Does TTIP mean the privatisation of the NHS?
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The forgotten violence that helped India break free from colonial rule
The popular view of India’s journey to independence from British rule is the famous story of Mohandas Gandhi’s extraordinary campaign of non-violent protest. It is a heritage still marked today during international state visits.
But there was another, often forgotten – and much less peaceful – side to the struggle for Indian independence.
British colonial rule in India had been established through a series of wars fought across the subcontinent from the mid-18th century onwards. It was bloody and gradual, and rested on a thin foundation of coercion and military dominance.
This was made painfully clear by the uprising of 1857, in which a series of rebellions erupted across northern India, seriously undermining imperial confidence. Although the mutiny was crushed, the memory of it continued to inspire generations of Indian anti-colonialists, who would later refer to it as the First War of Independence.
While the events of 1857 were described by the colonial authorities in various terms including “mutiny”, “rebellion” and “insurgency”, the first act of anti-colonial violence to be given the label of “terrorism”, was carried out 40 years later.
In 1897, two brothers assassinated WC Rand, a civil service officer responsible for dealing with an outbreak of bubonic plague in the city of Pune, whose measures of forced home entry, bodily examinations and segregation were considered extremely heavy-handed.
Later, after colonial officials decided to partition the prosperous province of Bengal in 1905, non-violent forms of popular protest were accompanied by the growth of secret cells of revolutionaries who sought to undermine British imperial authority using targeted assassinations and bomb attacks.
Even though the partition was annulled in 1911, the revolutionary organisations it spawned did not disappear. In fact, they expanded massively.
On November 1 1913, Indian revolutionaries living in San Francisco published the first issue of Ghadar, or Mutiny, a radical weekly newspaper that quickly developed a global readership. By the summer of 1914, the Ghadar Party they founded was an international organisation, with more than 6,000 members and networks throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.
In February 1915, revolutionaries connected to the Ghadar party attempted to overthrow British rule through an ambitious uprising across northern India. Led by Rash Behari Bose, a veteran revolutionary who had personally attempted to assassinate the Viceroy of India in 1912, the revolutionaries tried to convince the Indian Army to mutiny by disseminating propaganda in Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Meerut.
The plot was foiled after a British-paid spy penetrated the organisation, prompting a huge crackdown in which hundreds of radicals were detained. Bose was forced to flee India, escaping to Japan where he would live out the rest of his life in exile.
The following month, Ghadar revolutionaries in the US acquired two ships, the Annie Larsen and the Maverick. They planned to land a huge arms shipment in Calcutta on Christmas Day. It was timed to coincide with another planned uprising in Burma, then still a part of British India, and a raid on the prison islands of the Andamans, in which incarcerated radicals would be liberated to take up arms against the British.
Like the February uprising, the Christmas Day plot was detected and foiled by the colonial intelligence services, which had expanded their operations to a global scale in response to the transnational reach of Ghadar.
With the implementation of strict wartime legislation such as the Defence of India Act, 1916 was a turning point for the revolutionary campaign, which was driven underground by imperial intelligence services, who detained several hundred suspected revolutionaries.
India’s revolutionary organisations did not vanish after World War I. As the war measures expired, the colonial government implemented the 1919 Rowlatt Act in an effort to extend executive powers into the postwar period. The proposed legislation permitted suspects to be interned without trial and allowed political cases to be tried without juries. This provoked outrage among the majority of the Indian population, who viewed it as an insult to their loyal service during the war.
At a gathering in Amritsar in April 1919, imperial troops opened fire on a crowd of unarmed protesters, killing at least 379 people and sparking nationwide anger.
Peace in his time
This is the context in which Mohandas Gandhi (usually called Mahatma out of respect) emerged to lead the Indian nationalist movement, which he rallied with a message of peaceful non-cooperation and non-violent resistance. Nonetheless, the more violent anti-colonial organisations formed in the years before and after World War I influenced both anti-colonial politics and imperial security right up until India’s independence and partition in 1947.
After the Second World War, many British officials were unsettled by fear of the Indian National Army, a military organisation made up of Indian prisoners of war released from Japanese custody and led by the famous nationalist Subhas Chandra Bose.
Despite being defeated militarily, the INA strengthened British unease that the continued occupation of India would be met by violent resistance. Following the end of the war, the trial of INA prisoners provided a serious problem for colonial legitimacy and helped to stoke the mass nationalism that forced Britain to withdraw in 1947.
So while it is the memory of Gandhi and non-violence that is now marked by British politicians when they visit India, the other side to the story is very real, and should not be forgotten.
Recalling the history of Indian revolutionaries isn’t just a matter of filling in historical gaps. It can help us gain some perspective on modern society by looking at the recent past.
And now a visit to India by the British Prime Minister Theresa May has included a pledge with the Indian PM Narendra Modi that India and the UK will work together to fight terrorism in both countries. It is not known whether or not they discussed the role that terrorism played in securing India’s independence from Britain. But perhaps they should have done – they would have had plenty to talk about.
Joseph McQuade receives funding from the Gates Cambridge Trust.
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We’ll be factchecking Prime Minister’s Questions from noon
The post We’ll be factchecking Prime Minister’s Questions from noon appeared first on Full Fact.
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DWP uses ‘made up’ claimants in benefits leaflet
A benefits leaflet published by the Department for Work and Pensions contained 'made up' claimants, which have now been removed.
The post DWP uses ‘made up’ claimants in benefits leaflet appeared first on Full Fact.
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Case 325 – Hot drinks not to be taken through the gate when boarding aircraft
Tannoy system announced that hot drinks could not be taken through the gate when boarding aircraft due to ‘Health and Safety’ regulations.
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A very old problem: Productivity in Britain
Britain has a productivity problem. Although on average we work longer hours than Germany and France, we actually produce less per worker than they do...
The post A very old problem: Productivity in Britain appeared first on Full Fact.
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Is EU immigration to blame for missing the net migration target?
“We have seen many more people from the EU coming to Britain than originally anticipated, principally because our economy has been growing so much more rapidly and creating more jobs than other EU countries. As a result, our action has not been enough to cut annual net migration to the tens of thousands.”—Conservative Manifesto The […]
The post Is EU immigration to blame for missing the net migration target? appeared first on Full Fact.
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Is Greenpeace right to say S. Africa is the world’s third best solar location?
A cartoon image that went viral on Facebook depicted South Africa as the third best solar location globally. How on earth do you measure and rank that?
The post Is Greenpeace right to say S. Africa is the world’s third best solar location? appeared first on Africa Check.
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Regret your vote? Why that might not be such a bad thing
The Liberal Democrats have been left reeling by the collapse of their vote in the 2015 election, which has left them with just eight MPs in parliament. But within just a few days of the blow, something surprising started to happen – the party was experiencing one of the largest surges of support in years.
Around 8,000 people signed up to membership in the days after the election – amounting to a new member every 39 seconds, according to the party.
Labour support is also on the rise, with 20,000 new members since election day. It may be that the new members are seeking to have a say in who the new party leaders will be now that Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg have stood down. But the increase in support in response to such a negative outcome for the parties may, in part, come down to psychology too. These new party members may well be experiencing voter regret.
People tend to think not only about how things are, but also how they might have been. Psychologists call this counterfactual thinking. When an election doesn’t go the way of our vote, we imagine how things could have turned out differently.
Counterfactual thinking leads us to experience complex emotions – and, most commonly, regret. The experience of regret is a particularly interesting psychological phenomenon. We imagine how the world might have been better and that makes us feel even worse about the current state of affairs. In other words, our reactions to events aren’t just based on reality. We let imagined worlds colour our experiences as well.
Commenting on his brother Ed’s leadership, election loss and resignation, former Labour minister David Miliband said: “There’s no point in trying to press the rewind button in life.” But, in fact, people do imagine a rewind button and pressing it can often have positive consequences.
There are likely to be lots of counterfactual thoughts about the election in part because everyone seems to agree the result was a surprise. The two main parties were tied in opinion polls, and most pundits said the next government would be a coalition. We like to speculate about what might have been when things are unexpected, because in doing so we seek to understand them: why did this happen? Why was the prediction wrong?
Voter’s regret
The very fact that people voted may lead them to feel more regret about the outcome of the election because people tend to feel more regret for outcomes they are personally involved in. Those who didn’t vote will find it easier to just walk away.
What’s more, we engage in more counterfactual thinking when things go badly than when they go well. Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband are more likely to be wondering about what they could have done differently in the election campaign than Cameron is. So if you deliberated over voting tactically, and the result was not what you hoped, you may have been preoccupied with thoughts of what would have happened if you (and others like you) had voted differently.
People might even find themselves regretting the act of voting itself. Indeed, in the heat of the moment, we tend to regret things we have done rather than things we did not do. It’s some consolation, though, to know that in the longer term, these intense regrets fade in importance compared to regrets for not acting.
The silver lining
One puzzle for psychologists is why we feel regret at all. At first glance, it seems like it just makes us feel worse about things. But this negative emotion helps us make better decisions in the future. Experiencing regret helps us to understand why things happened and what we could have done differently to avoid them. Very young children don’t experience regret, but as they get older and start to think about what might have been, they also use this experience to make better choices in the future.
However, the negative consequences of counterfactual thinking can help us understand the world and spur us in to action. Indeed, this might provide a clue to the increase in party membership after disappointing election results.
In trying to understand where the campaign went wrong, voters will imagine counterfactual worlds in which different choices were made and resulted in a more positive outcome. These counterfactual thoughts might encourage people to think about how their actions could help to bring about a better political future. And for that reason, experiencing regret and disappointment might be the beginning of a path to more political engagement in the future.
Sarah Beck receives funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council. She has previously been funded by the British Academy and the Experimental Psychology Society.
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Lord Janner prosecution: process or plot?
“Ruling raises new fears of establishment cover-up”—The Times, 16 April 2015 The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said yesterday that it would not prosecute Lord Janner, a Labour peer, in relation to alleged sex offences between 1969 and 1988. The CPS is responsible for prosecuting alleged offences in England and Wales. After the police investigate an allegation they […]
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Did the VAT rise cost families £450 a year?
The post Did the VAT rise cost families £450 a year? appeared first on Full Fact.
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Will one in three women in SA be raped? Blow the Whistle wrong again
The claim that one in three women in South Africa will be raped in her lifetime is not supported by any data. Inaccurate claims undermine the effort to tackle the true rape crisis.
The post Will one in three women in SA be raped? Blow the Whistle wrong again appeared first on Africa Check.
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Not only SA’s cabinet gets VIP protection, Maimane – DA leaders do too
The leader of the official opposition in South Africa, Mmusi Maimane, has claimed that VIP security for the country’s cabinet exceeds the number of security personnel at its borders. But this is misleading.
The post Not only SA’s cabinet gets VIP protection, Maimane – DA leaders do too appeared first on Africa Check.
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Paracetamol may blunt feelings of pleasure as well as pain
"Paracetamol may dull emotions as well as physical pain, new study shows'," The Guardian reports.
The story comes from research testing whether over-the-counter painkiller paracetamol can blunt not just the feeling of pain, but also emotions.
Half the study’s 80 participants were given a normal dose of paracetamol, while the other half took a placebo pill. They were then asked to view photos commonly used by researchers to test both positive and negative emotional responses. These included, for instance, unpleasant pictures of crying, malnourished children and pleasant images, such as children playing with cats.
The study found that those who had taken paracetamol reported slightly less intense reactions to the photos than those who had taken a placebo pill. They also found the photos less emotionally arousing.
The researchers speculated that paracetamol may affect signalling pathways inside the brain, which may have an effect on mood.
However, far more research is needed before any conclusions can be drawn as to whether the painkiller can dull emotional reactions, particularly real life events.
If you are taking paracetamol on a long-term basis due to a chronic pain condition, and feel that you are less emotionally engaged than you used to be, you could discuss alternative treatment options with your GP.
Where did the story come from?
The study was carried out by researchers from Ohio State University and was funded by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.
The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Psychological Science.
Most newspapers reported the research accurately, if uncritically, although The Guardian mentioned at the end of its story that the differences between the two groups were not large.
Confusingly for UK readers, the Mail Online’s report used the US generic name for paracetamol, which is acetaminophen, and also the US brand Tylenol. Although these were the names used in the US paper, it is usual practice to use UK generic names when reporting research for a UK audience.
What kind of research was this?
This was a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to test whether taking paracetamol can blunt emotional reactions to negative and positive images.
The authors say the drug has recently been shown to blunt people’s reactions to a range of emotionally negative stimuli, in addition to reducing physical pain. For example, they say it has been found to blunt feelings of hurt in social relationships and reduce the discomfort felt in making difficult decisions. They suggest that this may be due to its neurochemical effects on the brain, and the drug may reduce positive reactions as well as negative ones.
What did the research involve?
The researchers carried out two studies involving 82 college students in the first and 85 in the second. The students were randomly assigned to be given either 1,000 milligrams of paracetamol (the maximum dose) or an identical-looking placebo, both in liquid form. They then waited 60 minutes for the drug to take effect.
Participants then viewed 40 photographs selected from a database (International Affective Picture System) used by researchers to elicit emotional responses. These consisted of 10 extremely unpleasant photos (such as crying, malnourished children), five moderately unpleasant, 10 "neutral" images (such as a cow in a field), five moderately pleasant images and 10 extremely pleasant images (for example, young children playing with cats).
In the first study, after viewing each photo, participants were asked to rate how positive or negative the photo was on a scale of -5 (extremely negative) to +5 (extremely positive). They were then asked to view all 40 images again in a different, random order and asked to rate how much the photo made them feel an emotional reaction, from 0 (little or no emotion) to 10 (an extreme amount of emotion).
In the second study, participants saw all the images again in a different randomised order and were asked to make the same judgments of evaluation and emotional reactions as in the previous study. Additionally, participants in this second study also reported how much blue they saw in each photo, using an 11-point scale from 0 (the picture has no blue colour) to 10 (the picture is 100% blue). This was to test whether paracetamol blunts individuals' broader judgments "of magnitude", not just of emotional content.
The researchers then calculated average scores for participants’ evaluations and emotional arousal toward all 40 pictures, and for evaluation and emotional arousal towards neutral, positive and negative images.
What were the basic results?
Results in both studies showed that, overall, participants who took paracetamol rated all the photographs less intensely than those in the placebo group.
In other words, they evaluated unpleasant stimuli (anything that triggers a psychological or physical response) less negatively, and pleasant stimuli less positively than those who took a placebo.
They also rated both positive and negative images as less emotionally arousing than those taking a placebo.
There was no difference between the two groups in the rating of the degree of colour in each image.
How did the researchers interpret the results?
The researchers conclude that paracetamol reduces the intensity of both negative and positive emotions. "Rather than being labelled as merely a pain reliever, acetaminophen [paracetamol] might be better described as an all-purpose emotion reliever," they argue.
They speculate that the drug elicits neurochemical changes which affect evaluative psychological processes and that it might change sensitivity to emotional stimuli more generally – for example, causing someone to feel less joy at a wedding.
Conclusion
This small study found some slight differences in the way a group of people taking paracetamol reacted to a range of images, compared to a group of people taking a placebo.
Though an RCT is the "gold standard" of studies for determining whether a medication causes an effect, both groups need to be evenly matched for a variety of potentially confounding factors.
There is no information about the participants, other than the impression that they are all students, as they were given course credits for partaking in the study. It is not clear whether the groups were matched in terms of age, sex, ethnicity, whether they had children, or indeed whether they liked cats.
The study is interesting, but no conclusions can be drawn as to whether paracetamol can dull emotional reactions to real life events.
While learning more about different chemicals’ effects on the brain and mood could lead to new treatments, this research has no immediately obvious clinical implications.
Therefore, further research is required into the potential side effects of this popular and effective painkiller.
Analysis by Bazian. Edited by NHS Choices. Follow Behind the Headlines on Twitter. Join the Healthy Evidence forum.
Links To The Headlines
Paracetamol may dull emotions as well as physical pain, new study shows. The Guardian, April 14 2015
Paracetamol kills feelings of pleasure as well as pain. The Daily Telegraph, April 14 2015
Paracetamol can dull positive and negative emotions, study finds. The Independent, April 14 2015
Paracetamol dulls pleasure as well as pain. The Times, April 15 2015
How Tylenol blunts your emotions: Popular painkiller can reduce feelings of sadness AND happiness, claims study. Mail Online, April 14 2015
Links To Science
Durso GRO, Luttrell A, Way BM. Over-the-Counter Relief From Pains and Pleasures Alike - Acetaminophen Blunts Evaluation Sensitivity to Both Negative and Positive Stimuli. Psychological Science. Published online April 10 2015
Eating one egg a day may lower risk of stroke
"An egg a day can cut chances of suffering a fatal stroke," The Times reports. A new review of existing data covering around 300,000 people suggests eating up to one egg a day may lower stroke risk; but not the risk of heart disease.
The health effects of eggs have been debated for years. Eggs, which contain cholesterol, were thought to increase risk of heart disease by raising cholesterol levels.
But more recent studies show that cholesterol in food has little impact on the levels of cholesterol in your blood – most cholesterol in the blood is made by the liver.
Researchers wanted to carry out an updated analysis of the evidence on the link between eating eggs and the risk of stroke and heart disease.
The analysis found no link with heart disease and a small reduced risk (12%) of stroke for people who ate around one egg a day, compared to those who ate less than two a week.
The research supports the idea that eggs can be part of a healthy diet. However, it didn't look at people's whole diet, so we don't know what else they were eating, or how the eggs were prepared.
Also, the researchers didn't find that more was better – there was no evidence that people reduced their risk in line with the number of eggs they ate.
Eggs are a good source of protein, vitamins and minerals, so adding one a day to your breakfast could be a healthy way to start the day.
Where did the story come from?
The study was carried out by researchers from the EpidStat Institute in Michigan and DLW Consulting Services in Utah, both in the US, and was funded by the Egg Nutrition Center. This could be seen as a conflict of interest.
The study was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American College of Nutrition.
The news was greeted with enthusiasm and little criticism by the UK media. Most reported the study results reasonably accurately.
Both The Sun and the Daily Mirror described the modest 12% drop in relative risk as having "slashed" stroke risk, which is something of an exaggeration.
Although several reports included quotes from the Egg Nutrition Center, none pointed out that the centre had funded the study.
The Egg Nutrition Center is the self-styled "science and nutrition education division" of the American Egg Board (AEB), which is a trade association representing American egg farmers.
The Times' headline stated that eating eggs could cut chances of having a "fatal" stroke, but the study did not find a statistically significant difference in risk of fatal stroke from egg consumption.
What kind of research was this?
This is a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies into egg consumption and heart disease and stroke.
A meta-analysis is a good way of summarising the research on a topic; however it's only as good as the studies included. In this case, all were prospective cohort studies.
Cohort studies can find links between factors (egg consumption and heart disease or stroke) but cannot show that one factor causes another.
What did the research involve?
Researchers identified all prospective studies published up to August 2015, which looked at egg consumption by adults and either heart disease or stroke.
They pooled the results and looked to see whether high egg consumption compared to low egg consumption had any effect on these outcomes. They also looked for a "dose response" – a suggestion that risk went up or down in line with the number of eggs people ate each week.
Most of the studies classified high egg consumption as about an egg a day, and low egg consumption as less than two eggs a week.
Most, but not all, adjusted their figures to take account of confounding factors that can affect risk of heart disease and stroke, such as:
- weight
- age
- sex
- smoking history
- exercise
- (in a few cases) how healthy participants' diet was overall
The researchers did standard tests to look for publication bias and to see whether the summary results were overly affected by one or more studies.
What were the basic results?
People whose egg consumption was high were no more or less likely to get heart disease (summary relative risk estimate (SRRE) 0.97; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.88 to 1.07) than people whose egg consumption was low. This result was based on seven studies including 276,000 people.
However, people who ate an egg per day were 12% less likely to have a stroke than people who ate less than two eggs per week (SRRE 0.88, 95% CI 0.81 to 0.97). This was based on seven studies including 308,000 people.
The researchers found no sign that the stroke risk decreased in proportion to the number of eggs eaten.
How did the researchers interpret the results?
The researchers concluded: "consumption of up to one egg daily may contribute to a decreased risk of total stroke [all types of stroke] and daily egg intake does not appear to be associated with risk of coronary heart disease."
Conclusion
This research broadly supports previous studies in this area, which suggest eating eggs does not increase the chances of getting heart disease or stroke. It raises the possibility that eggs may decrease the risk of having a stroke, but there are limitations to the study, meaning this result may not be reliable.
It's interesting that researchers did not find a "dose response" between stroke risk and the number of eggs eaten. Usually, if something is having an effect on the chances of getting a condition, you can see a linear pattern – having more of that food or treatment increases or decreases chances of the disease, perhaps up to a certain point. But in this case, you can't see any clear pattern.
Studies that identify just one factor – in this case people's egg consumption –without balancing that with information about their overall diet and lifestyle, may find false associations that are actually explained by other factors. For example, people who eat eggs may be more likely to eat a generally healthy diet, or to exercise more, both of which would decrease the chances of stroke.
Another factor to be aware of is that the 12% risk reduction is quite small, and the confidence interval comes fairly close to the point at which the result is no longer statistically significant. This means it is close to the margin of error, so could be down to chance or a blip in the data.
It is important to remember to eat a balanced diet, rather than just assuming one type of food is best. There's a big difference between eating a daily boiled or poached egg with wholegrain toast and spinach, or eating an egg as part of a daily fry-up full of salt and fat.
Read more advice about preventing strokes.
Links To The Headlines
An egg a day can cut chances of suffering a fatal stroke. The Times, November 2 2016 (subscription required)
Going to work on an egg can cut stroke risk. The Daily Telegraph, November 2 2016
Why eggs really are good for you: Having just ONE a day 'reduces the risk of having a stroke by 12%'. Mail Online, November 2 2016
Eating an egg a day ‘keeps STROKE at bay – slashing your risk by 12%'. The Sun, November 2 2016
Eating one egg a day 'slashes the risk of a stroke by 12%'. Daily Mirror, November 1 2016
Links To Science
Alexander DD, Miller PE, Vargas AJ, et al. Meta-analysis of Egg Consumption and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease and Stroke. Journal of the American College of Nutrition. Published online October 6 2016
Gene editing technique could prevent inherited diseases
"Researchers in the US have raised hopes for a simple genetic therapy that could prevent devastating diseases being passed on from mothers to their children," The Guardian reports.
The diseases in question are known as mitochondrial diseases, where mutations occur in mitochondria: a small section of DNA that is passed directly from mother to child.
Some children born with mitochondrial diseases can develop symptoms including muscle weakness, intestinal disorders and heart disease – and have reduced life expectancy.
One option to treat this, as we have discussed several times, is so-called "three-parent IVF", where unhealthy mitochondria are replaced by donor mitochondria.
This new technique from the US may offer an alternative approach.
The researchers developed a way to target and break down mutated mitochondrial DNA. They found they could successfully use this technique in mouse eggs. Once fertilised, these eggs could go on to produce healthy and fertile mice, with little of the targeted mitochondrial DNA in their cells. The technique also seemed to work on hybrid mouse-human cells carrying human mitochondrial DNA mutations in the lab.
This new technique is of interest because if it were effective and safe in humans, it could offer a way to prevent mitochondrial diseases without the need for the donor egg. Many questions remain for future studies to investigate before this technique could be considered for testing in humans.
Where did the story come from?
The study was carried out by researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and other research centres in the US, Japan, Spain and China.
The researchers were funded by the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, the US National Institutes of Health, National Basic Research Program of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China, the JDM Fund, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation, the Florida Department of Health and the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Charitable Foundation.
The study was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Cell on an open-access basis, so the study is free to read online.
Both the Guardian and The Independent cover this research reasonably. One quote from a study author suggests that: "the technique is simple enough to be easily implemented by IVF clinics around the world", but it is important to realise that much more research is needed to make sure the technique is effective and safe before it could be tested in humans.
What kind of research was this?
This was laboratory and animal research aiming to develop a new way of preventing transmission of mutations in the mitochondrial DNA. This research is appropriate for the early development of new techniques, which may eventually be used to treat human disease.
While most of our DNA is found in a compartment of our cells called the nucleus, there is some DNA within the cell’s many mitochondria. These are the energy producing "powerhouses" of the cells. Mutations in this DNA can cause a range of serious diseases affecting the organs that need a lot of energy – such as the brain and muscles.
We inherit our mitochondria from our mothers. Researchers have developed techniques to avoid passing these mutations on, involving transferring the DNA from the mother’s nucleus into a donor egg. Manipulation of human embryos is tightly controlled in the UK, and after much debate, the government recently agreed to make it legal to perform these "three-parent IVF" techniques to prevent mitochondrial diseases.
One concern with these techniques is that the child inherits mitochondrial DNA from a third person (the egg donor). The current research aimed to develop a different technique to avoid passing on mitochondrial mutations that does not involve a donor egg. It is specifically aimed at women who have a mixture of mitochondria in their cells – some carrying a disease-causing mutation and some not.
What did the research involve?
The researchers developed a technique to reduce the amount of mutation carrying mitochondrial DNA. This involved injecting into the cells genetic instructions for making a protein to be sent to the mitochondria and cut the mitochondrial DNA in a specific place. They first tested this technique on mouse egg cells that carried a mixture of two types of mitochondrial DNA, one of which could be cut by the protein (the "target" mitochondrial DNA) and one which could not. They then checked to see if it could reduce the amount of “target” mitochondrial DNA.
They then tested it on fertilised "mixed mitochondrial DNA" mouse egg cells to see if it had the same effect and whether it affected development of the embryo. They also implanted treated embryos into host mother mice to see if the offspring were born healthy and how much of the target mitochondrial DNA they carried.
Finally, they modified their technique slightly so they could use it against human mitochondrial DNA carrying disease-causing mutations. After testing this adapted technique in mice, they tested it on cells in the lab containing human mitochondria with mutations that caused one of two different mitochondrial diseases:
- Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy and dystonia (LHOND)
- neurogenic muscle weakness, ataxia and retinitis pigmentosa (NARP)
These are both rare conditions in humans that cause symptoms affecting the muscles, physical movement and vision.
These hybrid cells were created by fusing mouse egg cells and human cells carrying the mitochondrial mutations.
What were the basic results?
The researchers found that their technique reduced the amount of the target type of mitochondrial DNA in the "mixed mitochondrial DNA" mouse egg cells. Their technique performed similarly in fertilised embryos from these eggs. These embryos appeared to develop normally in the lab when examined under a microscope. The technique did not appear to affect the DNA in the mice’s nuclei.
When the treated embryos were implanted into host mothers, the offspring born also had much less of the target type of mitochondrial DNA throughout their bodies. They appeared to be healthy and develop normally in the tests performed, and could themselves produce healthy offspring. These offspring had such low levels of the target type of mitochondrial DNA that it was barely detectable.
The researchers were able to adapt their technique to target human mitochondrial mutations. It reduced the amount of mitochondrial DNA containing the LHON or NARP mutations in hybrid egg cells in the lab.
How did the researchers interpret the results?
The researchers concluded that their "approaches represent a potential therapeutic avenue for preventing the transgenerational transmission of human mitochondrial diseases caused by mutations in [mitochondrial DNA]".
Conclusion
This early research has developed a new technique to reduce the amount of mutation-carrying DNA within mitochondria. The hope is that this technique might be used in the eggs of women carrying disease-causing mitochondrial mutations.
The government has recently given the go ahead for a technique that allows a woman who carries such a disease from passing it on to her child – making the UK the first country to do so.
This technique has raised some ethical and safety concerns, as it places the woman’s chromosomes into a donor egg with healthy mitochondria. This means that once this egg is fertilised it contains DNA from three people – the DNA in the nucleus comes from the mother and father, and the mitochondrial DNA comes from the egg donor.
This new technique is of interest because if it were effective and safe in humans, it could offer a way to prevent mitochondrial diseases without the need for the donor egg. This technique shows promise, but is still in its early stages. It has thus far only been tested in mice, and in human-mouse hybrid egg cells carrying mutated human mitochondria in the lab.
It is also specifically aimed at women who have a mixture of normal and mutated mitochondrial DNA, as it relies on the normal mitochondrial DNA being there to "take over" once the mutated DNA has been reduced. It would not work in women who have only mutated mitochondria, and there may be a certain level of normal mitochondrial DNA that needs to be present for the technique to work.
All of these issues are likely to be investigated in future studies.
Analysis by Bazian. Edited by NHS Choices. Follow Behind the Headlines on Twitter. Join the Healthy Evidence forum.
Links To The Headlines
Hopes raised for new genetic therapy to prevent inherited diseases. The Guardian, April 23 2015
Scientists develop technique that could stop a genetic disease being passed on to future generations. The Independent, April 23 2015
Links To Science
Reddy P, Ocampo A, Suzuki K, et al. Selective Elimination of Mitochondrial Mutations in the Germline by Genome Editing. Cell. Published online April 23 2015
30 Mar: the importance of the EU, and your future tax bill
Today we open our 18 hour-a-day election centre, factchecking the parties, the candidates, the media, and the pressure groups as we near the vote on May 7th. Despite the parties’ efforts, only six out of eleven national papers lead on the election today. The Conservatives’ attack on Labour spending plans is picked up in The Times‘...
The post 30 Mar: the importance of the EU, and your future tax bill appeared first on Full Fact.
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CHECKED: SA President’s Youth Day claims
South African President Jacob Zuma delivered a speech yesterday to commemorate national Youth Day. Africa Check has teamed up with LiveVIPZA to factcheck his claims.
The post CHECKED: SA President’s Youth Day claims appeared first on Africa Check.
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Peer Review Week
It’s the inaugural Peer Review week, running from Monday 28th September to Friday 2nd October.
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Has the UK only taken in 216 Syrian refugees?
A number of outlets are claiming that the UK has taken in so few Syrian refugees that you could fit them all on a tube train. This is wrong.
The post Has the UK only taken in 216 Syrian refugees? appeared first on Full Fact.
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