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Health Check from New Scientist <[email protected]> Sat, Apr 13, 2024 at 10:01
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An innovative cancer treatment

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Hi readers,
Our health reporters Clare and Grace are off, so assistant news editor
Alexandra is temporarily taking the Health Check helm.
It’s been another big news week regarding all things health and
biomedicine. We learned that testing drugs on mini-cancers in the lab can
help to reveal the best treatment for an individual, which seemed to enable
children with an advanced form of cancer to live longer. We’re also
beginning to better understand a potential cause of long covid. And it seems
the source of many surgical infections may be bacteria already on the skin.
Below is a round-up of the health-related news stories you may have missed
this week, plus a feature all about a liver disease you may not know you
have and what to do about it.
New cancer treatment hope
The next innovation in cancer treatment could be to test all possible drugs
on thousands of miniature versions of a person’s tumour to see which
works the best. Researchers recruited 21 children with advanced cancer
that had returned after treatment. The testing approach revealed a
recommended therapy for 19 of them. Only six ultimately had the advised
treatment because some doctors overrode the recommendation, while
other children had to withdraw from the study. Of these six, five had a
remission of their cancer that lasted 8.5 times longer, on average, than after
their previous cancer treatment. Read more
Understanding long covid
Years after the pandemic started, many people are still grappling with its
aftereffects. In the UK alone, an estimated 1.9 million people reported
experiencing long covid in March 2023. Now, scientists have found that
people who develop the condition after being hospitalised with severe
covid-19 have raised levels of many inflammatory immune molecules in
their blood, compared with those who recovered fully after such a
hospitalisation. The researchers think the ongoing immune responses could
be causing the symptoms of long covid. There are already some approved
treatments that are designed to reduce these responses in other conditions,
so the findings could lead to trials of these same drugs for the treatment of
long covid. Read more
Vaccinating against UTIs
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are among the most common bladder
infections, affecting up to 60 per cent of women at some point in their lives.
They are often treated with antibiotics, which runs the risk that the
responsible bacteria will develop drug resistance. Now, it looks like an oral
vaccine may prevent recurring UTIs for nearly a decade. Researchers
tracked 89 participants with a history of UTIs who received the pineapple-
flavoured vaccine spray in 2014. After using it every day for three months,
they were infection-free for an average time of 54.7 months. More than half
of the group even avoided UTIs for nine years. Read more
Gum disease risks
Poor oral hygiene has repeatedly been linked to heart disease and even
Alzheimer’s. Now, there’s a further reason to brush your teeth: a study
suggests that avoiding gum disease could ward off an irregular, abnormally
fast heartbeat, which has been linked to strokes.
Researchers enrolled 288 people who had gum disease and were treated for
an irregular heartbeat, known as atrial fibrillation. Of these, 97 received
treatment for their gum disease up to three months later. In a follow-up
period lasting up to two years, 24 per cent of the participants experienced
atrial fibrillation again, but this was 61 per cent less likely to occur among
those whose gum disease was also treated. If gum tissue is inflamed or even
ulcerated, bacteria and inflammatory immune proteins can enter the
bloodstream, which may affect the heart, says team member Shunsuke
Miyauchi at Hiroshima University in Japan. Read more
Gum disease could affect parts of the body far away from the mouth
Alexander Shelegov/Getty Images
The source of surgical infections
Post-operative wound infections are often associated with bacteria and

other pathogens contaminating equipment within hospitals. But a study
now suggests that the skin microbiome may sometimes be to blame.
Skin swabs were collected before and after 204 people underwent different
types of spinal surgery. Fourteen of the participants went on to develop
wound infections. After analysing the microbes responsible, researchers
found that 12 of the cases involved bacteria that were already part of the
individuals’ skin microbiomes before surgery. “Virtually all of the SSIs
[surgical site infections] we encountered originated from the patient’s own
microbiome, rather than pathogens that were introduced from the hospital
or the operating room,” says team member Stephen Salipante at the
University of Washington in Seattle. Read more
AI spots stool parasites
Artificial intelligence can spot parasitic worm eggs in human faecal

samples, including those from species that are missed when lab
technologists study the same samples. Researchers trained and tested their
AI system on about 1300 stool samples collected from school students in
Kenya, focusing on identifying eggs from three types of parasitic worms,
including a roundworm, human whipworm and hookworms. The team
assessed the AI’s performance against that of a trained lab technologist who
inspected the samples using a microscope. The AI method accurately
detected 76 to 96 per cent of infections spotted by the technologist,
depending on the parasitic species. Read more
Advances in prosthetics
Prosthetic hands are usually designed to be operated by the same muscles

that would be used if the person had a hand, but a small study suggests that
using unrelated muscles instead could ultimately lead to better control.
“The field needs to change,” says Hunter Schone at the University of
Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. “People can learn to do new things remarkably
well and we can leverage that learning.” Read more
Why do sad songs bring pleasure?
From Beethoven's Requiem to All Too Well by Taylor Swift, we tend to enjoy
listening to sad music – but scientists aren't sure why. Although this isn’t a
health story, we were intrigued to learn that beloved sad songs become less
enjoyable when we attempt to take the emotion out of them. Perhaps we
confuse the sensation of feeling moved with being sad or we could enjoy
empathising with what the musician seems to be going through. Relating to
the lyrics of sad songs may also make us feel less alone or prevent us from
bottling our emotions up. Read more
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Long read: The stealth liver disease

Many people are unaware they have a form of liver disease
Ana Yael
One in three adults may have a potentially life-threatening condition they

don't even know about: non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The condition is on
the rise throughout the world – and puts some people at risk of serious
problems, including liver failure and heart disease. The good news is that
it’s preventable with lifestyle interventions and new drug treatments. The
bad news is that most people are unaware they even have it. Researchers
are now calling for global action to turn the tide on fatty liver disease to
prevent a major public health epidemic. Read more
Thank you reading! If you know someone who might enjoy this newsletter,
please forward it to them.
Alexandra Thompson
Assistant news editor, New Scientist
Email me at [email protected]
Follow me @clarewilsonmed
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🚑 The health news making headlines

Received this from a friend?

An innovative cancer treatment

New cancer treatment hope

Understanding long covid

Vaccinating against UTIs

Gum disease risks

The source of surgical infections

Post-operative wound infections are often associated with bacteria and

AI spots stool parasites

Artificial intelligence can spot parasitic worm eggs in human faecal

Prosthetic hands are usually designed to be operated by the same muscles

Why do sad songs bring pleasure?

New Scientist subscriptions

Explore what it means to be human

Long read: The stealth liver disease

One in three adults may have a potentially life-threatening condition they

Update preferences | Help | Contact us

This email has been sent to [email protected].

Copyright © New Scientist Ltd

Registered Office: Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London, W8 5TT

Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions

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