Author Archives: Karely Vega, MD

‘Long Flu’: Consequence Similar to Long COVID

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, extensive research has emerged detailing the virus’s ability to attack multiple organ systems, potentially resulting in a set of enduring and often disabling health problems known as long COVID.  Now, new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System […]

Poor Diet Quality During Adolescence Is Linked to Serious Health Risks

Diet quality among adolescents in the United States is among the worst across all age groups, putting young people at risk for heart attack, stroke, and diabetes, among other cardiometabolic diseases later in life. The research brief shared in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. This study examined data from the Translational Investigation of […]

Increased Risk of Heart Rhythm Disruption After COVID-19

Individuals infected with COVID-19 are also at an increased risk of suffering from heart rhythm disturbances, such as atrial fibrillation. This is shown in a new study at Umeå University, Sweden, which is one of the largest studies of its kind in the world. The researchers were able to show that those who had been […]

Infection with Stomach Bacteria May Increase Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease

Infection with the stomach bacterium Helicobacter pylori could increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease: In people over the age of 50, the risk following a symptomatic infection can be an average of 11 percent higher, and even more about ten years after the infection, at 24 percent greater risk.  These are the findings of […]

Cholesterol-Lowering Therapy May Hinder Aggressive Type of Colorectal Tumor

Hard-to-detect colorectal pre-cancerous lesions known as serrated polyps, and the aggressive tumors that develop from them, depend heavily on the ramped-up production of cholesterol, according to a preclinical study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine. The finding points to the possibility of using cholesterol-lowering drugs to prevent or treat such tumors. In the study, published […]

How Stress Activates Neurons That Disrupt Sleep

New research reveals that neurons in the preoptic hypothalamus — the region of the brain that regulates sleep and body temperature — are rhythmically activated during non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM). Stress activates these brain cells out of turn, causing “microarousals,” that interrupt sleep cycles and decrease the duration of sleep episodes, according to research […]

Eating More Plants and Less Meat May Reduce Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), dementia affects more than 55 million people worldwide, and there are around 10 million new cases every year. The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease, which causes around 70% of cases. Now, a comprehensive review of the evidence, published in The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, has […]

Understudied Cell in the Brain Could Be Key to Treating Glioblastoma

Glioblastoma is one of the most treatment-resistant cancers, with those diagnosed surviving for less than two years. In a new study in NPJ Genomic Medicine, researchers at the University of Notre Dame have found that a largely understudied cell could offer new insight into how the aggressive, primary brain cancer is able to resist immunotherapy. […]

Ketogenic Diet for Polycystic Kidney Disease

The ketogenic diet proved to be effective at controlling polycystic kidney disease (PKD) in the first randomized controlled clinical trial of ketogenic metabolic therapy for PKD. The researchers’ study is published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine. For PKD patients, these findings represent an opportunity to control a genetic disease that leads to a progressive […]

Major Breakthrough for Severe Asthma Treatment

A landmark study has shown that severe asthma can be controlled using biologic therapies, without the addition of regular high-dose inhaled steroids which can have significant side effects. The findings from the multinational SHAMAL study, published in The Lancet, demonstrated that 92% of patients using the biologic therapy benralizumab could safely reduce inhaled steroid dose […]