What do the brains of newborns and patients with Alzheimer’s disease have in common? Researchers from the University of Gothenburg, led by first author Fernando Gonzalez-Ortiz and senior author Professor Kaj Blennow, recently reported that both newborns and Alzheimer’s patients have elevated blood levels of a protein called phosphorylated tau, specifically a form called p-tau217.
While this protein has been largely used as a diagnostic test for Alzheimer’s disease, with an increase in p-tau217 blood levels proposed to be driven by another process, namely aggregation of b-amyloid protein into amyloid plaques. Newborns (for natural reasons) do not have this type of pathological change, so interestingly, in newborns increased plasma p-tau217 seems to reflect a completely different – and entirely healthy – mechanism.
In a large international study that involved Sweden, Spain and Australia, researchers analyzed blood samples from over 400 individuals, including healthy newborns, premature infants, young adults, elderly adults, and people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. They found that newborn babies had the highest levels of p-tau217 – even higher than those found in people with Alzheimer’s. These levels were particularly elevated in premature babies and started to decrease over the first few months of life, eventually settling to adult levels.
First time in the blood of newborns
Previous research, largely based on animal models, had hinted at the role of phosphorylated tau in early brain development. This is the first time scientists have directly measured p-tau217 concentrations in the blood of human newborns, opening the door to a much clearer understanding of its developmental role.
But here’s where it gets fascinating, while in Alzheimer’s disease p-tau217 is associated with tau aggregation into harmful clumps called tangles, believed to cause the breakdown of brain cells and subsequent cognitive decline. In contrast, in newborns this surge in tau appears to support healthy brain development, helping neurons grow and to form new connections with other neurons, thereby shaping the structure of the young brain.
The study also revealed that in both healthy and premature babies, p-tau217 levels were closely linked to how early they were born. The earlier the birth, the higher the levels of this protein, suggesting a role in supporting rapid brain growth under challenging developmental conditions.
Potential roadmap for new treatments
What’s perhaps most compelling about these findings, published in the journal Brain Communications, is the hint that our brains may once have had built-in protection against the damaging effects of tau, so that newborns can tolerate, and even benefit from, high levels of phosphorylated tau without triggering the kinds of damage seen in Alzheimer’s.
“We believe that understanding how this natural protection works – and why we lose it as we age – could offer a roadmap for new treatments. If we can learn how the newborn brain keeps tau in check, we might one day mimic those processes to slow or stop Alzheimer’s in its tracks”, says Fernando Gonzalez-Ortiz.
So while an increase of p-tau217 is a danger signal in older brains, in newborns it might be a vital part of building one. The same molecule, two dramatically different roles – one building the brain, the other marking its decline.
Plasma p-tau217 has recently received FDA approval for use in diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease, making it an increasingly important tool in clinical settings. The authors emphasise
Source: the need to also understand the mechanism for the increase in p-tau217, especially for interpreting it as an outcome in clinical and epidemiological research and in drug development. This study indicate that amyloid plaques may not be the main driver of increases in p-tau217.
In just two years, the Gauteng health department’s spending on security has more than tripled. We try to get to the bottom of the ballooning bills and what it means for governance in the department.
The Gauteng Department of Health’s projected R2.54 billion spend on security contracts for 2025/2026 has received the thumbs up, fuelling suspicion in various quarters. It comes as the department claims to lack the funds to fill vacancies, pay all suppliers on time, or continue fulfilling doctors’ overtime contracts.
The R2.54 billion is more than three times the R838 million the department spent two years earlier in 2023/2024. This was revealed at the end of May in response to questions raised in the Gauteng Legislature by the Democratic Alliance (DA), the official opposition in the province. In 2024/2025, the department’s security spending was just over R1.76 billion.
Jack Bloom, the DA’s shadow MEC for health in Gauteng, calls the proposed expenditure “unjustified”, given that the department is failing to meet its health service delivery targets.
According to him, security companies charge R77 million per year for guarding services at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, and over R72 million annually at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital.
At Tara Hospital, the new security contract costs R14 million per year – a sharp increase from the previous year’s R4.2 million contract, which had provided 21 guards for the facility. Bloom says that, according to the department’s own assessment, only five additional guards were needed at Tara Hospital, increasing the total to 26. However, the current contract pays for 46 guards. “This means they are paying about R5 million a year for 20 guards they do not need,” Bloom says. “They could better use this money to fill the vacancies for 13 professional nurses, as Tara Hospital cannot use 50 of its 137 beds because of staff shortages. It is a clear example of excessive security costs squeezing out service delivery,” he says.
“The numbers simply don’t add up,” Bloom says. He points out that the written responses provided in the Gauteng Legislature – signed off by MEC for Health and Wellness, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko – cite an internal security assessment and compliance with Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSIRA) salary increases for guards as reasons for the higher costs. However, the internal assessment has not been shared with either Bloom or Spotlight, despite requests from both.
The PSIRA-approved annual increase is 7.38%. In contrast, the department’s security spending rose by over 100% from 2023/2024 to 2024/2025, and it’s projected to increase by another 40% from 2024/2025 to 2025/2026.
According to a statement released by the Gauteng health department in April 2024, it had 113 security companies under contract at the time, providing a total of 6000 guards across 37 hospitals and 370 clinics and institutions in the province.
‘Very fishy’
Bloom says security guarding contracts have been “very fishy for at least the past 10 years”. He claims: “There are certain security companies that keep popping up. These companies will get two-year contracts, then have their contracts extended for something like 10 years. Then we have these new contracts which have soared in costs. The auditor general has said that there is irregular expenditure. Security contracts have always been suspect and have always been corruption territory.”
In March this year, the DA lodged a complaint with the Public Protector over a R49 million guarding contract for five clinics in Tshwane and the MEC’s offices. The contract was awarded to a company called Triotic Protection Services. The DA alleges that the company was founded by City of Tshwane’s deputy executive mayor, Eugene Modise, who also previously served as its director. When the company was awarded the contract, it was allegedly in the crosshairs of the South African Revenue Service because it owed R59 million in tax over five years. This has raised concerns about the company’s tax compliance status and its eligibility to tender for the contract. Spotlight approached Modise for comment through Samkelo Mgobozi, spokesperson for the office of the executive mayor, but had not received a response by the time of publication.
Other security companies that have contracts with the department have also made headlines for allegedly flouting labour laws. These include not paying guards for months and withholding employees’ pension and provident fund contributions. It leaves questions about due diligence and the proper vetting of companies.
A review underway?
In the weeks since Bloom’s questions were answered in the legislature, he says Nkomo-Ralehoko conceded to a review of the security spend at the province’s hospitals.
However, the Gauteng health department has not announced anything formally and no further details have been provided.
The department has also not responded to Spotlight’s questions or provided supporting documentation of their assessment criteria for the security contracts, the tender requirements, tender processes and how they measure value for money and the impact of increased guarding in improving safety and security for patients, staff and visitors to its hospitals. They have also not made available a list of the companies with successful contracts and what their services entail.
As Spotlight previously reported in some depth (see here and here), there are serious security problems at many health facilities in Gauteng. It ranges from cable theft disrupting hospital operations to healthcare workers being assaulted. The department has also been criticised from some quarters for its plans to train healthcare workers to better handle violent situations.
That steps need to be taken to better secure the province’s health facilities is not controversial. But our previous reporting has also shown a pattern of questionable contract management, with, for example, contracts being extended on a month-to-month basis for years after the original tenders had technically expired. It appears that the widespread use of these month-to-month security contracts came to an end when the department finally awarded a series of new security tenders in 2024 but it also seems likely that these new contracts are driving the department’s ballooning security spending.
‘Has to be justified’
The department’s massively increased security spend must be fully explained and is essential for transparency, say several experts Spotlight spoke to.
“This kind of escalation in cost has to be justified, especially when the department has no money,” says Professor Alex van den Heever, chair of social security systems administration and management studies at the University of Witwatersrand.
He says the specifics of the tender process and the contracts that were awarded need to be publicly available to be openly scrutinised. The processes must meet Treasury’s procurement guidelines and must follow the Public Finance Management Act, which regulates financial management within the national and provincial governments. Where there is wilful non-compliance, Van den Heever says criminal charges should be laid.
“This is a department that has routinely had around R3 billion a year in irregular expenditure. It means procurement procedures have been bypassed. This is not an isolated incident; it’s systematic,” he adds.
The latest Auditor General report into the Gauteng health department was released in September last year for the 2023/24 financial year. It showed that of its R60 billion budget, the department underspent by R1.1 billion, including R590 million on the National Tertiary Service Grant that was meant to help fund specialist services. The report highlighted R2.7 billion in irregular expenditure, which is R400 million more than the previous year, and R17 million in fruitless and wasteful spending – an increase of R2 million from the year before.
Equally damning, the report highlighted the lack of credible information provided. “This is likely to result in substantial harm to the operations of the department as incorrect data is used for planning and budgeting and the effectiveness of oversight and monitoring are reduced as a result of unreliable reported performance information on the provision of primary healthcare services,” wrote the Auditor General.
Van den Heever says the leadership and management within the health department need to be seriously questioned. Questions should be asked of why “bad apples” are not being removed, why there are no consequences for conflicts of interests and collusions, and why webs of enablers within the department are not exposed for insulating wrongdoers, he says.
Van den Heever says that over nine years of monitoring, the Gauteng Health Department’s irregular and wasteful spending ranged between 3.6% and 6.6% of its total budget. In contrast, during the same period, the Western Cape’s irregular spending ranged from 0% to just 0.1%.
Lack of transparency
The Gauteng health department’s spike in security spending demands deeper investigation, says Advocate Stephanie Fick. She is executive director for accountability and public governance at the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse and serves on the Health Sector Anti-Corruption Forum. This forum was launched in 2019 as an initiative to combat corruption within the healthcare system. It falls under the Special Investigations Unit and brings together a range of stakeholders, including law enforcement agencies, government departments, regulators, and the private sector.
Fick says the health department’s failure to provide easy access to information on tenders, contracts, and contracted companies undermines transparency and accountability. She encourages more people to come forward with insider information.
“We want to see the details right down to line items and who signed off on things. We encourage people to use our protected whistleblower platforms to share information,” Fick says.
“For civil society, there is a growing role to mount strategic challenges to things like this kind of excessive and irregular expenditure; to demand transparency and to expose people who are responsible.
“This must be done so ordinary people can better understand what’s been happening with their tax money and so they choose more carefully when they go to the ballot box, starting with next year’s municipal elections,” she says.
New research shows that youth who become increasingly addicted to social media, mobile phones or video games are at greater risk of suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts and emotional or behavioural issues. The study, published in JAMA, was led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, Columbia University and University of California, Berkeley.
Unlike previous studies that focused on total screen time at one point in a child’s life, this study looked at how young people’s patterns of compulsive or “addictive” use changed over time. These patterns included feeling unable to stop using a device, experiencing distress when not using it or using it to escape from problems. In contrast, simply spending more time on screens at 10 years old wasn’t associated with worse suicide-related and mental health outcomes.
“For parents and educators, the discussion around mobile phones and social media has focused on limiting or banning use, but our results indicate more complex factors are involved,” said first author Dr Yunyu Xiao, assistant professor of population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine. “Clinical trials have shown that limiting cell phone use, for instance during school hours, was not effective in reducing the risk of suicidal behaviour or improving other aspects of mental health.”
This study could signal a paradigm shift in how the impact of screen time on youth mental health is addressed. “Testing interventions that work against other types of addiction may be one way to approach this type of social media and mobile phone use,” Dr Xiao said.
Quantity Versus Quality
Over four years, the researchers tracked nearly 4300 youths aged 9 to 10 when they first started the study. Using machine learning and data from participant interviews, the researchers characterised three addictive use trajectories for social media and mobile phone usage and two for addictive use with video games. When graphed, these trajectories depicted relative levels of addictive behaviours.
By age 14, almost one in three participants had a high addictive use trajectory for social media and one in four for mobile phones. More than 40% of the youths had a high addictive use trajectory for video games. These adolescents were significantly more likely to report suicidal thoughts or behaviours, as well as symptoms of anxiety, depression, aggression or rule-breaking.
The researchers also found that each type of digital activity showed unique patterns of association with suicide-related behaviours and mental health symptoms. For social media and mobile phones, the high and increasing addictive use trajectories were associated with a two to three times greater risk of suicidal behaviours and suicidal ideation compared with the low addictive use trajectory. The higher use trajectories were also associated with either internalising symptoms such as anxiousness and depression, or externalising symptoms, including aggressiveness or inattentiveness.
“Parents may want to pay more attention to how their kids are using their digital devices and consider having them evaluated for signs of addictive use, said co-first author Dr Yuan Meng, postdoctoral associate in population health sciences at Weill Cornell. “If an addiction is identified, limiting use of mobile phones and social media for part of the day, may potentially reinforce addictive behaviors, so seeking professional advice is essential.”
A study led by biomedical scientists at the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine shows how a genetic mutation associated with Crohn’s disease can worsen iron deficiency and anaemia — one of the most common complications experienced by patients with inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD. The research is published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.
While IBD — a group of chronic inflammatory disorders that includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis — primarily affects the intestines, it can have effects beyond the gut. Iron deficient anaemia is the most prevalent of these effects, contributing to chronic fatigue and reduced quality of life, particularly during disease flare-ups.
The study, performed on serum samples from IBD patients, reports that patients carrying a loss-of-function mutation in the gene PTPN2 (protein tyrosine phosphatase non-receptor type 2) exhibit significant disruption in blood proteins that regulate iron levels. This mutation is found in 14-16% of the general population and 19-20% of the IBD population. A loss-of-function mutation is a genetic change that reduces or eliminates the normal function of a gene or its product, a protein.
“This discovery sheds light on a critical mechanism that links a patient’s genetics to their ability to absorb and regulate iron, which is essential for maintaining healthy blood and energy levels,” said Declan McCole, a professor of biomedical sciences at UCR who led the study. “Our findings offer an explanation for why some IBD patients remain iron-deficient despite oral supplementation.”
When the researchers deleted the PTPN2 gene in mice, the animals developed anaemia and were unable to absorb iron effectively. The team found this was due to reduced levels of a key iron-absorbing protein located in the intestinal epithelial cells — the cells responsible for taking up dietary nutrients.
“The only way the body can obtain iron is through intestinal absorption from food, making this discovery particularly significant,” said first author Hillmin Lei, a doctoral student in McCole’s lab. “Disruption of this pathway by genetic variants like those in PTPN2 could help explain why some IBD patients fail to respond to oral iron therapy, a commonly prescribed treatment for anaemia.”
McCole stressed that the study is a vital step toward understanding how genetic risk factors for IBD can compound patient symptoms by interfering with nutrient absorption.
“It opens new avenues for targeted therapies that go beyond inflammation control to address systemic complications like anaemia,” he said. “This includes prioritising patients who carry loss-of-function PTPN2 variants to be treated for anaemia with systemic intravenous iron supplementation rather than oral iron, which may be poorly absorbed.”
The study, , was performed in collaboration with researchers at the City of Hope, University Hospital Zurich, and the Swiss IBD Cohort.
ALS — also often called Lou Gehrig’s disease — is a progressive, neurodegenerative disease with no cure. Despite its devastating impact, the pace of new therapy development has remained sluggish—largely due to the high cost, duration, and risks associated with traditional clinical trials. This bottleneck has often discouraged conventional investors, leaving promising research to languish.
To tackle this challenge, the authors propose an investment fund that finances half the cost of an adaptive platform trial in exchange for future royalties from successful drugs that emerge from the trial. Adaptive platform trials allow multiple drug candidates to be tested simultaneously under a single master protocol, and results are interpreted on a real-time basis to determine efficacy or futility. Drawing on data from the HEALEY ALS Platform Trial administered by the Healey & AMG Center for ALS at MGH, and realistic assumptions, their simulated fund generated an expected return of 28%, with a 22% probability of total loss, which may be attractive to more risk-tolerant and impact-driven investors such as hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and philanthropists. Their findings suggest that generating returns more palatable for mainstream investors could be achieved by funding multiple platform trials simultaneously and by employing financial tools such as securitization — a method that bundles future income from assets like loans or royalties into investment products.
“ALS clinical trials face significant hurdles — from high costs and long timelines to limited funding pools,” said Merit E. Cudkowicz, MD, MSC, Executive Director at Mass General Brigham Neuroscience Institute and Director of the Healey & AMG Center for ALS. “Our platform trial model has already shown that we can test more therapies more efficiently. What’s still missing is sustainable financing. This novel approach could be a game-changer, enabling us to launch trials faster, include more promising therapies, and bring us closer to our shared goal: delivering effective treatments to people with ALS as quickly as possible.”
While their study focused on ALS, the authors believe such a funding model could be applied to other disease areas as well, especially those with well-defined endpoints, where treatment success can be measured clearly and reliably.
Waking up from a nightmare can leave your heart pounding, but the effects may reach far beyond a restless night. Adults who suffer bad dreams every week were almost three times more likely to die before age 75 than people who rarely have them.
This alarming conclusion – which is yet to be peer reviewed – comes from researchers who combined data from four large long-term studies in the US, following more than 4,000 people between the ages of 26 and 74. At the beginning, participants reported how often nightmares disrupted their sleep. Over the next 18 years, the researchers kept track of how many participants died prematurely – 227 in total.
Even after considering common risk factors like age, sex, mental health, smoking and weight, people who had nightmares every week were still found to be nearly three times more likely to die prematurely – about the same risk as heavy smoking.
The team also examined “epigenetic clocks” – chemical marks on DNA that act as biological mileage counters. People haunted by frequent nightmares were biologically older than their birth certificates suggested, across all three clocks used (DunedinPACE, GrimAge and PhenoAge).
The science behind the silent scream
Faster ageing accounted for about 39% of the link between nightmares and early death, implying that whatever is driving the bad dreams is simultaneously driving the body’s cells towards the finish line.
How might a scream you never utter leave a mark on your genome? Nightmares happen during so-called rapid-eye-movement sleep when the brain is highly active but muscles are paralysed. The sudden surge of adrenaline, cortisol and other fight-or-flight chemicals can be as strong as anything experienced while awake. If that alarm bell rings night after night, the stress response may stay partially switched on throughout the day.
Continuous stress takes its toll on the body. It triggers inflammation, raises blood pressure and speeds up the ageing process by wearing down the protective tips of our chromosomes.
On top of that, being jolted awake by nightmares disrupts deep sleep, the crucial time when the body repairs itself and clears out waste at the cellular level. Together, these two effects – constant stress and poor sleep – may be the main reasons the body seems to age faster.
The idea that disturbing dreams foreshadow poor health is not entirely new. Earlier studies have shown that adults tormented by weekly nightmares are more likely to develop dementia and Parkinson’s disease, years before any daytime symptoms appear.
Growing evidence suggests that the brain areas involved in dreaming are also those affected by brain diseases, so frequent nightmares might be an early warning sign of neurological problems.
Nightmares are also surprisingly common. Roughly 5% of adults report at least one each week and another 12.5% experience them monthly.
Because they are both frequent and treatable, the new findings elevate bad dreams from a spooky nuisance to a potential public health target. Cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia, imagery-rehearsal therapy – where sufferers rewrite the ending of a recurrent nightmare while awake – and simple steps such as keeping bedrooms cool, dark and screen free have all been shown to curb nightmare frequency.
Before jumping to conclusions, there are a few important things to keep in mind. The study used people’s own reports of their dreams, which can make it hard to tell the difference between a typical bad dream and a true nightmare. Also, most of the people in the study were white Americans, so the findings might not apply to everyone.
And biological age was measured only once, so we cannot yet say whether treating nightmares slows the clock. Crucially, the work was presented as a conference abstract and has not yet navigated the gauntlet of peer review.
Despite these limitations, the study has important strengths that make it worth taking seriously. The researchers used multiple groups of participants, followed them for many years and relied on official death records rather than self-reported data. This means we can’t simply dismiss the findings as a statistical fluke.
If other research teams can replicate these results, doctors might start asking patients about their nightmares during routine check-ups – alongside taking blood pressure and checking cholesterol levels.
Therapies that tame frightening dreams are inexpensive, non-invasive and already available. Scaling them could offer a rare chance to add years to life while improving the quality of the hours we spend asleep.
The cost of each recommended diet, defined as the cost of the least expensive food items to meet FBDG at a constant energy total of 2,330 kcal d−1 in 2021 PPP dollars per person per day. Diet cost estimates were derived for 172 countries where available to calculate the cost of meeting FBDG of Argentina (ARG), Benin (BEN), Malta (MLT), Pakistan (PAK), the United States (USA) and Viet Nam (VNM); from 171 countries of the HDB, Bangladesh (BGD), China (CHN), Ghana (GHA), India (IND), Indonesia (IDN), Jamaica (JAM), the Netherlands (NLD) and Zambia (ZMB); from 169 countries of Ethiopia (ETH), Oman (OMN); and 162 countries of the EAT-Lancet reference diet (EAT). Source: Herforth et al., Nature Food 2025.
A decade-long project measuring access to healthy foods worldwide is wrapping up in August, after shedding new light on the scope and specifics of nutrition insecurity, kickstarting solutions, and shifting the conversation around the affordability of healthy diets.
“I’m just stunned by the speed of adoption,” said Will Masters, director of the project and professor of food policy and economics at the Friedman School. “For the first time, governments are measuring whether people have access to the biological requisites of an active and healthy life.”
Based on national dietary guidelines from many countries around the world, the team’s Healthy Diet Basket dietary standard was validated as a way to measure diet costs in the most recent of the team’s 27 scientific journal articles. The new study appeared this month in Nature Food.
“The indicator captures an implicit consensus on what countries around the world agree that people need for healthy diets,” said Anna Herforth, N05, co-director of Food Prices for Nutrition and lead author of the paper. “The importance of meeting dietary needs has been recognized for a long time, but measuring whether people can actually do that has been elusive until now.”
Measuring Affordability
The team has found that the minimum cost of a healthy diet, using the cheapest locally available food options in each country, was generally between $3 and $4 per person in 2021, with a global average of $3.68 per person. That same year, the international extreme poverty line was $2.15.
In other words, “many people in the world who are counted as ‘non-poor’ still can’t afford to meet the basic requirements for a healthy diet,” Herforth said.
A healthy diet is more than just having enough calories. Our bodies need a balance of different foods from different food groups—vegetables, fruits, starchy staples, legumes, animal-source foods such as meat, eggs, or dairy—to acquire all the nutrients for an active, healthy life.
Buying a healthy diet of the cheapest, most basic foods is “completely out of reach” for more than 80 percent of people in African countries, and a total of 2.8 billion people worldwide, Masters said. “For many people, even if they put all their resources into buying food, they wouldn’t have enough to meet dietary standards for lifelong health,” he said.
The project’s purpose is to provide a diagnostic metric that distinguishes between prices, incomes, and other factors as potential causes behind malnutrition, and helps identify what the best solutions might be. Their research shows how some people still face unavailability or high prices for even the least expensive option in each food group needed for a healthy diet. In that situation, governments can make a healthy diet more accessible and affordable by investing in innovation to lower the cost of production and distribution of those products.
What the new cost and affordability data has revealed, says Masters, is the extent to which malnutrition is caused by low incomes available for food, after accounting for nonfood expenses. People whose available income is below the total cost of even the least expensive locally available options for a healthy diet need wage increases or social safety nets to help them afford a healthy life. And if low-cost options for a healthy diet could be purchased but people are choosing less nutritious foods, it is likely the result of other factors such as time use and the cost of meal preparation, or aspirations shaped by culture and marketing. These factors need to be identified and addressed directly to improve diet quality.
The project’s core finding, according to Masters, is that “farmers and food traders can deliver the products needed for a healthy diet at roughly similar cost in most of the world. Malnutrition happens because the poorest third of the world can’t afford to buy enough of the vegetables, fruits, dairy, and fish or other animal source foods needed for health, and the rest of us all too often consume other foods instead.”
What’s Next
Impacts of the new data are already being felt in Nigeria, which became the world’s first country to publish official monthly bulletins on healthy diet costs in January 2024. Labour unions used their findings to negotiate a raise in the national minimum wage that July, and others are using the data to push for changes in farm and trade policy. National bulletins have also been published in Ethiopia, Malawi, Pakistan, and in other countries where the new data can help guide change.
In a larger sense, Yan Bai, AG09, F16, N20, co-corresponding author on Food Prices for Nutrition’s most recent paper, said the work is “contributing to a global shift from focusing on calories alone to embracing a much more rigorous understanding of food and nutrition security—one that prioritises economic access, human health, and sustainability.”
Bai, who started working with the Food Prices for Nutrition project while earning his doctorate at Tufts, is now helping to implement the work at a global scale as an economist with the Development Data Group of the World Bank.
“By providing internationally consistent metrics, we aim to inform evidence-based policymaking and hope to help catalyse broader multisectoral actions to make healthy diets more affordable and accessible to all,” Bai said.
Next, the researchers will collaborate with food providers in Africa to provide data and create new metrics to help build the supply chains for healthy, low-cost foods. They are also planning to continue supporting national governments and international organizations in calculating and using the cost and affordability metrics for healthy diets.
“People have talked about affordability for decades. Now we have a practical way to measure it,” Masters said. “The next step is using those data to guide actions, and bring healthy diets within reach for everyone.”
When a person starts to lose their balance on a slippery surface, the natural reaction is to raise the arms to restore balance. Adults age 65 and older may move their arms more slowly when slipping, which could increase their risk of falling, according to a University of Arizona Health Sciences-led study.
The paper, published in Scientific Reports, marked the first analysis of balance-correcting arm movements that may assist in reducing the incidence of hip fractures, said senior author Jonathan Lee-Confer, PhD, an assistant professor of physical therapy at the U of A Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. He and his collaborators studied older adults walking in everyday conditions.
“We know older adults lose mass in the shoulder muscles used for these types of arm movements,” Lee-Confer said. “This research fills a gap by looking at how older adults move and revealing those detriments to functional performance during a slip.”
The research team gathered data from two groups of people, the first with an average age of 26 and the second with an average age of 72. They found that all participants achieved comparable peak arm abduction during slips of similar severity; however, the older group were on average 58% slower than the younger group.
Additionally, they found that faster, more explosive arm corrections helped limit whole-body movement during a slip, quantifying the difference just 1/25 of a second made in how much participants’ bodies shifted sideways.
“It’s actually quite a bit – about an inch [2.5cm] to the side. So if someone is delayed with their arm movement, they are going to fall more toward the side than if they were able to react quickly,” said Lee-Confer, adding that until about seven years ago, the physical therapy community’s prevailing belief was that slips caused people to fall backward.
Lee-Confer’s prior research found that many people instead fall to the side. The distinction is important in preventing injury, as slip-induced falls are strongly associated with hip fractures.
“When an older adult fractures their hip, it can only be from a sideways fall, not purely backward,” he said.
Lee-Confer’s new study establishes a foundation for further research into interventions that could strengthen arms to improve balance reactions to slips. He plans to investigate whether strengthening targeted muscles by employing quick dumbbell raises to the side makes subjects’ arms move more rapidly when a slip occurs.
The balance-correcting arm movements happen almost as quickly as an automatic reflex and having existing strength to draw on may speed the process, he said.
If future findings support the approach, adding arm exercises to existing fall prevention programs that condition legs could make physical therapy protocols more effective, thus saving lives and prolonging healthspans.
“This is about using physical therapy to extend someone’s quality of life,” he said. “I like the idea of being able to give somebody more years of protection from these debilitating injuries.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, falls are the leading cause of nonfatal and fatal injury for Americans age 65 and older.
This is a pseudo-colored image of high-resolution gradient-echo MRI scan of a fixed cerebral hemisphere from a person with multiple sclerosis.
Credit: Govind Bhagavatheeshwaran, Daniel Reich, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health
Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects some 2.3 million people worldwide, with 80% experiencing inflammation in the cerebellum, a brain region crucial for movement and balance. This inflammation can lead to tremors, poor coordination, and motor control issues, which often worsen over time due to the loss of healthy brain tissue.
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have made a significant discovery about the underlying mechanisms of cerebellar degeneration in MS. Their study, published in PNAS, suggests that mitochondrial dysfunction may play a key role in the progressive loss of Purkinje cells and worsening motor impairments.
Purkinje cells are essential for coordinating smooth movements and balance. In MS, these cells can be damaged, leading to problems with coordination and movement, known as ataxia. The study found that Purkinje cells in MS patients had fewer branches, lost myelin, and experienced mitochondrial problems, resulting in a failing energy supply.
“Our study, conducted by my graduate student Kelley Atkinson, proposes that inflammation and demyelination in the cerebellum disrupt mitochondrial function, contributing to nerve damage and Purkinje cell loss,” said Seema Tiwari-Woodruff, a professor of biomedical sciences in the UC Riverside School of Medicine, who led the research team. “We observed a significant loss of the mitochondrial protein COXIV in demyelinated Purkinje cells, suggesting that mitochondrial impairment contributes directly to cell death and cerebellar damage.”
The research team used a mouse model of MS to investigate mitochondrial alterations during disease progression. They found that the mice lost Purkinje cells over time, similar to people with MS. The loss of energy seemed to be a key part of MS, with cells only dying later.
“Our research looked at brain tissue from MS patients and found major issues in these neurons: they had fewer branches, were losing myelin, and had mitochondrial problems – meaning their energy supply was failing,” Tiwari-Woodruff said. “Because Purkinje cells play such a central role in movement, their loss can cause serious mobility issues. Understanding why they’re damaged in MS could help us find better treatments to protect movement and balance in people with the disease.”
The study suggests that targeting mitochondrial health may be a promising strategy to slow or prevent neurological decline and improve quality of life for people living with MS.
The researchers plan to further investigate whether mitochondrial impairment affects other brain cells, such as oligodendrocytes and astrocytes. This research has the potential to open the door to finding ways to protect the brain early on, such as boosting energy in brain cells or aiding repair of the myelin sheaths.
Otago researchers have found the hormone prolactin plays an important role in regulating body temperature during pregnancy. Credit: University of Otago
Prolactin supports milk production and stimulates caregiving behaviour in mothers, now a University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka study has found that this key pregnancy hormone also regulates body temperature during pregnancy.
Senior author Dr Rosie Brown, of the Department of Physiology, says adjusting body temperature is a critical function of the central nervous system and is vital to keep both mum and baby healthy.
The study, published in Cell Reports, has shown that prolactin acts within the brain’s hypothalamus to help regulate core body temperature throughout gestation.
“The body needs to function differently to cope during pregnancy – early on core body temperature rapidly elevates, likely because of rising progesterone levels, then increased metabolic heat occurs thanks to foetal growth, maternal tissue growth, and greater food intake,” Dr Brown says.
A mother must lose this extra metabolic heat both for herself and for her developing offspring.
“Despite all these thermal pressures, core body temperature actually reduces in late pregnancy, and we now know it is prolactin which helps keep a mum cool.
“This seems to be an important change to promote heat loss and to, ultimately, provide a safe environment for the foetus, as hyperthermia can impact brain development.”
Dr Brown says the finding provides better understanding of how the changing hormones of pregnancy and lactation act in the maternal brain to alter how the body functions and promote survival and wellbeing of a mother and her offspring.
“Obviously, that helps us understand what is happening at a cellular level during pregnancy, but understanding adaptable changes in body temperature in mammals may also be critical for animal reproduction in a world facing climate change.
“The prolactin pathway in the brain may be a mechanism that helps mammals adapt to future thermal challenges.”
