "This is a worldwide problem, and I've always believed that affluent nations like ours should help emerging nations that don't have the resources to deal with burdens like neglected tropical diseases," he added. Trypanosomes in a viewTrypanosomes are unicellular parasitic protozoa from the Genus of the Trypanosomatidae Class. They are rampant in tropical areas, including the African continent. It is well-known as the causative agent of various human and animal diseases. For instance, trypanosomes cause sleeping sickness, which first emerged in Africa. It is now endemic in 36 sub-Saharan Africa countries, where the tsetse flies transmit the illness. The diagnosis and treatment are complex and skilled staff, or health care providers are the only ones who can give the treatment. Journal reference: Banerjee, H., Knoblack, B., and Rachubinski, R. (2019). The early-acting glycosome biogenic protein Pex3 is essential for trypanosome viability. Life Science Alliance. https://www.life-science-alliance.org/content/2/4/e201900421  |
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