Sarah Okonkwo
325 stories · Page 3 of 14
Eating After Dinner Tracked With More Fatty Liver and Cirrhosis in Nearly 200,000 Americans
Across nearly 200,000 nurses and health professionals, eating after dinner or bedtime tracked with 20 to 30 percent more fatty liver disease and cirrhosis. Nobody can patent a closed kitchen.
Autoimmune & InflammationNovo Nordisk Paid to Count the Inflamed Heart Failure Patients Its Antibody Is Chasing
Three big studies putting heart failure inflammation anywhere from 38% to more than half were funded by Novo Nordisk, whose IL-6 antibody missed its first outcomes trial in July. Their predictor tables point at fat, smoking and kidneys.
Autoimmune & InflammationKnee Pain Fell From 7 to 3 After This Artery Procedure, but It Keeps Struggling to Beat a Fake One
Berlin doctors plugged inflamed knee vessels with gelatin beads built to dissolve within hours, and median pain fell from 7 to 3 over a year. Nobody got a sham, and the Rotterdam trial that used one calls the effect mainly placebo.
Brain & AgingIn Lab Tests, the Alzheimer's Fragment Labeled 'Non-Amyloidogenic' Builds Amyloid Faster Than Amyloid Beta
For decades the alpha pathway was billed as the safe way to cut the Alzheimer's precursor protein. Its leftover fragment, p3, builds fibrils in less than half the time amyloid beta needs in lab tests, forms ring-shaped pores, and turns up in plaques where a common antibody stain can't tell the two a
Nutrition & FoodSame Calories on Paper, 116 Fewer Absorbed: What Your Gut Microbes Do With a Whole-Food Diet
On calorie-matched menus, 17 adults absorbed about 116 fewer calories a day eating whole foods than eating processed ones, with no measurable rise in hunger, and the century-old Atwater arithmetic undercounted the processed plate.
Brain & AgingFeeling Fine in Pregnancy Was No Shield Against Dirty Air's Link to Postpartum Depression
Among 475 Mexico City mothers, each 5 microgram per cubic meter rise in fine-particle pollution during pregnancy tracked with 2.67 times the risk of depression symptoms that first appeared after birth. The link was stronger in women who reported little stress.
Infectious DiseaseA Week of Immunology, a Shared Hotel and a 'Transformative' Claim With No Alumni Count
Nine IUIS educators call their one-week immunology courses in low- and middle-income countries transformative. Their 2022 guidelines say the committee's budget partly funds 3 courses a year, and the program's 2019 self-assessment measured enjoyment and quiz scores, not careers.
Metabolic & WeightThe 'Self-Destruct' Fat Shot Billed as Obesity Medicine Faces Its Pivotal Trial Below the Obesity Line
Caliway's CBL-514 shrank belly fat in small trials and drew obesity headlines at EASD, but its phase 3 caps enrollment below a BMI of 30 and grades flatter stomachs, not weight.
InvestigationsIn Cancer Alley, the Most Polluted Air Came With More Than Four Times the Odds of a Newborn Heart Defect
Among Louisiana mothers without private insurance, the heaviest modeled industrial air toxics tracked with 4.29 times the odds of a baby born with a heart defect. The scientist who led the work says Tulane gagged her pollution research.
Nutrition & FoodForget You Ate Lunch and You'll Eat Another One: Your Memory Center Helps Run Your Appetite
Two amnesic patients ate a second full lunch minutes after the first. Rats with silenced meal-memory neurons came back to eat sooner. In healthy young adults, one week of waffles and fast food dulled both word recall and the normal drop in food craving after a full breakfast.
Brain & AgingD-Serine Helped Old Mice in the Maze and Did Nothing for Their Skin or Bones
Restoring the protein menin in one patch of hypothalamus gave 20-month-old mice thicker skin, more bone and better learning. D-serine, the amino acid now in the headline, improved only the learning, and the one trial in healthy older adults that both news stories cite gave each person a single dose
InvestigationsThe HeartMate 3 Won Its Market on a Low Stroke Count. The Neurologic Events It Left Off Are Just as Common.
Eight percent of HeartMate 3 patients have a stroke. Another 8 percent have a seizure, a transient ischemic attack, or a brain bleed its headline safety score never tallied, and two-year survival in those patients runs as low as 45 percent.
Infectious DiseaseThe Gut Lining Was Supposed to Be Plumbing. A 500,000-Cell Atlas Caught It Fighting Each Microbe Differently.
Six microbes, six different reprogrammings of the intestinal lining, including a cell state that appears only during one bacterial infection and concentrates inside the lesions that bug builds.
Nutrition & FoodKeto Raised Tumor Counts in One Stretch of Mouse Gut and Cut Them in the Next, While the Ketones Sat It Out
In cancer-prone mice, a ketogenic diet meant more small-intestine tumors and fewer colon tumors, and the ketones long credited for keto's anticancer promise turned out to be bystanders.
Autoimmune & InflammationA Few Degrees of Foot Angle Beat a Convincing Fake for Arthritic Knees
Personalized foot-angle retraining cut knee arthritis pain 1.2 points more than a sham program over a year, and an MRI marker of cartilage health held up better. Taxpayers paid for it, and there is nothing to refill.
Metabolic & WeightMulberry Blunts Your Blood Sugar by Handing the Carbs to Your Gut Bacteria
Mulberry's post-meal glucose effect has been tested in people across 12 trials. The gut-microbiome makeover sold on the strength of it still exists only in mice and petri dishes.
Brain & AgingA Protein That Should Surge Before Birth Went Flat in Pregnancies Later Linked to Childhood ADHD
Each standard-deviation drop in third-trimester placental growth factor came with 2.6 times the odds of a later ADHD diagnosis, and the signal held even after researchers accounted for preeclampsia, growth restriction, and early preterm birth.
Metabolic & WeightA Creatine-Industry Advisor Ran the Study Behind the 'Skip the Gym' Headlines
A new trial says creatine builds lean mass without exercise, and his own society's journal published it. The measurement it leaned on is the one creatine is known to inflate with water.
InvestigationsFor Five Years This Nurse-Led Florida Clinic Was a Federal 'Look-Alike.' Now It's Wired Into the Real Machine.
A West Palm Beach clinic run by nursing faculty, nurse practitioners, and their students spent five years as a federal 'look-alike.' Funded status adds a $650,000 grant, federal malpractice cover, and loan backing on top of the deep 340B drug discounts and sliding-scale mandate it already ran on.
Nutrition & FoodFive Coffee Companies Paid for the Study Behind the "Coffee Fixes Your Gut and Brain" Headlines
The headlines credit your morning cup with less stress, sharper memory, and a healthier gut. The study behind them was paid for by ISIC, the trade body funded by five coffee companies including illycaffè, Lavazza, and Tchibo.
Drugs & FDAFederal Agents Seized Counterfeit Ozempic and Warned the Public. Prosecutors Say the Smuggling Kept Going for Months.
The counterfeits came from China with fake needles and packaging and sold to distributors at a discount. The indictment says the alleged scheme kept running for months after the FDA had already seized counterfeit Ozempic and warned the country.
Autoimmune & InflammationA Lupus Drug 'Failed' Its Trial. Its Patients Got Better Anyway.
Enpatoran missed its primary endpoint in 354 lupus patients. But disease activity dropped, the interferon signature fell, and the rashes cleared. The trial's model was built to catch a climbing dose-response, and the drug's effect had plateaued.
Nutrition & FoodTwo Labs on Two Continents Watched a Pomegranate Compound Relax Stiff Mouse Hearts
Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction has few disease-modifying options. A gut metabolite from pomegranates and walnuts, already sold as a supplement, improved measures of heart function up to 80 percent in mice.
Autoimmune & InflammationPesticides Outlawed in the 1970s Are Still in Women's Blood, and They Track With Chronic Inflammation
French scientists screened 45 banned or barely-regulated chemicals in 468 women's blood. Two pesticides cancelled decades ago still tracked with elevated inflammation, and the PFAS quietly pushed an immune signal down.