Sarah Okonkwo
270 stories · Page 8 of 12
A Daily Scoop of Chicory Fiber Eased Knee Arthritis, and It Moved the Same Gut Hormone as Ozempic
Twenty grams of chicory fiber a day matched a physiotherapy app for knee arthritis pain, and only one person in the fiber group quit. The hormone it nudged is the one Ozempic is built to imitate.
InvestigationsBPA Sits in 90% of Us. The Cancer Studies Sample It With a Method That Was Never Going to Find Anything.
Bisphenol A shows up in more than nine of ten Americans, yet California's reviewers just called the cancer evidence 'inadequate,' because the studies measure a chemical the body clears in hours from a single urine sample.
Metabolic & WeightOrforglipron Reaches Deep Into the Brain's Reward Circuit and Turns the Dopamine Down
In mice engineered with human GLP-1 receptors, the new oral pills reached the central amygdala, a deep reward hub, and thinned the dopamine payoff of eating for pleasure. The government's addiction institute is already watching.
Nutrition & FoodThe Fruit Juice Sold to Parents as the Healthy Choice Tracks With Higher Blood Pressure 25 Years Later
One daily glass of orange juice tracked with 20 percent higher blood pressure risk. The whole fruit tracked with nothing.
Autoimmune & InflammationA Chinese Bark Compound Reached the Black-Box Arthritis Drugs' Pathway From Upstream, in Rats
In rats, a compound from the bark of the Amur cork tree reached the same JAK-STAT pathway as Xeljanz and its black-box cousins, but by rebalancing the cell's fat metabolism instead of blocking the pathway directly.
Brain & AgingThe Sweeteners Sold to Diabetics as the Safe Swap Tracked With Faster Brain Aging
Brazilian researchers followed 12,772 adults for eight years. The ones consuming the most artificial sweeteners, about a diet soda's worth a day, showed cognitive decline equal to 1.6 extra years of brain aging, and diabetics fared worst.
Metabolic & WeightThe GLP-1s That Barely Move the Scale Don't Cause Hair Loss, and That's the Clue Everyone Missed
Women on semaglutide shed hair at about twice the rate of men, and the weakest GLP-1s show almost no signal, which points the cause away from the follicle and straight at how fast the weight comes off.
Nutrition & FoodThe AHA Says Coffee Is Safe to Five Cups a Day. The Energy Shot's Problem Isn't the Caffeine.
Up to 400 mg a day, roughly three to five cups of regular black coffee, is generally safe for most adults and may be linked to lower cardiovascular risk. The concentrated shot in the gym-bag can is a different animal, and the reason isn't the caffeine.
Autoimmune & InflammationA Petri Dish of Angry Immune Cells, a Little Ultrasound, and a Very Big Headline
UAH researchers used sound waves to shift immune cells from attack mode toward repair. The press release said 'stop arthritis before it starts.' The experiment never touched a joint.
Metabolic & WeightThe Mice Ate More and Got Leaner. The Switch Was One Amino Acid, Turned Down.
USC mice on a low-protein, methionine-tuned diet ate as many calories as the junk-food group and still lost fat, while their own bodies pumped out more GLP-1. The scientist behind it also owns the company selling longevity diets.
Brain & AgingAnti-Tau Alzheimer's Drugs Keep Hitting Their Target and Missing the Disease
Tau is the new headliner at the Alzheimer's conference, but the anti-tau antibodies keep proving they bind the protein while doing nothing for patients. The clearest win so far is a blood test.
Metabolic & WeightA Gut Microbe Was Feeding Ammonia to Sick Livers. A Michigan Peptide Cut Off the Supply in Monkeys.
The compound reversed severe fatty liver in monkeys by starving one ammonia-making gut bacterium. It also comes from a company its lead inventor founded, and no human has taken it for this.
Brain & AgingYour First Pregnancy Rewires the Brain for One Baby. Your Second Rewires It for the Chaos of Two.
Amsterdam researchers scanned 110 women and found each pregnancy leaves its own mark, and the brain changes tied to maternal depression showed up months earlier the second time around.
Drugs & FDAThe Blue Light Over Your Fish Tank Is Now Building Drug Molecules
University at Buffalo chemists swapped harsh UV for a soft blue LED and got something the old chemistry rarely gives: two modifications to a molecule from a single reaction step.
Autoimmune & InflammationThe Anti-Inflammatory Worm That Only Works If You Feed It Fiber
Feed a rat plenty of fiber and a harmless tapeworm reaches full size and quiets the immune system. Cut the fiber to Western levels and the same worm shrinks, stops reproducing, and its anti-inflammatory power switches off.
InvestigationsA Pharma-Funded Nonprofit Is Lobbying the FDA to Kill Seven Peptides It Can't Sell You
The Partnership for Safe Medicines has deep ties to the drug lobby. Now it's urging the FDA to permanently block BPC-157, MOTS-c and five other off-patent peptides that compounding pharmacies sell cheap.
Autoimmune & InflammationThe Allergy Cell Everyone Wanted Dead Turns Out to Run Your Gut Lining and Your Metabolism
Eosinophils were the villain of asthma and allergy, the cell whole-body drugs are built to erase. A decade of tissue biology says they also seal your gut, feed your antibodies, and tune your fat, and the trials never measured any of it.
Brain & AgingBerlin Physicists Bolted a Metamaterial to a 7-Tesla MRI, and the Living Eye Came Into Focus
It clips onto a 7-tesla scanner a hospital already owns, draws no extra power, and lifted the signal inside a living human eye by up to half.
Nutrition & FoodScientists Measured the Salt in 39 Takeaways. Nearly Half Had More Than the Label Claimed.
Chemists at the University of Reading ran 39 takeaway dishes through a mass spectrometer. Almost half the labeled ones held more salt than the menu admitted, and one pasta dish carried nearly two days' worth.
Metabolic & WeightBoth Groups Lost the Same Seven Kilos. Only the Calorie Counters Had to White-Knuckle It.
In an 18-month Adelaide trial, fasting and daily calorie-cutting stripped off the same seven kilos, but for the counters part of that loss ran on constant conscious restraint the fasters' scores never showed.
CancerPregnancy Stations Killer T Cells in the Milk Ducts, and a Decade Later They Haven't Left
Melbourne researchers found that pregnancy stations killer T cells in the milk ducts, where they persist for at least a decade and track with better breast cancer outcomes. Now the race is on to summon them with a hormone shot instead of a pregnancy.
Brain & AgingA Brain Full of Plaques and a Mind That Held: The Cells That May Explain Alzheimer's Resilient Third
About a third of people whose brains show the full pathology of Alzheimer's never develop dementia. Dutch researchers say the difference may not be how many young neurons they have, but whether those cells switch on a survival program instead of dying.
CancerWhether a T Cell Keeps Killing Cancer or Quits Is Written in How Its Genome Folds
Exhausted CD8 T cells are why checkpoint drugs and CAR-T so often stall. New maps of the 3D genome show their fate is set by how the DNA is physically folded, and by CTCF, the protein that does the folding.
Metabolic & WeightThe Kratom Crackdown Its Biggest Trade Defenders Wanted
A concentrated 7-OH compound reported at up to 40 times morphine's receptor potency is sold in gas stations as herbal kratom. The plant's biggest trade defenders are cheering the DEA for banning it.