{"id":8307,"date":"2017-02-27T17:36:03","date_gmt":"2017-02-27T23:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=8307"},"modified":"2017-06-22T17:30:20","modified_gmt":"2017-06-22T22:30:20","slug":"no-more-statins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2017\/02\/27\/no-more-statins\/","title":{"rendered":"No More Statins"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was briefly on statins several years ago, for six months. It made me very absent-minded; I never made it to the painful muscles stage. But I had always wondered about the functional<\/del> of cholesterol in the blood. Michael Brooks\u00a0finally tells me<\/a> in NewScientist<\/strong><\/em> (11 February 2017):<\/p>\n

A fatty biomolecule synthesised primarily in the liver, cholesterol forms cell walls and the myelin sheaths that protect neurons in the brain. It plays a part in biological processes from cell signalling to making vitamin D, and may even help fight infections<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So it has its uses. Michael Le Page, in the same issue of NewScientist<\/strong><\/em>, reports<\/a> on a target for gene editing – basically, get a treatment and go off of statins forever:<\/p>\n

In 2005, it was discovered that a few people naturally have very low cholesterol levels, thanks to mutations that prevent their livers from making a protein called PCSK9. \u201cThey have a lower incidence of cardiovascular disease and no apparent side effects whatsoever,\u201d says Gilles Lambert at the University of Reunion Island, who studies PCSK9.<\/p>\n

The PCSK9 protein normally circulates in the blood, where it degrades a protein found on the surface of blood vessels. This second protein removes LDL cholesterol from the blood: the faster it is degraded by PCSK9, the higher a person\u2019s cholesterol levels. But people who lack PCSK9 due to genetic mutations have more of this LDL-removal protein, and therefore less cholesterol in their blood.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Drugs were developed to reduce PCSK9, but they turn out to be expensive and cumbersome to use.<\/p>\n

But gene editing provides a radical alternative. Using the CRISPR technique, the team at AstraZeneca have disabled human versions of the PCSK9<\/em> gene in mice.<\/p>\n

They did this by injecting the CRISPR Cas 9 protein and a guiding RNA sequence into the animals. The RNA guide helps the Cas9 protein bind to a specific site in the gene. It then cuts the gene at that point, and when the break is repaired, errors that disable the gene are likely to be introduced.<\/p>\n

There was an even bigger fall in cholesterol levels<\/a> in the mice given the CRISPR treatment than in those injected with the antibody drugs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They still see human trials starting in about a decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was briefly on statins several years ago, for six months. It made me very absent-minded; I never made it to the painful muscles stage. But I had always wondered about the functional of cholesterol in the blood. Michael Brooks\u00a0finally tells me in NewScientist (11 February 2017): A fatty biomolecule \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8307"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10013,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8307\/revisions\/10013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}