Tag Archive for: hope

Hold on to Hope

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Basic science research is critical to finding cures for degenerative conditions and diseases; a recently published study illustrates how that happens. Researchers identified a cell receptor that regulated muscle and bone cell metabolism called GRP133 about 15 years ago. Recent research has shown that a protein called AP503 can be a receptor agonist for GRP133, necessary to activate the production of bone and muscle-cell production. Recent research in mice has shown that it can reverse osteoporosis and sarcopenia in mice. (If you’re thinking that this sounds like the GLP-1 agonists for diabetes and weight loss, you’d be correct.)

This may prove to be a whole or partial solution for osteoporosis—in about 10 or 15 years, that is. There’s a lot of testing that has to happen before it’s ready for human use. The key is to make sure that there are no other side effects of taking AP503, which could cause more serious problems than it solves. But for now, it provides hope.

One of the feelings this time of year brings is hope. No matter what your health issues are, from the inconvenient—such as going bald—or a serious disorder, we hope there will be a solution, partial or complete, as basic science continues and leads to new ways of treatment. Since the completion of the genome projects decades ago, I’ve believed that.

The key is to do everything you can do today to live long enough to see the science come to fruition with the solution.  There is hope.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: Signal Trans Target Ther. 2025 Jun 30;10:199. doi: 10.1038/s41392-025-02291-y

Why We Need Hope

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I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving and were as safe as possible. The COVID-19 seven-day average continues to stay over 150,000 cases per day. We’ll find out in a couple weeks how we did during the Thanksgiving holiday related to masking and social distancing. It’s difficult to be without family and friends, especially over the holidays, but the one thing we can take solace in is that this is temporary; the better we all follow the rules, the sooner we can all be together again.

It reminds me of an interview a well-known business advisor had with a prisoner of war in Viet Nam years after the war ended. He asked who did better in captivity—people who were optimistic about rescue or those who decided they would simply endure? The answer surprised him: the optimists did far worse than other POWs. The optimists would say, “We’ll be out by Christmas for sure!” Then Christmas would come and go, so they would pick the next significant event and say the same thing. The events would pass, one after another, and soon, the optimists lost all hope.

Don’t do that. One thing we have is hope. The current treatments for those who get COVID are better than six months ago, and they will be better tomorrow as we learn more about the disease. Vaccinations will start soon and while the distribution will take time, there’s hope for those who are most at risk. If we do all we can with the things we can control, there will be an end to this. We don’t know exactly when that will be, but it will happen. Until then we grind it out, we endure. We’re tougher than we think we are. Let’s prove it.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet