Health – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Nov 15
2022

Epidemiology of Glaucoma: The Past, Present, and Predictions for the Future

Glaucoma impacts tens of millions of people globally, and is the second leading cause of blindness, after cataracts. Now, Purdue University researchers have developed smart contact lenses that may help save people’s sight.

Glaucoma is a multifactorial optic degenerative neuropathy characterized by the loss of retinal ganglion cells. It is a combination of vascular, genetic, anatomical, and immune factors. Glaucoma poses a significant public health concern as it is the second leading cause of blindness after cataracts, and this blindness is usually irreversible. It is estimated that 57.5 million people worldwide are affected by primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). People over 60 years of age, family members of those already diagnosed with glaucoma, steroid users, diabetics, as well as those with high myopia, hypertension, central cornea thickness of.

Nov 14
2022

CERN Courier Nov/Dec 2022

As LHC Run 3 gets into its stride and the first results at a new energy frontier roll in (p5), all eyes are on what’s next: the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), scheduled to start operations in 2029. Civil engineering for the major upgrade is complete (p7) and new crystal collimators for HL-LHC operations are to be put to the test during the current run (p35). Looking beyond the LHC, how best to deal with the millions of cubic metres of excavation materials from a future circular collider? (p9), and a new project to explore the use of high-temperature superconductors for FCC-ee (p8). The HL-LHC and proposed future colliders also feature large in the recent US Snowmass community planning exercise (p23).

Nov 14
2022

Beer Ingredient May Inhibit Clumping of Alzheimer’s Protein

Cheers!

𝐁𝐞𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐧𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝐈𝐧𝐡𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐭 𝐂𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐥𝐳𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐫’𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐢𝐧

𝘽𝙚𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙨 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙡𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙥𝙤𝙥𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙧 𝙗𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙, 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙩, 𝙗𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙨 𝙪𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙛𝙡𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙧 𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙫𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙩𝙞𝙚𝙨. 𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙖𝙣 𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 “𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙥𝙮” 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙬 𝙢𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙦𝙪𝙚 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙩𝙝 𝙗𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙛𝙞𝙩𝙨. 𝙍𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙘𝙝 𝙥𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝘼𝘾𝙎 𝘾𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙉𝙚𝙪𝙧𝙤𝙨𝙘𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙨 𝙚𝙭𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙝𝙤𝙥 𝙛𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙣, 𝙞𝙣 𝙡𝙖𝙗 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙨, 𝙞𝙣𝙝𝙞𝙗𝙞𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙡𝙪𝙢𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙛 𝙖𝙢𝙮𝙡𝙤𝙞𝙙 𝙗𝙚𝙩𝙖 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙨, 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝘼𝙡𝙯𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙧’𝙨 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 (𝘼𝘿).

Beer is one of the oldest and most popular beverages in the world, with some people loving and others hating the distinct, bitter taste of the hops used to flavor its many varieties. But an especially “hoppy” brew might have unique health benefits. Recent research published in ACS Chemical Neuroscience reports that chemicals extracted from hop flowers can, in lab dishes, inhibit the clumping of amyloid beta proteins, which is associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

AD is a debilitating neurodegenerative disease, often marked by memory loss and personality changes in older adults. Part of the difficulty in treating the disease is the time lag between the start of underlying biochemical processes and the onset of symptoms, with several years separating them. This means that irreversible damage to the nervous system occurs before one even realizes they may have the disease. Accordingly, preventative strategies and therapeutics that can intervene before symptoms appear are of increasing interest.

One of these strategies involves “nutraceuticals,” or foods that have some type of medicinal or nutritional function. The hop flowers used to flavor beers have been explored as one of these potential nutraceuticals, with previous studies suggesting that the plant could interfere with the accumulation of amyloid beta proteins associated with AD. So, Cristina Airoldi, Alessandro Palmioli and colleagues wanted to investigate which chemical compounds in hops had this effect.

Continue reading “Beer Ingredient May Inhibit Clumping of Alzheimer’s Protein” | >

Nov 13
2022

Insurance Company Refuses to Pay Ransom, So Hackers Start Releasing Health Records of Up To 10 Million People

Unidentified hackers have stolen the health records of millions of customers of Australian health insurer Medibank, releasing them on the dark web.

Nov 10
2022

First transfusions of lab-grown blood

Recently, two patients in the United Kingdom received two small doses of lab-grown blood samples as part of the RESTORE trial.

Image Credit: Sashkin / Shutterstock.com

About the RESTORE trial

The RESTORE trial is a single-center, randomized, controlled, phase I cross-over trial that is a joint effort between the National Health Service (NHS) Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) and the University of Bristol. The aim of this trial is to determine whether blood cells manufactured from donor stem cells perform better than red blood cells (RBCs) obtained from the same donor in recipients.

Nov 10
2022

BodyTrak wrist camera constructs 3D models of the body in real time

Wearable technology is capable of tracking various measures of human health and is getting better all the time. New research shows how this could come to mean real-time feedback on posture and body mechanics. A research team at Cornell University has demonstrated this functionality in a novel camera system for the wrist, which it hopes to work into smartwatches of the future.

The system is dubbed BodyTrak and comes from the same lab behind a face-tracking wearable we looked at earlier in the year that is able to recreate facial expressions on a digital avatar through sonar. This time around, the group made use of a tiny dime-sized RGB camera and a customized AI to construct models of the entire body.

The camera is worn on the wrist and relays basic images of body parts in motion to a deep neural network, which had been trained to turn these snippets into virtual recreations of the body. This works in real time and fills in the blanks left by the camera’s images to construct 3D models of the body in 14 different poses.

Nov 9
2022

Edible electronics: When will we be eating technology?

Americans endlessly chatter about what to eat. Low fat, high protein, vegan, ketogenic — but what about electronic? Since the turn of the 21st century, a dedicated group of scientists, engineers, and technologists has been trying to create edible electronics, not necessarily for human nutrition, but rather for medical purposes.

Electronic devices composed of digestible materials that gradually break down in the body over a matter of days could precisely deliver medication inside the body and measure drug uptake. They could monitor symptoms of gastrointestinal disorders and the gut microbiome. They could allow doctors to remotely observe patients’ internal health without a visit to the hospital, further enhancing the telehealth revolution and allowing more people access to healthcare.

Nov 9
2022

Host proteins that impair Ebola virus infection identified

Several proteins have been identified in hosts that interact with Ebola virus and primarily function to inhibit the production of viral genetic material in cells and prevent Ebola virus infection, according to a study led by the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University.

Zaire ebolavirus or Ebola virus, an RNA virus pathogen that belongs to the filovirus family, causes outbreaks of severe disease in humans. This public health threat has produced outbreaks where reported case fatality rates ranged up to 90 percent.

The West Africa Ebola virus epidemic from 2013–2016 resulted in more than 28,000 infections and more than 11,000 deaths. Four outbreaks occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 2017–2021 and Ebola virus reemerged in Guinea in 2021.

Nov 8
2022

The true death toll of COVID-19

On 30 January 2020 COVID-19 was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) with an official death toll of 171. By 31 December 2020, this figure stood at 1 813 188. Yet preliminary estimates suggest the total number of global deaths attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is at least 3 million, representing 1.2 million more deaths than officially reported.

With the latest COVID-19 deaths reported to WHO now exceeding 3.3 million, based on the excess mortality estimates produced for 2020, we are likely facing a significant undercount of total deaths directly and indirectly attributed to COVID-19.

COVID-19 deaths are a key indicator to track the evolution of the pandemic. However, many countries still lack functioning civil registration and vital statistics systems with the capacity to provide accurate, complete and timely data on births, deaths and causes of death. A recent assessment of health information systems capacity in 133 countries found that the percentage of registered deaths ranged from 98% in the European region to only 10% in the African region.

Nov 8
2022

Older Adults Who Sleep Less Are More Likely to Develop Multiple Chronic Diseases

Older adults who sleep just five hours a night or fewer have a greater risk of developing more than one chronic disease, new research shows. The findings underscore the importance of healthy sleep patterns throughout life, and especially in middle and old age.

The new study, published in PLOS Medicine, examined sleep duration and its effect on multimorbidity—or the occurrence of more than one chronic condition, like diabetes and cardiovascular disease, at once. People ages 50 or older who slept a total of five hours a night or less were found to have at least a 30% greater risk of multimorbidity.

Prior studies have largely focused on the link between sleep and the development of individual chronic diseases, but it’s been unclear how sleep duration contributes to the development of multiple chronic conditions. The new findings add to growing evidence suggesting that sleep deficiencies can affect health outcomes.