Large language models performed better after full clinical data became available, raising concerns about early triage decision-making.
Category: health
Brain histamine map connects genes to brain function and mental health
New research from King’s College London and the University of Porto has mapped the histamine system in the brain. Histamine, a molecule more commonly associated with allergies, plays a separate but poorly understood role in brain function. This study addresses this gap, building the first multiscale map of the histamine system that spans from genetics to behavior and related mental health conditions.
The findings provide a new framework for understanding how this often-overlooked chemical system contributes to brain function and could point toward new treatment strategies for histamine-related conditions such as depression, ADHD, and schizophrenia. The study is published in Nature Mental Health.
Histamine is a neurotransmitter, a molecule crucial for neurons to communicate with one another. Neuroscience research has classically focused on understanding other neurotransmitter systems such as dopamine and serotonin.
Telemedicine use grew without boosting medical visits or spending, analysis shows
New UCLA-led research finds that the use of telemedicine has not significantly increased visits and medical spending across all payer types. The findings, published in JAMA Network Open, could ease concerns among lawmakers that the telemedicine expansion that occurred during the COVID pandemic would result in large utilization and spending increases.
With the declaration of the COVID pandemic in 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) changed key policies regarding telemedicine flexibility, such as introducing payment parity with in-person visits, waiving geographic restrictions, and eliminating out-of-pocket cost sharing.
Once the pandemic was declared over, however, lawmakers extended these changes to analyze how telemedicine impacted health care use and spending. Those CMS flexibilities are due to expire in 2027, and lawmakers continue to debate whether to permanently extend or modify them.
Kanvas makes the microbiome druggable—and the implications are massive
Kanvas looks amazing! They’re systematically deciphering microbiomes and developing clinical-stage interventions to improve patient outcomes in oncology and beyond. Very impressive! I’m also especially interested in their approach to maternal environmental enteric dysfunction (EED), which apparently affects 150M people!
Ever since the genomics revolution revealed how reliant the human organism is on its microscopic microbial cohabitants, the microbiome has been medicine’s most elusive frontier, promising better health if only we could untangle the trillions of interactions that influence nearly every facet of our physiology. But until now, effective medicines that harness the microbiome have been rare. Because of the diversity of microbial species and the complexity of host-to-microbe interactions, as well as the lack of a reliable, easily manufactured drug modality (the package that delivers a medicine’s therapeutic effect), the microbiome has been hard to treat, despite its importance to functions like immune response. Microbiome science has disappointed patients, doctors, founders, and investors.
That’s why DCVC is so excited about the cascade of recent developments at Kanvas Biosciences, which is moving the field beyond descriptive profiling of the microbiome to translating comprehensive biochemical insights into clinically useful products. In the past few weeks, the Princeton-based spatial biology company has kicked off a Phase 1 clinical trial for its first drug candidate, secured significant new backing from the Gates Foundation (closing a $48 million Series A financing, bringing Kanvas’s total funding to $78 million), and bolstered its scientific leadership by adding one of the most respected names in bioengineering to its board.
Clinical milestone
The most significant milestone in Kanvas’s evolution is the dosing of the first patients in a Phase I clinical trial for KAN-4. This live biotherapeutic product (LBP), resembling an ordinary pill, treats the colitis that many cancer patients develop after receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), allowing them to remain on the life-saving therapy longer.
The next phase of human evolution is already underway
That is one of the stranger truths about human evolution. Some of the traits helping people survive now are not purely modern at all. They are remnants of older branches of humanity, carried forward because they still work.
Evolution needs variation, inheritance, and reproduction. Those conditions have not disappeared.
Long-term health studies that follow multiple generations indicate that natural selection is still acting in modern populations. Certain traits are associated with having more children, and over time those traits become more common. Patterns in the data point toward earlier childbirth and later menopause, which together extend the reproductive window. Other trends suggest shifts in metabolism, including lower cholesterol and blood pressure.
FDA Approves Novel Weekly Basal Insulin for T2D
The FDA has approved once-weekly insulin icodec-abae (Awiqli; Novo Nordisk) for use in adults with type 2 diabetes (T2D), with a current projected launch in the second half of 20,261 for the 700-units/mL dose. This novel treatment option is a first-in-its-class therapeutic, freeing patients living with T2D from their strict schedule of daily basal insulin injections and reducing total injections from 7 to 1 for each 7-day period.
Its indication is as an adjunct to diet and exercise for improved glycemic control, as well as for patients also taking mealtime insulin or another common oral antidiabetic agent and/or a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist. A prescription is required, and administration is with or without food via a prefilled FlexTouch device on the same day each week.
Data from 4 of the trials in the phase 3a ONWARDS program and 2,680 adult patients with uncontrolled T2D support this approval; their primary end point of interest was reduction in hemoglobin A1c. Overall, the ONWARDS program encompasses 6 phase 3a trials and more than 4,000 adults with type 1 diabetes (T1D) or T2D.
Insulin icodec-abae (Awiqli; Novo Nordisk) is now approved for use in the US, Canada, European Union, Switzerland, and 12 other countries.
Older people with HIV are especially vulnerable to influenza, yet this group remains understudied
https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.199232 Here, Savita G. Pahwa & team demonstrate high-dose vaccination for influenza strengthens immunity in older adults with HIV after prior standard dosing, but not all strain-specific weaknesses were overcome.
1Department of Microbiology and Immunology.
2Division of Biostatistics, Department of Public Health Sciences; and.
3Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, USA.
Zuckerberg Trying to Simulate Human Biology at the Cellular Level
Mark Zuckerberg is following a path paved by fellow billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffet: laundering his untold billions through a health research prestige project.
Called the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub — his wife Priscilla Chan, a pediatrician, is also involved — the foundation’s stated long-term mission is to “cure and prevent all disease through AI-powered biology, frontier research, and state-of-the-art technology.”
True to those enormous goals, the Biohub recently announced a $500 million investment into AI models of human cells, specifically, in order to “accelerate the cure and prevention of all diseases,” Euronews reported.
Movement Triggers a Hidden ‘Brain Cleaning’ Mechanism, Study Shows
We already know that moving your body is important for brain health, but a new study reveals a possible reason why: It could be triggering a kind of hydraulic pump that flushes out fluid in the brain.
By studying mice and conducting simulations, researchers at the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) have found that movements in the abdominal muscles can ripple all the way up to the brain, potentially cleaning out waste materials that build up during the day.
It’s tangible evidence that what goes on in our brains and our bodies isn’t so separate after all, and a good reminder to get that body moving, in whatever way works for you, throughout the day.