Category Biology/Biotechnology

A new study from Trinity College Dublin highlights that fitness may be a more important clinical endpoint for improvement in patients with fatty liver diseases during exercise trials, rather than weight loss. The findings have been published today (Tuesday, 28th July 2020) in the medical journal Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

Metabolic associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) is a condition characterised by a build up of fat in the liver. The liver is central to a suite of vital processes in the body including digestion, blood clotting and energy production.

If left untreated, MAFLD can lead to serious complications like liver fibrosis (scarring), cirrhosis, liver failure and liver cancer, as well as cardiovascular and metabolic issues...

Modifying 12 risk factors over a lifetime could delay or prevent 40% of dementia cases, according to an updated report by the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention and care presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC 2020).

Twenty-eight world-leading dementia experts added three new risk factors in the new report — excessive alcohol intake and head injury in mid-life and air pollution in later life...

In a pilot study of people living with HIV or high levels of cholesterol, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers found that a six-week course of a cholesterol-lowering medication improved the function of the coronary arteries that provide oxygen to the heart.

The drug used in the study, a PCSK9 inhibitor, lowers the activity of PCSK9, a protein involved in cholesterol metabolism. These levels are higher in people with HIV and in those with high cholesterol. Currently, people with HIV receive antiretroviral medications and rarely die from the virus itself...

A new blood test demonstrated remarkable promise in discriminating between persons with and without Alzheimer’s disease and in persons at known genetic risk may be able to detect the disease as early as 20 years before the onset of cognitive impairment, according to a large international study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and simultaneously presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.

For many years, the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s has been based on the characterization of amyloid plaques and tau tangles in the brain, typically after a person dies...