All posts tagged: disease

Can We Ditch BMI for an Obesity Index That Predicts Disease Risk Better?

Can We Ditch BMI for an Obesity Index That Predicts Disease Risk Better?

Published by Miika Tikkanen

As far as obesity measures go, body mass index leaves a lot to be desired. It’s ridiculously simplistic, taking into account just two measurements: height and weight. It also doesn’t account for things like fat distribution, muscle mass, or other metrics known to influence health.  On the other hand, this simplicity makes it incredibly convenient. Combine that with research continuity and inertia (BMI has been around for almost two centuries), and you can see why we haven’t been able to ditch it. But what if there are better obesity indices out there, ones with more predictive power when it comes to disease risk? That’s the question that a study newly published in Science Bulletin is asking.  Read more: “Fat Cells May Retain a Memory of Obesity” To find an answer, a team of Chinese medical researchers analyzed health data from 4,258,033 adults between the ages of 35 and 75 years from the ChinaHEART cohort. The team compared 15 obesity indices belonging to three major groups—body shape, visceral fat, and metabolic function—examining how they were linked …

New drug reverses severe fatty liver disease by repairing the gut

New drug reverses severe fatty liver disease by repairing the gut

Published by Miika Tikkanen

An experimental drug developed at Michigan Medicine has reversed a serious form of fatty liver disease in animal studies by targeting an unexpected source of liver damage: the gut. The compound, known as DT-109, works by reducing harmful gut bacteria, protecting the intestinal lining, and preventing inflammatory substances from reaching the liver. According to findings published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, this approach successfully reversed metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) in animal models, offering a promising new strategy for treating a disease that remains difficult to manage. MASH affects approximately 7% of the world’s population. It is a severe form of fatty liver disease in which excess fat accumulates in the liver, causing inflammation and cellular damage. Over time, the condition can progress to cirrhosis, which involves extensive liver scarring, as well as liver cancer and liver failure. Although treatment options have improved in recent years, effective therapies remain limited. “We see clear evidence that DT-109 protects the gut epithelial barrier, reducing the systemic influx of harmful microbial products that are thought to contribute to …

6 Crohn’s Disease Symptoms That Have Nothing to Do with Your Gut

6 Crohn’s Disease Symptoms That Have Nothing to Do with Your Gut

Published by Jenni Sidey

Crohn’s is usually thought of as a gut problem—and technically, it is. The bowel disease can cause inflammation anywhere along the digestive tract, from the mouth to the anus, impacting all layers of the intestinal wall. This can lead to health issues like abdominal pain, rectal bleeding, and bowel urgency, and those are the symptoms that often motivate people to see a GI doctor. But up to roughly 40% of people with an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) experience symptoms outside of the gut, according to the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation. These extraintestinal manifestations, as they’re called, sometimes show up months or even years before someone hears the words “You have Crohn’s disease.” So while the gut tends to get all the attention when Crohn’s comes up, the disease is actually an immune system issue that can trigger inflammation throughout the body. “It gets filed under ‘GI’ because that’s where it announces itself and where we look at it, but the underlying problem is a dysregulated immune system,” says Vikas Taneja, MD, a board-certified gastroenterologist at …

Science Corporation implants its vision-restoring chip in its first Stargardt disease patient

Science Corporation implants its vision-restoring chip in its first Stargardt disease patient

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Science Corporation CEO Max Hodak announced that the company has implanted its vision-restoring chip, PRIMA, into its first patient with Stargardt disease, an inherited eye disease that gradually destroys central vision. Hodak, the former president and co-founder of Neuralink, the brain implant company, explained on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt how the company’s work with PRIMA fits into its broader pursuit of a novel brain-computer interface (BCI). “The retina is part of the central nervous system,” Hodak said on stage. “We consider cochlear implants, retinal prostheses, motor prostheses, these are all different types of BCIs.” Hodak outlined a vision in which BCIs expand into a wide range of medical technology applications, rather than simply being a way to control computers. While PRIMA is commercially available in Europe for patients who’ve lost their sight to geographic atrophy, an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration, the company believes its approach can be applied to multiple diseases, including Stargardt disease, which is currently considered incurable. Stargardt disease affects the outer retina, causing the gradual death of the eye’s light-sensing …

Vaccines can’t protect us from engineered pandemics

Vaccines can’t protect us from engineered pandemics

Published by Sam Flores

Vaccines are our best defence against infectious disease, saving millions of lives each year. We desperately need better therapies, faster. But that does not make them a panacea, especially against weaponised pathogens. And weaponised pathogens are not hypothetical.  The Soviet Union, for instance, ran a top-secret bioweapons programme for decades. Tens of thousands of researchers sought to enhance many different pathogens. They even developed a weaponised strain of the smallpox virus, accepting the likelihood that use in war would also impact the Soviet population.  A subsequent smallpox outbreak in Aralsk in 1971 triggered an emergency lockdown and vaccination campaign, and was only later linked to an aerosolised smallpox test on an island in the Aral Sea. The Soviets signed the Biological Weapons Convention the following year, but maintained its bioweapons programme nevertheless. The smallpox outbreak was concealed for decades. Defectors alleged that the same program sought to engineer bacteria such as plague to resist antibiotics.  Last week, Russia reportedly quarantined hospitals, dispatched FSB security agents, and deployed personnel in protective suits following the death of …

If AI cures a disease or enables fusion, the bubble will be justified

If AI cures a disease or enables fusion, the bubble will be justified

Published by Jenni Sidey

Many tech leaders try to justify the AI bubble based on a possible cure for a disease or on enabling nuclear fusion (or rogue autonomous agents hacking websites and creating civilizations). For instance, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic recently said: I think it will actually be possible to cure most human disease in 5-10 years, as crazy as it may sound to ordinary people and frankly to biologists as well (I used to be one!).[He also claimed this week that] today we announced the Claude-led discovery of a molecular machine that we suspect could represent a new gene editing mechanism [which was quickly disputed by scientists. Nobel Prize Winner Demis Hassabis said last year]: “we can cure all disease with the help of Al… maybe within the next decade or so, I don’t see why not. These optimistic proclamations about AI have accelerated since the development of AlphaFold in 2018, an AI system that predicts a protein’s 3D structure accurately from its amino acid sequence. AlphaFold 3 subsequently moved beyond single protein structures to …

Michael J Fox honoured with humanitarian Emmy for Parkinson’s disease advocacy

Michael J Fox honoured with humanitarian Emmy for Parkinson’s disease advocacy

Published by Daniella Wilson

Michael J Fox has received a humanitarian Emmy for his dedicated advocacy on behalf of people living with Parkinson’s disease. The 65-year-old Canadian-American actor was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson’s a year after Back To The Future Part III, in which he played Marty McFly, came out in 1990. He established the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research in 2000, which has since raised over two billion dollars (£1.58 billion). At Monday night’s Emmy Awards, he was honoured with the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award for his contributions to Parkinson’s research and advocacy. Michael J. Fox accepts the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award (Reuters) Following his presentation by former The Good Wife co-star Julianna Margulies, Fox spoke of the award’s namesake and his own dedication to helping others. He said: “I learned from his example. I couldn’t have known how these lessons would resonate in my own life, until my late 20s, when my life handed me a role I wasn’t looking for. “Initially I kept my Parkinson’s diagnosis a secret. I worried it would affect my …

What are the symptoms of Alzheimer’s – and how does the disease affect men and women differently?

What are the symptoms of Alzheimer’s – and how does the disease affect men and women differently?

Published by Daniella Wilson

Although Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia, many remain unaware as to its signs and symptoms, alongside the impacts it can have. With September and World Alzheimer’s Month fast approaching, two experts have issued advice on the symptoms to look out for and how those struggling with Alzheimer’s can be better supported. What is Alzheimer’s disease? Alzheimer’s disease mostly affects older adults, but it can develop in younger people under the age of 65, when it is known as young onset Alzheimer’s disease. It is thought to be caused by a build-up of proteins in the brain which affect how the brain cells transmit messages, says the specialist dementia nursing charity Dementia UK. As time passes, more brain cells are damaged, leading to worsening symptoms, and there is currently no cure to stop or reverse the disease. World Alzheimer’s Month is in September (Alamy/PA) (Alamy/PA) Professor Arshad Rather, consultant geriatrician at Medical Express Clinic, explained that people often conflate Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, but they are not the same. Rather says: “Dementia …

Can you match the disease with the animal that spreads it?

Can you match the disease with the animal that spreads it?

Published by Sam Flores

Scientists believe diseases that jump from animals or insects to humans are spreading faster because of deforestation, urbanization and global warming. About three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases in humans come from animals, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Can you identify which creatures pass along each pathogen to humans?  Source link