About 1 in 7 users (14.6%) of injectable GLP-1 receptor agonists (RAs) have taken or are taking them at lower doses than those approved by the FDA, and many decided to do so without clinician input, a new survey found.

The most common reasons for GLP-1 RA microdosing are to manage tolerability, save money, and transition from weight loss to weight maintenance, according to the survey by Evidation, a California-based company that gathers healthcare information directly from members via its app.

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The situation was far different among respondents who were actively microdosing — only 39.8% of them said they got their medication from their current healthcare clinician. Almost 24% reported getting their GLP-1 RA from a telehealth service. Less common sources included med spas, weight-loss clinics and directly from the manufacturer.

Telemedicine services typically offer lower-cost compounded versions of GLP-1 RAs, making them an attractive option for patients, noted an article in Medscape Medical News.

When asked about their most trusted source of information on microdosing, a larger percentage of GLP-1 RA users answered social media (26.8%) and online research (24.4%) than answered their healthcare clinician (20.3%).

By Nina Bai

A study led by Stanford Medicine found that the earliest sign of bladder cancer — blood in the urine — may be invisible to people who are colorblind, increasing their risk of dying from the disease.

Here, Deepak A. Rao & team use mass cytometry immune profiling to identify T cell features in pre-treatment blood samples from patients that are associated with irAEs after ICI therapy.

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¹Division of Rheumatology, Inflammation, Immunity, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

²Division of Rheumatology, Hospital for Special Surgery and Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York, USA.

³Memorial Sloan Kettering Center and Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York, USA.

The findings could help predict which glioblastoma patients are most likely to benefit from immunotherapy. Read more.

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An abstract is unavailable.

For the first time, researchers have directly visualized how newly formed cellular organelles leave the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and transition onto microtubule tracks inside living cells. This new finding reveals that the ER plays an active and dynamic role in steering intracellular traffic rather than serving as a passive factory. The study is published in the journal ACS Nano.

For the study led by Director Cho Minhaeng at the Center for Molecular Spectroscopy and Dynamics within the Institute for Basic Science and Professor Hong Seok-Cheol at Korea University, the research team captured in real time the moment an autophagosome—an organelle responsible for cellular recycling—moves from the ER onto a neighboring microtubule. This long-sought observation provides direct experimental evidence for how intracellular transport is coordinated at nanoscopic contact sites within the crowded environment of living cells.

Autophagy is an essential cellular process in which damaged proteins and aged organelles are enclosed by double-membrane structures and delivered for degradation and recycling. The importance of autophagy was recognized by the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi. Although scientists have long proposed that autophagosomes are transferred from the ER to microtubules at specialized contact sites, direct real-time experimental evidence of this cellular “handoff” had remained out of reach—until now.