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Category: biotech/medical – Page 286

Sleep variability linked with sleep apnea and hypertension

Over 70 million Americans wear digital activity trackers (DATs) to record their sleep, steps and heart rate. A new study from Scripps Research found that these devices could also provide insight into even more, including individual health risks like obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and high blood pressure.

The findings, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research on December 3, 2025, used DATs to identify an association between sleep variability—the night-to-night fluctuation of when an individual falls asleep and wakes—and their risk of developing sleep apnea and hypertension. This research joins a growing body of evidence that DATs could become more useful clinical tools to assess health risks in the near future.

“Data from digital activity trackers provides a unique way to detect meaningful health patterns from the devices that people already own,” says Stuti Jaiswal, senior author and assistant professor at Scripps Research, who is also a faculty hospitalist at Scripps Clinic. “Digital health studies have been gaining acceptance over the past decade, and we’re now demonstrating what these technologies can reveal about how sleep influences cardiovascular health.”

Kidney Stone Link to Cancer Risk Increased in Recent Studies

A systematic review and meta-analysis found that people with kidney stones have about twice the risk of developing kidney cancer compared with those without stones, across patient subgroups. The findings support closer cancer surveillance in patients with a history of kidney stones and further research into shared disease mechanisms, given the prevalence of kidney stones and the aggressive nature of kidney cancer.

A new meta-analysis further supports the previously reported link between kidney stones and an increased risk for kidney cancer, with a stronger relationship observed in newer studies.

TMAO Is Bad For Health, But Can Be Reduced (21-Test Analysis)

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Sulfate and carbon in fine air pollution tied to higher depression risk

Long-term exposure to fine particulate matter like PM2.5 components in polluted air can not only cause respiratory diseases, but also increase the risk of depression in older people, especially in those living with preexisting heart, metabolic and neurological conditions.

Depression has caused more loss of healthy life worldwide than any other mental health condition. This disorder has snatched away people’s will to perform the basics of daily activities. An analysis of global health data in 2021 showed that all the years people lived with disability or reduced quality of life because of depression added up to about 56.3 million years.

A recent population-based cohort study collected data from nearly 23.7 million U.S. Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 years and older between 2000 and 2018 to examine specific components of PM2.5 exposure, both individually and in combination, and its associations with the risk of developing depression. Among those tracked, more than 5.5 million developed depression during the follow-up period. These findings are published in JAMA Network Open.

CRISPR Supercharges a Meatlike Fungus Into a Sustainable Protein Powerhouse

The modified strain grows faster, uses far fewer resources, and lowers greenhouse gas emissions by up to 60%. It also dramatically outperforms chicken farming in land and water use. The findings highlight a promising path for eco-friendly protein…

…’There is a popular demand for better and more sustainable protein for food,’ says corresponding author Xiao Liu of Jiangnan University in Wuxi, China. ‘We successfully made a fungus not only more nutritious but also more environmentally friendly by tweaking its genes.’

Animal agriculture contributes roughly 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It also requires large areas of land and significant amounts of fresh water, which are already under pressure from climate change and human activity. Because of these drawbacks, microbial proteins found in organisms such as yeast and fungi are gaining attention as a more sustainable alternative to traditional meat.

CRISPR has turned a simple fungus into a fast-growing, meat-like protein source with impressively low environmental impact.

3D-printable concrete alternative hardens in three days, not four weeks

Although we’ve heard a lot about how 3D-printing concrete homes speeds up the construction process, you still have to wait up to 28 days for the concrete to sufficiently cure. A new printable substitute, however, is ready to go in just three days.

Concrete consists of three parts: water, an aggregate such as sand or gravel, and a cement which binds everything together. The cement is the part that typically takes about a month to cure after being poured. And a slow curing time isn’t cement’s only problem.

Traditional Portland-style cement is made by grinding up limestone and other raw materials, then heating the resulting powder to temperatures of up to 1,450 ºC (2,642 ºF). Unfortunately, the processes by which that heat is generated produce a lot of carbon dioxide.

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