Lifeboat Foundation

A new Australian study has identified why a diet rich in magnesium is so important for our health, reducing the risk of DNA damage and chronic degenerative disorders.

Scientists from the University of South Australia measured blood samples from 172 middle aged adults, finding a strong link between low magnesium levels and high amounts of a genotoxic amino acid called homocysteine.

This toxic combination damages the body’s genes, making people more susceptible to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, gastrointestinal diseases, a range of cancers, and diabetes.

A US agency pursuing moonshot health breakthroughs has hired a researcher advocating an extremely radical plan for defeating death.

His idea?

Scholz is still skeptical though. “A new brain is not going to be a popular item,” he says. “The surgical element of it is going to be very severe, no matter how you slice it.”

Continue reading “This researcher wants to replace your brain, little by little” »

In recent years the second-largest Ebola outbreak ever took place in the wider area and, despite the availability of vaccines and treatments, posed considerable challenges.

What needs to happen

A recent article we co-authored in The Lancet Global Health outlines what needs to be done to contain this outbreak and prevent it from turning into an epidemic, possibly even a pandemic.

The World Health Organization on Wednesday declared the ongoing mpox outbreak in Africa a global health emergency.

WHO convened its emergency committee amid concerns that a deadlier strain of the virus, clade Ib, had reached four previously unaffected countries in Africa. This strain had previously been contained to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The independent experts met virtually Wednesday to advise WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on the severity of the outbreak. After that consultation, he announced that he had declared a public health emergency of international concern — the highest level of alarm under international health law.

Alarmed by the surge in mpox cases, the Africa Centres for Disease Control has taken the unprecedented step of declaring the outbreak sweeping through African countries a continental public health emergency.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is also meeting to decide whether to trigger its highest global alert level over the epidemic.

These moves come after a virulent strain of the disease spread rapidly to 16 countries and six new countries were affected in 10 days.

Microsoft patches critical flaws in Azure Health Bot Service that could expose patient data. Researchers detail vulnerabilities and their potential im.

University of Missouri scientists are battling against an emerging enemy of human health: nanoplastics. Much smaller in size than the diameter of an average human hair, nanoplastics are invisible to the naked eye.

Columbia researchers discovered that bacteria can create free-floating, temporary genes outside their chromosomes, challenging the long-held belief that all genetic instructions are contained within the genome. This finding opens the possibility that similar genes could exist in humans, potentially revolutionizing our understanding of genetics and gene editing.

Since the genetic code was first deciphered in the 1960s, our genes have appeared like an open book. By interpreting our chromosomes as linear sequences of letters, akin to sentences in a novel, we can identify the genes within our genome and understand how changes in a gene’s code influence health.

This linear rule of life was thought to govern all forms of life—from humans down to bacteria.

In this interview, hosted by Nicolás Cherñavsky, Nir Barzilai and Brad Stanfield discuss metformin, whether or not to use it in non-diabetic patients to slow aging, and the TAME trial.

Nir Barzilai is president of the Academy of Health and Lifespan Research (https://www.ahlresearch.org/), and Brad Stanfield is a primary care physician in Auckland (New Zealand) and runs a YouTube channel (/ @drbradstanfield) with around 250,000 subscribers to explore the latest research and preventive care guidelines.

Continue reading “Metformin and the TAME trial: a conversation with Nir Barzilai and Brad Stanfield” »