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Blood Test Helps PCPs Diagnose AD With Specialist-Level Accuracy
LONDON — Blood-based biomarker (BBM) testing may enable primary care physicians (PCPs) to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease (AD) as accurately as dementia specialists, potentially expanding access to accurate diagnosis beyond memory clinics, new research suggests.
In a prospective study of more than 1,300 patients, PCPs achieved 93% diagnostic accuracy after reviewing BBM results, which was comparable to the 94% accuracy of dementia specialists. The test also changed clinicians’ diagnoses and management plans in a substantial proportion of cases.
“By equipping primary care practitioners with blood test results, we see that they’re as accurate as dementia experts in definitely ruling out [AD],” study investigator Sebastian Palmqvist, MD, PhD, senior consultant neurologist and associate professor, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, told Medscape Medical News.
Sugar-Coated Nanoparticles Shrink Deadly Brain Tumors in Mice
Cancers don’t come much worse than the brain cancer glioblastoma, and it is notoriously difficult to treat. Even with surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, fewer than 30 percent of patients are alive two years after diagnosis.
Scientists are busy hunting for treatment approaches that can improve those survival rates, and a team from Oregon State University has now found a potential new angle for attacking these tumors: sugar-coated nanoparticles.
As detailed in a mouse study published in the Journal of Controlled Release, the sugar ‘disguise’ used by the nanoparticles helps them cross the blood-brain barrier to the site of cancer, while also directly targeting glioblastoma and avoiding measurable toxicity in major organs.
Epidurals not linked to increased harm for newborns or children
Having an epidural during labor is not associated with clinically significant increased risks of harm to newborn babies, including brain injury, severe breathing problems, sepsis and death, or cerebral palsy later in childhood, according to a study published in The BMJ.
The researchers say these findings “support widening availability and equitable access to epidural analgesia as a safe component of intrapartum care.”
Epidural analgesia in labor provides effective pain relief and may help reduce complications in mothers after giving birth, but evidence of its effect on newborn and child health is limited.
The invisible wearable: New skin sensors advance health monitoring
While wearable health sensors are becoming increasingly common, current iterations are awkward to wear. For example, devices attached to the face can draw unwanted attention, increase self-consciousness and influence the signals users are trying to measure. However, recent research may have found a solution by introducing ultrathin sensors that cannot be seen by observers or felt by the wearer.
In an article published in Science Advances, researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, and collaborating institutions reported developing thin, stretchable on-skin electrodes that are effectively invisible when worn on the face. The new technology can measure biological signals while remaining undetectable by eye and touch, allowing monitoring to take place under more natural conditions.
Biosignals such as eye movements, facial muscle activity and brain activity provide valuable information for health care monitoring and human-machine interaction. However, conventional facial electrodes can alter a person’s appearance and affect social interactions, creating what are called appearance artifacts—changes in behavior or psychological state caused simply by wearing a device that the individual and others can see.
Effector ORFeome platform identifies novel pathways
To prevent viruses from sickening or killing us — whether it’s an individual case of hepatitis B or a COVID pandemic — it’s crucial to understand how the proteins they make initiate changes in our bodies that allow them to flourish.
A new tool has just vastly broadened the scale at which researchers can study these proteins, promising to speed basic discoveries in virology, inform the development of new vaccines and treatments, and help humanity protect against emerging pathogens.
The tool, called a viral ORFeome and described in Cell, is the largest yet of its kind and enables analysis of many thousands of viral proteins in a single experiment. Its design also expands access to biologists who didn’t train in virology.
Semaglutide May Slow the Pace of Epigenetic Aging
While GLP-1 drugs can curb cardiometabolic dysfunction, reducing the risk of life-limiting and life-threatening diseases that would otherwise shorten health and lifespan, mechanistic evidence that they directly influence the biology of aging remains limited.
Can GLP-1 drugs rewind the epigenetic clock?
UCSD researchers conducted a post hoc analysis of a Phase 2b clinical trial evaluating the use of semaglutide in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated lipohypertrophy (HALS).
