Sarah Okonkwo
325 stories · Page 13 of 14
A molecule your body already makes coaxed exhausted brain cells back to fighting Alzheimer's
Spanish and Swiss researchers report that OLE, a fatty-acid amino-acid the body already makes, coaxed sluggish microglia to surround amyloid plaques and improve memory in Alzheimer's mice.
Nutrition & FoodVitamin C just landed on an 8-preservative hypertension list. It was the only one also tied to heart disease.
A French cohort of 112,395 adults, followed eight years, flagged eight common preservatives for hypertension. Ascorbic acid was the only one that also independently associated with cardiovascular disease, and the lead author is calling on EFSA and FDA to reopen the file.
Drugs & FDAThe $200K Pediatric Diabetes Shot Just Won a Bigger Label. The Number That Won Isn't the One Families Will Ever See.
The FDA gave Tzield an accelerated nod for kids 8 to 17 newly diagnosed with Stage 3 type 1 diabetes. The C-peptide number won. The endpoints families would actually feel did not.
Nutrition & FoodYour Food Has 139,000 Molecules. Standard Nutrition Science Tracks About 150.
A May 2025 NEJM review pegs the chemical complexity of the human diet at more than 139,000 molecules. USDA-style databases track around 150. That gap is not a footnote, and it is why so much nutrition guidance keeps aging badly.
Brain & AgingA viral diabetes-and-dementia explainer left out the trial that just killed its big drug story
A widely shared "ten ways diabetes and dementia are linked" explainer is going around this week, and it skips the Phase 3 trial that, weeks earlier, demolished its brain-protection story for semaglutide.
Drugs & FDAA heart-attack drug just regrew kidney tissue in mice, and the receipts have no pharma on them
A UCLA monoclonal antibody designed to help hearts heal after a heart attack also repaired injured kidneys in mice, and it was developed without a dollar of pharma money.
Brain & AgingA 272,000-Person Study Linked Higher Tyrosine to Shorter Lifespans in Men. The Supplement Aisle Sells It for Focus.
A UK Biobank analysis of 272,475 people using Mendelian randomization links higher blood tyrosine to about 0.91 fewer years of life in men, with no signal in women. The amino acid is sold widely as a focus and stress supplement. The study measured blood levels, not pills.
Infectious DiseaseThe textbook said B cells take turns. A new temporal map of a malaria infection says they don't.
A new Nature Immunology temporal map of B cell responses to malaria in mice catches class-switching, clonal expansion, and somatic hypermutation overlapping from the first week, scrambling the tidy stepwise story textbooks still teach.
Nutrition & FoodThe bitter finish in your protein shake isn't the protein. It's the minerals.
A new sensory study traces the bitter, peppery aftertaste in whey protein shakes to minerals that get concentrated during filtration, not the protein itself. The fix is a manufacturing tweak. The co-author is the supplier that sells the alpha-lactalbumin line.
Nutrition & FoodThe sugar-free mice got sicker, and the press release left out what they were eating instead
A 16-week mouse study presented at ENDO 2026 reported that sugar-free animals developed insulin resistance, gut dysbiosis and fatty liver at the same body weight as controls. The press release never says what replaced the sugar, and that single missing detail decides what the study actually means.
Brain & AgingMiddle-aged Americans Are Weaker, Lonelier, and Forgetting More Than Their Parents Did at the Same Age
A 17-country study finds U.S. adults in their 50s are doing worse on memory, grip strength, loneliness, and depression than their parents were. The United States is the only country going meaningfully backward.
Autoimmune & InflammationYour Thymus Quietly Stages a Lung. Researchers Just Named the Cell Playing the Part.
A new Nature Immunology study identifies an alveolar lung-like cell hiding inside the thymus, where it appears to teach the immune system not to attack your real lungs.
Brain & AgingBrain Gains Into Your 90s Are Probably Real. The Index Measuring Them Has a Patent Pending.
A three-year UT Dallas study tracking nearly 4,000 adults to age 94 says brain function can climb at any age. The biology is plausible. The catch is that the people measuring the gain are the same people patenting the yardstick.
Brain & AgingThe Same Mutations That Drive Blood Cancer Keep Turning Up in Alzheimer's Brains
A new Cell paper finds Alzheimer's brains are riddled with the same mutations that drive blood cancers, in the immune cells that are supposed to be protecting neurons.
Drugs & FDAMedicare's Product-Hopping Loophole Is Back On The Chopping Block. The Bigger Pharma Giveaway Isn't.
The Trump administration on Thursday proposed closing the product-hopping loophole that lets drugmakers reset Medicare's negotiation clock by tweaking inactive ingredients. It is the same fix the same administration quietly tabled in October.
Autoimmune & InflammationA near-starvation diet shifted inflammation in gum-disease patients. The trial was tiny, and the diet came in a box.
A 28-patient feasibility trial put severe gum-disease patients on three cycles of a 750-calorie ProLon diet. Inflammation markers trended lower; clinical gum measures weren't reported. The biology question is real; the data is thin.
Brain & AgingNitrate from spinach behaves nothing like nitrate from tap water. A 27-year cohort says the brain can tell.
54,804 Danes followed for a quarter-century: less dementia from vegetable nitrate, more from drinking water. The risk signal shows up at roughly one-ninth of what the US EPA still permits.
Drugs & FDAEurope had this sunscreen in 1999. The FDA approved it Tuesday.
A new chemical UV filter Europe approved in 1999 just cleared the FDA after a 21-year wait, while Americans relied on ingredients the agency's own 2019 review could not call safe.
Brain & AgingDisappointment, Not Reward, Is What Breaks a Habit. Half of Older Adults Are on Drugs That Blunt Acetylcholine.
An OIST team caught the mouse brain firing acetylcholine the moment an expected reward failed to land. That surge is what lets the animal switch strategy. Close to half of community-dwelling older adults are on drugs that block the same receptors.
Nutrition & FoodAmerican Doctors Get About 1.2 Hours of Nutrition Training a Year. RFK Jr. Just Found the Lever.
Kennedy got eight organizations across U.S. medical training and 73 medical schools to commit to nutrition in licensing, accreditation, and a 40-hour pledge. The board exam matters; the rest is partly hedging.
Nutrition & Food8,300 Brazilian elders, one saltshaker, and the 80 percent of sodium nobody mentions
A Frontiers in Public Health survey of 8,336 Brazilians over 60 found older men reach for the saltshaker most. Buried in the same paper: the shaker only accounts for 6 to 20 percent of total sodium. The other 70-plus percent already arrived from the factory.
Brain & AgingThe Alzheimer's Drug That Bets the Plaques Are a Symptom
An ETH Zurich team spent nearly twenty years tracing why Alzheimer's nerve cells run out of energy, and the answer points to a protein the amyloid-clearing drugs never touched.
Autoimmune & InflammationFish oil rewired the T-cells in non-obese diabetic rats, and the glucose moved with them
A Brazilian team gave EPA-heavy fish oil to a non-obese diabetic rat strain for eight weeks. Glucose, insulin sensitivity, and lipids all moved in the friendlier direction. The T-cell balance shifted alongside them, and that is the part of the paper worth chewing on.
Metabolic & WeightThe Oral GLP-1 Race Just Got a Third Serious Contender, and Its Curve Was Still Climbing
Structure Therapeutics' once-daily oral GLP-1 aleniglipron hit 11.3 percent placebo-adjusted weight loss at 36 weeks and kept climbing in the open label. The catch: oral semaglutide and orforglipron already cleared the FDA.