NAIROBI, Kenya- A new study suggests that olive oil could lower the risk of dying from dementia.
The research, by Harvard scientists and published in the journal JAMA Network Open, linked around half a tablespoon of olive oil eaten daily to a 28pc lower risk of dementia-related death.
An experimental gene therapy has restored some vision in patients with inherited blindness.
The trial used CRISPR gene editing and doctors said the results provided “proof of concept” that these technologies could be used to treat inherited retinal disorders.
This study is the first time that CRISPR has been used in the eyes of living people.
“The results of this study provide proof of concept that CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing can be used safely and effectively to treat inherited retinal disorders,” said the study’s first author Dr. Eric Pierce, director of the Ocular Genomics Institute at Mass Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School.
The trial was funded by the biotechnology company Editas Medicine and conducted in the United States by researchers at Mass Eye and Ear of the Mass General Brigham health care system and other US-based institutions, including the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, the University of Miami, and Oregon Health & Science University.
“We’re really hopeful that CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technologies will now be applied to other genetic forms of inherited blindness, and indeed other genetic diseases in general,” Pierce said.
“We’re hoping this will help open the era of therapeutic use of CRISPR-Cas9 technologies.”
The trial, which started in 2019, enrolled 12 adults, ages 17 to 63, and two children, ages 9 and 14, with inherited retinal degeneration caused by mutations in the CEP290 gene.
That gene provides instructions for making a protein involved in many types of cells, including light receptor cells in the eyes.
Mutations in CEP290 are the most common cause of severe early-onset retinal degeneration, which causes vision loss in children.
