While the world was freaking out over the Starbucks Red Cup controversy, Canadian scientists made history.
And yet virtually no one knows about it.
On November 8, CTV News reported that Canadian scientists made history by breaking through one of the toughest layers of the human body: the blood-brain barrier.
What exactly does this mean? It means that these scientists have potentially discovered gateway to improve the treatments of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and even brain tumors.
This breakthrough is huge. Before this discovery, doctors had a lot of difficulties getting through to the blood-brain barrier. According to John Hopkins University, the blood-brain barrier "is a dynamic interface that separates the brain from the circulatory system and protects the central nervous system (CNS) from potentially harmful chemicals while regulating transport of essential molecules and maintaining a stable environment." Now that this barrier can be penetrated, it gives doctors the option to treat the brain in ways not possible before hand.
This breakthrough in the scientific field has the potential to help the 5.3 million Americans diagnosed with Alzheimer's, the one million Americans diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and the estimated 22,850 American adults who are predicted to be diagnosed with a brain tumor.
This procedure, which is essentially an ultrasound, has been tested on animals and is now starting human trials.
If proven effective, this procedure will allow critical treatment drugs to enter the brain in ways it never could before - and potentially save millions of lives.
This also means that the survival rate for those diagnosed with brain tumors could increase. Right now, the survival rate for different kinds of brain cancer ranges from 6 percent to 92 percent. These percentages of survival have multiple factors to them, such as the age of the patient and the type of cancer that they have.
No matter what the survival rate is of a specific kind of cancer, this new procedure could increase the survival rates incredibly. Those who have a disease of the brain have a silver lining in their sights.
Do you really care about that Starbucks cup now?