by Jason Howland, Mayo Clinic Credit: CC0 Public Domain Winter is flu and cold season. Will taking in more vitamin C keep you healthier and prevent illness? Dr. Jesse Bracamonte, a Mayo Clinic family physician, explains more about the health benefits of vitamin C in this Mayo Clinic Minute. Want to keep the common cold away this winter?...
Year: <span>2025</span>
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Study details how ketones improve blood flow to the heart
by Masonic Medical Research Institute Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A research team led by Matthew Nystoriak, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical research and translational medicine at Masonic Medical Research Institute (MMRI), has uncovered groundbreaking insights into heart health in a study titled “Myocardial Hyperemia via Cardiomyocyte Catabolism of β-Hydroxybutyrate.” The research highlights how a ketone body called β-hydroxybutyrate...
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Streamlined approach to testing for heparin-induced thrombocytopenia improves diagnostic accuracy
by Association for Diagnostic and Laboratory Medicine Relationship between HIT ELISA % heparin inhibition, low-heparin OD, and SRA results for nonnegative HIT ELISAs with corresponding SRA testing during the analysis period (December 7, 2016–December 31, 2021). Credit: The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine (2025). DOI: 10.1093/jalm/jfae131 A new study appearing in The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine (JALM) has found that...
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Doctors worry that iodine deficiency—a dietary problem from the past—is coming back
by Mike Stobbe Iodized salt is displayed for a photograph in Philadelphia on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. Credit: AP Photo/Jonathan Poet The 13-year-old boy came to the clinic with a rapidly ballooning neck. Doctors were puzzled. Testing ruled out their first suspicion. But further tests pinpointed what they—and the boy—had been missing: iodine. A century...
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Genetically altered fat cells in mice show promise for obesity treatment
by UT Southwestern Medical Center Credit: Cell Metabolism (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2024.11.003 Obese mice whose fat cells were genetically altered to produce an increased amount of the glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide receptor (GIPR) lost more than a third of their body weight through a mechanism that burns energy, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report in a new study. Published in Cell Metabolism, the...
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Genetic discovery offers hope for personalized epilepsy treatments
by Laura Frnka-Davis, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston In silico sequence- and structure-based analysis of variants in candidate genes. Credit: Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54911-w Recent research led by UTHealth Houston scientists has uncovered two genes associated with variants linked to epilepsy, which showed specific traits that make them promising diagnostic biomarkers. The study is published in Nature...
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Cells all over the body store ‘memories’: What does this mean for health?
Share on PinterestDo all our cells have a type of memory, and if so, how might this influence health? We investigate. Design by MNT; Photography by Grant Faint/Getty Images & Ed Reschke/Getty Images. Memory is one of the most crucial aspects of our health and human identity. Through memory, we create our individuality, our specific relationships...
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What to know about a controversial new fluoride study
Last fall, STAT’s Anil Oza wrote about the science on water fluoridation in response to criticisms of the practice from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Trump’s pick to head HHS. Now Anil reports on a new study that found a slight decrease in children’s IQ scores as their levels of fluoride exposure increased. You read that right....
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Why don’t new memories overwrite old ones? Sleep science holds clues
Research in mice points towards a mechanism that avoids ‘catastrophic forgetting’. Artificially coloured nerve fibres in a mouse’s hippocampus, the brain region where new memories are encoded.Credit: Mark & Mary Stevens Neuroimaging & Informatics Institute/Science Photo Library New clues have emerged in the mystery of how the brain avoids ‘catastrophic forgetting’ — the distortion and...
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New GFR formula offers better diagnosis of hyperfiltration in elderly patients
Reviewed Osaka Metropolitan UniversityJan 6 2025 Annual health checkups regularly include urine tests that serve several purposes, including checking for symptoms of kidney disease. The presence of albumin in the urine is one indicator as is glomerular filtration rate. In diabetic nephropathy, albuminuria first appears, leading to excessive filtration and eventually a decrease in GFR....