Latest news with #USNationalInstitutesofHealth
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Nightmares linked to higher dementia risk, study finds
People who have nightmares or sleepwalk are twice as likely to develop vascular dementia than those who sleep soundly, a study has found. Scientists have long known that serious sleep disorders increase the risk of neurodegenerative conditions, but the latest research has shed more light on the connection. Analysis of more than a million people's medical records has found individuals with sleep problems who have not been diagnosed with anything physically wrong are also at increased risk. So-called 'non-organic' sleep disorders which are not linked to a known physiological condition include night terrors, sleepwalking, nightmares, and forms of insomnia and hypersomnia. Sufferers from these disorders were found to be more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with vascular dementia in later life, and to be at 67 per cent higher risk of dementia and 68 per cent higher risk of Parkinson's disease. The study, led by Cardiff University, involved data from three biobanks containing the records of people in Britain and Finland. The research compared the subjects' sleeping patterns with their genes and their long-term health outcomes. 'By using biobank data, we had timestamped records of when people had sleep disorders, and exactly when they were subsequently diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease – rather than relying on self-reporting,' said Dr Emily Simmonds, one of the study authors and a bioinformatician at the UK Dementia Research Institute at Cardiff University. 'Our results are compelling, indicating a clear increased risk of neurodegenerative disease following a sleep disorder, across three large biobank datasets.' The scientists found people often experienced sleep disorder symptoms up to 15 years before they started seeing symptoms of the neurodegenerative conditions. Kristin Levine, a study co-author from the US National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Centre for Alzheimer's and Related Dementias, said: 'One of the exciting things about identifying people at higher risk of developing a neurodegenerative disease 10-15 years before diagnosis, is that it gives us time to implement treatments that may delay or prevent development of disease.' A link was seen between sleep problems and the neurodegenerative diseases even in people whose genes put them at low risk, the study authors found. 'Perhaps most interestingly, this increased risk was occurring independently of genetic risk factors for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, with sleep disorders almost 'compensating' for low genetic risk,' said Hampton Leonard from the NIH Centre, the study's co-leader. 'One would expect that if sleep disorders were caused by neurodegeneration, genetic risk of sleep disorder and neurodegenerative disease would line up. Further investigation is needed, but this points towards sleep disorders as a risk factor for these conditions.' The scientists hope future research will build on their findings, and investigate if any interventions that target sleep problems can improve the outlook for neurodegenerative conditions. The study is published in npj Dementia. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Time of India
4 days ago
- Health
- Time of India
Infants prone to sleep, appetite issues in long Covid; preschoolers to dry cough: US study
New Delhi: Infants under two-years-old, suffering from long Covid are more likely to experience trouble sleeping, fussiness, poor appetite, stuffy nose, and cough, while children aged three to five are more likely to have a dry cough and tiredness, according to a new study in the US. "Children with these symptoms often had worse overall health, lower quality of life, and delays in development," co-first author Tanayott Thaweethai, associate director of biostatistics research and engagement at Massachusetts General Hospital, US, said. Long Covid refers to symptoms that persist well beyond having recovered from an acute COVID-19 infection. The findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics, are the latest from the US National Institutes of Health's 'RECOVER' initiative, aimed at understanding and preventing long Covid. An earlier analysis by the team in August 2024, found that children aged six to 11 displayed brain- and stomach-related symptoms such as headache, trouble focussing and sleeping, while teenagers experienced a loss of smell and taste, fatigue and physical pain. Notably, teens were found to display long Covid symptoms more similar to adults -- who often report brain fog and fatigue -- than to children. This study is "important because it shows that long COVID symptoms in young children are different from those in older children and adults," Thaweethai said. "Infants (or) toddlers (0-2 years) with infection history were more likely to experience trouble sleeping, fussiness, poor appetite, stuffy nose, and cough, and preschool-aged children (3-5 years) were more likely to experience dry cough and daytime tiredness (or) sleepiness or low energy," the authors wrote. The researchers examined 472 infants and 539 preschoolers, of which 278 infants and 399 pre-schoolers had previously suffered from COVID-19. The participants were enrolled between March 2022 and July 2024. Among those with a history of infection, 40 infants (14 per cent) and 61 pre-school children (15 per cent) were identified as having long Covid. Symptoms lasting at least 90 days after COVID infection for both age groups were analysed -- 41 symptoms in the infant group and 75 in preschoolers. Parts of India, including Delhi-NCR, West Bengal and Karnataka, are seeing an uptick in COVID-19 cases, which have been attributed to Omicron sub-variants. Severity of infections as of now is generally mild and there is no cause for worry, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had said on May 26.>
India Today
6 days ago
- Health
- India Today
Why some Covid-19 cases turn severe while others don't
A recent study suggests that the virus behind Covid-19 has the potential to turn important immune cells into ones that weaken the body's ability to fight the finding out what makes some people develop severe Covid-19, researchers from Johns Hopkins University have found that the SARS-CoV-2 virus may alter neutrophils, the most common type of white blood cells, in a way that weakens the immune study, funded by the US National Institutes of Health and published in Science Translational Medicine, reveals that neutrophils in Covid-19 patients may lose their ability to fight infections. Instead, these cells begin suppressing other immune cells, particularly T cells, which are essential for clearing viruses from the body.'In some Covid infections, the virus appears to reprogram neutrophils into a different type of cell that suppresses T cells. This may help explain why some people develop severe illness,' said Dr Andrea Cox, senior author of the altered cells are known as PMN-MDSCs (polymorphonuclear myeloid-derived suppressor cells), which have been seen in cancer and other non-viral diseases but not commonly in viral infections like researchers analysed blood samples from 39 hospitalised Covid-19 patients and compared them with samples from nine healthy individuals. None of the patients had received Covid vaccines or immunosuppressant drugs like dexamethasone. advertisementIn those with severe Covid-19, the team found that neutrophils had changed form, they had 'degranulated,' releasing their contents and morphing into PMN-MDSCs. These reprogrammed cells expressed two proteins, LOX-1 and PD-L1, known to suppress T cell the researchers exposed healthy neutrophils to the virus in the lab, they observed the same transformation: the cells began suppressing T cells, stopping them from multiplying and releasing cytokines, signalling proteins that activate other immune when the same experiment was done using the H1N1 influenza virus, the neutrophils did not convert into suppressor cells, indicating a unique feature of may already be a treatment that could counter this effect. The researchers added PD-L1-blocking antibodies, a type of drug used in cancer therapy, to neutrophils exposed to SARS-CoV-2. The result: T cells were less suppressed and became more active."This suggests that combining PD-L1 antibodies with antiviral drugs, or even using them alone when antivirals aren't possible, might help patients with severe Covid,' Cox CDC defines severe Covid-19 as illness that results in hospitalisation, ICU admission, or study offers a deeper understanding of how SARS-CoV-2 might hijack the immune system and lead to severe illness and opens new doors for treatments that could help the body fight back more Watch
India Today
7 days ago
- Health
- India Today
How much junk food did you eat? A new test may soon tell
Counting how much ultra-processed food someone eats has always relied on diet questionnaires and personal researchers at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world's largest medical research body, may have found a more objective way: by reading it in your blood and a new study published in PLOS Medicine, scientists have developed what they call a poly-metabolite score, a biomarker-based tool that can estimate how much of a person's energy comes from ultra-processed These include packaged snacks, soft drinks, ready-to-eat meals, and other industrially manufactured calorie-dense products and nutrient-poor could be a breakthrough for nutrition research, which has long struggled with the inaccuracies of self-reported diet data.'The limitations of self-reported diet are well known. With metabolomics, we can get closer to an objective measure of food intake and also understand how diet may be impacting health," said Dr Erikka Loftfield, lead investigator and researcher at the National Cancer ABOUT THIS SCOREThe NIH team looked at blood and urine samples for 12 months from two different groups: one observational study of 718 older US adults, and one clinical trial where 20 participants were fed two different diets, one high (80%) and one completely free (0%) of ultra-processed foods, each for two researchers found hundreds of tiny substances in the blood and urine, called metabolites, that were linked to how much ultra-processed food a person machine learning, they created a special score called a poly-metabolite score that could tell how processed a person's diet scores clearly showed the difference between when someone was eating mostly processed food and when they weren't, the study authors THIS MATTERSThe health risks of diets high in ultra-processed foods such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and even some cancers are well quantifying how much people actually eat is tricky, especially when relying on memory-based food logs or questionnaires. People could forget, under-report, or misjudge portion biomarker-based tool could make large-scale population studies more reliable and help uncover stronger links between diet and OF THE SCOREWhile the findings are promising, researchers caution that the current results are based mostly on older American scores still need to be validated in more diverse populations with different eating habits and levels of ultra-processed food this, the study didn't check whether these scores are linked to diseases like cancer or diabetes. That's something the scientists want to study next, to see if people with higher scores (meaning they eat more ultra-processed food) are more likely to get these now, though, the study marks a step toward more precise nutrition science and maybe one day, doctors won't need to ask what you body might already have the answer.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
NIH staff stage walkout during director's town hall as tensions persist over research cuts, ideology
Twenty-seven minutes into a town hall with staff last week, US National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya acknowledged that he was going to get into uncomfortable territory. 'This one's a tough one for me,' Bhattacharya told the audience of researchers and other NIH employees gathered in an auditorium at the biomedical research agency's headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, last Monday, before introducing one of the most divisive topics in science. 'It's possible that the [Covid-19] pandemic was caused by research conducted by human beings,' he said, according to a video obtained by CNN. 'And it's also possible that the NIH partly sponsored that research. And if that's true – ' At that point, Bhattacharya paused to watch as dozens of NIH staffers stood and filed out of the auditorium. 'It's nice to have free speech,' he said with a smile. 'Welcome, you guys.' Bhattacharya then persisted. 'If it's true that we sponsored research that caused a pandemic – and if you look at polls of the American people, that's what most people believe, and I looked at the scientific evidence; I believe it – what we have to do is make sure that we do not engage in research that's any risk of posing any risk to human populations,' he said. The walkout was a gentle protest, one Bhattacharya – a former Stanford professor of health policy and economics who frequently claimed to have been censored during the Covid-19 pandemic for communicating views in opposition with those held by US scientific leadership at the time – referred to later in the town hall as 'silent dissent.' It represented not just disagreement with – and dismay over – Bhattacharya's assertion that the NIH may bear some responsibility for the pandemic, which killed more than 7 million people worldwide, by sponsoring so-called gain-of-function research that created the SARS-CoV-2 virus that then leaked from a lab. That's a view not shared by a large number of expert virologists and epidemiologists, who think it's more likely the virus emerged via a spillover from animals. It was also a preplanned protest over working conditions; the staffers just chose to leave a little earlier than intended, as Bhattacharya made those comments, some told CNN. The walkout was designed to communicate frustrations over scientists' inability to do their jobs under the second Trump administration, they said. 'We'd been trying to meet with Dr. Bhattacharya as members of the union to discuss issues we've had with working conditions that prevented us from doing our jobs and research,' said Dr. Kaitlyn Hajdarovic, a postdoctoral researcher at NIH. Like others who spoke with CNN, she emphasized that she was speaking in a personal capacity and as a member of a union representing about 5,000 early-career researchers at the NIH. Hajdarovic and others described issues obtaining materials for research because the people who do the purchasing had been dismissed; the firings and rehirings of scientist colleagues; the fear of a proposed 40% cut to the NIH budget; and general chaos and unpredictability that are disruptive to their day-to-day jobs. 'We were trying to use this walkout as a way to get a sit-down meeting with Dr. Bhattacharya,' said Dr. Matt Manion, another NIH postdoctoral researcher and union member. 'We've asked at least twice since he took over the role.' The union members, joined by others at the agency, had planned to leave the town hall at the start of Bhattacharya's time answering pre-submitted questions, added Dr. Matthew Brown, a third union member and postdoctoral fellow. Bhattacharya and his chief of staff, Seana Cranston, noted several times that about 1,200 questions had been submitted and that they'd chosen the 'hard ones' to answer. 'Having these sort of preplanned town halls is not a substitute for actually sitting down with scientists who will do the research that improves the health of the American public,' Brown said. In response to CNN's request for comment, a spokesman for HHS said, 'at Monday's town hall, the NIH Director addressed staff openly and took unscripted questions from the audience. The individuals who walked out had the opportunity to engage directly and voice their concerns constructively. Instead, they chose to walk out, seemingly driven more by political motives because of their dissent with this administration.' Brown countered that the group's dissent 'is based on the tremendous damage that has been done to taxpayer-funded biomedical research over the past four months. Protecting our research into diseases like cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's deserves more than a short question and answer session.' Still, although the walkout was planned for a different reason, the gain-of-function comments didn't go over well. One NIH scientist tied the comments to a new policy that says the agency will prohibit foreign subaward grants, or research funding arrangements in which a grant recipient passes on some of the funding to foreign collaborators; the White House budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 cited NIH's funding of research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as part of its reasoning for a proposed nearly $18 billion cut to the NIH's budget. 'The notion that you can use the lab leak theory as justification to cancel all foreign subawards is ridiculous,' said the scientist, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal. 'They are doing it purely for political and/or ideological reasons. 'Whether or not you agree with the theory, foreign subawards support research to prevent the next pandemic,' the scientist added. 'Canceling them all at once with little to no warning is asking for another pandemic.' A spokesman for HHS said, 'NIH is transitioning from foreign subawards to foreign subprojects to ensure that all recipients of American taxpayer dollars—whether domestic or international—are held to the same rigorous standards of oversight, accountability, and transparency.' There were other points of tension during the town hall, too. At one point, Bhattacharya took a previously submitted question about the NIH's approach to diversity, equity and inclusion, an issue the Trump administration has targeted, terminating a large number of research grants. 'The question is, how should we define health disparities research in a way that clearly separates it from DEI while continuing to address the costly consequences of US health disparities?' Cranston prompted Bhattacharya. Bhattacharya responded that he has, 'in my own research, focused on vulnerable populations, and very often that means minority populations.' But, he continued, 'there's been a line of research supported by the NIH that I don't actually fundamentally believe is scientific, that is ideological in nature.' To provide an example, Bhattacharya cited redlining, or racial discrimination in housing and lending practices. 'You could imagine a study looking at the effect of redlining on the access to health care for people, right? That's a completely legitimate kind of study,' Bhattacharya said. 'That would be a, I think, completely legitimate kind of study for the NIH to support.' A member of the audience then spoke up. 'Then why is NIH terminating them?' she said. 'I'm sorry, the NIH is not terminating those studies,' Bhattacharya responded. 'I want to make a distinction –' 'Oh, I disagree!' the audience member shot back as colleagues applauded. 'Let me finish,' Bhattacharya said. 'So the other kind of studies, for instance, what I want to distinguish from is something like 'structural racism causes poor health in minority populations.' ' 'What do you think redlining is?' the audience member said. 'The problem there is that it's not a scientific hypothesis,' Bhattacharya argued. 'You can't, in principle, think of a way to test that hypothesis where, in principle, you could falsify it.' The director also told NIH staff that he'd arrived in the job the day of mass dismissals as part of the HHS' Reduction in Force, or RIF, April 1, and that he hadn't had a say in them. HHS said it cut 1,200 employees from the NIH. 'I actually don't have any transparency in how those decisions were made,' Bhattacharya said. 'And I was quite upset about that. It would be nice to have had some say.' Bhattacharya said he's tried to make conditions better since he arrived based on feedback from employees, including by turning purchasing cards back on and enabling travel to conferences. He also suggested that he'd put a stop to a requirement that employees send an email each week detailing five things they'd accomplished. 'I heard you guys have to do five points every week,' Bhattacharya said. 'That was ridiculous. I'm really flat proud that we don't have to have some of the best scientists in the world tell me what they did last week with five points. That made no sense.' The audience applauded that. And later in the program, Bhattacharya took a few questions from the audience that didn't appear planned. To one, which was inaudible on the video CNN reviewed, Bhattacharya responded, 'No gloves? … That should not be happening. We'll get that fixed.' A week after the town hall, the union members said they still hadn't heard from Bhattacharya's office about scheduling a meeting.
