'Creeping fat' can worsen Crohn's disease, study finds

Leptin is a key hormone in the regulation of hunger and satiety. For the first time, a large international study has established comprehensive reference values for leptin across all age groups and weight classes. More than 12,500 people from 16 European studies took part.

Have you ever mentally mapped out the streets between your home and your workplace or favorite café, focusing solely on those two places without visualizing what exists in between them? If you have, you will know that, in our minds, it often seems there is no distance between the places that interest us… or at least not as much as there really is.

Modern lifestyles and dietary changes have significantly increased the consumption of high-fat foods, contributing to a steep rise in the prevalence of obesity, diabetes, and metabolic disorders. Furthermore, a high-fat diet (HFD) is linked to cognitive impairments and neurodegeneration and has been shown to worsen the pathology of Alzheimer's disease—a progressive neurodegenerative condition—in mouse models. Yet, the underlying mechanisms remain largely elusive.

Researchers show that stretching the skin stimulates immune cells and increases the skin's ability to absorb large molecules, including those present in vaccines. In an article published September 17 in Cell Reports, they claim that applying vaccines topically while stretching the skin resulted in more effective immunization than subcutaneously injecting the vaccine in mice.

A USC Stem Cell-led research team has achieved a major step forward in the effort to build mouse and human synthetic kidneys. In a new paper published in Cell Stem Cell, the scientists describe generating more mature and complex lab-grown kidney structures (organoids) than ever before.

This fall, tens of millions of people will be at risk for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head impacts from contact sports like football, soccer, and ice hockey, or military service. Researchers have long suspected that the brain begins changing years before CTE appears, but proof has been elusive because CTE can only be definitively diagnosed after death.

Could cocoa extract supplements rich in cocoa flavanols reduce inflammation and, in turn, prevent age-related chronic diseases?

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a novel way brown fat—an energy-burning form of fat—can rev the body's metabolic engine, consuming cellular fuel and producing heat in a way that improves metabolic health. The study, in mice, reveals new avenues to exploit brown fat to treat metabolic diseases, such as insulin resistance and obesity.

Researchers have developed a generative AI model that uses large-scale health records to estimate how human health may change over time. It can forecast the risk and timing of over 1,000 diseases and predict health outcomes over a decade in advance.

When brain development gets off to a bad start, the consequences are lifelong. One example is a condition called SCN2A haploinsufficiency, in which children are born with just one functioning copy of the SCN2A gene—instead of the normal two. They develop defects in the connections, or synapses, between some of their brain cells; they do not learn to speak; and many of them experience seizures.

Being diagnosed with a serious mental illness like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder often brings an overlooked challenge: rapid and sustained weight gain. This side-effect can raise the risk of diabetes, heart disease and early death—widening an already stark life expectancy gap.

You're gently drifting off to sleep when suddenly your arms and legs convulse and you jolt yourself awake. Or, perhaps you're relaxing in bed when, out of the blue, your dozing partner does an almighty twitch, scaring you half to death.

How do you behave toward patients with life-threatening conditions who do not want to know all the details of the state of their health? This question brought psychologist Liesbeth van Vliet and anthropologist Annemarie Samuels together. It's an unusual partnership, but their interdisciplinary approach is generating new insights.

A multicenter collaboration of Danish researchers reports that once-weekly semaglutide for 30 weeks lowered blood sugar levels and body weight and improved physical quality of life in antipsychotic-treated adults with schizophrenia and prediabetes.

White teeth are highly valued by young adults. But an even tooth color is considered to be of even higher importance. A study from the University of Gothenburg, one of the first of its kind, shows that many people with a deviant color on a part of a tooth would like treatment.

An international team of clinicians and researchers, led by the Center for Healthy Brain Aging's Professor Perminder Sachdev and Dr. Adam Bentvelzen, has today unveiled new diagnostic criteria for vascular cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID)—a common but less well-known cause of dementia.

Colleges and universities face unprecedented challenges related to faculty burnout and dissatisfaction in pharmacy schools, and institutions must work to create more supportive and healthier workplaces to reduce turnover rates, a new study indicates.

Online platforms promise connection, yet the social comparison, digital surveillance, and public criticism they foster can also heighten emotional instability.