Health & Medicine
Light therapy improves cognitive function after traumatic brain injury
Traumatic brain injuries affect millions of people every year and the long-term symptoms are often unresponsive to current treatments. Dr Greg Hipskind and his team have developed a novel method of light therapy which seeks to improve cognitive function and cerebral blood flow. Results are extremely positive for a study cohort of 12 military Veterans living with the consequences of […]
A potential new tool for cardiovascular disease prevention
Cardiovascular disease is still one of the leading causes of death around the world. With the ultimate goal of developing new diagnostic tools to enable cardiovascular disease prevention, Dr Otilia Vieira, based at the NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal, is keen to understand the ways in which our body deals with excess cholesterol. Atherosclerosis is a potentially serious condition where […]
How bread can save the world
Dr Peter Weegels is the Director of the European Bakery Innovation Centre, based in the Netherlands. The Centre has many aims, including creating, sharing and implementing bakery expertise across Europe. Dr Weegels is on a mission to make the simple loaf of wholemeal bread into a superfood to help solve the crisis of a growing population by showing that it has a superior nutritional content […]
Polymeric transformer: Nanoantibiotics for drug-resistant infections
The translational research of Professor Young Jik Kwon at the University of California, Irvine aims to fill a formidable void created by the lack of available effective antibiotics. Combining naturally-occurring antimicrobial substances with conventional antibiotics, Professor Kwon’s nanoantibiotics are a novel generation of compounds molecularly engineered to safely and effectively target drug-resistant bacteria. One of his current projects aims to tackle […]
The relationship between cancer subtype and treatment: New development using breast cancer subtypes to predict clinical outcomes
Dr Yang’s research at the National Cancer Institute, US, focuses on the discovery and validation of predictive and prognostic biomarkers for targeted cancer therapies and chemotherapy in breast cancer, lung cancer and other cancer types. The recent work in her group has focused on better understanding breast cancer subtypes and associated clinical outcomes, following treatment or without treatment, in order […]
Sildenafil: The pulmonary oedema wonder drug?
Dr Richard Moon and his team at the Duke University School of Medicine explore the use of sildenafil – better known by its more common brand name, Viagra – to prevent the onset of swimming-induced pulmonary oedema, a dangerous condition characterised by fluid accumulation in the lungs that can lead to drowning. Swimming-induced pulmonary oedema (SIPE) is a life-threatening condition that can […]
Lumbar Total Disc Replacement defeats crippling sciatica
Lumbar disc degenerative disease (LDDD) causes collapse of the spine resulting in agonising sciatica (inflammation of the sciatic nerve, causing pain). Current treatments, including fusion and discectomy, have mixed outcomes with patients often reporting pain after surgery. Lumbar Total Disc Replacement (LTDR) is a treatment largely unfamiliar to patients, yet it is highly effective, and Food and Drug Administration-approved for […]
Benefits of a diet with walnuts in Alzheimer’s disease
Alzheimer’s disease is a severe neurodegenerative disorder, responsible for 60-70% of cases of dementia. The most common symptoms are memory loss, disorientation and loss of cognition. To date, there is no known cure for this disease, but Dr Abha Chauhan, based at the New York State Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities, New York, USA, has shown how supplementation with walnuts in […]
Beyond osteoporosis: Preventing fragility fractures
Osteoporosis is known to be a risk factor for fragility fractures in postmenopausal women. However, not all women who suffer fragility fractures have osteoporosis, so other factors must also be important. Dr Koji Fujita of Tokyo Medical and Dental University is investigating the link between certain physical characteristics and risk of fragility fractures. In this work, Dr Fujita found a […]
No safe level of smoking exists for heart disease and stroke
If you think smoking only one or two cigarettes a day is almost harmless, think again. Professor Allan Hackshaw at the Cancer Institute, University College London and colleagues examined the risk of stroke and heart disease associated with light smoking (one to five cigarettes per day). Their large-scale systematic review provides a major body of evidence highlighting the importance of […]