Dr. Howard Smith Reports

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/De42GJWuOcn/ Can your brain process language and fabricate prediction when you’re unconscious? Answers come from neuroscientists at Baylor College of Medicine in studies published in the journal Nature. The scientists studied patients undergoing epilepsy surgery and recorded electrical activity from hundreds of individual neurons in the hippocampus, a brain re...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/De41YichHAF/ The answer comes from clinical physiologists at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet. They followed 427 men and women born in 1958, tracking their physical performance from age 16 through age 63.  Their data show that aerobic fitness and muscular endurance generally peaks between ages 26 and 36. By age 35, physical performance begins a gradual decline....

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/De40dj0MqTg/ This possibility is even more likely if you are a bird. So report Penn State  biomedical physiologists reporting their studies of 12 guinea fowl in the journal Royal Society Proceedings B . In the experiments, half of the birds carried small weights on one leg during development while the other half did not. At 16 weeks, researchers measured how m...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/De4zuLEP5v8/ Taiwanese researchers now report to the European Association for the Study of Diabetes that injections of the peptide CBL-514 significantly shrink deposits of body fat. The compound works by selectively causing fat cells to self-destruct. In phase two clinical trials, participants receiving the CBL-514 experience an average reduction of about 12%...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/De4y7mcuN6a/ Japanese endocrinologists at Kyoto University publish this surprising effect they observed in mouse studies in the journal Diabetes . When both diabetic and normal mice are fed olive oil 15 minutes before glucose, their initial blood sugar rise is significantly smaller than when they receive the carbohydrates first. The olive oil slows stomach emp...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/De4yQMihPdL/ Hungarian social scientists studied smartphone habits in 225 adults ages 18 to 35. About one-third of the participants were classified as heavy-process users, spending much of their time phone scrolling and consuming content rather than communicating in the real world. Their study was published in the journal Acta Psychologica .  Their data show t...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/De4xFdkMwTH/ The calorie count listed on food labels doesn’t tell the entire story? Biodesign researchers at Arizona State University now publish in the journal PLOS One their mathematical model showing how the bacteria in your gastrointestinal system help determine how much energy your body actually absorbs from food.  Their model, called DAMM standing for Di...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/De4wFKju0rl/ Could the compound that gives vanilla its familiar flavor help heal wounds that refuse to heal? Biomedical nanoengineers at Australia’s Flinders University now publish a review article in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics cataloging the beneficial properties of vanillin, vanilla’s signature compound. They describe its potential antibacter...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/De4vctouRlC/ Imagine this! A tiny device injectable through a needle and powered wirelessly offers a new approach for managing chronic pain and movement disorders. All this without the batteries, connecting wires, or surgically implanted hardware used in current pain control systems. This technology was developed by NYU bioengineers and Cleveland Clinic  gastr...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/De4uwd5h7na/ Persistent loneliness costs you up to nearly 6 years of healthy life. This from new research by Tulane University epidemiologists working with colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health and published in the journal Nature. The researchers analyzed health information from nearly 277,500 adults between the ages of 40 and 69. They examined how...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/De4t7HphAMK/ Yale orthopedic researchers now report in the journal Bioactive Materials that the epilepsy drug lacosamide, LCM for short and branded as Vimpat, injected periodically into a joint, reduces the pain of osteoarthritis and shifts cartilage cell activity toward repair rather than destruction.  The Yale team finds that LCM inhibits a protein called Na...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/De4s8wJBjxj/ Stanford biologists have developed a molecule that converts a protein responsible for stimulating lymphoma growth into a trigger for cancer-cell death. Their mouse studies are now published in the journal Cell . Their research focuses on diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, the most common type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Many of these cancers flourish und...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/De4sEr8M8P1/ Experiments in mice supported these findings. Animals receiving an antibiotic while consuming sucrose developed substantially larger populations of toxic intestinal bacteria than controls. The researchers suggest that dietary sugar gives harmful bacteria additional fuel to grow while antibiotics weaken the competition. The precise mechanism still...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/De4rD0RuUG_/ All of our knee cartilages deteriorate with age and injury due to an increase in the destructive enzyme 15-hydroxy prostaglandin dehydrogenase or 15-PGDH. Now, Stanford University biologists and orthopedic surgeons demonstrate that blocking this enzyme stops this process and even restores already damaged cartilage. Their studies, published in the...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/De0CSPgvJOe/ The diet appears to protect against cancer in one part of the gastrointestinal tract yet promote it in another? MIT biologists in collaboration with Harvard gastroenterologists document this phenomenon in their preclinical study published in the journal Nature. Keto diets are high in fat and very low in carbohydrates. They encourage the body to bu...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/Deh8Pd9BdOf/ #foodrecall #foodallergy #consumeralert #childsafety #fda

Vidcast : https://www.instagram.com/p/Deh65yBMX6A/ #ProductRecall #ConsumerAlert #HomeSafety #cpsc #childsafety

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DeSJrFSMS_g/ Neurosurgical cell biologists at the University of Michigan have bioengineered nanoparticles that sensitize deadly gliomas to radiation therapy. Their study, published in Nature Communications, focused on those gliomas that carry a mutated form of the IDH1 gene. Malignant tumors bearing this gene easily activate a cellular recycling process called...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DeSIouVvRDa/ A new study from Japan’s Fujita Health University and published in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that a comfortable 20-minute walk can immediately stimulate your gut motility. The investigators studied 21 healthy young adults and had them walk on a treadmill for 20 minutes at a comfortable pace. Using an electronic stethoscope to monitor...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DeSIAYBMYom/ The compound produced by gut bacteria after eating foods such as pomegranates, walnuts and berries helps repair intestinal linings. This from gastroenterologists at the University of Louisville who published their studies in the journal Nature Communicatons. The studies center on the microbial byproduct urolithin A or UroA, produced when gut bacte...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DeSHCRlPXOe/ Could changing what you eat help ease depression? A small but intriguing study from the University of California, San Francisco, suggests it might. Psychiatric researchers there conducted a small study, published in JAMA Psychiatry, involving 20 people with depression . All participants dramatically reduced by some 85% their consumption of ultra-p...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DeSGSa2ttNj/ A common mistake during your blood pressure check could make your numbers look dangerously higher. That can lead to an incorrect hypertension diagnosis and unnecessary treatment, . Johns Hopkins public health researchers now caution in JAMA Internal Medicine that something as basic as how you position your arm can significantly affect your reading...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DeSFrK-Amqp/ Creatine, a frequently consumed sports supplement, offers an unexpected benefit. It can help middle-aged adults build muscle and strength even without a structured exercise program. This according to a new study published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. During a 12-week study, Texas A&M University sports nutrit...

https://www.instagram.com/p/DeSFLfIgeF6/ New research from the microbiome center at Ireland’s University College Cork  shows that coffee influences the gut microbiome in ways that affect your mood, stress levels, memory, and attention. The study, published in Nature Communications, involved  62 people and compared regular coffee drinkers with those who did not normally consume coffee. When regular...

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DeSDtAzpn8p/ A pomegranate byproduct offers a promising new approach for treatment of a common form of heart failure, heart failure with preserved ejection fraction or HFpEF. A heart with this condition continues to pump blood effectively but becomes too stiff to relax and fill properly between beats. Cardiologists at King’s College London find that urolithin...