Researchers at Boston University, USA report that the flow of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain is linked to waking brain activity. Led by Stephanie Williams, and publishing in the open access journal PLOS Biology on March 30th, the study demonstrates that manipulating blood flow in the brain with visual stimulation induces complementary fluid flow. The findings could impact treatment for conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, which have been associated with declines in cerebrospinal fluid flow.

Just as our kidneys help remove toxic waste from our bodies, cerebrospinal fluid helps remove toxins from the brain, particularly while we sleep. Reduced flow of cerebrospinal fluid is known to be related to declines in brain health, such as occur in Alzheimer’s disease. Based on evidence from sleep studies, the researchers hypothesized that brain activity while awake could also affect the flow of cerebrospinal fluid. They tested this hypothesis by simultaneously recording human brain activity via fMRI and the speed of cerebrospinal fluid flow while people were shown a checkered pattern that turned on and off.

Researchers first confirmed that the checkered pattern induced brain activity; blood oxygenation recorded by fMRI increased when the pattern was visible and decreased when it was turned off. Next, they found that the flow of cerebrospinal fluid negatively mirrored the blood signal, increasing when the checkered pattern was off. Further tests showed that changing how long the pattern was visible affected blood and fluid in a predictable way, and that the blood-cerebrospinal fluid link could not be accounted for by only breathing or heart rate rhythms.

https://www.newswise.com/articles/fluid-flow-in-the-brain-can-be-manipulated-by-sensory-stimulation

Recent research offers both bad and good news on the issue.

Two separate studies from the same researcher found that firearms deaths involving preschool-aged children had increased at an alarmingly high rate in the United States in the past decade, but state laws may help curb shooting deaths among young children.

"Firearms are among the top causes of death for American children now, and no other industrialized nation has such high rates of firearm deaths," said researcher Jagdish Khubchandani, a professor of public health at New Mexico State University.

In the first study, published in the Journal of Community Health, Khubchandani and co-author James Price from the University of Toledo tracked changes in firearm death trends in preschool children from 2010 to 2020.

The study found that 1,220 children were shot and killed during that period. Firearm death rates among preschoolers increased by 75%.

About 66% of all firearm deaths in preschool children were homicides, 30% were unintentional deaths and 4% were undetermined, according to the study.

Homicides caused the most firearm deaths among white children, 61%; Black children, 65%; and Hispanic children, 81%.

"The data indicates that the worsening epidemic of firearm violence is not just limited to youth and adults, it is also affecting very young children," Khubchandani said in a university news release. "Our findings show that since the past decade, we have been losing almost 10 children every month due to firearm injuries. To prevent this problem, we will need inter-sectoral approaches, with participation from families, health care providers and policymakers."

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-03-gun-deaths-kids-state-laws.html

A team of British researchers has made an exciting discovery in the great inky black of space: a gigantic black hole is roughly 30 billion times the mass of our Sun.

Something that large is almost unfathomable to the brain of the Average Joe, but thankfully space boffins at Durham University have been busily studying the cosmos and all the secrets she keeps hidden from us.

The findings, described by the research team as 'extremely exciting' have been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Durham University Astronomer James Nightingale and lead author of the study said: "This particular black hole is roughly 30 billion times the mass of our Sun.

https://www.unilad.com/news/scientists-discover-one-of-the-biggest-black-holes-ever-291846-20230329

Losing weight with lifestyle changes in an intensive behavioral weight loss program was associated with a decrease in risk factors for cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes for at least five years — even if some weight was regained, according to a systematic review of research, published today in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, a peer-reviewed American Heart Association journal.

People affected by obesity or who are overweight are at increased risk for high cholesterol and high blood pressure — factors that heighten risk of cardiovascular disease; as well as insulin resistance, a precursor to Type 2 diabetes. Globally, overweight and obesity contributed to 2.4 million deaths in 2020, according to the American Heart Association’s 2023 Statistical Update.

Behavioral weight loss programs can help people lose and maintain a healthy weight by encouraging lifestyle and behavior changes, such as eating healthy foods and increasing physical activity. Regaining some weight is common after behavioral weight loss programs. Some observational studies suggest this weight change pattern of weight loss followed by weight regain may increase cardiovascular risk. However, according to the authors of this analysis, data from randomized trials and long-term follow-up studies is lacking.

“Many doctors and patients recognize that weight loss is often followed by weight regain, and they fear that this renders an attempt to lose weight pointless,” said study co-senior author Susan A. Jebb, Ph.D., a professor of diet and population health at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. “This concept has become a barrier to offering support to people to lose weight. For people with overweight or obesity issues, losing weight is an effective way to reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.”

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCOUTCOMES.122.009348

Researchers found that among nearly 100 teens who underwent brain scans, those with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) tended to have thinner tissue at the brain's surface, and some signs of inflammation in a brain area key to memory and learning.

Exactly what those brain structure differences mean is not yet clear, said senior researcher Dr. Raanan Arens, chief of respiratory and sleep medicine at Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York City.

But the findings -- recently published in the journal Sleep -- do suggest that OSA can lead to observable alterations in kids' brains.

Studies estimate that anywhere from 1% to 5% of children have obstructive sleep apnea, a disorder in which tissues in the throat constrict during sleep, causing repeated stops and starts in breathing. Loud snoring is the most obvious symptom, but daytime sleepiness and attention problems are also red flags.

https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2023/03/28/8541679945074/

A cup of wild blueberries a day may keep low energy at bay. The berries have long been hailed as a superfood—while they’re known for a plethora of health benefits, new research from Cal Poly Humboldt proves this superfruit could help burn fat during exercise.

The study, recently published in the journal Nutrients and the first to examine wild blueberries’ fat-burning effects during exercise in non-elite athletes, suggests that wild blueberries may help accelerate fat oxidation—the process of breaking down fatty acids or burning fats for energy.

The study included 11 healthy aerobically trained males. Each was instructed to follow a diet, which included consuming 25 grams of freeze-dried wild blueberries (equivalent to 1 cup of raw fruit) daily for two weeks. Participants exercised on a bike for 40 minutes at Cal Poly Humboldt’s Human Performance Lab. Researchers collected urine and blood before and after cycling, and blood samples every 10 minutes during the workout.

Results showed participants burned notably more fat after consuming wild blueberries. For example, fat oxidation rate rose by 19.7%, 43.2%, and 31.1% at 20, 30, and 40 min after cycling.

Overall, the research found that consuming roughly 1 cup of wild blueberries daily for two weeks increases the ability to use/burn fat during moderate-intensity exercise, like cycling.

While it accelerates fat burning, it also decreases the use of carbohydrates. Burning more fat while using less carbs is significant for athletes, explains Cal Poly Humboldt Kinesiology Professor Taylor Bloedon, the study’s lead researcher.

“Increasing the use of fat can help performance, particularly in endurance activities as we have more fat stores to keep us going longer than we do carb stores,” says Bloedon. “Saving stored carbs also helps when we need to increase our intensity, often towards the end of the race or training session, or when challenged by an opponent. At these higher intensities we cannot rely on fat to fuel us as fat cannot be used as a fuel source for high-intensity activities.”

https://www.newswise.com/articles/study-suggests-wild-blueberries-help-burn-fat

After six years spent tracking health outcomes among nearly 925,000 Danish seniors, investigators determined that when a man between the ages of 65 and 69 loses his wife he is 70% more likely to die in the year that follows, when compared with his non-widowed peers.

Among surviving wives, however, that rise in risk was just 27%.

Why the difference? Study author Alexandros Katsiferis said he could only offer a few theories.

"We do not have the data to accurately answer that question, so we cannot be very confident on the reasons why this phenomenon tends to happen," noted Katsiferis, a doctoral fellow with the section for epidemiology in the department of public health at the University of Copenhagen.

But he pointed out that elderly widows may be better than widowers at "absorbing the shock, [including] the hurdles of taking care of a sick husband, along with all the needs and quirks" leading up to the husband's passing.

By contrast, it could be that the "physical and emotional health [of men] relies on the willingness of their spouse to take care of them," he added. "So, when their wife is out of their life, you get this collapse."

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-03-spouse-lethal-men.html

Older adults with depression are actually aging faster than their peers, UConn Center on Aging researchers report.

“These patients show evidence of accelerated biological aging, and poor physical and brain health,” which are the main drivers of this association, says Breno Diniz, a UConn School of Medicine geriatric psychiatrist and author of the study, which appears in Nature Mental Health on March 22.

Diniz and colleagues from several other institutions looked at 426 people with late-in-life depression. They measured the levels of proteins associated with aging in each person’s blood. When a cell gets old, it begins to function differently, less efficiently, than a “young” cell. It often produces proteins that promote inflammation or other unhealthy conditions, and those proteins can be measured in the blood. Diniz and the other researchers compared the levels of these proteins with measures of the participants’ physical health, medical problems, brain function, and the severity of their depression.

To their surprise, the severity of a person’s depression seemed unrelated to their level of accelerated aging. However, they did find that accelerated aging was associated with worse cardiovascular health overall. People with higher levels of aging-associated proteins were more likely to have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and multiple medical problems. The accelerated aging was also associated with worse performance on tests of brain health such as working memory and other cognitive skills.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-023-00033-z

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have developed a new method that can easily purify contaminated water using a cellulose-based material. This discovery could have implications for countries with poor water treatment technologies and combat the widespread problem of toxic dye discharge from the textile industry.

Clean water is a prerequisite for our health and living environment, but far from a given for everyone. According to the World Health Organization, WHO, there are currently over two billion people living with limited or no access to clean water.

This global challenge is at the centre of a research group at Chalmers University of Technology, which has developed a method to easily remove pollutants from water. The group, led by Gunnar Westman, Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry focuses on new uses for cellulose and wood-based products and is part of the Wallenberg Wood Science Center.

The researchers have built up solid knowledge about cellulose nanocrystals* – and this is where the key to water purification lies. These tiny nanoparticles have an outstanding adsorption capacity, which the researchers have now found a way to utilise.

“We have taken a unique holistic approach to these cellulose nanocrystals, examining their properties and potential applications. We have now created a biobased material, a form of cellulose powder with excellent purification properties that we can adapt and modify depending on the types of pollutants to be removed,” says Gunnar Westman.

Absorbs and breaks down toxins In a study recently published in the scientific journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, the researchers show how toxic dyes can be filtered out of wastewater using the method and material developed by the group. The research was conducted in collaboration with the Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur in India, where dye pollutants in textile industry wastewater are a widespread problem.

The treatment requires neither pressure nor heat and uses sunlight to catalyse the process. Gunnar Westman likens the method to pouring raspberry juice into a glass with grains of rice, which soak up the juice to make the water transparent again.

“Imagine a simple purification system, like a portable box connected to the sewage pipe. As the contaminated water passes through the cellulose powder filter, the pollutants are absorbed and the sunlight entering the treatment system causes them to break down quickly and efficiently. It is a cost-effective and simple system to set up and use, and we see that it could be of great benefit in countries that currently have poor or non-existent water treatment,” he says.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.iecr.2c03365

NTNU has been responsible for the basic research. APIM Therapeutics has used the basic research to develop the medicine.

It has taken 18 years and more than EUR 20 million.

The medicine has now been tested on 20 cancer patients who were terminally ill. They had tried all available treatments, and as a last resort they opted to try a new option that was in the experimental stage.

Cancer stopped growing The trials took place in Australia, where there are clinics that specialize in testing new medicines.

The results are very promising and have been published in the journal Oncogene.

Seventy percent of the patients who tested the medicine were stable after six weeks. Twelve continued the medication and were stable for 18 weeks. One woman took the medication for 17 months, and was stable for over two years.

In other words, the cancer stopped growing.

The aim of the testing in Australia was not primarily to check whether the medicine worked, but rather to determine whether it was toxic to humans.

It certainly wasn't toxic.

The medicine has previously been shown to both keep cancer at bay and defeat it in laboratory and animal experiments.

Marit Otterlei is behind all the research. She is a professor of molecular medicine at NTNU

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-03-phase-medicine-terminally-ill-cancer-patients.html

Professors Cho Jae-rim and Kim Chang-soo of Yonsei University College of Medicine’s Prevention Medicine Class and Professor Roh Young of the Neurology Department at Gachon University Gil Medical Center conducted the study.

Air pollutants enter the lungs through the respiratory tract and cause inflammation, which causes various diseases throughout the body, especially the inflammation of nerves when it reaches the brain. The research team confirmed through previous studies that air pollutants affect the atrophy of the cerebral cortex. Still, no evidence exists that this phenomenon led to cognitive decline and Alzheimer's.

Cortical changes in the cerebral cortex are closely related to brain diseases, including Alzheimer's. The average cerebral cortex thickness in healthy ordinary people is 2.5 millimeters, but that of patients with Alzheimer's was thinner, with 2.2mm.

The researchers studied the effects air pollution has on brain health using three primary air-polluting materials – ultrafine dust (PM2.5), fine dust (PM10), and nitrous oxide (NO2) – as indicators in 640 healthy adults 50 and older with no brain diseases in Seoul, Incheon, Wonju and Pyeongchang for 32 months from August 2014.

The result showed that the thickness of the cerebral cortex decreased as the concentration of air pollutants increased. For instance, when the concentration of fine dust and ultrafine dust increases by 10μg/, and nitrogen dioxide increases by 10ppb, the thickness of the cerebral cortex decreases by 0.04mm, 0.03mm, and 0.05mm.

https://www.koreabiomed.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=20668