Publisher Health

A study led by the University of Birmingham has revealed for the first time that the contraceptive pill can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes by over a quarter in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
The research findings also show that women with PCOS have twice the risk of developing type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes (dysglycemia) — highlighting the urgent need to find treatments to reduce this risk.
In addition to the risk of type 2 diabetes, PCOS — which affects 10% of women world-wide — is also associated with a number of other conditions in the long-term, such as endometrial cancer, cardiovascular disease, and non-alcohol related fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
Symptoms of PCOS include irregular periods or no periods at all, which can lead to fertility issues, and many suffer from unwanted hair growth (known as ‘hirsutism’) on the face or body, hair loss on the scalp, and oily skin or acne. These symptoms are caused by high levels of hormones called androgens in the blood of women with PCOS.
Women with PCOS also often struggle with weight gain and the cells in their body are often less responsive to insulin — the hormone that allows the body to absorb glucose (blood sugar) into the cells for energy. This reduced response to insulin can lead to elevated blood glucose levels and can cause the body to make more insulin, which in turn causes the body to make more androgens. The androgens further increase insulin levels — driving a vicious circle.
The University of Birmingham-led team of scientists carried out two studies to firstly identify the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes in women with PCOS, and secondly to investigate the impact of the use of combined oral contraceptives, often referred to as ‘the pill’, on the risk of type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes in women with PCOS. The pill is often given to women with PCOS to improve the regularity of menstrual bleeds.

A growing number of Asian Americans have overcome a cultural stigma attached to seeking mental health treatment, experts said.Even before the coronavirus pandemic, life was not as easy as it looked for Julian Sarafian. He was the valedictorian of his high school, a White House intern and a Harvard Law School graduate, but he was also in a yearslong battle with anxiety.Then, in November of last year, he came down with symptoms of Covid-19, and his girlfriend tested positive for the virus. The illness, on top of his anxiety, months of social isolation and his fear for the safety of his Asian family members, made him depressed.“It was just kind of the icing on the cake that was, like, the middle finger of 2020,” he said.Mr. Sarafian, 27, who is from Sacramento, went to therapy a month later, but it was not as simple as making a phone call. He had to explain to his parents, including his Vietnamese mother, the reasons he needed extra care.After a few months of therapy, he said, he “hit a point where it’s looking a lot brighter than ever before.”Mental health is heavily stigmatized among Asian Americans, whose older generations, like the older generations of other cultures, tend to see therapy as undignified or a sign of weakness, experts said. But the pandemic and the specter of hate crimes by those who tied the coronavirus to China have prompted a growing number of Asian Americans to overcome the stigma and turn to therapy for help, according to more than a dozen therapists, psychiatrists and psychology professors.“People were just stuck in their homes with their thoughts and their worries, and there wasn’t an outlet,” said Lia Huynh, a psychotherapist in Milpitas, Calif.More than 40 percent of Asian Americans were anxious or depressed during the pandemic, up from less than 10 percent before the virus struck, according to the Asian American Psychological Association. The Kaiser Family Foundation found similar rates for all adult Americans, but experts said the figures for Asian Americans were most likely higher than reported because some Asian Americans are uncomfortable talking about mental health.More than a year and a half into the pandemic, the fear of hate crimes hasn’t decreased for a quarter of Asian adults in the United States. They reported that, in the last few months, they still feared being threatened or physically attacked, according to a poll released this week by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.For Jess Stowe, 35, and Terry Wei, 36, Covid was scary enough, but now they worried about being attacked.“The hate against Asians is more terrifying than the global pandemic,” said Ms. Wei, who is a host of the podcast “unModeling Minorities” with Mrs. Stowe. “I can’t change what people fear.”That fear was stoked, in part, by President Donald J. Trump’s racist characterizations of the virus, which spread the false narrative that Asian American people were responsible for the pandemic.A third of Asian Americans surveyed by the Pew Research Center in April said they feared being attacked. Anti-Asian hate crimes in the country’s largest cities skyrocketed 164 percent in the first quarter of this year compared with the first quarter of last year, according to researchers at California State University, San Bernardino. Hate crimes overall increased last year by 2 percent, the researchers said.Asian Americans, African Americans and Hispanic people tend to see mental health as more stigmatized than European Americans, according to a study published last year in the journal BMC Public Health.But that view changed for some Asian Americans on March 16, when six Asian women, who were targeted because of their race, were murdered in shootings at spas in the Atlanta area. Asian American communities had talked about anti-Asian violence, but that dialogue became a part of the national conversation after the shootings.Suddenly, many Asian Americans realized that hate crimes were a life-threatening reality, mental health professionals said.After a year of dealing with racist microaggressions and health concerns, and enduring a lifetime of institutional racism and mental health stigmas, the shootings were the impetus for many Asian Americans to sign up for therapy.“It finally broke the stigma open because people were in that much pain,” said Diana Liao, a mental health counselor and psychotherapist in New York..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c 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(min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Some Asian therapists were inundated with requests from companies and organizations that wanted to host support groups for employees, said Catherine Vuky, a clinical supervisor at South Cove Community Health Center in Boston.Satsuki Ina, a psychotherapist, said some older Japanese Americans have come to her because the hate crimes evoked memories of when the U.S. government locked them in internment camps during World War II.Ms. Huynh, the psychotherapist from California, said she has been receiving a lot of calls from patients who are struggling to find a therapist who understands their culture. “People are like, ‘I just want someone that understands that I can’t just talk back to my parents,’” she said.The mental toll of threats and assaults was challenging for some to balance against the principle of “saving face,” an idea shared among many Asian immigrants that people will gain a bad reputation if they do not maintain their dignity.Therapy traditionally can be seen in Asian cultures as a way to lose face, said Kevin M. Chun, a psychology professor at the University of San Francisco.There is also a generational barrier to mental health care, said Doris Chang, an associate professor of psychology at New York University. Younger people are less likely to have an internalized stigma about mental health, and older people are more inclined to think they can resolve their issues without help.While a new generation of Asian Americans can forge a different conversation about mental health, measures like therapy cannot solve a problem they did not start, said Sherry C. Wang, an associate professor of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University.“If everybody pitched in to say, ‘Stop anti-Asian hate’ and advocated for Asian American belonging, we would all be safer and healthier and happier,” she said.

Those eligible for the extra shot would include adults over 65 and others at high risk — the same groups now eligible for a Pfizer-BioNTech boostWASHINGTON — A panel of independent medical experts on Thursday unanimously recommended Moderna booster shots for many of those who had received the company’s coronavirus vaccine, paving the way to sharply expand the number of people eligible for an additional shot in the United States.The advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration voted 19 to 0 in favor of emergency authorization of a half-dose booster, at least six months after the second dose. Those eligible for the extra shot would include people over 65 and other adults considered at high risk — the same groups now eligible for a Pfizer-BioNTech booster.The F.D.A. typically follows the panel’s advice, and should rule within days.The recommendations come as the nation is seeing a decline in coronavirus cases but still faces nearly 90,000 new infections and roughly 1,800 deaths per day. The Biden administration has cast booster shots as an additional tool in the battle against the pandemic, while acknowledging that controlling the disease’s spread depends upon vaccinating tens of millions of Americans for the first time.In a speech at the White House on Thursday, President Biden once again sought to rally businesses to support vaccination mandates that he said would help reduce the ranks of the unvaccinated in the United States, calling the number of people who have not gotten even a first shot “unacceptably high.” Mr. Biden encouraged Americans to seek out booster shots when they become eligible, calling them “free, available and convenient.”More than seven million people in the United States have already obtained booster doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and more than a million have received third doses of Moderna’s, even though only those with immune deficiencies are officially eligible.Thursday’s vote was considerably smoother than the one the panel held last month, after a chaotic and at times acrimonious debate on whether the F.D.A. should authorize booster shots for Pfizer-BioNTech recipients.On Friday, the same expert committee will meet to discuss and vote on whether the roughly 15 million people who received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine should also be eligible for booster doses. Its members are also supposed to discuss a new federal study that suggests those Americans might be better off getting a booster dose of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.If the F.D.A. quickly authorizes Moderna booster doses, and if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signs off after a meeting of its own committee of vaccine experts next week, people in the eligible groups could begin seeking out the shots soon after. In addition to people over 65, those groups include younger adults at high risk of severe Covid-19 or serious complications because of medical conditions or their jobs.Some committee members on Thursday decried the lack of more robust data justifying a booster. Dr. Archana Chatterjee, an infectious disease expert at Rosalind Franklin University, pointed out that cases were already declining here without widely available booster doses.Other members said that the F.D.A. had set a precedent by authorizing additional shots for many recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, making it hard to deny vulnerable Americans who received the Moderna vaccine a chance to receive a booster.“From a pragmatic point of view,” said Dr. Stanley Perlman of the University of Iowa, a committee member, “because we’ve already approved it for Pfizer, I don’t see how we can possibly not approve it for Moderna.”To date, more than 103 million people in the United States have been fully vaccinated with Pfizer’s product, more than 69 million with Moderna’s and about 15 million with the Johnson & Johnson shot.Dr. Patrick Moore, a panel member and virologist at the University of Pittsburgh, said he voted to recommend a Moderna booster based on a “gut feeling, rather than based on really, truly serious data.” Others questioned whether half a dose was the right amount, and whether a Moderna booster would work better if it was given at least eight months after the second shot, instead of six months.“I’m not sure we have actually identified the optimal regimen for these vaccines,” said Dr. Michael Kurilla, an infectious disease expert at the National Institutes of Health.The panel made clear it did not favor expanding eligibility for booster shots beyond the higher-risk groups that qualify for Pfizer boosters. No vote was taken on that question, but the committee expressed concern that booster eligibility decisions could become a slippery slope.Several experts said they were worried about recommending additional shots based on clinical trial results from just a few hundred participants.“I’m not sure that we want to just explore it willy-nilly by giving it to a lot of people,” said Dr. Eric Rubin, an adjunct professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.Dr. Peter Marks, the F.D.A.’s top vaccine regulator, said the agency’s experts would take the panel’s concerns to heart in considering whether younger adults without significant risk factors should become eligible for boosters. The agency “heard pretty loud and clearly that there was not a lot of appetite for moving down the age range very significantly, if at all,” he said.State health officials say that the staggered rollout of boosters has left some especially vulnerable people — for example, elderly residents of nursing homes who got the Moderna vaccine — in the lurch. But some panel members said on Thursday that nearly two months after the Biden administration announced its booster plan, the rationale remained vague..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“I just worry that we haven’t clearly defined what the goal” is, said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease expert with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Declining levels of neutralizing antibodies and eroding protection against mild or asymptomatic infection are “inevitable,” he said, adding that aiming to prevent even mild cases “is a high bar to which we hold no other vaccine.”Although the F.D.A. took no official stance on Moderna’s request for booster authorization, some agency officials made a general case for booster shots to the committee. Dr. Marks said the vaccines’ effectiveness against mild and moderate disease appears to wane over time, and that even less severe cases of Covid-19 might lead to long-lasting symptoms and other health consequences.Overall, Moderna officials did not make as strong a case for extra shots as Pfizer last month.Moderna’s potency has held up better than Pfizer’s over time. Unlike Pfizer, the company did not contend that recipients of its vaccine needed a booster to prevent severe disease or hospitalization, instead concentrating its arguments on preventing infection.Moderna met one of the F.D.A.’s criteria for a booster shot, reporting that the mean antibody level of participants in its study was 1.8 times as high after the booster than it was after the second shot. But it narrowly failed to meet another requirement. It raised neutralizing antibodies at least fourfold in 87.9 percent of people compared to after the second dose, while the agency required that level of boost for 88.4 percent of participants.Some experts questioned whether Moderna had gathered enough data on potential side effects. Regulators and scientists have been especially concerned about the risks of the heart conditions myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, or inflammation of the lining around the heart.The F.D.A. in June attached warnings about those risks to the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, and officials on Thursday cited an elevated risk in men between 18 and 25 who were fully vaccinated with either Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech.A key part of Thursday’s discussion revolved around Israel’s booster campaign for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The Biden administration has been closely watching Israel’s experience, because the country has a nationalized health care system that allows it to closely track vaccine recipients.A top Israeli health official told the committee that her government’s booster campaign had changed the course of the pandemic there. She said Israel saw dramatically lower rates of both infection and severe disease among those who received a booster shot compared to those who had not. It was not clear, though, whether other factors, such as the decline of the Delta variant, also had an effect.Dr. Mark Sawyer, a professor in the School of Medicine at University of California San Diego, said even though the Moderna vaccine was different, Israel’s data was compelling.But Dr. Kurilla of the National Institutes of Health questioned whether Israel’s booster campaign deserved so much credit, noting that the nation’s latest drop in infection rates seemed to fit in with previous waves of the virus.He asked Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, Israel’s director of public health services, whether she believed that a third injection of Pfizer’s vaccine would extend protection for a long time, or whether “you’ll be back in another six months” for another booster.Dr. Alroy-Preis noted that some vaccines offer protection for years after a booster shot. Whether that is true of coronavirus vaccines, she said, is “the million-dollar question.”

Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world.Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world.

Four weeks on a diet of highly processed food led to a strong inflammatory response in the brains of aging rats that was accompanied by behavioral signs of memory loss, a new study has found.
Researchers also found that supplementing the processed diet with the omega-3 fatty acid DHA prevented memory problems and reduced the inflammatory effects almost entirely in older rats.
Neuroinflammation and cognitive problems were not detected in young adult rats that ate the processed diet.
The study diet mimicked ready-to-eat human foods that are often packaged for long shelf lives, such as potato chips and other snacks, frozen entrees like pasta dishes and pizzas, and deli meats containing preservatives.
Highly processed diets are also associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes, suggesting older consumers might want to scale back on convenience foods and add foods rich in DHA, such as salmon, to their diets, researchers say — especially considering harm to the aged brain in this study was evident in only four weeks.
“The fact we’re seeing these effects so quickly is a little bit alarming,” said senior study author Ruth Barrientos, an investigator in The Ohio State University Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral health.

In the fight against multidrug-resistant bacteria, scientists in Sweden have developed a new kind of antibiotic-free protection for wounds that kills drug-resistant bacteria and induces the body’s own immune responses to fight infections.
Reporting in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital say that the new treatment is based on specially-developed hydrogels consisting of polymers known as dendritic macromolecules.
KTH Professor Michael Malkoch says the hydrogels are formed spontaneously when sprayed on wounds and 100 percent degradable and non-toxic. “Dendritic hydrogels are excellent for wound dressing materials because of their soft, adhesive and pliable tactile properties, which provide ideal contact on the skin and maintain the moist environment beneficial for optimal wound healing,” he says.
The antibacterial effects of the hydrogels have yet to be fully understood, but the key lies in these macromolecules’ structure. It’s distinguished by well-ordered branches that terminate with a profusion of cationic, charged contact points.
“Bacterial cells are interactive, and so are dendritic macromolecules,” he says. “When they meet, it doesn’t turn out well for the bacteria.”
Karolinska Institutet Professor Annelie Brauner says that despite containing no antibiotics, the hydrogels show excellent antibacterial qualities and were effective against a broad spectrum of clinical bacteria, killing both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, including drug-resistant strains isolated from wounds. The material also reduces inflammation.

The cruel impact of COVID-19, the virus that emerged in late 2019 and has claimed 5 million lives to date, is chronicled in daily headlines. It has robbed us of loved ones, jobs, plans and so much more.
The impact on those who treat the sick and dying has been the focus of much study and the exhaustion of health care workers pulling extra shifts and covering for inadequate staffing is well documented.
But the true measure of this scourge is yet to be known.
Now a new study, published Thursday, Oct. 14 by PLoS ONE, shows another layer of impact — how response to the virus has pounded the U.S. public health system, especially its workers and the critical services they deliver to millions.
The study, led by Jennifer Horney, professor and founding director of the University of Delaware’s Epidemiology Program, sheds chilling light on the state of the public-health workforce and raises significant questions about how public health services and programs can be sustained in the future.
Of special concern is the fact that many public health workers have been redeployed to COVID-related duties during the pandemic response, leaving other critical public health issues with reduced or suspended services.

Researchers may have uncovered new answers on how to create safer opioids. Design a new opioid to bypass the part of brain that feels pleasure, but retain the analgesic properties, which make opioids one of the most effective pain relievers.
In a study published in Nature Oct. 13, researchers looked at how opioids may have become so widely abused.
“We identified a major source of how mu-opioids mediate reward,” said lead author Daniel Castro, acting instructor in anesthesiology and pain medicine at UW Medicine and part of The Bruchas Lab, which examines how neural circuits affect motivated behaviors. “We provided a blueprint of how the system works.”
They studied a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, a key region in the reward circuit of the brain. When we do anything that is considered rewarding, dopamine neurons project to this area of the brain and make us feel good and want more.
“Mu-Opioids, like morphine act on specific receptors in the brain, like keys in a lock,” said Michael Bruchas, UW professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine. “We isolated a new brain pathway where these receptors exert powerful effects to promote reward consumption behavior.”
They found that opioid receptors are in a part of the brain called the dorsal raphe nucleus located towards the back of the brain by the brain stem. They act to alter the communication between the raphe and nucleus accumbens, which are in the front of the brain.

Noninvasive glucose monitoring devices are not currently commercially available in the United States, so people with diabetes must collect blood samples or use sensors embedded under the skin to measure their blood sugar levels. Now, with a new wearable device created by Penn State researchers, less intrusive glucose monitoring could become the norm.
Led by Huanyu “Larry” Cheng, Dorothy Quiggle Career Development Professor in Penn State’s Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, the researchers published the details of the noninvasive, low-cost sensor that can detect glucose in sweat in Biosensors and Bioelectronics. The paper, available online, will publish in the journal’s December print issue.
The researchers constructed the device first with laser-induced graphene (LIG), a material consisting of atom-thick carbon layers in various shapes. With high electrical conductivity and a convenient fabrication time of just seconds, LIG appeared to be an ideal framework for the sensing device — but there was a significant caveat.
“The challenge here is that LIG is not sensitive to glucose at all,” Cheng said. “So, we needed to deposit a glucose-sensitive material onto the LIG.”
The team chose nickel because of its robust glucose sensitivity, according to Cheng, and combined it with gold to lower potential risks of an allergic reaction. The researchers hypothesized that the LIG outfitted with the nickel-gold alloy would be able to detect low concentrations of glucose in sweat on the skin’s surface.
A material with high glucose sensitivity was a priority. Sweat exhibits remarkably low glucose concentrations compared to blood — but, according to Cheng, there is a strong correlation between glucose levels in sweat and blood. While the concentration of glucose in sweat is about 100 times less than the concentration in blood, the team’s device is sensitive enough to accurately measure the glucose in sweat and reflect the concentration in blood.

Imagine you’re about to go on a cross-country trip, stopping at spots along the way to admire local attractions. You’d probably want to have road atlas handy, containing maps at different scales, covering both the major highways and the roads of smaller cities and towns — or at least a GPS that can access a digital atlas with this information.
Until recently, cancer researchers have been like cross-country travelers with only a few maps of a few popular cities. And because of how fast some cancers grow, the maps quickly go out of date. This situation has hindered doctors’ ability to understand what’s really going on inside tumors and develop effective treatments.
The Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN) was created to change that. It aims to develop high-resolution maps of many kinds of cancer so that doctors could have a more-complete view of the textured terrain of tumors — including how they change over time to become more deadly. HTAN is funded by the National Cancer Institute and involves a consortium of cancer centers across the United States.
After several years of painstaking research, the first such atlas from investigators at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center — for small cell lung cancer — is now ready for viewing, and it’s full of new insights.
“The most exciting thing we found is a rare population of stem-like cells within these tumors that is closely correlated with patient outcomes,” explains Charles Rudin, a physician-scientist at MSK who co-led the lung cancer project. “The more enriched they are in the tumor, the worse the prognosis.”
Not only that, but these stem-like cells have metastatic properties — meaning they’re prone to spread — and researchers found them across many SCLC tumors that otherwise were very different.