New Emory University research suggests that higher vitamin D supplement intake may be associated with better cognitive function in adults with an elevated risk of dementia.
In a study of 54 adults with sleep disturbances and mild cognitive impairments (MCI), two hallmarks of early dementia, participants taking at least 5000 IU of vitamin D daily showed better cognitive function compared to those who didn’t.
The study, recently published in Sleep Medicine, found that participants who reported taking 5000 IU or more of vitamin D daily scored more than 13% higher on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) than those who didn’t, even after accounting for other factors.A screening tool to detect risk of developing dementia, MoCA is widely used to assess memory and thinking skills. In this study, lower daily doses of vitamin D were not associated with higher cognitive scores.
The study also emphasises the significance of timing. MCI is an intermediate stage between normal cognitive aging and dementia.
“In older adults experiencing both sleep disturbance and mild cognitive impairment, this may represent a critical window for intervention, when cognitive changes are emerging, but opportunities to support brain health may remain,” says Victoria Pak, senior author of the study.
“Identifying accessible and modifiable factors, such as vitamin D supplement intake, during the earlier stages of cognitive decline may become increasingly important, particularly as rates of Alzheimer’s disease continue to rise,” adds Pak, associate professor at Emory University’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing.
In addition to the timing of the intervention, the study also found that cognitive performance did not differ based on the form of vitamin D – D2, typically derived from plants or fungi, or D3, produced after sun exposure or consuming animal-based foods.
Vitamin D, an essential nutrient, is not only necessary for muscle and nerve function, but also influences sleep quality and sleep-wake cycles. Additionally, 50% of those with moderate to severe Alzheimer’s disease report having sleep disturbances, indicating a bidirectional relationship between sleep deprivation and cognitive decline.
While vitamin D deficiencies have been implicated in sleep disorders, such as insomnia and more nighttime awakenings, this preliminary study is the first to assess the relationship between vitamin D supplement intake and cognitive function in a high-risk population with both MCI and sleep disturbances.
In the study, investigators analysed 2003–2018 data from 1044 US women participating in the National Health and Examination Survey: 174 with and 870 without cervical cancer. With these data, the team looked for an association between cervical cancer and the Composite Dietary Antioxidant Index (CDAI) – a validated composite score that reflects an individual’s intake level of dietary antioxidants, based on dietary recall interviews.
After adjusting for other factors that might affect cancer risk, the researchers found that each 1-unit increase in the CDAI was associated with a 11.4% lower prevalence of cervical cancer. Participants in the highest CDAI tertile had a 55.8% lower prevalence of cervical cancer than those in the lowest tertile. Additional analyses indicated a linear inverse association between the CDAI and the prevalence of cervical cancer.
“These findings suggest that dietary antioxidant intake may play a potential role in the prevention of cervical cancer. However, further prospective studies are needed to confirm this association and clarify the underlying mechanisms,” the authors wrote.
An overlooked factor can limit sweat’s cooling effect, ASU researchers discover
ANDI the sweating manikin helps ASU researchers discover the secrets of sweating. Photo by Samantha Chow/Arizona State University
The purpose of perspiration was a mystery in 1775, when English physician Charles Brian Blagden and a few inquisitive friends experimented on themselves by spending time in rooms heated to over 230 degrees Fahrenheit (110°C).
Although the temperatures were hot enough to cook raw meat placed in those rooms, Blagden noted how human bodies resisted the heat. Their core body temperatures remained nearly constant as the sweat poured out and evaporated.
The science of sweating has come a long way in 250 years. Yet a surprising amount remains unexplored, according to Konrad Rykaczewski, an associate professor of engineering at Arizona State University.
In a new study, Rykaczewski and colleagues have uncovered an unrecognised physical process that can dramatically change how effectively sweat cools the body in hot, dry and windless weather.
“It turns out that the impact is huge,” Rykaczewski said. “It can change how much sweat evaporates from your skin by over 50%.”
Why this research matters
Research is the invisible hand that powers America’s progress. It unlocks discoveries and creates opportunity. It develops new technologies and new ways of doing things.
Learn more about ASU discoveries that are contributing to changing the world and making America the world’s leading economic power at researchmatters.asu.edu.
Understanding the mechanics of sweating is vital to accurately predict heat strain and cooling efficiency in different situations. Scientists use this knowledge to guide recommendations for heat-stressed workers and to design cooling clothing and heat-management systems for first responders, soldiers and athletes.
Unlike Blagden’s crew in 1775, the ASU researchers didn’t subject anyone to oven-like conditions in their experiments. Instead, they used ANDI, a customised manikin rigged throughout its body with sensors to measure heat loss and heat gain and covered with pores that drip simulated sweat in response to rising heat.
The evaporation of sweat into water vapor is what cools the body. Air movement speeds evaporation and enhances cooling. The ASU researchers focused on an overlooked aspect of the cooling process: how temperature and humidity change the buoyancy of air near the skin.
When the outside temperature is hotter than a person’s skin, the air very close to the skin cools, becomes denser and drifts downward. But when the weather is hot and dry, humidity from evaporating sweat creates an opposing upward flow because humid air is lighter than dry air.
Experiments showed that at temperatures around 105 F with low humidity and no wind, the opposing currents near the skin can completely cancel each other, stopping airflow that could help sweat evaporate. In the absence of wind, this phenomenon leads to increased body heat storage and significantly elevated skin and core temperatures. Commonly used human heat-balance models don’t take this into account and will underestimate how hot the body becomes in hot, arid environments with little airflow.
The researchers measured the impact using models of sweat evaporation combined with simulations of the human body working to control its temperature. Neglecting humidity-driven buoyancy effects led to an underprediction of core body temperature rise by nearly 2 F for a person at rest in still air after two hours of heat exposure.
“This is really important for indoor settings or places with very little air movement,” Rykaczewski said. “Think about a tent, or a partially enclosed worksite or an unfinished building.”
Rykaczewski published the findings in Science Advances on Aug 19 with first author Shri Viswanathan, who completed his PhD at ASU in May, and eight others at the university.
The competing buoyancy effect is familiar to engineers working on heat exchange problems in electronics, “but it’s been overlooked in terms of the human body,” Rykaczewski said. “I think the reason is that most people working in this area don’t come from an engineering background. It really shows the benefit of having engineers and physiologists working together in interdisciplinary research.”
Breaking a sweat for research
Proving how the effect applies to sweating human bodies was no easy task. The ASU researchers performed dozens of experiments using ANDI. They developed a computer model and ran about 100 sweating simulations representing a wide range of conditions.
“There are multiple heat-transfer pathways involved, so isolating each one, making sure we could replicate it computationally and then combining them all into one model took a tremendous amount of effort,” Rykaczewski said.
Last year, the ASU researchers uncovered hidden details about how sweat rises and spreads over the skin. Those experiments required volunteers to don a bodysuit lined with tubes that circulate hot or cold water to warm or cool the wearer. The researchers observed how sweat first saturated the skin’s outermost layer, then collected in shallow pools around pores and spread into a thin, connected film. After a first round of sweat evaporated, it left a light salt residue. When the volunteers were heated again, that residue helped new sweat wick across the surface more rapidly, allowing a film to form without the earlier pooling stage.
A thin film can expose more sweat to the air, potentially making evaporation more efficient. The findings also suggest that sweating may behave differently across the body, where hair, sweat-gland density and skin structure vary.
Plenty of perspiration questions remain unanswered. The ASU team is exploring how sweat can either cling to the body and evaporate or run and drip off before it can evaporate and how that effects body cooling. The researchers are planning studies of the interactions between skin, sweat and clothing textiles. They see opportunities to improve clothing design so that it cools people more effectively by improving sweat evaporation.
“The bigger question is how you manage that sweat and what kinds of materials you can put next to the skin to optimise cooling,” Rykaczewski said.
In field studies across Arizona, the researchers are measuring how different populations experience and respond to extreme heat using advanced environmental sensing platforms combined with their improved models of sweat evaporation and thermoregulation. Their insights are supporting the design of heat adaptation measures and safer buildings and outdoor spaces.
The science of sweating was not a specialty Rykaczewski envisioned when he began his research career.
“It’s funny because it’s kind of an icky topic, but it’s also fascinating. You can spend your entire career doing highly specialised research that only 20 experts care about. But not sweating, because everybody sweats.”
An international study led by King’s College London has found that proposed new obesity definitions give greater insight into the ill health of metabolic bariatric surgery candidates compared with Body Mass Index (BMI).
The study, published in Jama Open Network, found that people considered for metabolic bariatric surgery had marked variation in disease burden – the number and severity of diseases – and operation-related risks, despite having similar BMI.
However, by reviewing clinical data from thousands of bariatric surgery candidates and applying new obesity definitions, the researchers were able to better understand their underlying health – which could have important implications for patient treatment and surgery prioritisation in the future.
Led by Professor Francesco Rubino, Chair of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery at King’s College London, the researchers reviewed retrospective clinical data from 2,316 surgical candidates across four specialist centres – King’s College Hospital in the UK, and centres in France, Spain and Brazil.
They applied the new obesity definitions: clinical obesity, where there is clear evidence that excess fat, or adiposity, is causing organ damage, and preclinical obesity, where organ function is preserved despite excess adiposity.
From the surgical candidates, 73.8% had clinical obesity and 26.2% had preclinical obesity. Despite both groups of patients having similar BMI, patients with clinical obesity had far greater surgery-related and cardiovascular risks. They also had an overall high chance of death.
These findings suggest that distinguishing between clinical and preclinical obesity reveals key information about the health status and risks to surgery candidates that BMI alone cannot capture.
This study shows that the distinction between clinical and pre-clinical obesity is clinically meaningful even among surgical candidates with very high BMI levels, because BMI alone cannot tell us who has active disease.”Professor Francesco Rubino, senior author and Chair of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery at King’s College London
He continued: “It is now essential that future surgical studies and registries systematically report patients’ clinical or pre-clinical obesity status, so that surgical safety, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness can be interpreted in the appropriate clinical context.”
Traditionally, obesity has been classified primarily using BMI, a measure of weight relative to height that provides limited information about whether excess fat is actually affecting a person’s health. BMI levels have historically played a central role in determining eligibility and priority for metabolic bariatric surgery – operations of the stomach that help people lose weight and fix health issues, such as type 2 diabetes.
In 2025, the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology Commission on Clinical Obesity proposed a new diagnostic framework. This distinguished between clinical obesity, where there is clear evidence that excess fat, or adiposity, is leading to organ dysfunction, from preclinical obesity, where organ function is preserved but future health risk is increased.
In the latest study, the researchers found that these differences in disease status were not reflected in BMI. In the UK centre, for example, BMI was roughly 47.5 among patients with clinical obesity and 48.5 among those with preclinical obesity. Yet those with clinical obesity were approximately 10 years older and had substantially higher risk of death, cardiovascular risk and operation-related risk.
The researchers argue that for patients with clinical obesity, surgery primarily represents treatment of established disease. On the other hand, for those with preclinical obesity, its key goal may instead be to reduce future health risk. Recognising this distinction could help clinicians plan surgery, as well as select and prioritise surgical candidates.
It also saves around 44 units of blood products for every 100 patients treated
Photo by Charliehelen Robinson on Pexels
Giving intravenous iron to patients with anaemia before heart surgery reduces the need for a red blood transfusion and results in an extra day at home in the first 90 days after surgery, finds a clinical trial published by The BMJ today.
Intravenous iron also saved approximately 44 units of blood products for every 100 patients treated.
A third of patients undergoing cardiac surgery are anaemic and 20-50% receive a blood transfusion after surgery, which is linked to increased risks of complications, longer hospital stays, and death after surgery.
Previous studies suggest that intravenous iron before surgery boosts haemoglobin levels (the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen around the body) and may reduce the need for transfusion, but there is currently no evidence to show that this improves outcomes that matter to patients.
To address this gap, researchers enrolled 955 adults with anaemia (average age 66 years; 60% male) undergoing elective cardiac surgery across 33 hospitals in 10 countries between 15 July 2016 and 15 December 2023.
Patients with inherited blood disorders, those having kidney dialysis or who had intravenous iron given in the previous four weeks were excluded. Other factors such as age, sex, ethnicity, and pre-existing conditions were also taken into account.
Participants were randomly assigned to either intravenous iron or placebo 1-26 weeks before surgery and the number of days alive and at home up to 90 days after surgery was recorded. Other outcomes included red cell transfusion and postoperative complications.
Of 921 patients assessed, the average number of days alive and at home up to 90 days after surgery in patients assigned to intravenous iron was 81 and in patients receiving placebo was 80.
Red blood cell transfusions were given to 262 patients (61%) in the iron group and 302 patients (68%) in the placebo group during their hospital stay. There were no differences in major complications or length of hospital stay.
The researchers acknowledge several limitations. For example, they enrolled patients with anaemia but did not require confirmation of absolute iron deficiency and say a one day difference in a 90 day recovery period is in itself a very small treatment effect.
However, study strengths included a low drop-out rate and measurement of patient-centred outcomes such as quality of recovery, days at home, and quality of life. Findings were also consistent after further analyses, suggesting they are robust.
As such, they conclude: “This study shows that intravenous iron repletion in patients with anaemia before cardiac surgery increased preoperative haemoglobin concentration, reduced the need for red cell transfusion, and resulted in an extra day at home in the first 90 days after surgery.”
Intravenous iron also saved approximately 44 units of blood products for every 100 patients treated, they add.
UCT’s Professor Liesl Zühlke has won a global women in science award for her groundbreaking work in improving care for children with cardiovascular disease. (Photo: Supplied)
By Sue Segar for Spotlight
Long before she became a pioneering scientist, Professor Liesl Zühlke insisted on seeing her tonsils after they were removed when she was just five years old. Today, paediatric cardiology is close to her heart, and her research has helped answer critical questions in the entire pipeline of heart disease.
In the mid-2000s, while working as a trainee in paediatric cardiology at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, Liesl Zühlke helped treat a 12-year-old patient who had an unusual congenital heart condition.
“His heart was so weak that he was dying,” she says. “He was thin, short of breath and very tired. He’d had multiple admissions to hospital and numerous health folders, tied together with elastic. On the front of his folder, the letters DNR (meaning do not resuscitate) were written in black khoki-pen.”
Zühlke recalls requesting an ultrasound of the heart, among other tests that eventually led to a diagnosis of a coronary artery anomaly. “This is a structural heart defect, present at birth, where the major coronary artery supplying the heart itself has the wrong origin, resulting in oxygen-poor blood supplying the heart muscle, causing it to die,” she explains. (See this Cleveland Clinic page for more on the condition.)
Fortunately, the defect is treatable with cardiac surgery to move the coronary artery to the correct place. Within a year of having this operation, the boy’s heart function had returned to normal.
A journey to research
This encounter was something of a turning point in Zühlke’s life. Till then, she’d only done clinical work, but the case piqued her interest in this particular lesion.
This experience, she says, was a lesson in looking beyond the obvious, re-examining a patient with a fresh approach, and asking new questions. “By thinking differently, we changed the trajectory of his life and many others.”
Zühlke did a small study looking at 30 cases of this lesion, and found it was more common than thought. “Our work led us to being able to diagnose this condition much earlier, before heart damage could happen, and children with the lesion could get surgery earlier. It made me realise why research and evidence-based medicine are so important … if one wants to impact not just the patient in front of you but multiple patients.”
A lifetime steeped in medicine
Zühlke, who was born and raised in Athlone, Cape Town, was from childhood fascinated about the inner workings of the human body.
“My siblings remember me cutting up my dolls and doing transplants with pieces of chicken,” she recalls with amusement.
When she had her tonsils removed at a tender five years old, she insisted on seeing the fleshy lymph node masses.
“My grandmother worked as a domestic worker in a residence at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and told us stories about students and what was happening there. Apparently, from when I was three or four, I said I wanted to study medicine,” says Zühlke.
It thus came as no surprise that she ended up studying medicine and surgery at the UCT. In 2015, she completed her PhD on the outcomes of asymptomatic and symptomatic rheumatic heart disease, which was supervised by the late Professor of Cardiology Bongani Mayosi. She calls him her “academic father” and “the man who saw something in me that I didn’t”.
In 2019, Zühlke was the first woman in South Africa to be appointed as a full professor in paediatric cardiology.
“It was always going to be paediatrics,” she says, adding “there was always a kid on my hip during ward rounds. With children, it’s not about status but about caring, and meeting them at their level.”
Losing patients, Zühlke says, is part of any doctor’s experience, “but it’s terrible telling a mother their child hasn’t got a normal heart and that there’s a possibility of death. To do that with compassion … is what we’re put in this world for.”
She says while her work started with research into rheumatic heart disease, her focus later evolved. “I started looking more at the reasons why we have the outcomes we do; the overarching determinants of why people are diagnosed late, why they don’t have enough treatment, and enough surgery; and why they have poorer outcomes.”
Today, Zühlke is vice-president of the South African Medical Research Council, and at Red Cross she is director of the Children’s Heart Disease Research Unit and a paediatric cardiologist in the Division of Paediatric Cardiology.
What types of things go wrong in children’s hearts?
Heart disease in children refers to any problem with the structure or work of the heart, explains Zühlke. There are two main types: congenital heart disease which relates to structural problems with the heart that are present at birth; and acquired heart disease that develops later.
“The heart is complete between six and eight weeks in utero. With congenital heart disease, the structural abnormalities are there already,” she says.
“The heart can be viewed as a house with four rooms or chambers, with walls that separate them, and veins or arteries going in or out to allow blood to move from one chamber to the next, through four valves or doors. There can be problems with any of those, for example, a hole in the heart, which is one of the most common things we see. If there’s a hole in one of the walls separating these chambers, then oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor blood can mix, making the heart and lungs work harder,” Zühlke says.
She says that a much more serious problem is when, instead of being born with four parts of the heart, a child is born with three or there’s obstruction to blood flow to the body. “This critical cardiac lesion requires surgery to reorganise the circulation. No surgery almost certainly means death. The range of structural abnormalities ranges from mild to critical. Congenital heart disease is the most common birth defect, affecting one in 50 children,” Zühlke says.
Explaining rheumatic heart disease, she says: “This is acquired later in life, particularly in children between the ages of five and fifteen, as a consequence of an infection called Streptococcus pyogenes (Strep A) which causes a sore throat or a skin infection and sets off an abnormal immune response. The body attacks and damages the tissue in the heart, an acute illness follows called Rheumatic fever and the permanent heart valve damage which results is known as Rheumatic Heart Disease.”
Zühlke believes not enough studies have been done to prove categorically what the prevalence of heart disease is in children in South Africa. “It’s hard to do a true birth prevalence study. But we’ve done a lot of work (through extrapolating numbers from other studies) to fill in the data gap showing that the prevalence in South Africa is similar to other parts of the world.” She says congenital heart disease is within the top five killers of children and more common than any other birth defects combined.
Unclear causes
The causes of congenital heart disease could include genetic changes, like chromosomal disorders like Down syndrome; maternal health issues like diabetes, obesity or infections; or exposure to smoke, alcohol or restricted medications during pregnancy.
The causes of acquired heart disease are similarly varied, ranging from environmental causes to and infections. It can take many forms. Kawasaki disease is a childhood illness that causes inflammation in the walls of blood vessels, resulting in fever, rashes and swelling; cardiomyopathy is a disease of the heart muscle that makes it harder for the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body. HIV-associated heart disease comes about because people living with HIV face a higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
The symptoms of heart disease, Zühlke says, include rapid breathing, an increased heart rate, and excessive sleepiness. Babies can be pale or blue around the fingers, toes or lips, and can tire when drinking or have problems gaining weight.
There are several possible diagnostics, but they are not always available in the public healthcare system. These include heart ultrasound, electrocardiograms, X-rays, and checking the amount of oxygen in the blood soon after birth, with a pulse oximetry test.
In addition, Zühlke says that some provinces such as the Northern Cape and Mpumalanga lack a paediatric cardiologist to make the diagnosis. “There are also issues with referrals to get diagnosed patients to centres for timeous attention. Sadly, people are dying without even knowing they had heart disease,” she says.
What we can do differently
Asked what could be done differently in the public sector to improve early diagnosis of heart issues, she says pulse oximetry screening is a simple, cost-effective, efficient test to rule out critical congenital heart disease. Zühlke says there are plans to incorporate it into the Road to Health Booklet used by health professionals and parents to monitor a child’s health and development.
“It wouldn’t be difficult to add pulse oximetry screening as a check before a baby is discharged from a hospital. It’s been well proven that it works. All that’s needed is a probe and somebody to do it; and it can tick a box on the child’s Road-to-Health chart.
“But that requires money because you need a particular newborn probe to do it … and people are busy in the clinics,” she says.
On rheumatic heart disease, Zühlke says it’s “unethical” that an entirely preventable disease is still such a problem in SA and Africa. “We need research, funding, and advocacy to change that, improving diagnosis, treatment and long-term care. Also, we need to make sure there’s a vaccine to treat strep A.”
First prize, she says, would be to enable immediate diagnosis of rheumatic fever. “Currently, there’s no one test to say a person has acute rheumatic fever.”
“Next, we need a different way of treating it (the current penicillin injection is extremely painful for children); and getting a vaccine in countries where it actually matters. In the meantime, the goal is to ensure people living with the disease get access to care.”
Zühlke says she’s following the work on a vaccine for rheumatic heart disease closely and is involved in a vaccine collaborative which is working to ensure that when the vaccine becomes available, it is accessible and affordable.
‘Some of them were my heart patients as children’
Meanwhile, her “varied, mad, interesting” life sees her overseeing numerous intra- and extramural research projects for the SAMRC and directing her childrens heart research unit at UCT. She still works in a multi-disciplinary clinic for women with cardio-vascular disease in Groote Schuur’s maternity centre which she loves.
“Some of them were my heart patients as children,” Zühlke says, adding that transitional care is a priority “because patients with congenital and rheumatic heart disease become adults, we need to ensure that they can get the best possible life-long care.”
Her big vision has always been “to integrate research into the clinical space, so that as you see patients, it goes into the research, and as you research, it goes back to the patient.” Zühlke adds: “Being part of the research landscape at the SAMRC is deeply gratifying. What I’d like to see, most importantly, is childhood onset heart disease recognised as an entity, part of policy … and in the national action plans.”
She is the 2026 laureate for Africa and the Arab States in the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science International Awards for her pioneering work in improving care for children with cardiovascular disease, particularly rheumatic heart disease. Given to the top five female scientists globally, the distinguished award recognised her for “combining cutting-edge science with social justice” and “turning the fight against childhood heart disease into a public policy priority”.
Zühlke is married to Alexander Zühlke, a plastic surgeon at Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, and together they have two children.
Coffee is one of the world’s most widely consumed beverages, and previous research has linked its consumption to a lower risk of conditions such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. However, the biological mechanisms behind these benefits remain unclear. A new Finnish study links habitual coffee consumption to healthier body composition and metabolic markers, while revealing distinct associations with sex hormones in men and women.
The study, conducted at the University of Oulu, analysed data from 2264 participants aged 46 in the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966. Researchers examined how habitual coffee consumption was associated with circulating metabolites, cardiometabolic risk markers and sex hormones.
Despite having a similar body mass index (BMI), individuals with higher coffee consumption had lower total and visceral fat and greater skeletal muscle mass than those who consumed less coffee.
In both men and women, higher coffee consumption was correlated with lower circulating levels of branched-chain amino acids, biomarkers that have previously been linked to insulin resistance and an increased risk of type 2 diabetes when chronically elevated.
The strongest sex-specific associations were observed in men. Higher coffee consumption was linked to a more favourable glucose–insulin profile, higher concentrations of total and bioavailable testosterone, and increased levels of sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG). At the same time, free testosterone and the free androgen index were modestly lower. In women, hormonal associations were more limited and were primarily characterised by higher SHBG and lower measures of free androgens.
“Coffee is consumed by millions of people every day, yet we still know surprisingly little about how it relates to our metabolism and hormones. What stood out in our findings was a distinct hormonal signature that didn’t disappear even after we took into account BMI and lifestyle factors, with several of these associations differing between men and women,” says Luca Verroest, lead author of the study and Doctoral Researcher at the University of Oulu.
The results suggest that hormonal pathways may partly explain the relationship between coffee consumption and metabolic health. However, as this was an observational study, the findings demonstrate associations rather than cause-and-effect relationships.
The study is particularly relevant in Finland, one of the world’s highest coffee-consuming countries, where annual consumption averages around 11.8 kilograms per person.
The researchers say the findings provide a foundation for future studies aimed at determining whether coffee itself drives these biological changes and identifying the compounds responsible. These questions are currently being investigated in animal models, with the long-term goal of progressing to human intervention studies. Further research will be needed before the findings could inform dietary recommendations.
GLP-1 receptor agonists and dual agonists have transformed the treatment of obesity and other metabolic diseases, and a new editorial co-authored by Dr Steven Heymsfield of LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center and Dr Adam Gilden of the University of Colorado examines what scientists are learning as these medications reach millions of people.
“Most of the unanticipated side effects of GLP-1 receptor agonists have been positive,” the authors wrote.
The researchers highlight evidence suggesting GLP-1 medications may reduce inflammation and lower the risk of certain cardiovascular and musculoskeletal conditions. Emerging studies also suggest the medications may reduce alcohol consumption and the risk of certain substance use disorders, although additional clinical trials are needed to confirm these effects.
At the same time, questions remain about the medications’ effects on lean body mass and nutritional health. Weight loss associated with GLP-1 medications can include reductions in lean mass, including muscle, making it important to understand how to preserve muscle through exercise and appropriate nutrition. Reduced appetite may also increase the risk of micronutrient deficiencies in some patients.
“GLP-1 receptor agonists have already transformed the practice of medicine in the United States, and this change will continue as more medications come onto the market,” the authors wrote.
The researchers identify three key priorities for future GLP-1 research:
Understanding the mechanisms behind potential reductions in inflammation,
Conducting randomised trials to better understand changes in lean body mass and ways to preserve muscle,
Conducting larger randomised trials to determine whether these medications can reduce alcohol use disorders.
Despite the remaining questions, the authors conclude that the evidence available to date supports a favourable overall risk-benefit profile for GLP-1 receptor agonists and dual agonists.
We usually think of bodily sensations as information the brain receives. What if the way we attend to those sensations can feed back and change the biological response itself?
Attention is already known to shape how bodily sensations are perceived. Focusing away from pain or itch, for example, can make these sensations feel less intense. A new study from the lab of Dr Liron Rozenkrantz at Bar-Ilan University’s Azrieli Faculty of Medicine, published in Nature Human Behaviour, shows that attention can also influence the body’s inflammatory response.
When people voluntarily focused their attention on sensations arising from a small area of inflammation in their arm, the inflammatory response was smaller and showed faster recovery dynamics than when their attention was directed away from those sensations.
The study, led by Dr Nofar Mizrachi and conducted in collaboration with Prof Menachem Rottem, a clinical immunologist, involved 57 healthy volunteers across three preregistered experiments. Participants underwent a standardised procedure that produced a small, temporary inflammatory response in the skin. They were then instructed either to focus on sensations from the affected area or to direct their attention elsewhere. The researchers measured the inflammatory response for 20 minutes as it unfolded, along with physiological measures such as heart-rate variability, skin temperature and autonomic activity.
The effect was substantial and highly consistent: nearly 90% of participants showed a smaller inflammatory response when they focused on the affected area, with responses approximately 1.5-fold smaller under internal attention compared with distraction. Differences emerged within minutes, with the response also showing faster return toward baseline.
“What was particularly striking was that directing attention toward the inflamed area changed not only what participants experienced, but the inflammatory response itself,” said Dr Rozenkrantz. “This raises the possibility that our subjective experience of what is happening in the body is not only a passive process, but may be actively contributing to how physiological responses are regulated.”
The researchers identified two complementary pathways that contributed to the effect. One involved sensory signals coming from the inflamed tissue. The other was a top-down mechanism through which attention continued to influence inflammation even when sensory signals were reduced using a local anesthetic.
Together, the findings suggest that attention can influence inflammation through both sensory and top-down pathways. More broadly, they suggest that the way the brain prioritises signals from the body may have consequences for how the body regulates itself.
The experiments involved healthy volunteers and a controlled model of acute skin inflammation. Whether the same mechanisms apply to chronic inflammation, autoimmune disease, wound healing or other conditions remains to be determined. The team’s next step is to identify the precise brain and immune pathways involved and determine whether similar effects occur in other physiological systems.
Growing evidence links higher consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) to a range of health problems. Research has identified several potential biological pathways through which UPFs may contribute to cancer. These include metabolic disruption, inflammation, oxidative stress, and changes to the gut microbiome. However, data are sparse about whether men who consume high amounts of UPFs have greater risks of prostate cancer.
Now, new research from Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine provides evidence that men with higher consumption of UPFs have increased risks of prostate cancer. Published in The American Journal of Medicine, the study analyses a large and nationally representative survey from 17 024 US adults males from 2003 through 2023. Researchers used two 24-hour dietary recalls to calculate the percentage of daily calories participants consumed from UPFs. Using the validated and widely used NOVA classification system, they divided participants into four groups, ranging from less than about 20% of calories from UPFs to more than 44%.
Men in the three higher-consumption groups of UPFs had a 29% greater risk of prostate cancer, while those in the two highest-consumption groups had a 30% greater risk, compared to those in the lowest consumption group. After adjustments for age, race and ethnicity, smoking, and poverty status, the increased risk remained significant, ranging from 24% to 31%. Men with the highest UPF intake alone had a possible 34% higher risk, although the finding did not reach statistical significance, potentially reflecting the smaller number of prostate cancer cases in that group.
“Among adult men in this nationally representative US population, those who consumed higher amounts of UPFs had significantly higher risks of the subsequent development of prostate cancer,” said Charles H. Hennekens, MD, FACPM, FACC, senior author and the First Sir Richard Doll Professor of Medicine and Preventive Medicine in the Department of Medicine and the Department of Population Health at FAU’s College of Medicine. “These findings add to emerging evidence that UPFs have major adverse health effects and underscore the need for large-scale observational studies and randomised trials to adequately test the hypothesis.”
Previous studies have shown that people who consume larger amounts of UPFs have higher risks of overweight and obesity, metabolic disease, markers of inflammation, cardiovascular disease, principally heart attacks and strokes, as well as premature death.
This original research adds to the armamentaria of a major battle in which the priorities of the food industry do not align with the needs of the U.S. public. The authors opine that just as the dangers of tobacco began to emerge during the middle of the prior century, decades passed before the preponderance of evidence and the efforts of forward-thinking health officials prompted policy changes to discourage cigarette use. The authors believe that this is likely to be a similar path for UPFs.
“Reducing consumption of UPFs is a complex public health challenge, particularly given how prevalent and accessible these products are,” said co-author Timothy De Ver Dye, PhD, professor and chair of FAU’s Department of Population Health. “Healthcare providers should recognise that many patients face barriers to accessing and affording healthier food options. Addressing these challenges will require efforts that extend beyond individual choices to support greater access to nutritious, minimally processed foods.”
According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, nearly 1.5 million men worldwide were diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2022, and nearly 400 000 died from the disease.
“All healthcare professionals should encourage patients to adopt healthy lifestyle practices and evidence-based therapies, while also helping them reduce their consumption of ultra-processed foods,” Hennekens said. “Patients and their healthcare providers should consider this finding as part of broader efforts to promote healthier dietary choices.”
Study co-authors are FAU medical students Hunter Scott and John Dunn as well as Yanna Willett, a doctoral student at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.
