Blood levels of beta-amyloid 42 rose by an average of 35% in healthy adults who spent 40 minutes on a gently vibrating mattress while taking two nitric-oxide-releasing sublingual pills. That result, from Vesa Kiviniemi of the University of Oulu and colleagues, is the study’s central finding, and it needs immediate context to make sense.

Beta-amyloid 42 is a protein involved in normal neuronal signaling, but when it misfolds and clumps inside the brain tissue, those aggregates are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.