Category: News

  • Blood test could streamline early Alzheimer’s detection

    Blood test could streamline early Alzheimer’s detection

    In a landmark study of Hispanic and Latino adults, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have identified a link between self-reported cognitive decline and blood-based biomarkers, which could pave the way for a simple blood test to help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. This approach could be faster, less-invasive and more affordable than existing screening tools. The results are published in JAMA Network Open.

    “We need ways to identify underlying neurodegenerative diseases earlier in patients with cognitive symptoms,” said corresponding author Freddie Márquez, Ph.D., a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Neurosciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “This study highlights the promise of blood-based biomarkers as a more accessible and scalable tool for understanding cognitive decline, particularly in populations that have been underserved by traditional methods.”

    There is currently only one blood test approved by the Food and Drug Administration to assist in diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease. While this test, the Lumipulse G pTau217/Aβ42 plasma ratio, can detect proteins associated with Alzheimer’s in the blood, it is currently very expensive and only available in specialized care settings.  Whether or not blood can be reliably used for early Alzheimer’s detection on a larger scale is still unknown.

    To help answer this question, the researchers used data from the Study of Latinos–Investigation of Neurocognitive Aging. This clinical study assessed neurocognition in a subset of participants from the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos, the largest, most comprehensive long-term study of Hispanic and Latino health and disease in the United States.

    “Hispanic and Latino adults are thought to be more likely to get Alzheimer’s and related dementias, and this group is projected to have the largest increases in disease prevalence over the coming decades,” said senior author Hector M. González, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Neurosciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine. “Despite this, they’re still significantly underrepresented in Alzheimer’s and dementia research, which is something our study aimed to address.”

    The researchers tested the blood of 5,712 Hispanic and/or Latino adults between the ages of 50 and 86, looking for proteins that are present in the brain in people with Alzheimer’s disease, such as amyloid beta and tau proteins. They also assessed participants for subjective cognitive decline, which refers to a decline in cognitive status that the individual themself perceives.

    The researchers found:

    • Higher blood levels of NfL (nerve cell injury marker) and GFAP (brain inflammation marker) were associated with more self-reported declines in thinking, planning and overall cognitive performance. Higher blood levels of NfL and tau protein (ptau-181) were also associated with more self-reported declines in memory.
    • Blood levels of amyloid-beta protein (Aβ42/40), a protein well-known to be associated with Alzheimer’s disease in the brain, showed no associations with subjective cognitive decline.
    • Even in cognitively healthy individuals, associations between NfL and self-reported declines in cognitive performance remained, suggesting that NfL may be detecting early changes in cognition.

    In addition to providing evidence that blood-based biomarkers can be used to detect Alzheimer’s and related dementias early, the researchers also note that a strength of their study is its diverse population.

    “By including participants from underrepresented communities, we’re able to better understand how social determinants of health and comorbidities may influence cognitive trajectories and dementia risk,” added Márquez. “This makes our findings especially relevant for real-world settings.”

    However, the researchers also caution that it will take further research for this approach to make its way into widespread clinical practice, and that even when this happens, the test will still be just one tool in a clinician’s diagnostic arsenal.

    It’s important to note that there’s still a lot we don’t know about the utility of blood-based biomarkers for Alzheimer’s detection,” said Márquez. “These tests have tremendous potential, but they should complement existing approaches, not replace them.”

    Additional coauthors of the study include Kevin Gonzalez, Deisha F. Valencia and Natasha Z. Anita at UC San Diego, Wassim Tarraf at Wayne State University, Ariana M. Stickel and Linda C. Gallo at San Diego State University, Daniela Sotres-Alvarez and Haibo Zhou at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Bonnie E. Levin and Zachary T. Goodman at University of Miami, Michael A. Yassa at UC Irvine, Martha Daviglus and Amber Pirzada at University of Illinois at Chicago and Bharat Thyagarajan at University of Minnesota.

    This study was funded, in part, by grants from the National Institute on Aging (R01AG075758). The Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL) is a collaborative study supported by contracts from the NHLBI to the University of North Carolina (grant Nos. HHSN268201300001I/N01-HC-65233), University of Miami (grant Nos. HHSN268201300004I/N01-HC-65234), Albert Einstein College of Medicine (grant Nos. HHSN268201300002I/N01-HC-65235), University of Illinois at Chicago (grant Nos. HHSN268201300003I/N01- HC-65236 Northwestern University), and San Diego State University (grant Nos. HHSN268201300005I/N01-HC-65237).

  • Sleep strengthens muscle and bone by boosting growth hormone levels.

    Sleep strengthens muscle and bone by boosting growth hormone levels.

    As every bodybuilder knows, a deep, restful sleep boosts levels of growth hormone to build strong muscle and bone and burn fat. And as every teenager should know, they won’t reach their full height potential without adequate growth hormone from a full night’s sleep.

    But why lack of sleep — in particular the early, deep phase called non-REM sleep — lowers levels of growth hormone has been a mystery.

    In a study published in the current issue of the journal Cell, researchers from University of California, Berkeley, dissect the brain circuits that control growth hormone release during sleep and report a novel feedback mechanism in the brain that keeps growth hormone levels finely balanced.

    The findings provide a map for understanding how sleep and hormone regulation interact. The new feedback mechanism could open avenues for treating people with sleep disorders tied to metabolic conditions like diabetes, as well as degenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

    “People know that growth hormone release is tightly related to sleep, but only through drawing blood and checking growth hormone levels during sleep,” said study first author Xinlu Ding, a postdoctoral fellow in UC Berkeley’s Department of Neuroscience and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. “We’re actually directly recording neural activity in mice to see what’s going on. We are providing a basic circuit to work on in the future to develop different treatments.”

    Because growth hormone regulates glucose and fat metabolism, insufficient sleep can also worsen risks for obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

    The sleep-wake cycle

    The neurons that orchestrate growth hormone release during the sleep-wake cycle — growth hormone releasing hormone (GHRH) neurons and two types of somatostatin neurons — are buried deep in the hypothalamus, an ancient brain hub conserved in all mammals. Once released, growth hormone increases the activity of neurons in the locus coeruleus, an area in the brainstem involved in arousal, attention, cognition and novelty seeking. Dysregulation of locus coeruleus neurons is implicated in numerous psychiatric and neurological disorders.

    “Understanding the neural circuit for growth hormone release could eventually point toward new hormonal therapies to improve sleep quality or restore normal growth hormone balance,” said Daniel Silverman, a UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow and study co-author. “There are some experimental gene therapies where you target a specific cell type. This circuit could be a novel handle to try to dial back the excitability of the locus coeruleus, which hasn’t been talked about before.”

    The researchers, working in the lab of Yang Dan, a professor of neuroscience and of molecular and cell biology, explored the neuroendocrine circuit by inserting electrodes in the brains of mice and measuring changes in activity after stimulating neurons in the hypothalamus with light. Mice sleep for short periods — several minutes at a time — throughout the day and night, providing many opportunities to study growth hormone changes during sleep-wake cycles.

    Using state-of-the-art circuit tracing, the team found that the two small-peptide hormones that control the release of growth hormone in the brain — GHRH, which promotes release, and somatostatin, which inhibits release — operate differently during REM and non-REM sleep. Somatostatin and GHRH surge during REM sleep to boost growth hormone, but somatostatin decreases and GHRH increases only moderately during non-REM sleep to boost growth hormone.

    Released growth hormone regulates locus coeruleus activity, as a feedback mechanism to help create a homeostatic yin-yang effect. During sleep, growth hormone slowly accumulates to stimulate the locus coeruleus and promote wakefulness, the new study found. But when the locus coeruleus becomes overexcited, it paradoxically promotes sleepiness, as Silverman showed in a study published earlier this year.

    “This suggests that sleep and growth hormone form a tightly balanced system: Too little sleep reduces growth hormone release, and too much growth hormone can in turn push the brain toward wakefulness,” Silverman said. “Sleep drives growth hormone release, and growth hormone feeds back to regulate wakefulness, and this balance is essential for growth, repair and metabolic health.”

    Because growth hormone acts in part through the locus coeruleus, which governs overall brain arousal during wakefulness, a proper balance could have a broader impact on attention and thinking.

    “Growth hormone not only helps you build your muscle and bones and reduce your fat tissue, but may also have cognitive benefits, promoting your overall arousal level when you wake up,” Ding said.

    The work was funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), which until this year supported Dan as an HHMI investigator, and the Pivotal Life Sciences Chancellor’s Chair fund. Dan is the Pivotal Life Sciences Chancellor’s Chair in Neuroscience. Other co-authors of the paper are Peng Zhong, Bing Li, Chenyan Ma, Lihui Lu, Grace Jiang, Zhe Zhang, Xiaolin Huang, Xun Tu and Zhiyu Melissa Tian of UC Berkeley; and Fuu-Jiun Hwang and Jun Ding of Stanford University.

  • A newly identified reductive uric acid pathway offers hope for gout

    A newly identified reductive uric acid pathway offers hope for gout

    Uric acid builds up in the blood when the body cannot excrete it efficiently, leading to painful gout attacks, kidney stones, and other complications. Current treatments often rely on drugs that block uric acid production, but these can have side effects and do not work for everyone.

    For many years, uric acid degradation is known as occurring mainly through an oxidative pathway, in which uricase enzymes use oxygen to break the purine ring and convert uric acid into allantoin. Humans and higher primates lack functional uricase, which is why they are particularly prone to uric acid accumulation and gout.

    A new study published in Life Metabolism reports an alternative “reductive pathway” that functions without oxygen. In this route, uric acid is first reduced to a newly identified metabolite, “yanthine”, and then further broken down by a sequence of reductive dearomatization and ring-cleaving reactions, ultimately yielding small molecules such as pyruvate and ammonia (Figure 1). This discovery revises the long-standing view of purine catabolism and highlights the metabolic versatility of gut bacteria in anaerobic environments.

    Importantly, the study also detected “yanthine” circulating in human blood, with significantly higher levels in patients with gout compared with healthy individuals. This suggests that “yanthine” could serve as a biomarker for diagnosing or monitoring uric acid-related disorders. To explore therapeutic potential, the team engineered a probiotic strain of Escherichia coli to constitutively activate the reductive pathway. In a uricase-deficient mouse model of hyperuricemia, oral administration of this engineered strain significantly lowered blood uric acid levels, alleviated kidney injury, and remained stably colonized in the gut.

    Together, these findings establish the reductive uric acid pathway as a major addition to the known repertoire of microbial metabolism. The work not only advances fundamental understanding of purine degradation but also points towards practical applications in biomarker discovery and the development of probiotic-based strategies to help control gout.

     

    Photo credit: Credit: Zhi Li, Wei Meng, Zihan Gao, Wanli Peng, Zhandong Hu, Jianhao Zhang, Yining Wang, Xiaoxia Wu, Zipeng Zhao, Chuyuan Zhang, Zhuohao Tang, Zhujun Nie, Shaohua Wu, Benjuan Wu, Hui Zheng, Duqiang Luo, Yang Tong, Yiling Hu, Zehan Hu, Yifeng Wei, Yan Zhang

    Journal Life Metabolism

  • OmegaQuant Awarded NIH Grant to Investigate Fatty Acid Biomarkers for Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Glaucoma

    OmegaQuant Awarded NIH Grant to Investigate Fatty Acid Biomarkers for Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Glaucoma

    The leader in fatty acid testing and research OmegaQuant Analytics, has been awarded a NIH Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to investigate whether patterns of fatty acids in the blood can help predict the future risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and glaucoma.

    According to the CDC, AMD and glaucoma are two of the most common and debilitating eye diseases, affecting an estimated 20 million and 4 million people in the United States, respectively. The economic impact of these conditions is substantial and growing as our population continues to age, with an estimate of over $373 billion in annual lost productivity by 2050 in the United States alone.

    Although established risk factors—including smoking, high blood pressure, obesity, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, poor diet, sun exposure, age, sex, and genetics—can help identify individuals at greater risk, their combined predictive ability remains limited. Earlier identification of people at increased risk could create opportunities for more targeted monitoring and preventive strategies before significant vision loss occurs.

    The newly funded project, “Developing blood fatty acid-based algorithms as early predictors of macular degeneration and glaucoma: Applying machine learning to harmonized data from prospective cohort studies,” will investigate whether red bloodcell fatty acid patterns can provide additional predictive information beyond traditional risk factors.

    Research has suggested that circulating fatty acids, particularly omega-3 fatty acids, may provide valuable information about eye health risk. However, the potential roles of other fatty acids—including trans, omega-6, saturated, and monounsaturated fatty acids—remain less clear. The new study will take a broader approach by examining patterns across multiple fatty acids rather than focusing on a single family.

    Using Machine Learning to Identify New Risk Patterns

    During Phase I, researchers will harmonize fatty acid measurements, eye health outcomes, and other health data from several well-established prospective cohort studies: the Framingham Heart Study (FHS), Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study (WHIMS), Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), and Boston Puerto Rican Health Study (BPRHS).

    Together, these cohorts will provide data from up to 19,922 individuals, including information on AMD or glaucoma outcomes over an average of more than 10 years of follow-up.

    Using statistical and machine-learning approaches, researchers will evaluate whether baseline red blood cell fatty acid patterns can predict the development of AMD and glaucoma. The project is designed to generate new potential fatty acid-based risk metrics.  The study will also explore relationships between fatty acid patterns and optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) measures, such as retinal thickness and vessel density.

    Building Toward Earlier Identification

    The ultimate goal of the research is to determine whether a blood fatty acid profile—used alone or alongside established risk factors—could improve the ability to identify individuals at increased risk for AMD or glaucoma.

    If Phase I demonstrates proof-of-concept feasibility, the findings could provide the foundation for larger prospective studies and further refinement and validation of the predictive models in Phase II.

    “Our goal is to determine whether the fatty acid patterns we can measure in a blood sample contain information that could help identify eye disease risk years before serious vision loss occurs,” said Dr. Bill Harris, Principal Investigator, Founder of OmegaQuant, and President of the Fatty Acid Research Institute (FARI).

    OmegaQuant is well positioned to translate this research into a practical testing approach. For more than 15 years, the laboratory has specialized in fatty acid measurement and interpretation. Further, it supports a large and growing customer base of researchers, clinicians, businesses, and individuals, including an increasing number of optometrists, ophthalmologists and other eye health experts.

    “If we can develop and ultimately validate these fatty acid-based risk profiles, they could provide clinicians with another tool for identifying patients who may benefit from earlier monitoring or preventive intervention,” Dr. Harris added.

    The Phase I project represents an important first step toward determining whether fatty acid biomarkers can enhance current approaches to predicting eye disease risk. Ultimately, OmegaQuant aims to develop a clinically useful blood fatty acid profile that can complement existing risk factors and support earlier, more personalized approaches to protecting eye health.

    Source: OmegaQuant Analytics

  • Hidden hormone spikes may reveal high blood pressure condition

    Hidden hormone spikes may reveal high blood pressure condition

    A common but often overlooked cause of high blood pressure may be hiding in plain sight – and data from a pioneering wearable device could hold the key to its earlier diagnosis, according to new research.

    The study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, concerns a condition called primary aldosteronism – a hormone disorder which affects up to one in five people with high blood pressure and puts them at higher risk of developing heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and other major health problems.

    Researchers from the University of Bristol and the University of Manchester in the UK, the University of Bergen in Norway, and partners in Stockholm and Athens found that patients with the disorder experienced bursts of hormone production during the day as well as in the night while asleep, when routine blood testing is rarely carried out.

    Thanks to an ingenious portable device, developed at the University of Bristol, the hormone levels of patients were able to be monitored round-the-clock in their homes rather than a hospital or research unit. This means hidden irregularities could be uncovered, which may normally go undetected by current testing methods, leading to earlier detection of health conditions.

    Study co-lead author Dr Thomas Upton, Clinical Research Fellow in Automated Sampling Clinical Fellow at the University of Bristol, and Senior Clinical Fellow at Bristol Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: “Primary aldosteronism is an important cause of high blood pressure and the most common cause of secondary hypertension we see in our blood pressure clinic. It could be affecting millions of people in the UK. However, due to the way hormones change during the day and the current complexity of the diagnostic process, diagnosis is often delayed or never made at all.

    “In our study, patients were monitored at home during normal activity, and this allowed us to see how hormones changed over time in realistic settings. This approach could potentially revolutionise how we diagnose hypertension and ultimately reduce cardiovascular disease – particularly heart disease and strokes – that could have been prevented.”

    The proof-of-concept investigation continuously monitored hormone levels every 20 minutes in 60 patients from Bristol, Bergen, Stockholm, and Athens, over a 24-hour period. The patients all wore a lightweight device – which is the size of a mobile phone and attaches at the waist – allowing hormones to be measured from the skin, while they carried out normal daily activities, including sleeping at night.

    Called U-RHYTHM, the technology was adopted and advanced by the spinout company Dynamic Therapeutics in 2023.

    Study senior author Dr Eder Zavala, UKRI Future Leader Fellow at the University of Manchester, said: “By continuously monitoring hormones over 24 hours, we were able to reveal a previously hidden pattern of nocturnal hormone bursts. This gives us a much clearer understanding of the disease and could ultimately help doctors detect it earlier and treat patients more effectively.

    “A more detailed mathematical and computational analysis of daily hormonal profiles could eventually also help uncover earlier and more subtle forms of the disease, opening new opportunities to improve outcomes for patients living with high blood pressure.”

    Computational analysis of data from the device allowed researchers to track changes in aldosterone, the hormone responsible for regulating salt and water balance in humans, along with two closely related hormones known as 18-hydroxycortisol and 18-oxocortisol.

    Existing tests may be missing patients because the study results showed aldosterone levels do not stay high all the time. Furthermore, the researchers found that even among some of the most severe cases of the disease, there were periods when hormone levels dipped below the minimum thresholds used to diagnose the condition.

    Rather than finding persistently raised hormone levels, the researchers discovered repeated night-time bursts of hormone secretion while the day-night rhythm remained intact.

    These hormone spikes, produced by the adrenal glands, were particularly prominent in patients whose disease was caused by a problem in only one adrenal gland rather than both. The abnormal hormone patterns disappeared after surgical removal of the affected adrenal gland, providing further evidence that the bursts were directly linked to the disease.

    Study co-author Prof Stafford Lightman, Professor of Medicine at the University of Bristol and inventor of the U-RHYTHM technology, added: “The findings suggest that clinicians may need to rethink how they look for the disorder which the Endocrine Society clinical practice guidelines now recommend should be considered for all people with hypertension, also known as high blood pressure.

    “Future diagnosis could move away from single time point blood tests and towards tracking the body’s hormone rhythms over time, particularly the overnight patterns that appear to hold crucial clues to disease. Further research is needed to define the best clinical pathways, using dynamic hormone measurement, to ensure early diagnosis of this common and potentially curable cause of high blood pressure.”

    The research was funded by EU Horizon 2020, the Trond Mohn Foundation, the UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Medical Research Council, University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation, the Swedish Medical Research Council and Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

    The findings support the University of Bristol’s research ‘Grand Challenge’ focus on Understanding and Preventing Cardiovascular Disease and builds on NIHR-funded initiatives aimed at earlier identification of people with hypertension and other cardiovascular risk factors.

    Paper

    ‘Tissue corticosteroid rhythms are dysregulated predominantly during sleep in primary aldosteronism’ by M.A. Grytaas et al. in Science Translational Medicine

  • Abbott and NACHC launch nationwide Food for Health initiative to make nutritious food a core part of healthcare

    Abbott and NACHC launch nationwide Food for Health initiative to make nutritious food a core part of healthcare

    Abbott (NYSE: ABT) and the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) announced a multi-year “food is medicine” effort – called the NACHC and Abbott Food for Health Initiative – aimed at making healthy, nutritious food a core part of primary healthcare at Community Health Centers (CHCs) across the U.S.

    Studies show good nutrition is essential for health and plays a critical role in disease prevention and treatment, especially for chronic diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular disease.1 The NACHC-Abbott partnership will include a national certification program designed to help CHCs develop the systems and capacity to advance food for health, along with structured learning, training and knowledge-sharing for CHC staff to build capabilities and expertise in addressing immediate nutrition needs, integrating nutrition into healthcare delivery, and preventing and managing nutrition-related chronic diseases.

    “Since the first health center opened, Community Health Centers – the nation’s largest network of primary care providers – have led the way in addressing food insecurity and integrating nutrition into care delivery,” said Kyu Rhee, MD, MPP, President and CEO, NACHC. “Our collaboration with Abbott builds on that legacy by strengthening Community Health Centers’ capacity to prevent and manage nutrition-related conditions through evidence-based, practical solutions that are designed to improve health outcomes.”

    “We often think about healthcare as what happens in a doctor’s office, but health is also shaped by access to nutritious food and knowledge of the role of food in your health,” said Melissa Brotz, Senior Vice President, Abbott and President of Abbott Fund, the company’s philanthropic foundation. “Food for Health is about bringing those things together – and we’re excited to work with NACHC and Community Health Centers to help make nutrition a core part of how people prevent disease, manage chronic conditions and live healthier.”

    NACHC and Abbott have worked together since 2023 to advance food for health with CHCs. Building on this earlier work, in 2025 NACHC and Abbott assessed CHCs across 37 states to determine what’s working, where gaps exist and what is needed to expand food for health in health centers. This analysis found strong interest in integrating nutrition and care, but fragmented funding, training, data collection and clinical implementation remain key barriers to expanding these efforts across CHCs.

    The NACHC and Abbott Food for Health Initiative was strategically designed to help close these gaps, with a focus on providing CHCs with the support they need to address real-life barriers to nutrition and health in the communities they serve. The framework is made up of three key components:

    • Food for Health Learning Lab, a structured learning program designed to build nutrition literacy and expertise across the CHC workforce, and guide health centers in implementing and measuring food is medicine efforts.
    • Food for Health Community of Practice, a national peer-learning network that will connect health centers to share promising practices, troubleshoot challenges and learn from top experts.
    • Food for Health CORE (Certification of Readiness and Excellence), a voluntary national certification program that will recognize and support CHCs in developing the systems, processes and competencies needed to advance food for health efforts.

    The NACHC and Abbott Food for Health Initiative is a signature program of NACHC’s Center for Nutrition and Health, bringing together public and private partners, CHCs, and other stakeholders. The broader goal of the center is to serve as an innovation hub dedicated to moving food-based clinical care from separate efforts to a coordinated body of programs and policy initiatives that improve health outcomes.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Q: What is “Food is Medicine”?
    A: Food is Medicine is an approach that recognizes the important role nutrition plays in preventing, managing and treating disease. It focuses on connecting people with nutrition support and healthy food as part of their overall healthcare.

    Q: What is chronic disease?
    A: Chronic diseases are long-term health conditions that often require ongoing care and management. Common examples include heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

    Q: Why is nutrition important to preventing chronic disease?
    A: Good nutrition is a foundation of good health and can play an important role in helping prevent and manage chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. Access to nutritious food, combined with healthcare and education, can help people improve their long-term health and well-being.

    Q: How can Food is Medicine help improve health?
    A: Food is Medicine programs connect nutrition and healthcare to help people make healthier choices, manage chronic conditions and improve overall well-being. Through the NACHC and Abbott Food for Health Initiative, Community Health Centers will have additional tools and support to integrate nutrition into patient care.

    Q: What evidence supports the Food Is Medicine approach?
    A: Research suggests Food is Medicine interventions can improve health outcomes and help reduce healthcare utilization and costs.

    About the National Association of Community Health Centers
    NACHC’s mission is to champion Community Health Centers delivering affordable, effective, comprehensive primary care that is community-driven and improves health for all. For more information, visit www.nachc.org.

    About Abbott
    Abbott is a global healthcare leader that helps people live more fully at all stages of life. Our portfolio of life-changing technologies spans the spectrum of healthcare, with leading businesses and products in diagnostics, medical devices, nutritionals and branded generic medicines. Our 122,000 colleagues serve people in more than 160 countries. Together with our foundation, Abbott Fund, we partner with trusted organizations to build programs that strengthen care, improve access and help families and communities thrive. We’re committed to building a healthier future by inspiring lifelong habits that support well-being and help to prevent chronic disease for generations to come. Connect with us at Abbott.com and on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.

    1 The Role of Nutrition in Chronic Disease (Nutrients, 2023) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9921002/

    SOURCE Abbott

  • Can GLP-1s Help People Stop Insulin?

    Can GLP-1s Help People Stop Insulin?

    A new study led by Kasia Lipska, MD, MHS, associate professor of medicine (endocrinology and metabolism) at Yale School of Medicine, examined the impact of Glucagon-like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonist (GLP-1RA) therapy on rates of insulin discontinuation in people with type 2 diabetes compared with other oral medications typically prescribed to help manage blood sugar levels. The findings were published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

    While insulin therapy is an effective treatment for many individuals with type 2 diabetes, it can be burdensome to take, requiring daily injections and frequent monitoring, and can result in low blood sugar reactions. Studies have shown that GLP-1RAs can reduce daily insulin requirements, but researchers have yet to determine whether these newer medications can enable safe discontinuation of insulin in people with type 2 diabetes.

    For the study, the researchers used U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs electronic health records data to match 9,000 sets of people based on similar health traits, which they then analyzed by treatment assignment: GLP-1RA, sodium–glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitor (SGLT-2i), or dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor (DPP-4i). They then retroactively analyzed three years of records to see the rate at which those who started each type of medicine were able to stop using insulin. Insulin discontinuation was measured based on when patients stopped filling their insulin prescriptions at the VA.

    GLP-1RAs performed comparably to the other prescription medicines used to treat diabetes, researchers found. All groups discontinued insulin at a similar rate.

    The results came as a surprise, says Lipska. “I was wondering how big the effect of GLP-1RAs would be, not whether there was any effect at all.”

    Lipska has several ideas as to why the study did not show that GLP-1RA therapy increases the rates of patients stopping insulin therapy. Because the study was not a randomized clinical trial, the data was gathered from routine interactions with clinicians and patients.

    “It’s very complex,” says Lipska. “Patients often add or switch medications over time, so it becomes very difficult to disentangle,” she says.

    Lipska also noted that patients in the study did not advance to a full dose of GLP-1RAs and were using a weaker version than those currently on the market, which may have dampened the effect.

    This study points to a larger issue in diabetes care: There is no standard protocol for discontinuing insulin, Lipska says.

    “Most training for diabetes care is about starting and adjusting dose, not stopping or withdrawing,” says Lipska. She explains that when someone is achieving their target blood sugar numbers and taking incrementally smaller doses, that is usually a cue to stop. Even so, many people with type 2 diabetes remain on insulin, possibly because many clinicians are uncertain about stopping it.

    “The lesson may be that prescribing a GLP-1 receptor agonist is only the first step,” Lipska says. “If we want to help people safely come off insulin, we also need to know when and how to withdraw it. Right now, clinicians have very little guidance for doing that.”

    Other Yale authors of the study include Pradeep Mutalik, MD; Barbara Gulanski, MD, MPH; Mihaela Aslan, PhD; and Lei Yan, PhD.

    Original release: https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/can-glp-1s-help-people-stop-insulin/

  • Yale Scientists Gain New Insight Into Genetic Architecture of Fibromyalgia

    Yale Scientists Gain New Insight Into Genetic Architecture of Fibromyalgia

    Using data from large biobanks, Yale scientists have gained new insight into the genetic architecture of fibromyalgia, a chronic disorder that affects the quality of life of around 3% of the world’s population.

    The condition, which mostly affects women, causes widespread pain, muscle stiffness, sleep problems, fatigue, depression, and anxiety. The cause of fibromyalgia is unknown, and doctors usually diagnose it based on a person’s symptoms.

    Studies show that fibromyalgia is influenced by genetics, although earlier studies used small sample sizes and revealed little about the exact genes involved in the disorder.

    Yale scientists conducted a much larger study, using data from biobanks such as All of Us, the Million Veteran Program, UK Biobank, and Finngen, to investigate the genetic architecture of fibromyalgia in subjects of European, African, and Latin American origins.

    The analysis, published July 28 in Nature Communications, included 1.7 million subjects and 85,000 fibromyalgia cases. The scientists used a method called multi-trait analysis of genome-wide association studies (GWAS), which combines information from pain GWAS to strengthen fibromyalgia analyses.

    They identified 10 independent genomic risk loci associated with fibromyalgia in European ancestry, one in African ancestry, and 12 cross-ancestry. The analysis revealed 45 independent genomic loci associated with fibromyalgia.

    Among the genetic variants they identified, several are linked to genes involved in nerve pathways, diseases, protein production, and mental health, which can help explain the complex genetics behind fibromyalgia.

    “With more than 1.7 million participants, including tens of thousands of fibromyalgia cases, this study now enables us to understand the genetic architecture of fibromyalgia better than ever,” says Uri Bright, PhD, postdoctoral associate in psychiatry, and the paper’s first author. “Understanding the genetic architecture of this complex trait can be the first step toward the development of more target-specific medical treatments, and hopefully also prevention of this syndrome.”

    Genetic correlation analyses revealed that although fibromyalgia is more prevalent in females (75% of the cases are females), its genetic architecture in both sexes is similar. The strongest genetic correlation the scientists found for fibromyalgia with a different trait was with chronic pain, and they also found a relatively high correlation with migraine.

    In a genomic structural equation modeling analysis—a method that models the shared genetic architecture among multiple complex traits—fibromyalgia shared architecture with chronic pain and migraine, as well as with endometriosis, autoimmune response, insomnia, and physical activity, but not with psychiatric traits. This suggests that fibromyalgia may be contextualized more as a pain and autoimmune trait, even though the genetic correlations with psychiatric traits such as depression, suicidality, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are moderate to high.

    The scientists also found moderate genetic links between fibromyalgia and opioid use disorder and cannabis use disorder, which is important because opioids are used to relieve pain and cannabis use has increased in recent years to treat fibromyalgia symptoms.

    “Having completed a powerful GWAS analysis, we were able to use those data to explore other genetic and biological characteristics of fibromyalgia,” says senior author Joel Gelernter, MD, Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry and professor of genetics and of neuroscience. “One of the most interesting of these outcomes was the demonstration of the close genetic relationship fibromyalgia has with PTSD and depression, a finding that adds to our understanding of how pain relates to psychiatric traits.”

    The scientists said their findings allow for a deeper understanding of fibromyalgia genomics, which in turn may help with diagnosis. Genetic correlations between fibromyalgia and physical activity, as well as with traits that are highly associated with nutrition and cardiovascular function, may support the importance of adopting a healthier lifestyle for the treatment and/or prevention of fibromyalgia, they said.

    Other Yale contributors include Sarah Beck, MD; Daniel F. Levey, PhD; and Joseph D. Deak, PhD.

  • Precision Nutrition May Enhance Effectiveness of GLP-1 Drugs

    Precision Nutrition May Enhance Effectiveness of GLP-1 Drugs

    A new review titled, “Integrating Precision Nutrition with GLP-1 Receptor Agonist Therapy: Mechanisms, Clinical Outcomes, and Pharmacoeconomic Implications,” examines the biological mechanisms of nutrition, body composition, gut microbiome, inflammation, metabolism, and genetics to develop individualized recommendations for optimal treatment with GLP-1 drugs. Due to considerable variability in patients’ responses to these drugs, treatment tolerability remains a major challenge, so researchers are seeking answers for the approximately 1 in 7 people that do not get results.

    Published in the international peer-reviewed journal Pharmaceuticals, the review was developed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers representing leading academic and healthcare institutions, including the Local Health Authority of Foggia (ASL Foggia), the University Magna Graecia of Catanzaro, the University of Siena, the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station, the Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine and the Sbarro Health Research Organization (SHRO), located at the Center for Biotechnology, College of Science and Technology, Temple University.

    The review presents an innovative perspective on the management of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus, highlighting how the integration of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists like Wegovy and Ozempic, combined with precision nutrition, may represent a promising strategy to optimize therapeutic outcomes. Although GLP-1 receptor agonists have transformed the treatment of metabolic diseases through their remarkable ability to promote substantial weight loss and improve glycemic control, some patients experience unpleasant side effects and poor results.

    To find a solution for patients not getting results from GLP-1 drugs, the authors comprehensively assess how precision nutrition can serve as a fundamental adjunct to pharmacological therapy through personalized dietary interventions. By preserving lean body mass, ensuring adequate protein and micronutrient intake, favorably modulating the gut microbiota, and improving the gastrointestinal tolerability of GLP-1-based therapies, researchers theorize that patients may experience better outcomes and more effective results.

    The review also explores the growing contribution of nutrigenomics, metabolomics, multi-omics technologies, artificial intelligence, and digital health in advancing personalized metabolic medicine, highlighting their potential to support increasingly individualized therapeutic strategies.

    “Precision medicine is not limited to only finding the right drug,” says Professor Antonio Giordano, M.D., Ph.D., President of SHRO and Director of the Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine at Temple University. “It has the potential to integrate nutritional, biological, and metabolic knowledge and develop truly personalized therapies.”

    Another key aspect addressed in the review concerns the pharmacoeconomic implications of integrating precision nutrition with pharmacological treatment. According to the authors, this combined approach may improve treatment adherence, reduce adverse events, minimize long-term clinical complications, and ultimately enhance the cost-effectiveness and sustainability of obesity and diabetes management within healthcare systems.

    “GLP-1 receptor agonists have revolutionized the treatment of obesity and diabetes,” continues Giordano. “However, their full therapeutic potential will only be realized through a multidisciplinary approach involving clinicians, nutrition specialists, researchers, and healthcare professionals.”

    The authors emphasize that prospective clinical trials should be specifically designed to evaluate the integration of precision nutrition with GLP-1 receptor agonist therapy.

    “This review represents an important step toward a new paradigm in metabolic medicine, in which pharmacology, precision nutrition, and innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence could work synergistically to improve clinical outcomes and patients’ quality of life,” concludes Giordano.

  • 7 Days of Meditation Can Rewire the Brain

    7 Days of Meditation Can Rewire the Brain

    A week of intensive meditation and other mind and body practices may be capable of producing measurable changes far beyond simple relaxation. In a recent study, researchers at the University of California San Diego found that a seven-day retreat was associated with changes in brain activity, blood chemistry, immune signaling, metabolism, and the body’s natural pain control systems.

    The researchers also found signs of increased neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to adapt, reorganize, and form new connections. The findings, published in Communications Biology, offer new clues about how mental practices and conscious experiences may influence physical biology.

    Measuring the Biology of Meditation

    Meditation and related practices have been used in cultures around the world for thousands of years as tools for health and well-being. Scientists, however, are still working to understand exactly what happens inside the brain and body when people engage in these practices.

    The new research was part of a multi-million-dollar initiative supported by the InnerScience Research Fund. According to the researchers, it is the first study to comprehensively measure the biological effects of several mind and body practices delivered together during a short, intensive program.

    “We’ve known for years that practices like meditation can influence health, but what’s striking is that combining multiple mind-body practices into a single retreat produced changes across so many biological systems that we could measure directly in the brain and blood,” said senior study author Hemal H. Patel, Ph.D., professor of anesthesiology at UC San Diego School of Medicine and research career scientist at the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System. “This isn’t about just stress relief or relaxation; this is about fundamentally changing how the brain engages with reality and quantifying these changes biologically.”

    Inside the Seven-Day Retreat

    The study involved 20 healthy adults who participated in a 7-day residential program led by neuroscience educator and author Joe Dispenza, D.C. The retreat included daily lectures, approximately 33 hours of guided meditation, and group healing practices.

    Some of those healing activities relied on an “open-label placebo” approach. Unlike a traditional placebo, where participants may not know they are receiving an inactive treatment, people taking part in an open placebo know from the beginning that no active medical ingredient is involved. Researchers have studied this approach because expectations, social interaction, and the experience of participating in a treatment can sometimes produce measurable effects even when no active drug is given.

    Before and after the retreat, scientists examined participants’ brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This type of scanning detects changes in blood flow associated with brain activity, allowing researchers to observe which areas and networks are more or less active.

    Blood samples were also collected so the team could examine changes involving metabolism, immune activity, molecular signaling, and other biological processes.

    Changes From the Brain to the Immune System

    The researchers reported several notable differences following the retreat.

    Brain activity became less pronounced in regions associated with internal mental chatter during meditation. The researchers interpreted this pattern as a sign of more efficient brain function.

    Evidence of increased neuroplasticity also emerged in laboratory experiments. When scientists exposed laboratory-grown neurons to blood plasma collected from participants after the retreat, the neurons developed longer branches and formed more connections. These changes are commonly associated with the ability of nerve cells to communicate and adapt.

    Metabolism changed as well. Cells exposed to plasma collected after the retreat showed increased glycolytic (sugar-burning) metabolism. Glycolysis is one of the main ways cells convert glucose into usable energy, and the researchers said the shift pointed toward a more flexible and adaptable metabolic state.

    The retreat also appeared to activate the body’s own pain control mechanisms. Blood concentrations of endogenous opioids increased after the program. Endogenous opioids are naturally produced chemicals that act on some of the same biological systems targeted by opioid pain medications, helping the body regulate pain without an external drug.

    Researchers also detected changes in immune signaling. Both inflammatory and anti-inflammatory signals increased at the same time, suggesting that the immune system was undergoing a more complicated adaptive response rather than simply becoming more or less active.

    Small RNA molecules and patterns of gene activity in the blood also changed, particularly in biological pathways associated with brain function. Small RNA molecules help control how genes are expressed and can influence the activity of cells throughout the body.

    Mystical Experiences and Brain Connectivity

    Researchers were also interested in the subjective experiences participants had while meditating.

    The volunteers completed the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ-30), which is designed to measure experiences involving feelings of unity, transcendence, and altered consciousness. Average scores increased significantly, from 2.37 before the retreat to 3.02 afterward.

    People who reported stronger mystical experiences also tended to show greater biological changes. In particular, higher questionnaire scores were associated with increased integration of activity between different regions of the brain.

    That relationship suggests that greater communication across brain networks may be associated with a stronger likelihood of experiencing profound changes in consciousness.

    Possible Implications for Health and Pain

    The findings give researchers a potential biological framework for understanding how non-drug mind and body interventions might support health and well-being.

    Increased neuroplasticity could potentially support processes involved in mental health, learning, emotional regulation, and resilience to stress. Changes in immune activity could also prove important if future research shows that these effects are reliable and clinically meaningful.

    The increase in endogenous opioids is especially interesting for pain research. Because these chemicals are part of the body’s built-in pain-regulating system, the researchers said the combination of practices used during the retreat could eventually have implications for chronic pain management.

    However, the study was conducted in healthy adults rather than patients with diagnosed medical conditions. Controlled clinical trials will therefore be necessary before researchers can determine whether the observed biological changes translate into meaningful treatment benefits.

    The team is particularly interested in studying whether similar retreats could help people living with chronic pain, mood disorders, or conditions involving the immune system.

    What Researchers Still Need to Learn

    Another major unanswered question is which parts of the retreat were responsible for the observed effects.

    Participants experienced several interventions at the same time, including meditation, reconceptualization, and open-label placebo healing. Because those elements were combined, the current study cannot establish how much each individual practice contributed.

    Future research will examine the components separately and in different combinations. Scientists also want to determine how long the biological changes last and whether repeating the interventions can strengthen or maintain them over time.

    “This study shows that our minds and bodies are deeply interconnected — what we believe, how we focus our attention, and the practices we participate in can leave measurable fingerprints on our biology,” said first author Alex Jinich-Diamant, a doctoral student in the Departments of Cognitive Science and Anesthesiology at UC San Diego. “It’s an exciting step toward understanding how conscious experience and physical health are intertwined, and how we might harness that connection to promote well-being in new ways.”

    Story Source: University of California – San Diego.