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Category: health – Page 13

Stenting all blocked arteries outperforms culprit-only treatment approach, study shows

Opening all blocked arteries with stents in patients with a heart attack, known as complete revascularization, reduces the risk of death from cardiovascular causes, death from any cause and future heart attacks compared with opening only the culprit artery causing the heart attack according to a new, large international study led by researchers at the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI), a joint organization of McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences.

The results were published simultaneously in The Lancet and presented in a Late-Breaking Clinical Science Featured Research Session at the American Heart Association’s 2025 Scientific Sessions in New Orleans, Louisiana, on November 9, 2025.

“Cardiologists face a dilemma when a patient has a heart attack and multiple coronary artery blockages are found: should they treat only the artery causing the , or perform complete and open all blocked arteries, including the bystander arteries?” said Shamir R. Mehta, study chair, PHRI senior scientist, interventional cardiologist at McMaster University.

Waist-to-height ratio outperforms BMI in predicting heart disease risk

The ratio of a person’s waist measurement compared to their height is more reliable than body mass index (BMI) at predicting heart disease risk, according to new research from UPMC and University of Pittsburgh physician-scientists.

This finding, published in The Lancet Regional Health—Americas, could reshape how clinicians and the public assess cardiovascular risk, especially for people who don’t meet the classic definition of obesity.

The team analyzed data from 2,721 adults who had participated in the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ELSA-Brasil). The individuals had no cardiovascular disease at baseline and were followed for more than five years.

Analysis of 14 million children finds COVID-19 infection poses greater heart complication risk than vaccination

A new study shows children and young people face long-lasting and higher risks of rare heart and inflammatory complications after COVID-19 infection, compared to before or without an infection. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 vaccination was only linked to a short-term higher risk of myocarditis and pericarditis.

The study is the largest of its kind in this population, and is published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health. It was led by scientists at the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh, and University College London, with support from the BHF Data Science Center at Health Data Research UK.

Principal author Dr. Alexia Sampri, University of Cambridge, said, “Our whole-population study during the pandemic showed that although these conditions were rare, children and young people were more likely to experience heart, vascular or inflammatory problems after a COVID-19 infection than after having the vaccine—and the risks after infection lasted much longer.”

Mechanoluminescent sensors with dual-function polymer shell offer eco-friendly, high-resolution control

Mechanoluminescent (ML) materials are attractive for haptic interface sensors for next-generation technologies, including bite-controlled user interface, health care motion monitoring, and piconewton sensing, because they emit light under mechanical stimulation without an external power source. However, their intrinsically broad emission spectra can degrade resolution and introduce noise in sensing applications, necessitating further technological development.

Addressing this knowledge gap, a team of researchers from the Republic of Korea and the UK, led by Hyosung Choi, a Professor at the Department of Chemistry at Hanyang University, and including Nam Woo Kim, a master’s student at Hanyang University, recently employed a chromatic filtration strategy to pave the way to high-resolution ML haptic sensors. Their findings are published in the journal Advanced Materials.

In this study, the team coated the conjugated polymer poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene-alt-benzothiadiazole) (F8BT) onto ZnS: Cu to selectively suppress emission below 490 nm, narrowing the full width at half maximum from 94 nm to 55 nm.

As brain organoids grow increasingly complex, leading scientists and bioethicists call for global oversight

In an effort to address these ethical grey areas, 17 leading scientists and bioethicists from five countries are urging the establishment of an international oversight body to monitor advances in the rapidly expanding field of human neural organoids and to provide ethical and policy guidance as the science continues to evolve. The call to action, published Thursday in Science, comes as U.S. government agencies are making new investments in organoid science aimed at accelerating drug discovery and reducing reliance on animal models of disease.

In September, the National Institutes of Health announced $87 million in initial contracts to establish a new center dedicated to standardizing organoid research. The move followed an earlier pledge by both the NIH and the Food and Drug Administration to reduce, and possibly replace, testing on mice, primates, and other animals with other methods — including organoids and organ-on-a-chip technologies — for developing certain medicines.

Government promotion of human stem cell models more broadly will only increase the recruitment of new researchers into the field of neural organoids, which has seen an explosion from a few dozen labs a decade ago to hundreds around the world now, said Sergiu Pasca, a pioneering neuroscientist and stem cell biologist at Stanford University who co-authored the Science commentary.

Coordinating health AI to prevent defensive escalation

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems that can analyse medical images, records, and claims are becoming accessible to everyone. Although these systems outperform physicians at specific tasks, such as detecting cancer on CT scans, they are still imperfect. But as AI performance progresses from occasionally correct to reliably superior, there will be increasing pressure to conform to algorithmic outputs.

United Nations General Assembly’s AUDACITY 100 Disruptors Summit

face_with_colon_three Fungi can save all life on earth. This lecture teaches that mushrooms are outperforming even age old medicines.

Watch my 15 minute speech at the United Nations General Assembly’s AUDACITY 100 Disruptors Summit was a powerful reminder of how interconnected we all are.

I spoke about how fungal mycelium can help heal ecosystems, strengthen food systems, and strengthens the health.
of the residents of the planet. Mycelium supports our collective immunity.

When Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World was published in 2005, it foretold the mycelial revolution that continues to sweep the planet. This book is as relevant today as it was then. What has happened since? The scientific community continues to verify that mycelium is essential for our collective health, whether as nutritional supplements, or as the core fabric of our food webs.

Common Sweetener Could Damage Critical Brain Barrier, Risking Stroke

Found in everything from protein bars to energy drinks, erythritol has long been considered a safe alternative to sugar.

But research suggests this widely used sweetener may be quietly undermining one of the body’s most crucial protective barriers – with potentially serious consequences for heart health and stroke risk.

A study from the University of Colorado suggests erythritol may damage cells in the blood-brain barrier, the brain’s security system that keeps out harmful substances while letting in nutrients.

New antibiotic for drug-resistant bacteria found hiding in plain sight

Chemists from the University of Warwick and Monash University have discovered a promising new antibiotic that shows activity against drug-resistant bacterial pathogens, including MRSA and VRE.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the world’s most urgent health challenges, with the WHO’s new report showing there are ‘too few antibacterials in the pipeline’. Most of the ‘low-hanging fruit’ has already been found, and the limited commercial incentives deter investment in antibiotic discovery.

In a new study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, researchers from the Monash Warwick Alliance Combatting Emerging Superbug Threats Initiative have discovered a promising new antibiotic — pre-methylenomycin C lactone. The newly discovered antibiotic was ‘hiding in plain sight’ – as an intermediate chemical in the natural process that produces the well-known antibiotic methylenomycin A.

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