Publisher Health

Urine can reveal a lot about a person’s health. But physicians don’t currently have a convenient or fast way of tracking the concentration of important compounds in their patients’ urine. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Nano Materials have designed a flexible sensor that fits in a diaper, measures multiple components in urine and can share those results over Bluetooth to provide real-time bedside analyses for incontinent, elderly or infant patients.
The concentration of certain compounds in urine can provide information about many different conditions, including kidney disease, urinary tract infections and electrolyte deficiencies. Though many people with diabetes monitor their glucose levels with blood tests, glucose levels in their urine can also reveal spikes or dips. To analyze urine, however, physicians typically must order a urinalysis from a hospital lab, which takes time, or use paper test strips, which aren’t very sensitive. Neither system can deliver fast, bedside analyses. Some researchers have explored wearable devices to monitor health markers — like electrolyte and sugar content in sweat. So, Xi Xie, Hui-Jiun Chen and colleagues wanted to design a similar type of wearable device that could accurately and sensitively measure the concentration of multiple health markers in urine and give real-time feedback to care providers.
The team first fabricated a flexible electrode array about the size of a U.S. quarter. They included five different electrodes on the array that were designed to specifically detect potassium ions, sodium ions, hydrogen peroxide, uric acid or glucose, which are biomarkers for various conditions. Then they connected the array to a circuit board that had a Bluetooth module and lithium-ion battery power source. When the array was exposed to urine samples from three volunteers, it performed as well as a commercial urine test system. Next, the researchers incorporated the array into a diaper and found that, when urine was present, they could get readable signals for the biomarkers. However, they anticipate that in a real-world setting, where dry diapers become slowly saturated with urine, the electrode array would have to take multiple measurements to get stable readings. So, with optimization, this “smart” diaper could be a way to provide quick and painless urinalysis with wearable device technology, the researchers say.
The authors acknowledge funding from the National Key R&D Program of China; the National Natural Science Foundation of China; the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation; the Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou, China; the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation; the Key Program of Sun Yat-Sen University; and the Pazhou Lab, Guangdong.
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Lymphedema often occurs in survivors of breast cancer, because they are at high risk for lymph node damage or removal during surgical procedures. The locations of these nodes often make fluid and proteins collect in the arm, so treatment consists of compression sleeves that seek to restore normal flow. However, current techniques are expensive and inconvenient.
In Biomicrofluidics, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the University of Waterloo’s Microfluidics Laboratory and DIESEL Biomechanics Laboratory, Breast Rehab, and Myant, Inc. developed a soft robotic sleeve controlled with a microfluidic chip that reduces treatment cost, weight, and power consumption. The prototype is more portable than previous devices, and the underlying mechanisms can extend to other treatments, such as prosthetics.
The microfluidic chip has 16 channels, each acting as a sort of pipeline. Just as pipelines with different diameters create different flow speeds, the channels each have a different resistance. The differing resistances create a time delay between the flow through each channel, causing balloons in the sleeve to sequentially inflate and push fluid upwards, out of the arm.
The design requires only two miniature valves, which take the place of eight bulky, energy-consuming valves. As a result, the cost is cut from thousands to hundreds of dollars. It operates using a 3.7-volt lithium-ion battery within a control box weighing less than an iPhone 13, in contrast to previous technology that required a wall outlet.
“My definition of wearable is you can wear it and do whatever you want, and not be plugged into a wall,” said author Carolyn Ren. “Bringing in the microfluidics field, we wanted to make the system battery-powered but without compromising the performance.”
By placing a sensor between the sleeve prototype and the arm, the team measured and optimized the sleeve pressure to encourage fluid flow.
The researchers are currently recruiting for patient testing. They intend to use their device patent to develop a commercially viable product.
Microfluidic chips could also be incorporated into prosthetics for lower leg amputees.
Pressure is unevenly distributed around the leg during walking, and the leg swells to change sizes throughout the day, but traditional prosthetic sockets cannot adjust accordingly. A balloon system like the lymphedema sleeve could apply the correct amount of pressure to the leg dynamically and inflate or deflate to change size on demand.
“We look at these problems from different angle, but I think there are a lot more things microfluidics can contribute to these areas,” said Ren.
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He delved into numerous scientific fields — stem-cell research, genetic modification of food and DNA privacy among them — and sought to pinpoint the dangers.Sheldon Krimsky, a leading scholar of environmental ethics who explored issues at the nexus of science, ethics and biotechnology, and who warned of the perils of private companies underwriting and influencing academic research, died on April 23 in Cambridge, Mass. He was 80. His family said that he was at a hospital for tests when he died, and that they did not know the cause.Dr. Krimsky, who taught at Tufts University in Massachusetts for 47 years, warned in a comprehensive way about the increasing conflicts of interest that universities faced as their academic researchers accepted millions of dollars in grants from corporate entities like pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.In his book “Science in the Private Interest” (2003), he argued that the lure of profits was potentially corrupting research and in the process undermining the integrity and independence of universities.But his wide-ranging public policy work went way beyond flagging the dangers inherent in the commercialization of science. The author, co-author or editor of 17 books and more than 200 journal articles, he delved into numerous scientific fields — stem-cell research, genetic modification of food and DNA privacy among them — and sought to pinpoint potential problems.“He was the Ralph Nader of bioethics,” Jonathan Garlick, a stem-cell researcher at Tufts and a friend of Dr. Krimsky, said in a phone interview, referring to the longtime consumer advocate.“He was saying, if we didn’t slow down and pay attention to important check points, once you let the genie out of the bottle there might be irreversible harm that could persist across many generations,” Dr. Garlick added. “He wanted to protect us from irreversible harm.”In “Genetic Justice” (2012), Dr. Krimsky wrote that DNA evidence is not always reliable, and that government agencies had created large DNA databases that posed a threat to civil liberties. In “The GMO Deception” (2014), which he edited with Jeremy Gruber, he criticized the agriculture and food industries for changing the genetic makeup of foods.His last book, published in 2021, was “Understanding DNA Ancestry,” in which he explained the complications of ancestry research and said that results from different genetic ancestry testing companies could vary in their conclusions. Most recently, he was starting to explore the emerging subject of stem-cell meat — meat made from animal cells that can be grown in a lab.Mr. Nader, in fact, had a long association with Dr. Krimsky and wrote the introduction to some of his books.“There was really no one like him: rigorous, courageous, and prolific,” Mr. Nader said in an email. “He tried to convey the importance of democratic processes in open scientific decision making in many areas. He criticized scientific dogmas, saying that science must always leave open options for revision.”In “Science in the Private Interest” (2003), Dr. Krimsky argued that the lure of profits had the potential to corrupt academic scientists’ research.Rowman & Littlefield PublishersSheldon Krimsky was born on June 26, 1941, in Brooklyn. His father, Alex, was a house painter. His mother, Rose (Skolnick) Krimsky, was a garment worker.Sheldon, known as Shelly, majored in physics and math at Brooklyn College and graduated in 1963. He earned a Master of Science degree in physics at Purdue University in 1965. At Boston University, he earned a Master of Arts degree in philosophy in 1968 and a doctorate in the philosophy of science in 1970.He met Carolyn Boriss, who was an artist and teacher and later became a playwright and author, in Cambridge in 1968. They married in 1970.She survives him, as do a daughter, Alyssa Krimsky Clossey; a son, Eliot; three grandchildren; and a brother, Sidney.Dr. Krimsky began his association with Tufts in what is now called the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning in 1974 and helped build it up over the decades. He also taught ethics at the Tufts University School of Medicine and was a visiting scholar at Columbia University, Brooklyn College, the New School and New York University.He began to explore the conflicts of interest in academic research in the late 1970s when he led a team of students on an investigation into whether the chemical company W.R. Grace had contaminated drinking wells in Acton, Mass.Dr. Krimsky has said that when the company learned that he would be releasing a negative report — the wells were later designated a Superfund site — one of its top executives asked the president of Tufts to bury the study and fire him. The president refused. But Dr. Krimsky was disturbed that the company had tried to interfere, and it prompted him to begin studying how corporations, whether or not they had made financial contributions, sought to manipulate science.“He spoke truth to power,” Dr. Garlick said. “He wanted to give voice to skepticism and give voice to the skeptics.”Dr. Krinsky was a longtime proponent of what he called “organized skepticism.”“When claims are made, you have to start with skepticism until the evidence is so strong that your skepticism disappears,” he told The Boston Globe in 2014. “You don’t in science start by saying, ‘Yes, I like this hypothesis and it must be true.’”He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and headed its committee on scientific freedom and responsibility from 1988 to 1992. He was also a fellow of the Hastings Center on Bioethics and served on the editorial boards of seven scientific journals.When he wasn’t working, he liked to play the guitar and harmonica. He divided his time between Cambridge and New York City.“Shelly never gave up hope of a better world,” Julian Agyeman, a professor in Dr. Krimsky’s department and its interim chairman, was quoted as saying in a Tufts obituary. “He was the consummate activist-advocate-scholar.”

A Monash University led study has found a promising new treatment for patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, the second most common form of dementia in the under 60s — resulting in a stabilising of what would normally be escalating behavioural issues, and a slowing of brain shrinkage due to the disease. It is the second clinical trial to show that the drug, sodium selenate, may slow cognitive decline and neurodegenerative damage that is the hallmark of many dementias including Alzheimer’s Disease.
Behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is a rapidly progressing destructive disease and can occur in people as young as 35 years of age. It is characterised by behavioural disturbances and personality changes and can be highly disruptive and distressing for both patients and their families. Currently there are no treatments or cures for bvFTD and typical survival is 5-7 years from diagnosis.
The Phase 1 trial run in conjunction with the Royal Melbourne Hospital, the only one in Australia targeting non-genetic bvFTD, and one of a handful worldwide, showed that the drug, sodium selenate is safe and well-tolerated in patients with bvFTD over a period of 12 months. Importantly, the majority of patients receiving sodium selenate showed no change in their cognitive or behavioural symptoms, and reduced rates of brain atrophy over the trial period. The results from the trial, led by Dr Lucy Vivash, from the Monash University’s Department of Neuroscience, have just been published in the journal, Alzheimer’s and Dementia: Translational Research and Clinical Interventions.
In almost half of the cases with bvFTD, the damage to the neurons in the brain is caused by the build-up of a protein called tau. This protein is a major target for research in the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer’s and other dementias, as a way to reverse the neurodegeneration caused by this tau accumulation.
According to Dr Vivash, sodium selenate upregulates an enzyme in the brain that effectively breaks down the tau protein. “We have previously shown, in a Phase 2 trial, that sodium selenate given to patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s Disease resulted in less neurodegeneration than in those who did not,” she said. Importantly those patients in the trial with higher levels of selenium, a breakdown product of sodium selenate, in their bloodstream showed less cognitive decline.
The research group is now conducting a larger study at many hospitals across Australia and New Zealand to further test whether this drug is beneficial for patients with bvFTD.
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In a study at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center researchers have devised a new metric, the “Health-Adjusted Dependency Ratio” (HADR) as an alternative to the most commonly used aging metric, the old-age dependency ratio (OADR).
The research suggests that age-related health burden is distinct from a ratio based exclusively on age and is the first to incorporate dependency associated with ill-health to generate a new metric that represents a more holistic measure of dependency for 188 countries. The results are published in Lancet Healthy Longevity.
“Rather than using some arbitrary age limit such as the age of 65, we used absolute health,” said principal investigator Vegard Skirbekk , PhD, PhD, professor of population and family health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. “In some countries, a given poor health level occurs in the 40s and in the 70s in others. Thousands of studies have been written using the old age dependency — but they are likely to be invalid,” notes Skirbekk.
In the current study Skirbekk proposes building a dependency metric using the information from the Global Burden of Disease 2019 Study as an alternative to the OADR. This Health-Adjusted Dependency Ratio was generated for the adult population aged 20+ for each country, where the numerator consists of those in relatively ill-health or the “dependent” population” and the denominator includes those in relatively good health, who potentially could “support” the dependent population. OADR, on the other hand, is more associated with health spending growth.
The study in Lancet Longevity shows that in African countries, and certain ones in Central Asia, Southern Asia, and Eastern Europe are older than what their demography would suggest. Nations in Oceania, Eastern Asia, Europe, Northern America, Central and South America are younger.
As examples, Japan had the highest OADR at 0.49 in 2017 followed by countries in Western Europe (with OADR >0.32). The U.S., Canada, Eastern Europe, Uruguay, China, South Korea, and Thailand follow with an OADR >0.24. “This implies that several demographically older populations could have relatively lower HADR burden if health levels are good while demographically younger populations could have a higher HADR if health levels are poor.
Health-wise, the share of older individuals is about the same for richer and poorer countries. “This is important, as it means the world is similarly old — or young — and similar types of health challenges apply. This also means that providing healthcare must be reoriented towards dealing with life-course related diseases, observed Skirbekk. “And finally, being demographically young is no guarantee from being young as a nation; in many cases the opposite is true.”
Earlier assessments were composed of measurements that tended to be based on data for only one country — mainly from European ancestry populations. “In sum, earlier aging measures tend to lack global coverage, global demographic information or global health data,” noted Skirbekk, who is also with Columbia Butler Aging Center.
“In fact, while the old-age dependency ratio or OADR was often used as a proxy for population aging, it did not account for variation in health and may therefore represent an incomplete assessment of aging and aging-related dependency,” said Skirbekk. “Traditional indices used on population-level aging variation tended to focus on only demographic indicators. Our method allowed us to generate a new metric for measuring aging, allowing us to assess variation in both demographic aging and age-specific health across countries.”
Skirbekk further makes the point that previous research showed that in 2017 the chronological age when this occurs differs by up to thirty years, ranging from 45.6 years of age in Papua New Guinea to 76.1 in Japan.
“Moving forward, it may be more valuable to more holistically assess dependency and policies associated with age related dependency by using a metric that includes the impacts of ill-health, such as the HADR,” said Skirbekk. “The findings of our work have specific policy implications that will help countries to plan, develop, and implement aging policy programs and healthcare reforms in order to address effectively ongoing rapid demographic change.”

Using MRI scans to detect heart failure could revolutionise how the condition is diagnosed, thanks to new research from the University of East Anglia and the University of Sheffield.
Until now, the best way of diagnosing heart failure has been an invasive assessment, but it carries risks for patients. Non-invasive echocardiogram, which is based on ultrasound, are usually used instead, but they are wrong in up to 50 per cent of cases.
A new study published today shows how magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is superior to Echocardiography for diagnosing heart failure, as well as being a powerful tool to predict patient outcomes, including death.
Lead researcher Dr Pankaj Garg, from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, said: “Heart failure is a dreadful condition resulting from rising pressures inside the heart. The best method to diagnose heart failure is by invasive assessment, which is not preferred as it has risks.
“An echocardiogram, which is an ultrasound of the heart, is usually used to predict the pressure in the heart. However, it is not very accurate.
“We wanted to find out if MRI scans might offer a better alternative.”
The research team studied 835 patients who received an invasive assessment and a heart MRI on the same day from the ASPIRE registry — a database of patients assessed at the Sheffield Pulmonary Vascular Disease Unit.

WEHI researchers in Melbourne have made a crucial discovery about how asymptomatic malaria infections impact the body, informing potential strategies to control transmission and improve treatment outcomes.
The research team has shown that persistent, asymptomatic malaria infections are not innocuous as previously believed. Instead, these infections suppress the immune system, preventing it from eradicating parasites from the bloodstream.
At a glance Researchers have discovered that asymptomatic malaria infections are not benign as previously thought. These asymptomatic infections suppress the immune system, preventing the body from taking full control of the malaria parasites. The findings encourage treatment of asymptomatic infection to stop parasite transmission and increase the effectiveness of the malaria vaccine.The findings published in Molecular Systems Biology provide an alternative view to the long-held belief that asymptomatic malaria infections are beneficial to help reduce the risk of severe disease, and suggest that treating chronic infections could enhance vaccine effectiveness and reduce transmission.
The study was led by WEHI PhD student Stephanie Studniberg and Associate Professor Diana Hansen in collaboration with researchers from Indonesia’s Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology, the Papuan Health and Community Foundation, and the Menzies School of Health Research at Charles Darwin University.
Is asymptomatic malaria a problem?
Malaria remains one of the most serious infectious diseases of humans with over 200 million clinical cases and 600,000 deaths estimated in 2020.

Anyone who is taking a diuretic and a renin-angiotensin system (RSA) inhibitor for high blood pressure should be cautious about also taking ibuprofen, according to new research.
Diuretics and RSA inhibitors are commonly prescribed together for people with hypertension and are available under various pharmaceutical brand names. Painkillers such as ibuprofen are available over-the-counter in most pharmacies and stores in popular brands.
Researchers at the University of Waterloo used computer-simulated drug trials to model the interactions of the three drugs and the impact on the kidney. They found that in people with certain medical profiles, the combination can cause acute kidney injury, which in some cases can be permanent.
“It’s not that everyone who happens to take this combination of drugs is going to have problems,” said Anita Layton, professor of applied mathematics at Waterloo and Canada 150 Research Chair in mathematical biology and medicine. “But the research shows it’s enough of a problem that you should exercise caution.”
Computer-simulated drug trials can quickly produce results that would take much longer in human clinical trials. Layton and her team use mathematics and computer science to give medical practitioners a head start with issues like drug complications.
The research, in this case, can also speak directly to the many people who are taking drugs for hypertension and may reach for a painkiller with ibuprofen without giving it much thought.
“Diuretics are a family of drugs that make the body hold less water,” Layton said. “Being dehydrated is a major factor in acute kidney injury, and then the RAS inhibitor and ibuprofen hit the kidney with this triple whammy. If you happen to be on these hypertension drugs and need a painkiller, consider acetaminophen instead.”
Layton’s new research paper, with co-authors Jessica Leete, Carolyn Wang, and Francisco J. López-Hernández, “Determining risk factors for triple whammy acute kidney injury,” appears in the journal Mathematical Biosciences.
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The molecules of life, DNA, replicate with astounding precision, yet this process is not immune to mistakes and can lead to mutations. Using sophisticated computer modelling, a team of physicists and chemists at the University of Surrey have shown that such errors in copying can arise due to the strange rules of the quantum world.
The two strands of the famous DNA double helix are linked together by subatomic particles called protons -?the nuclei of atoms of hydrogen — which provide the glue that bonds molecules called bases together. These so-called hydrogen bonds are like the rungs of a twisted ladder that makes up the double helix structure discovered in 1952 by James Watson and Francis Crick based on the work of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins.
Normally, these DNA bases (called A, C, T and G) follow strict rules on how they bond together: A always bonds to T and C always to G. This strict pairing is determined by the molecules’ shape, fitting them together like pieces in a jigsaw, but if the nature of the hydrogen bonds changes slightly, this can cause the pairing rule to break down, leading to the wrong bases being linked and hence a mutation. Although predicted by Crick and Watson, it is only now that sophisticated computational modelling has been able to quantify the process accurately.
The team, part of Surrey’s research programme in the exciting new field of quantum biology, have shown that this modification in the bonds between the DNA strands is far more prevalent than has hitherto been thought. The protons can easily jump from their usual site on one side of an energy barrier to land on the other side. If this happens just before the two strands are unzipped in the first step of the copying process, then the error can pass through the replication machinery in the cell, leading to what is called a DNA mismatch and, potentially, a mutation.
In a paper published this week in the journal Nature Communications Physics, the Surrey team based in the Leverhulme Quantum Biology Doctoral Training Centre used an approach called open quantum systems to determine the physical mechanisms that might cause the protons to jump across between the DNA strands. But, most intriguingly, it is thanks to a well-known yet almost magical quantum mechanism called tunnelling — akin to a phantom passing through a solid wall — that they manage to get across.
It had previously been thought that such quantum behaviour could not occur inside a living cell’s warm, wet and complex environment. However, the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger had suggested in his 1944 book What is Life? that quantum mechanics can play a role in living systems since they behave rather differently from inanimate matter. This latest work seems to confirm Schrödinger’s theory.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, EPAThe Covid pandemic has caused the deaths of nearly 15 million people around the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates.That is 13% more deaths than normally expected over two years. The WHO believes many countries undercounted the numbers who died from Covid – only 5.4 million were reported.In India, there were 4.7 million Covid deaths, it says – 10 times the official figures – and almost a third of Covid deaths globally. The Indian government has questioned the estimate, saying it has “concerns” about the methodology, but other studies have come to similar conclusions about the scale of deaths in the country.The measure used by the WHO is called excess deaths – how many more people died than would normally be expected based on mortality in the same area before the pandemic hit.These calculations also take into account deaths which were not directly because of Covid but instead caused by its knock-on effects, like people being unable to access hospitals for the care they needed. It also accounts for poor record-keeping in some regions, and sparse testing at the start of the crisis.But the WHO said the majority of the extra 9.5 million deaths seen above the 5.4 million Covid deaths reported were thought to be direct deaths caused by the virus, rather than indirect deaths.Speaking about the scale of the figures, Dr Samira Asma, from the WHO’s data department, said “It’s a tragedy. “It’s a staggering number and it’s important for us to honour the lives that are lost, and we have to hold policymakers accountable,” she said.”If we don’t count the dead, we will miss the opportunity to be better prepared for the next time.”Alongside India, countries with the highest total excess deaths included Russia, Indonesia, USA, Brazil, Mexico and Peru, the WHO figures suggest. The numbers for Russia are three-and-a-half times the country’s recorded deaths.The report also looks at the rates of excess deaths relative to each country’s population size. The UK’s excess mortality rate – like America, Spain and Germany – was above the global average during 2020 and 2021.Countries with low excess mortality rates included China, which is still pursuing a policy of “zero Covid” involving mass testing and quarantines, Australia, which imposed strict travel restrictions to keep the virus out of the country, Japan and Norway.The academics who helped compile the report admit their estimates are more speculative for countries in sub-Saharan Africa, because there is little data on deaths in the region. There were no reliable statistics for 41 out of 54 countries in Africa.Statistician Prof Jon Wakefield, from Seattle’s University of Washington, helped the WHO and told the BBC: “We urgently need better data collection systems. “It is a disgrace that people can be born and die – and we have no record of their passing. “So we really need to invest in countries’ registration systems so we can get accurate and timely data.” More on this storyGlobal Covid deaths probably three times higherRelated Internet LinksWHO – World Health OrganizationThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.