With the global population ageing rapidly, sarcopenia, a condition that affects millions of older adults and severely diminishes their quality of life, is emerging as an urgent public health issue. Now, a new discovery by scientists at Duke-NUS Medical School could lead to improved treatments for the condition. In the study, published in the journal Autophagy, the scientists found that the levels of a certain type of protein, called DEAF1 (Deformed epidermal autoregulatory factor-1), need to be maintained within optimal levels ...

Severe autoimmune conditions such Type I diabetes, Addison’s disease, lupus and inflammatory bowel disease, are between two to three times more common in women who have been diagnosed with premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) compared to the general population.   The research, published today (Thursday) in Human Reproduction, one of the world’s leading reproductive medicine journals, is the largest to investigate the link between autoimmune conditions and POI, has followed nearly 20,000 women for ...

Remote video consultations between patients and mental health specialists show a small but significant improvement on symptoms of depression and anxiety, finds a trial published by The BMJ today.   Although the effect size is small, the researchers say the effect is still meaningful given the high levels of these disorders in the community. Globally, depression and anxiety disorders are among the top leading causes of years lived with disability, but most people with depression and anxiety ...

The safety and effectiveness of donanemab - an Alzheimer’s drug recently approved by the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) - is called into question in an investigation published by The BMJ today. Journalists Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee explore concerns not only about its effectiveness and the number of deaths among patients taking the drug, but also about financial ties to drug makers among the “independent” advisory panellists who recommended approval. Donanemab, developed by Eli Lilly, is the latest in a new class ...

Budgetary decisions by commissioners across England are affecting GPs’ ability to offer their patients what most people regard as essential services and forcing some practices to close, an investigation by The BMJ has found. This year, eight in 10 Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) - responsible for planning health services for their local population - either reduced or froze discretionary funding for general practices as a proportion of their overall budget for services such as taking blood, wound care, ...

Women worldwide could see better treatment with new AI technology which enables better detection of damaged cells and more precisely predict the risk of getting breast cancer, shows new research from the University of Copenhagen. Breast cancer is one of the most common types of cancer. In 2022, the disease caused 670,000 deaths worldwide. Now, a new study from the University of Copenhagen shows that AI can help women with improved treatment by scanning for irregular-looking cells to give better risk assessment. The study, published in The Lancet Digital Health, found that the AI technology was far better at predicting risk of cancer ...

(Thursday, 26 September 2024) Novel research, presented today at the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) Congress 2024, has identified key molecular targets that could significantly enhance the healing of both acute and chronic wounds.1  These findings represent a crucial advancement in wound care, paving the way for more effective treatment options and improved patient outcomes. Globally, acute and chronic wounds affect nearly one billion people.2 In particular, chronic wounds pose a substantial economic burden on healthcare systems and severely impact ...

The five largest continental transform earthquakes since 2000 all originated on a branch of the main fault—and two researchers predict that the next great earthquake of this type will also get its start on a branch or splay fault. Last year’s magnitude 7.8 Pazarcık earthquake in Türkiye was one of these large and damaging earthquakes, where two continental tectonic plates slide past each other horizontally. That earthquake began on a branch fault, as did the 2001 magnitude 7.8 Kokoxili earthquake in northern Tibet, the 2002 magnitude 7.9 Denali earthquake in Alaska, the 2008 magnitude 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake in China, and the 2016 ...

(Thursday, 26 September 2024, Amsterdam, Netherlands) Innovative research has unveiled promising advancements in melanoma detection, which could significantly enhance diagnosis and prognosis by identifying the disease at its earliest, most treatable stages.1 This new method, presented today at the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) Congress 2024, uses tumour-specific profiling to detect antibodies unique to stage I and II melanoma patients. Melanoma, a skin cancer with a high mutation rate,2 ...

Whether it’s a sore arm or a fear of injections, how a child is treated when they present with pain could significantly affect how they respond to and manage pain later in life.   In a new study from the University of South Australia, researchers say that parents and doctors should be mindful of how they talk to and treat children experiencing pain – no matter how big or small the injury – knowing that these foundational experiences can be carried forward into adulthood.   Drawing from diverse research across developmental psychology, child mental health, and pain sciences, researchers say that it may be important to validate children’s pain by ...

PHILADELPHIA – Adults with hemophilia B saw their number of bleeding episodes drop by an average of 71 percent after a single infusion of gene therapy, according to the results of an international Phase III clinical trial published today in the New England Journal of Medicine by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and a multicenter group of investigators. Hemophilia is a genetic disorder that limits the blood’s ability to clot and affects around 30,000 people in the United States, ...

An international placebo-controlled study led by Cedars-Sinai suggests that a targeted drug therapy that was developed by researchers at Cedars-Sinai is safe and effective at helping people with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis reach clinical remission. Results from the multicenter Phase II study, ARTEMIS-UC, were published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Ulcerative colitis is a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that damages the digestive tract, causing stomach cramping, diarrhea, weight loss and rectal bleeding. ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – In people with primary progressive multiple sclerosis (MS), a new study has found no difference in the amount of time before disability worsened between people taking certain medications and those not receiving treatment. The study is published in the September 25, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. With MS, the body’s immune system attacks myelin, the fatty, white substance that insulates and protects the nerves. People with ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2024 MINNEAPOLIS – LGBTQ+ people may be more likely to have negative brain health outcomes, including a higher risk of dementia and late-life depression, than people who are cisgender and straight, according to a study published in the September 25, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. These results do not prove that sexual or gender diversity causes neurological diseases, they only show an association. LGBTQ+ refers to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, ...

ST. LOUIS, MO, September 25, 2024 – After an extensive search, The Academy of Science of St. Louis has named Katherine Polokonis as the next Executive Director. “After a rigorous search, we are looking forward to Kate’s transformational leadership of The Academy of Science,” said Toni Kutchan, PhD, president of the Board of Trustees of the Academy and member emerita, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. “Kate's comprehensive experience in STEM education and passion for social equity make her ...

Turn-taking dynamics of social interactions are important for speech and gesture synchronization, enabling conversations to proceed efficiently, according to a study published September 25, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Tifenn Fauviaux from the University of Montpellier, France, and colleagues. Conversations encompass continuous exchanges of verbal and nonverbal information. Previous research has demonstrated that gestures and speech synchronize at the individual level. But few studies have investigated how this phenomenon ...

Dogs trained to detect explosives may perform worse in extreme temperature and humidity, taking longer to identify substances and with lower sensitivity ### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0306817 Article Title: Environmental effects on explosive detection threshold of domestic dogs Author Countries: USA Funding: This research was made possible through funding provided by the DoD Army Research Office under Contract No. W911NF2120124. https://www.arl.army.mil/who-we-are/aro/. SAK’s work was supported by the National Science Foundation ...

Wrist-based activity sensors worn by individuals with depression and those without over the course of two weeks provided evidence for the relationship between daily sunlight exposure and physical activity, according to a study published September 25, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS Mental Health by Oleg Kovtun and Sandra Rosenthal from Vanderbilt University, U.S. Mood disorders are the leading cause of ‘disability’ worldwide. Up to 30 percent of individuals with major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder display a seasonal pattern of symptoms. This phenomenon is now recognized in official diagnostic manuals. Yet very little ...

The US House of Representatives is more likely to vote on climate action when it is linked with certain other environmental issues, according to a study published September 25, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS Climate by Kayla Morton of the University of Washington, Seattle and colleagues. Climate change is a very polarizing issue in US politics. While Congress has not passed many climate-related bills over the past two decades, the House of Representatives has voted on many bills and resolutions related to climate issues, thus providing an opportunity to examine the factors that motivate ...

Mars wasn’t always the cold desert we see today. There’s increasing evidence that water once flowed on the Red Planet’s surface, billions of years ago. And if there was water, there must also have been a thick atmosphere to keep that water from freezing. But sometime around 3.5 billion years ago, the water dried up, and the air, once heavy with carbon dioxide, dramatically thinned, leaving only the wisp of an atmosphere that clings to the planet today.  Where exactly did Mars’ ...

New research from the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy sheds light on the processes that lead to liver fibrosis and suggests a novel treatment approach for this common and serious condition. Led by senior author Wen Xie, M.D., Ph.D., professor and Joseph Koslow endowed chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and co-first authors Hung-Chun Tung, graduate student, and Jong-Won Kim, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow, the study published today in Science Translational Medicine. In this Q&A, Xie elaborates ...

Each passing year, climate change drives summer temperatures to new extremes, with heat records being shattered one after another. In a new study, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) have examined how extreme temperatures in the US affect the mortality of people from different racial groups. Risto Conte Keivabu, Ugofilippo Basellini, and Emilio Zagheni (director of MPIDR) analyzed data from 1993 to 2005 and examined racial differences in temperature-related deaths. The study found that both extreme cold (temperatures in the coldest 5%) and extreme heat (temperatures in the hottest 5%) increase mortality rates, with heat disproportionate impacting ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research suggests that pigs may function as a transmission vehicle for a strain of the hepatitis E virus (HEV) common in rats that has recently been found to infect humans. The Rocahepevirus ratti strain is called “rat HEV” because rats are the primary reservoir of the virus. Since the first human case was reported in a person with a suppressed immune system in Hong Kong in 2018, at least 20 total human cases have been reported – including in people with normal immune function. People infected with rat HEV did not report exposure to rats, leaving the cause of infection undefined. ...

(Hackensack, NJ, September 2024) The Foundation of the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers (FCMSC) recently received a generous donation of $100,000 from EMD Serono Inc., in honor of June Halper, MSN, APN-C, FAAN, MSCN. Ms. Halper a longtime pioneer in the comprehensive care movement for multiple sclerosis (MS), and leading nurse practitioner and MS advocate, passed away on July 24, 2024, at the age of 86, working until her final days as CEO of the CMSC, FCMSC and IOMSN (International Organization of MS Nurses).  Since 1978, Ms. ...

Cirrhosis is one of the leading causes of mortality from non-communicable diseases, with complications arising as liver function deteriorates. HRS and HPS represent the most severe outcomes of cirrhosis, associated with systemic vasodilation driven by elevated levels of vasodilators like nitric oxide (NO). These complications significantly impair renal and pulmonary functions, leading to high mortality rates. TIPS, by shunting blood from the portal to systemic circulation, can potentially improve renal function by increasing systemic blood volume. However, the diversion of NO through TIPS could exacerbate systemic hypotension, posing a risk to renal ...