Dame Helen Mirren says she is ‘ageing with fun' as she marks 80th birthday
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Reuters
a few seconds ago
- Reuters
Roche to investigate whether new drug can delay or prevent Alzheimer's disease
July 27 (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding (ROG.S), opens new tab plans to investigate whether an experimental medicine can delay or prevent Alzheimer's disease symptoms, it said on Sunday, as a part of the company's growing development programme for the disease. The clinical trial of the drug, Trontinemab, will target people who are at risk of cognitive decline and will aim to delay or prevent the symptoms of Alzheimer's, Roche said in a statement. Trontinemab is designed so that the drug is transported across the blood brain barrier—protective blood vessels that prevent chemicals in the bloodstream from entering the brain — in hopes of delivering more of the treatment to the brain. Rivals like Eli Lilly (LLY.N), opens new tab have been making progress in the complicated field of Alzheimer's recently, with Lilly's drug Kisunla getting a recommendation for approval for certain patients from the European Medicines Agency last week. Kisunla is already approved in the U.S. Treatments for Alzheimer's approved so far, including Eisai (4523.T), opens new tab and Biogen's (BIIB.O), opens new tab Leqembi and Lilly's Kisunla, are designed to clear sticky clumps of a protein called amyloid beta in the brain. They carry hefty price tags as well as the risk of serious brain swelling and bleeding.
Telegraph
30 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Neanderthals loved to eat maggots, study finds
Neanderthals loved eating maggots and were not the total carnivores people often believed they were, a study has found. It has long been believed that Neanderthals, the ancient cousin species of human ancestors, ate almost nothing but meat in a similar way to lions or wolves. But a study has found this to be incorrect and proves that Neanderthals instead dined largely on maggot-riddled meat. The meat from successful hunts would be stashed and inevitably left to fester but the maggots which took root were also likely a staple of their diet, new analysis has found. Previous studies of Neanderthal remains have shown they had the same chemicals in their bones as hypercarnivore predators, which is indicative of a purely carnivorous diet. This, combined with the knowledge that Neanderthals hunted animals such as mammoths, bison, deer and reindeer, led to the widespread assumption that Neanderthals ate almost nothing but meat. But Dr Melanie Beasley, an anthropologist at Purdue University in Indiana, US, suspected this to be incorrect and studied maggots feasting on human remains to see if they could account for the chemical signature which implies a carnivore diet. Analysis found that when a carcass rots the muscles themselves become only marginally enriched with the specific form of nitrogen found in Neanderthal remains. But when maggots eat the flesh and themselves are consumed these can be up to 43 per cent richer in the nitrogen which scientists have previously thought proved carnivore behaviour. 'We suggest that the nitrogen values are inflated, perhaps substantially so, because these dedicated hunters of large mammals would have stored or cached portions of their kills for later use to compensate for unpredictable returns,' the study team wrote. 'Backup reserves of animal foods, either as packets of processed meat and fat, or as partial or complete carcasses, would have been placed in expedient above-ground rock or log cairns, suspended from tree branches or placed on above-ground racks or stages, immersed in ponds and swamps, or buried in below-ground pits. 'Such reserves, whether fresh, dried, or smoked, readily attracted flies while they were being processed, and, over the use life of the reserve, the contents almost inevitably began to putrefy and become infested with maggots.' This slowly rotting meat which was being devoured by maggots could have been eaten weeks, months, or even years after it was first hunted, the scientists concluded. Human bodies buried for study To gauge what nutrients maggots contained the scientists buried 34 human bodies donated for research at the Body Farm facility of the University of Tennessee. After two years, the maggots were studied and it was found that they were the likely reason for the high nitrogen content in Neanderthal remains that led to the assumption they were almost exclusively carnivores. Another factor in the scientists' conclusion about the Neanderthal diet is that it is impossible for a human body to survive for very long if it is consuming more than 300g of protein a day. Prolonged exposure to a diet beyond this, which is around 1,200 calories of pure protein, can lead to 'rabbit starvation' in which the body begins to shut down. This biological incompatibility with the protein-heavy diet and the maggot nitrogen finding are strong evidence that the Neanderthal was not a hypercarnivore like lions, the scientists say. 'A lion, on average, consumes anywhere from double to four-and-a-half times more protein per kg of body weight than the absolute maximum a Late Pleistocene hominin would be capable of tolerating,' the scientists wrote. The Neanderthal diet was likely to have included tongue, ribs, briskets, entrails, kidneys and other internal organs, and probably also the brain, the scientists believe. 'Fascination' of hypercarnivore image But Dr Beasley believes Neanderthals 'often ate these fat-rich tissues in a tainted or putrefied state together with their almost inevitable infestation of living and dead maggots'. 'It seems very likely that Late Pleistocene hominins would often have found themselves consuming animal foods from tainted or putrefied reserves laced with living and dead maggots,' she told The Telegraph. 'I think for a long time the hypercarnivore narrative about Neanderthals has been wrong but that image adds to their exceptionalism and fascination, so that narrative has persisted. 'Hominins ate meat regularly starting with Homo erectus, but they ate a diversity of other foods too. 'We are just saying that we need to consider those other dietary inputs like the inevitable stored foods laced with fatty maggots that would have been nutritionally beneficial.'
ITV News
an hour ago
- ITV News
More aid is good news, but only a ceasefire will really make a difference in Gaza
The aid that has gone into Gaza today is too little, too late and largely symbolic. Whether delivered by land or from the air, those supplies are also an indication of global horror at what is unfolding. The images of children dying from a lack of food in a region of plenty have caused enough outcry against Israel that, after 21 months of war and four months of an almost complete blockade of food and aid, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been forced into easing some of his government's draconian policies. The World Health Organisation says Gaza saw 63 malnutrition-related deaths in July, including 24 children under five. Medics on the ground say those figures are likely to be much lower than the reality. The humanitarian pause in attacks in parts of Gaza might also allow some of the 14,000 most seriously sick and injured Palestinians to leave the Strip for care elsewhere. At the Specialty Hospital in Jordan they are preparing for an evacuation mission, readying their beds to receive some of the most seriously ill patients should they be able to get out. Over the past months, they have treated just over 100 patients; now the significant change in their conditions points to the desperate consequences of being starved of food and aid. After the continued restrictions of food, aid and medical supplies by Israel, many of the patients are not just injured by bombs but dying because of a lack of food and medicine. The head of the Specialty Hospital told me today he believes most of the children in Gaza are now malnourished. As the Executive Chairman of the Gaza Health Initiative, Dr Fawzi Al-Hammouri, is also responsible for sending medical teams into Gaza. Even those doctors are so short of food they are losing significant amounts of weight in four-week missions. 'Since early March, there is almost complete blockade of the borders, so there is no humanitarian or medical aid getting into Gaza,' he told me. 'Now we notice that all the children that we receive, and their companions, have malnutrition. When we do blood tests we discover they have anaemia, low iron, low vitamin D, because even if they find something to eat, it's only flour or rice. There is no protein, so there is no meat, no chicken, no fish, no vegetables, no fruits. So this is why I believe that most of the children, now in Gaza, are malnourished.' Jordan has sent 50 medical missions into Gaza since the start of the war, part of an international humanitarian response to the war and destruction of Gaza's healthcare system. Now, even their medical teams are struggling to feed themselves and their patients. 'We have noticed that even our doctors who go there and stay for two to four weeks, when they come back, most of them, if not all of them, lose between 5 and 10 kilograms,' Dr Fawzi said. 'They don't find something to eat, and now there is difficulty finding food for their patients inside the hospitals. If those patients have surgery and aren't fed well after they will not recover.' Jordan's King Abdullah has agreed to take in 2000 of the most seriously ill children. For the medical teams who will receive them, there is now the challenge of also treating the effects of malnutrition. Simply providing food is not enough in many cases. In many of the most acute cases, the organs have been so damaged that they will not repair. Israel still controls what goes into Gaza and who comes out, and as such maintains the power to determine life and death. They may be allowing more in and more out at the moment, but in reality, only a ceasefire has the power to really ease the humanitarian crisis within Gaza's borders.
