A revolutionary chip-based blood test, developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, promises to diagnose heart attacks within minutes, providing a faster and more accurate alternative to current methods. The test, which delivers results in just five to seven minutes, could potentially be used by first responders and even in home settings.
Led by Peng Zheng, an assistant research scientist at Johns Hopkins, the team created a chip with an innovative nanostructured surface that enhances the detection of heart attack biomarkers in blood samples. “We were able to invent a new technology that can quickly and accurately establish if someone is having a heart attack,” Zheng said.
Published in the journal Advanced Science, the test uses Raman spectroscopy to amplify electric and magnetic signals on the chip’s surface. This allows the detection of even ultra-low concentrations of heart attack biomarkers within seconds, providing a level of sensitivity not possible with existing tests, which often take hours to deliver results.
The new tool is designed for quick diagnostic work in clinical settings but has the potential to be adapted for use in handheld devices. This could allow first responders in the field or even individuals at home to perform tests, providing critical information when time is of the essence.
In addition to diagnosing heart attacks, the platform can be adapted for other uses, such as detecting cancer or infectious diseases. “We’re talking about speed, accuracy, and the ability to perform measurements outside of a hospital,” said senior author Ishan Barman, a bioengineer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
With significant commercial potential, the research team plans to refine the blood test and conduct larger clinical trials, bringing this life-saving technology closer to everyday use.
A mother’s consumption of ultra-processed foods appears to be linked to an increased risk of overweight or obesity in her offspring, irrespective of other lifestyle risk factors, suggests a US study.
Researchers suggest that mothers might benefit from limiting their intake of ultra-processed foods, and that dietary guidelines should be refined and financial and social barriers removed to improve nutrition for women of child bearing age and reduce childhood obesity.
According to the World Health Organization, 39 million children were overweight or obese in 2020, leading to increased risks of heart disease, diabetes, cancers, and early death.
Ultra-processed foods, such as packaged baked goods and snacks, fizzy drinks and sugary cereals, are commonly found in modern Western style diets and are associated with weight gain in adults. But it’s unclear whether there’s a link between a mother’s consumption of ultra-processed foods and her offspring’s body weight.
To explore this further, the researchers drew on data for 19,958 children born to 14,553 mothers (45% boys, aged 7-17 years at study enrollment) from the Nurses’ Health Study II (NHS II) and the Growing Up Today Study (GUTS I and II) in the United States.
pregnant lady/Commons.wikimedia.org
The NHS II is an ongoing study tracking the health and lifestyles of 116,429 US female registered nurses aged 25-42 in 1989. From 1991, participants reported what they ate and drank, using validated food frequency questionnaires every four years.
The GUTS I study began in 1996 when 16,882 children (aged 8-15 years) of NHS II participants completed an initial health and lifestyle questionnaire and were monitored every year between 1997 and 2001, and every two years thereafter.
In 2004, 10,918 children (aged 7-17 years) of NHS II participants joined the extended GUTS II study and were followed up in 2006, 2008, and 2011, and every two years thereafter.
A range of other potentially influential factors, known to be strongly correlated with childhood obesity, were also taken into account. These included mother’s weight (BMI), physical activity, smoking, living status (with partner or not), and partner’s education, as well as children’s ultra-processed food consumption, physical activity, and sedentary time.
Overall, 2471 (12%) children developed overweight or obesity during an average follow-up period of 4 years.
The results show that a mother’s ultra-processed food consumption was associated with an increased risk of overweight or obesity in her offspring. For example, a 26% higher risk was seen in the group with the highest maternal ultra-processed food consumption (12.1 servings/day) versus the lowest consumption group (3.4 servings/day).
In a separate analysis of 2790 mothers and 2925 children with information on diet from 3 months pre-conception to delivery (peripregnancy), the researchers found that peripregnancy ultra-processed food intake was not significantly associated with an increased risk of offspring overweight or obesity.
This is an observational study, so can’t establish cause and the researchers acknowledge that some of the observed risk may be due to other unmeasured factors, and that self-reported diet and weight measures might be subject to misreporting.
Other important limitations include the fact that some offspring participants were lost to follow-up, which resulted in a few of the analyses being underpowered, particularly those related to peripregnancy intake, and that mothers were predominantly white and from similar social and economic backgrounds, so the results may not apply to other groups.
Nevertheless, the study used data from several large ongoing studies with detailed dietary assessments over a relatively long period, and further analysis produced consistent associations, suggesting that the results are robust.
The researchers suggest no clear mechanism underlying these associations and say the area warrants further investigation.
Nevertheless, these data “support the importance of refining dietary recommendations and the development of programs to improve nutrition for women of reproductive age to promote offspring health,” they conclude.
Frequent sauna bathing is good as it reduces the risk of stroke, said a new international study.
The study followed people taking a sauna for 15 years and found the frequent goers benefit more from it. Those taking saunda 4-7 times a week were 61% less likely to suffer a stroke than those taking a sauna once a week, said the study published in the journal Neurology.
A team of scientists from the Universities of Eastern Finland, Bristol, Leicester, Atlanta, Cambridge and Innsbruck, based on the population-based Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor (KIHD) study on 1,628 men and women aged 53 to 74 years living in the eastern part of Finland, found the most accurate results.
Based on their frequency of taking traditional Finnish sauna baths with relative humidity of 10-20%, the study participants were divided into three groups: those taking a sauna once a week, those taking a sauna 2-3 times a week, and those taking a sauna 4-7 times a week.
The more frequently saunas were taken, the lower was the risk of stroke. Compared to people taking one sauna session per week, the risk was decreased by 14% among those with 2-3 sessions and 61% among those with 4-7 sessions.
The association persisted even when taking into account conventional stroke risk factors, such as age, sex, diabetes, body mass index, blood lipids, alcohol consumption, physical activity and socio-economic status. The strength of association was similar in men and women.
A previous study conducted in Finland, surveyed 1,621 middle-aged men, who had normal blood pressure. During the observation for 25 years, 251 of them developed hypertension. Men who go for a single sauna session per week are 46 percent more likely to develop hypertension than the ones who visit the sauna at least four times a week, said Jari Laukkanen, a professor of medicine at the University of Eastern Finland and the lead author of the study.
The sauna’s warmth improves blood flow by increasing the flexibility of the blood vessels. A typical Finnish sauna can help in relaxation, thereby moderating blood pressure. Additionally, the act of excessive sweating acts as a natural diuretic: a long-trusted drug to cure hypertension.
Another study on the benefits of sauna, conducted by Minna L. Hannuksela and Samer Ellahham, states that regular visits to the sauna cause cardiovascular and hormonal changes that may provide relief to patients with asthma and chronic bronchitis, besides soothening skin conditions like dermatitis and psoriasis.
After the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11 in 2001, the “cloud” of toxic debris across Lower Manhattan, left behind nearby children who breathed in the ash and fumes to suffer from heart disease 16 years after.
An analysis by NYU Langone Health researchers of blood tests of 308 children, 123 of whom may have come in direct contact with the dust on 9/11 showed that children with higher blood levels of the chemicals known to be in the dust had elevated levels of artery-hardening fats in their blood.
“Since 9/11, we have focused a lot of attention on the psychological and mental fallout from witnessing the tragedy, but only now are the potential physical consequences of being within the disaster zone itself becoming clear,” says lead author of the study Leonardo Trasande, associate professor at NYU School of Medicine.
Now adults, these children were enrollees in the World Trade Center Health Registry (WTCHR), which is helping to track the physical and mental health, through annual check-ups, of nearly 2,900 children who either lived or attended school in Lower Manhattan on 9/11.
The study is the first to suggest long-term cardiovascular health risks in children from toxic chemical exposure on 9/11.
Trasande says the long-term danger may stem from exposure to certain perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFASs — chemicals released into the air as electronics and furniture burned in the disaster. Its health effects include lower-than-normal birthweights and brain damage, and it was banned in the US since 2014.
The study showed that the 123 children in the WTCHR had significantly higher PFOA blood levels than 185 children who were not living or studying in the city on the day of the attack.
Roughly every threefold increase in blood PFOA levels was tied to an average 9 percent to 15 percent increase in blood fats, including LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, known risk factors for heart disease.
In another study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research in June, raised blood levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) were found in people who were exposed to WTC dust on 9/11. Previous research has linked increases in CRP to inflammation and higher rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The analysis on children will be published in the journal Environment International.
High salt intake is associated with a doubled risk of heart failure, according to a 12-year study in more than 4 000 people presented today at ESC Congress.1
“High salt (sodium chloride) intake is one of the major causes of high blood pressure and an independent risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke,” said Prof Pekka Jousilahti, research professor at the National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland. “In addition to CHD and stroke, heart failure is one of the major cardiovascular diseases in Europe and globally but the role of high salt intake in its development is unknown.”
This study assessed the relationship of salt intake and the development of heart failure. Estimation of individual salt intake is methodologically demanding and therefore suitable population-based cohorts are rare. This study used 24 hour sodium extraction, which is considered the gold standard for salt intake estimation at individual level.
This was a prospective follow-up study of 4 630 randomly selected men and women aged 25 to 64 years at baseline who participated in the North Karelia Salt Study and the National FINRISK Study between 1979 and 2002 in Finland. Baseline data collection included a self-administered questionnaire on health behaviour, measurements of weight, height and blood pressure, a venous blood sample for laboratory analysis, and collection of a 24 hour urine sample.
At the study site, nurses measured urine volume and took a 100 ml sample for laboratory analysis. One gram of salt intake was calculated as equal to 17.1 mmol sodium excretion.
The study cohort was followed up for 12 years through computerised register linkage to National Health Records. Cases of incident heart failure were identified from the Causes of Death Register, the Hospital Discharge Register and drug reimbursement records. The association of salt intake in quintiles (<6.8g, 6.8-8.8g, 8.8-10.9g, 10.96-13.7g and >13.7g/day) and the risk of an incident new heart failure event was estimated.
During the follow-up, 121 men and women developed new heart failure. In an age, sex, study year and area adjusted model, hazard ratios in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th salt intake quintiles, compared to the 1st one, were: 0.83, 1.40, 1.70 and 2.10. After further adjustment for systolic blood pressure, serum total cholesterol level and body mass index the hazard ratios were: 1.13, 1.45, 1.56 and 1.75, respectively.
Prof Jousilahti said: “The heart does not like salt. High salt intake markedly increases the risk of heart failure. This salt-related increase in heart failure risk was independent of blood pressure.”
“People who consumed more than 13.7 grams of salt daily had a two times higher risk of heart failure compared to those consuming less than 6.8 grams,” he continued. “The optimal daily salt intake is probably even lower than 6.8 grams. The World Health Organization recommends a maximum of 5 grams per day and the physiological need is 2 to 3 grams per day.”
Prof Jousilahti concluded: “Studies in larger, pooled population cohorts are needed to make more detailed estimations of the increased heart failure risk associated with consuming salt.”
