Category Archives: HEALTH

What are Forever Chemicals? Study Reveals They’re Linked to Sleep Disruptions

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A groundbreaking study led by the University of South California (USC) has unveiled a concerning link between high levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as ‘forever chemicals’, and sleep disruptions.

This research, published in the journal Environmental Advances, has shed light on the potential health risks associated with these pervasive chemicals. PFAS are a group of man-made chemicals that have been used in a variety of industries around the globe since the 1940s. They are found in a wide range of consumer products that people use daily such as cookware, pizza boxes, and stain repellants.

Due to their chemical structure, PFAS are resistant to heat, water, and oil, earning them the moniker forever chemicals. They do not break down easily and can persist in the environment and the human body for extended periods. The USC study examined the blood samples and sleep patterns of 144 participants aged between 19 and 24.

The researchers found that higher levels of four specific types of PFAS – PFDA, PFHxS, PFOA, and PFOS – were significantly associated with less sleep or worse quality of sleep.

The Impact of PFAS on Sleep and Health

Young adults with higher levels of these toxic chemicals in their blood had 80 fewer minutes of sleep at night. They also had trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, waking up, or feeling tired during waking hours. Sleep is a fundamental pillar of health.

A person must sleep 7-8 hours daily. Prolonged poor sleep may raise chronic health issues, including diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. The study’s findings are particularly concerning given the widespread presence of PFAS in our environment and daily lives.

Previous studies have shown that PFAS have contaminated water, food, and people through products such as Teflon pans, waterproof clothing, stain-resistant carpets and fabrics, and food packaging. They have also been linked to cancers of the breast, ovary, skin, and uterus in women, among other diseases.

The USC study also examined the overlap between genes affected by the four forever chemicals and genes related to sleep disorders. Out of 600-plus candidate genes, seven activated by PFAS seemed to influence sleep.

Historical Parallels and Reducing Exposure

This included HSD11B1, which helps produce the hormone cortisol that plays an important role in regulating the rhythm of sleep and wakefulness. Another gene was cathepsin B, related to cognitive function and memory. Disruption in this gene was linked to Alzheimer’s.

The study’s findings echo historical events where chemicals once deemed safe were later found to have harmful effects on human health. For instance, lead was widely used in paint, gasoline, and plumbing until research revealed its toxic effects, particularly in children. Similarly, asbestos was a popular building material until its fibers were found to cause lung diseases.

The USC study adds to the growing body of evidence suggesting that PFAS could be the next major public health concern.

To reduce exposure to PFAS, individuals can avoid using products that are stain-resistant, waterproof, or nonstick, as these often contain PFAS. They can also choose natural fiber clothing, use glass, stainless steel, or ceramic cookware instead of Teflon or other nonstick pans, and be cautious with food packaging, especially for microwave meals.

Filtering drinking water with a system designed to remove PFAS, if necessary, and being mindful of personal care products, checking labels for PFAS ingredients, can also help. As we continue to learn more about these forever chemicals, it is crucial that we take steps to minimize our exposure and protect our health.

Snoring Linked to High Blood Pressure, Australian Study Finds

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A new Australian study has revealed that regular snoring may lead to higher blood pressure. Researchers from Flinders University in South Australia found that people who snore often are more likely to suffer from elevated blood pressure and uncontrolled hypertension.

The study monitored 12,287 participants over six months, using home-based sleep tracking technology. It showed that 15% of the participants snored for more than 20% of the night. Those who snored heavily had a 3.8 mmHg higher systolic blood pressure and 4.5 mmHg higher diastolic pressure compared to non-snorers.

Hypertension, commonly known as high blood pressure, occurs when blood vessels have consistently high pressure. This condition can cause heart attacks, strokes, heart failure, and other serious heart diseases.

“For the first time, we can say there’s a strong link between frequent snoring at night and high blood pressure,” said Bastien Lechat, lead author of the research from the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University in Australia. He stressed the importance of addressing snoring in managing hypertension.

The World Health Organization estimates that 1.28 billion adults globally have hypertension, with nearly half of them unaware of their condition.

FDA Approves Bristol Myers Squibb’s New Antipsychotic Drug Cobenfy for Schizophrenia Treatment

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Cobenfy (xanomeline and trospium chloride), for the treatment of schizophrenia, a chronic mental health disorder. Developed by Karuna Therapeutics and now owned by Bristol Myers Squibb, Cobenfy works by targeting cholinergic receptors unlike traditional antipsychotic medications that target dopamine receptors.

This marks a significant departure from the conventional approach to schizophrenia treatment, according to the FDA. Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental illness characterized by hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking, and behavioral disturbances. Those affected often struggle to maintain a grasp on reality and may experience cognitive impairments.

Globally, about 24 million people are living with schizophrenia, including 2.8 million in the U.S., where it ranks as one of the top 15 causes of disability. Tragically, the condition is linked to a shortened lifespan, with approximately 5% of patients dying by suicide, the FDA noted.

The approval of Cobenfy is seen as a hopeful development for individuals affected by schizophrenia. “Schizophrenia is a leading cause of disability worldwide. It is a severe, chronic mental illness that profoundly impacts quality of life,” said Tiffany Farchione, Director of the Division of Psychiatry at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “This drug offers the first new approach to treating schizophrenia in decades, providing an alternative to previously prescribed antipsychotic medications.”

The effectiveness of Cobenfy was demonstrated in two clinical studies. Over a five-week period, patients’ symptoms were measured using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), a 30-item tool used to assess schizophrenia symptoms. Results showed that patients treated with Cobenfy experienced a significant reduction in symptoms compared to those on a placebo.

However, the FDA highlighted several side effects associated with the drug, including nausea, constipation, vomiting, increased heart rate, and diarrhea. Due to the risk of severe side effects, the agency advised against prescribing Cobenfy to patients with urinary retention, kidney, or liver disease.

Earlier this year, in March, Bristol Myers Squibb acquired Karuna Therapeutics for $14 billion, gaining exclusive rights to KarXT (Cobenfy). The company plans to launch the drug by the end of October, with a monthly cost of $1,850, or around $22,500 annually, according to Reuters.

Sales are projected to reach $2.5 billion in the U.S. by 2030. Bristol aims to provide insurance coverage for 80% of patients within the first 12 to 18 months of the drug’s release. To further assist patients, Bristol has introduced a support program called “COBENFY Cares.”

Managing diabetes key to prevent dementia: Study

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An Indian-origin scientist has found that reducing the risk of dementia in Alzheimer’s is possible by keeping diabetes under control.

Narendra Kumar, an associate professor at Texas A&M University in the US, spearheaded a study featured in the ‘American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’ journal, uncovering a robust connection between diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.

“Implementing preventative or mitigative measures for diabetes could potentially stall or mitigate the advancement of dementia symptoms in Alzheimer’s,” he emphasized.

Diabetes and Alzheimer’s represent two burgeoning health challenges worldwide. Diabetes disrupts the body’s energy conversion from food and affects approximately one in ten US adults. Meanwhile, Alzheimer’s ranks among the top ten leading causes of death in the US, as highlighted in the research.

The team delved into how dietary patterns might influence Alzheimer’s progression in individuals with diabetes.

Their investigation unveiled that a high-fat diet diminishes the expression of Jak3, a specific protein in the gut. Mice lacking this protein showcased a cascade of inflammation from the intestines to the liver and brain. Consequently, these mice exhibited Alzheimer’s-like manifestations in the brain alongside cognitive decline.

The researchers propose that the route from the gut to the brain involves the liver. “As the primary metabolizer of our dietary intake, we hypothesize that the pathway from gut to brain involves the liver,” explained Kumar.

Their long-standing exploration of Jak3’s functions revealed that alterations in its expression due to dietary factors can lead to intestinal permeability, resulting in chronic inflammation, diabetes, diminished brain capacity to eliminate toxins, and dementia-like symptoms akin to Alzheimer’s disease.

Genetic Mutation in Kids? Blame it on Old Father’s sperms

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A study by Rockefeller University scientists has nailed down reasons why older male fruit flies are more likely to pass mutations onto their offspring, with implications for a similar impact in humans with inherited diseases.

Since male reproductive system acts as the pivotal point for new genes, new mutations are inherited from fathers than from mothers, said the study though it did not clarify why younger fathers do not pass on more mutations to their off springs.

Though the trend has been observed for long, the reason remained a mystery. Now, the new study published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution explored mutations that occur during the production of sperm from germline cells, known as spermatogenesis.

RNA sequencing data from fruit fly testes showing the marked difference between older sperm-related cells (teal, at left) and younger ones / Laboratory of Evolutionary Genetics and Genomics

The scientists found that mutations are common in the testes of both young and old fruit flies, but more abundant in older flies compared to the younger fruit flies during spermatogenesis since the body’s genomic repair mechanisms remain active in them but fail to fix it in the testes of older flies.

“We were trying to test whether the older germline is less efficient at mutation repair, or whether the older germline just starts out more mutated,” says first author Evan Witt, a former graduate student in the lab. “Our results indicate that it’s actually both. At every stage of spermatogenesis, there are more mutations per RNA molecule in older flies than in younger flies.”

Self-care vital among the young

Genomes keep themselves busy using repair mechanisms and when it comes to testes, they work overtime as testes have the highest rate of gene expression of any organ. Moreover, genes that are highly expressed in spermatogenesis tend to have fewer mutations than those that are not. This sounds counterintuitive, but it makes sense: One theory to explain why the testes express so many genes holds that it might be a sort of genomic surveillance mechanism — a way to reveal, and then weed out, problematic mutations.

But when it comes to older sperm, the researchers found, the weed-whacker apparently sputters out. Previous research suggests that a faulty transcription-coupled repair mechanism, which only fixes transcribed genes, could be to blame.

Inherited or new mutations?

To get these results, scientists in the Laboratory of Evolutionary Genetics and Genomics did single-cell sequencing on the RNA from the testes of about 300 fruit flies, roughly half of them young (48 hours old) and half old (25 days old), advancing a line of inquiry they began in 2019.

In order to understand whether the mutations they detected were somatic, or inherited from the flies’ parents, or de novo—arising in the individual fly’s germline—they then sequenced the genome of each fly.

They were able to document that each mutation was a true original. “We can directly say this mutation was not present in the DNA of that same fly in its somatic cells,” says Witt. “We know that it’s a de novo mutation.”

This unconventional approach—inferring genomic mutations from single-cell RNA sequencing and then comparing them to the genomic data—allowed the researchers to match mutations to the cell type in which they occurred. “It’s a good way to compare mutational load between cell types, because you can follow them throughout spermatogenesis,” Witt says.

The human connection

The next step is to expand the analysis to more age groups of flies and test whether or not this transcription repair mechanism can occur—and if it does, identify the pathways responsible, Witt says. “What genes,” he wonders, “are really driving the difference between old and young flies in terms of mutation repair?”

Because fruit flies have a high reproductive rate, investigating their mutation patterns can offer new insights into the effect of new mutations in human health and evolution, says Zhao.

Witt adds, “It’s largely unknown whether a more mutated male germline is more or less fertile than a less mutated one. There’s not been very much research on it except for at a population level. And if people inherit more mutations from aging fathers, that increases the odds of de novo genetic disorders or certain types of cancers.”

“Walnuts” the new brain food for stressed university students

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Stressed university students might want to add walnuts to their daily diet in the weeks leading up to their next exam.

A new  clinical trial of undergraduate students during their university studies has shown positive effects of walnut consumption on self-reported measures of mental health and biomarkers of general health.

The University of South Australia study, published in the journal Nutrients, also suggests that walnuts may counteract the effects of academic stress on the gut microbiota during periods of stress, especially in females.

Lead researchers, PhD student Mauritz Herselman and Associate Professor Larisa Bobrovskaya, say the results add to the growing body of evidence linking walnuts with improved brain and gut health.

Walnuts may counteract the effects of academic stress on the gut microbiota during periods of stress, especially in women./CREDIT:Open Verse

“Students experience academic stress throughout their studies, which has a negative effect on their mental health, and they are particularly vulnerable during exam periods,” Herselman says.

Eighty undergraduate students split into treatment and control groups were clinically assessed in three intervals, at the beginning of a 13-week university semester, during the examination period and two weeks after the examination period. Those in the treatment group were given walnuts to consume daily for 16 weeks over these three intervals.

“We found that those who consumed about half a cup of walnuts every day showed improvements in self-reported mental health indicators.  Walnut consumers also showed improved metabolic biomarkers and overall sleep quality in the longer term.”

Students in the control group reported increased stress and depression levels in the leadup to exams but those in the treatment group did not. The walnut consumers also reported a significant drop in feelings associated with depression between the first and final visits, compared to the controls.

Previous research has shown that walnuts are full of omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, as well as melatonin (sleep inducing hormone), polyphenols, folate and vitamin E, all of which promote a healthy brain and gut.

“The World Health Organization has recently stated that at least 75 per cent of mental health disorders affect people under the age of 24 years, making undergraduate students particularly vulnerable to mental health problems,” Herselman says.

Assoc Prof Larisa Bobrovskaya says mental health disorders are common in university students and can adversely affect students’ academic performance and long-term physical health.

“We have shown that consuming walnuts during stressful periods can improve mental health and general wellbeing in university students, as well as being a healthy and delicious snack and a versatile ingredient in many recipes, to fight some negative effects of academic stress,” Assoc Prof Bobrovskaya says.

“Due to fewer numbers of males in the study, more research is needed to establish sex-dependent effects of walnuts and academic stress in university students. It’s also possible that a placebo effect might have come into play as this was not a blind study.”

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Subcutaneous fat emerges as a protector of Womans’ brains

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Subcutaneous fat emerges as a protector of Womans’ brains

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Womans’ propensity to deposit more fat in places like their hips, buttocks and the backs of their arms, so-called subcutaneous fat, is protective against brain inflammation, which can result in problems like dementia and stroke, at least until menopause, scientists report.

Males of essentially any age have a greater propensity to deposit fat around the major organs in their abdominal cavity, called visceral adiposity, which is known to be far more inflammatory. And, before females reach menopause, males are considered at much higher risk for inflammation-related problems from heart attack to stroke.

“When people think about protection in women, their first thought is estrogen,” says Alexis M. Stranahan, PhD, neuroscientist in the Department of Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. “But we need to get beyond the kind of simplistic idea that every sex difference involves hormone differences and hormone exposure. We need to really think more deeply about the underlying mechanisms for sex differences so that we can treat them and acknowledge the role that sex plays in different clinical outcomes.”

Diet and genetics are other likely factors that explain the differences broadly assigned to estrogen, says Stranahan, corresponding author of a study in the American Diabetes Association journal Diabetes.

She acknowledges that the findings are potentially heretical and revolutionary and certainly surprising even to her. “We did these experiments to try and nail down, first of all, what happens first, the hormone perturbation, the inflammation or the brain changes.”

Brain Image (NIH)

To learn more about how the brain becomes inflamed, they looked at increases in the amount and location of fat tissue as well as levels of sex hormones and brain inflammation in male and female mice at different time intervals as they grew fatter on a high-fat diet.

Since, much like with people, obese female mice tend to have more subcutaneous fat and less visceral fat than male mice, they reasoned that the distinctive fat patterns might be a key reason for the protection from inflammation the females enjoy before menopause.

They found again the distinctive patterns of fat distribution in males and females in response to a high-fat diet. They found no indicators of brain inflammation or insulin resistance, which also increase inflammation and can lead to diabetes, until after the female mice reached menopause. At about 48 weeks, menstruation stops and fat positioning on the females starts to shift somewhat, to become more like males.

They then compared the impact of the high-fat diet, which is known to increase inflammation body wide, in mice of both sexes following surgery, similar to liposuction, to remove subcutaneous fat. They did nothing to directly interfere with normal estrogen levels, like removing the ovaries.

The subcutaneous fat loss increased brain inflammation in females without moving the dial on levels of their estrogen and other sex hormones.

Bottom line: The Womans’ brain inflammation looked much more like the males’, including increased levels of classic inflammation promoters like the signaling proteins IL-1β and TNF alpha in the brain, Stranahan and her colleagues report.

“When we took subcutaneous fat out of the equation, all of a sudden the females’ brains start to exhibit inflammation the way that male brains do, and the females gained more visceral fat,” Stranahan says. “It kind of shunted everything toward that other storage location.” The transition occurred over about three months, which translates to several years in human time.

Dr. Alexis Stranahan/CREDIT:Michael Holahan, Augusta University

By comparison, it was only after menopause, that the females who did not have subcutaneous fat removed but did eat a high-fat diet, showed brain inflammation levels similar to the males, Stranahan says.

When subcutaneous fat was removed from mice on a low-fat diet at an early age, they developed a little more visceral fat and a little more inflammation in the fat. But Stranahan and her colleagues saw no evidence of inflammation in the brain.

One take-home lesson from the work: Don’t get liposuction and then eat a high-fat diet, Stranahan says. Another is: BMI, which simply divides weight by height and is commonly used to indicate overweight, obesity and consequently increased risk of a myriad of diseases, is likely not a very meaningful tool, she says. An also easy and more accurate indicator of both metabolic risk and potentially brain health, is the also easy-to-calculate waist to hip ratio, she adds.

“We can’t just say obesity. We have to start talking about where the fat is. That is the critical element here,” Stranahan says.

ultra-processed foods

She notes that the new study looked specifically in the hippocampus and hypothalamus of the brain. The hypothalamus controls metabolism and exhibits changes with inflammation from obesity that help control conditions that develop bodywide as a result. The hippocampus, a center of learning and memory, is regulated by signals associated with those pathologies but doesn’t control them, Stranahan notes.

While these are good places to start such explorations, other regions of the brain could respond very differently, so she is already looking at the impact of loss of subcutaneous fat in others. Also, since her evidence indicates estrogen may not explain the protection Women have, Stranahan wants to better define what does. One of her suspects is the clear chromosomal differences between the XX female and the XY male.

Stranahan has been studying the impact of obesity on the brain for several years and is among the first scientists to show that visceral fat promotes brain inflammation in obese male mice, and, conversely, transplanting subcutaneous fat reduces their brain inflammation. Females also have naturally higher levels of proteins that can tamp down inflammation. It’s been shown that in males, but not females, microglia, immune cells in the brain, are activated by a high-fat diet.

She notes that some consider the reason that females have higher stores of subcutaneous fat is to enable sufficient energy stores for reproduction, and she is not challenging the relationship. But many questions remain like how much fat is needed to maintain fertility versus the level that will affect your metabolism, Stranahan says.

–Dr. Alexis Stranahan/CREDIT:Michael Holahan, Augusta University

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