Samuel Hume, Researcher at the University of Oxford, recently shared on X:
“The 10 biggest medical research papers from this week (in my opinion!)
1. A blood test for Alzheimer disease, which improved diagnostic accuracy – by dementia specialists – from 73% to 91%.
‘Blood Biomarkers to Detect Alzheimer Disease in Primary Care and Secondary Care‘
2. An update on dementia risk factors It’s thought that 45% of dementias are caused by risk factors that can be prevented
The biggest are hearing loss (which causes 7% of dementias) and high cholesterol (a further 7%).
‘Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission‘
Authors: Prof Gill Livingston, Jonathan Huntley, Kathy Y Liu, Prof Sergi G Costafreda,Prof Geir Selbæk, Prof Suvarna Alladi, Prof David Ames, Prof Sube Banerjee, Prof Alistair Burns, Prof Carol Brayne, Prof Nick C Fox, Cleusa P Ferri, Prof Laura N Gitlin, Prof Robert Howard, Prof Helen C Kales, Prof Mika Kivimäki, Prof Eric B Larson, Noeline Nakasujja, Prof Kenneth Rockwood, Prof Quincy Samus, Prof Kokoro Shirai, Prof Archana Singh-Manoux, Prof Lon S Schneider, Sebastian Walsh, Yao Yao, Andrew Sommerlad, Naaheed Mukadam.
3. An atlas of microorganisms living in the upper respiratory tract The diversity of these bugs (the Shannon index) increases into adulthood, and then decreases as we go into old age
Authors: Mari-Lee Odendaal, Wouter A.A. de Steenhuijsen Piters, Eelco Franz, Mei Ling J.N. Chu, James A. Groot, Elske M. van Logchem, Raiza Hasrat, Sjoerd Kuiling, Roan Pijnacker, Rob Mariman, Krzysztof Trzciński, Fiona R.M. van der Klis, Elisabeth A.M. Sanders, Lidwien A.M. Smit, Debby Bogaert, Thijs Bosch
4. An ingenuous strategy to deliver therapeutic proteins to the brain: repurposing Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite which naturally travels from the gut to the brain These images show mouse brains lit up with the payload’
5. A possible new option for Sjögren’s disease, a chronic autoimmune condition – most treatments for which have failed in trials This study found that Iscalimab (an anti-CD40 antibody) improved Sjögren’s symptoms, including dryness and fatigue
Authors: Prof Benjamin A Fisher, Prof Xavier Mariette, Prof Athena Papas, Thomas Grader-Beck, Prof Hendrika Bootsma, Prof Wan-Fai Ng, P L A van Daele, Stephanie Finzel, Ghaith Noaiseh, Sergio Elgueta, Josef Hermann, Sara S McCoy, Prof Esen Akpek, Arthur Bookman, Monika Sopala, Michela Montecchi-Palmer, Wen-Lin Luo, Cornelia Scheurer, Wolfgang Hueber.
6. A way to improve CAR T cells (engineered cells that can treat cancer, but are often short-lived and allow tumour relapse) This ‘CAR enhancer’ specifically binds to CAR T cells and supplies them with IL-2 – stimulating them and forming memory CAR Ts
‘A CAR enhancer increases the activity and persistence of CAR T cells‘
Authors: Taha Rakhshandehroo, Shreya R. Mantri, Heydar Moravej, Benjamin B. V. Louis, Ali Salehi Farid, Leila Munaretto, Kathryn Regan, Radia M. M. Khan, Alexandra Wolff, Zoe Farkash, Min Cong, Adrien Kuhnast, Ali Nili, Uk-Jae Lee, Harris H. Allen, Lea Berland, Ester Simkova, Safak C. Uslu, Soheil Tavakolpour, Jennifer E. Rowley, Elisabeth Codet, Haneyeh Shahbazian, Jessika Baral, Jason Pyrdol, Caron A. Jacobson, Omar Nadeem, Hadi T. Nia, Kai W. Wucherpfennig, Mohammad Rashidian
7. An AI tool used to test 5.7 million variants of an antibiotic peptide This approach led to the discovery of one variant, PG-1.37, with extremely high selectivity for bacteria
Authors: Justin R. Randall, Luiz C. Vieira, Claus O. Wilke, Bryan W. Davies
8. A 12 year, 180,000 person randomised trial on eradication of Helicobacter pylori, which causes up to 90% of gastric cancers The number of people needed to treat, to prevent one gastric cancer, was 141
Authors: Kai-Feng Pan, Wen-Qing Li, Lian Zhang, Wei-Dong Liu, Jun-Ling Ma, Yang Zhang, Kurt Ulm, Jian-Xi Wang, Lei Zhang, Monther Bajbouj, Lan-Fu Zhang, Ming Li, Michael Vieth, Michael Quante, Le-Hua Wang, Stepan Suchanek, Raquel Mejías-Luque, Heng-Min Xu, Xiao-Han Fan, Xuan Han, Zong-Chao Liu, Tong Zhou, Wei-Xiang Guan, Roland M. Schmid, Markus Gerhard, Meinhard Classen, Wei-Cheng You
9. New insights into the role of gut bacteria in cancer risk Gut bacteria metabolise environmental carcinogens (such as in air pollution or cigarettes) to toxic compounds that drive cancer This is linked to individual strains, which vary between people
‘Gut microbiota carcinogen metabolism causes distal tissue tumours‘
Authors: Blanka Roje, Boyao Zhang, Eleonora Mastrorilli, Ana Kovačić, Lana Sušak, Ivica Ljubenkov, Elena Ćosić, Katarina Vilović, Antonio Meštrović, Emilija Lozo Vukovac, Viljemka Bučević-Popović, Željko Puljiz, Ivana Karaman, Janoš Terzić, Michael Zimmermann
10. More evidence for increased cancer rates in younger generations: particularly striking here for the small intestine and thyroid This could of course reflect better diagnosis, and it’s notable that mortality (red lines) has not increased
Authors: Hyuna Sung, Chenxi Jiang, Priti Bandi, Adair Minihan, Miranda Fidler-Benaoudia, Farhad Islami, Rebecca L Siegel, Ahmedin Jemal.”
Source: Samuel Hume/X
