Comment

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 6, 2025 at 3:06pm

The world nearly beat polio. But fake records, an imperfect vaccine and missteps aided its comeback

For the past decade, health care workers have traveled door to door in southeastern Pakistan, pleading with parents to allow children to be vaccinated against polio as part of a global campaign to wipe out the paralytic disease. She hears their demands and fears. Some are practical—families need basics like food and water more than vaccines. Others are simply unfounded—the oral doses are meant to sterilize their kids.

Amid rampant misinformation and immense pressure for the campaign to succeed, some managers have instructed workers to falsely mark children as immunized. And the vaccines, which must be kept cold, aren't always stored correctly.

In many places, their work is not done with honesty. The result: Polio raised its ugly head again.

The World Health Organization and partners embarked on their polio campaign in 1988 with the bold goal of eradication—a feat seen only once for human diseases, with smallpox in 1980. They came close several times, including in 2021, when just five cases of the natural virus were reported in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But since then, cases rebounded, hitting 99 last year, and officials have missed at least six self-imposed eradication deadlines.

Afghanistan and Pakistan remain the only countries where transmission of polio—which is highly infectious, affects mainly children under 5, and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours—has never been interrupted. The worldwide campaign has focused most of its attention and funding there for the past decade.

But in its quest to eliminate the disease, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative has been derailed by mismanagement and what insiders describe as blind allegiance to an outdated strategy and a problematic oral vaccine, according to workers, polio experts and internal materials.

Officials have falsified vaccination records, selected unqualified people to dole out drops, failed to send out teams during mass campaigns, and dismissed concerns about the oral vaccine sparking outbreaks, according to documents shared with some news agencies.

The documents flagged multiple cases of falsified vaccination records, health workers being replaced by untrained relatives and workers improperly administering vaccines.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 6, 2025 at 2:59pm

Study finds drinking coffee at night raises impulsivity, especially in females

 A team of  biologists has discovered that nighttime caffeine consumption can increase impulsive behavior, potentially leading to reckless actions.

The study, published in iScience, examined how nighttime caffeine intake affects inhibition and impulsivity in fruit flies.

Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly species used in the study, is a powerful model to study complex behaviors due to its genetic and neural parallels with humans. Caffeine is the most widely consumed psychoactive substance in the world.

Interestingly, caffeine consumed by the flies during the daytime did not lead to the same reckless flying, the team said.

The team warns that the findings could have negative implications for shift workers, health care and military personnel who consume coffee at night, particularly females.

Erick Benjamin Saldes et al, Nighttime caffeine intake increases motor impulsivity, iScience (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.113197

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 6, 2025 at 2:54pm

Exposure to nanoplastics could induce spread of Alzheimer's disease from the brain to other organs

A new preclinical study has found exposure to nanoplastics may contribute to the rapid progression of Alzheimer's disease and subsequent spread from the brain to other key organs such as the liver, heart and gut.

The research, "Cerebral to Systemic Representations of Alzheimer's Pathogenesis Stimulated by Polystyrene Nanoplastics," is published in the journal Environment & Health

The study investigated how environmental-level polystyrene nanoplastic exposure influences the progression of Alzheimer's disease from the brain to other parts of the body. Studies in mice revealed that nanoplastic-induced neurological damage is not confined within the brain, but expands systemically through the gut–liver–brain axis.

In mice exposed to polystyrene nanoplastics, Alzheimer's-like symptoms were shown to stimulate 'microglia' immune cell activation in the brain, leading to neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration. This in turn led to peripheral health implications beyond the brain, including fatty liver disease, abnormal build-up of fat and gut microbiota imbalance.

Humans are involuntarily exposed to plastics through inhalation, dermal contact and the consumption of contaminated food and water, and plastic particles have been detected in human lungs, bloodstream and, very recently, in the human brain.

This, however, is the first study to show how rapidly nanoplastics can evolve from the brain to other parts of the body.

Yue Wang et al, Cerebral to Systemic Representations of Alzheimer's Pathogenesis Stimulated by Polystyrene Nanoplastics, Environment & Health (2025). DOI: 10.1021/envhealth.5c00160

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 6, 2025 at 2:50pm

Researchers debunk long-standing concern about flu treatment in children

For decades, medical professionals debated whether a common antiviral medication used to treat flu in children caused neuropsychiatric events or if the infection itself was the culprit.

Now researchers at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt have debunked a long-standing theory about oseltamivir, known as Tamiflu.

According to the study, published in JAMA Neurology, oseltamivir treatment during flu episodes was associated with a reduced risk of serious neuropsychiatric events, such as seizures, altered mental status and hallucination.

These findings demonstrated what many pediatricians have long suspected, that the flu, not the flu treatment, is associated with neuropsychiatric events.

"In fact, oseltamivir treatment seems to prevent neuropsychiatric events rather than cause them."

Key points:

• Influenza itself was associated with an increase in neuropsychiatric events compared to children with no influenza, regardless of oseltamivir use.
• Among children with influenza, those treated with oseltamivir had about 50% reduction in neuropsychiatric events.
• Among children without influenza, those who were treated with oseltamivir prophylactically had the same rate of events as the baseline group with no influenza.

Taken together, these three findings do not support the theory that oseltamivir increases the risk of neuropsychiatric events. It's the influenza, conclude the researchers.

James W. Antoon et al, Influenza With and Without Oseltamivir Treatment and Neuropsychiatric Events Among Children and Adolescents, JAMA Neurology (2025). DOI: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2025.1995

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 6, 2025 at 2:34pm

New study shows that E. coli can evolve antibiotic resistance during treatment

Scientists have documented a notable case of antibiotic resistance evolving within a critically ill patient during treatment for an E. coli bloodstream infection, providing genomic evidence of how drug resistance can emerge in real time.

This new study published in the Journal of Medical Microbiology, details the rapid evolution of resistance in an E. coli strain exposed to piperacillin/tazobactam (TZP), a first-line treatment for serious bacterial infections that pairs an antibiotic with a compound that inhibits beta-lactamase enzymes, a widespread antibiotic resistance gene.

While the initial infection appeared treatable, the bacteria quickly developed a mechanism to escape the drug's effects, not by acquiring new resistance genes, but by amplifying one it already carried, overcoming the effects of the resistance inhibitor.

This is a striking example of resistance evolving under antibiotic pressure.

The researchers identified a tenfold increase in copies of a key resistance gene within the bacterial isolate, leading to a 32-fold increase in the level of antibiotic required to kill the bacteria, ultimately causing the treatment to fail, and all within the course of a single patient's illness.

The research team, which included genomic scientists, microbiologists and clinicians used high-resolution whole-genome sequencing to confirm the genetic changes.

The amplified resistance gene in E. coli, named blaTEM-1, produces a beta-lactamase enzyme that breaks down the antibiotic piperacillin. Although the TZP drug combination is meant to inhibit these enzymes, the sheer volume produced following gene duplication overwhelmed its protective effect, allowing the infection to persist. Further lab experiments confirmed that exposure to TZP led E. coli to generate even more copies of the gene.

This form of "within-patient evolution" presents a major diagnostic challenge. Routine resistance tests may underestimate the risk of treatment failure if they don't detect bacteria capable of rapidly increasing enzyme production under antibiotic pressure.

The study also highlights that 40% of new antibiotic candidates in the pipeline are beta-lactamase inhibitor combinations like TZP, raising critical concerns for drug developers and frontline clinicians alike.

This study underscores why relying on static resistance profiles can be misleading.

The findings underscore the need for greater investment in diagnostics and surveillance tools that can detect dynamic, hard-to-spot resistance mechanisms before they undermine treatment.

Alice J. Fraser et al, A high-resolution genomic and phenotypic analysis of resistance evolution of an Escherichia coli strain from a critically unwell patient treated with piperacillin/tazobactam, Journal of Medical Microbiology (2025). DOI: 10.1099/jmm.0.002018

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 6, 2025 at 2:19pm

In this study, AUN exhibits transcendent antitumor effects through uniquely orchestrated bacterial mechanisms, including:

Selective destruction of tumor vasculature and cancer cells
Structural transformation of A-gyo (filamentation) triggered by tumor metabolites, enhancing its antitumor potency
Functional optimization via intratumoral population shift—although the initial bacterial mixture is A-gyo : UN-gyo ≈ 3:97, it dramatically shifts to 99:1 within the tumor microenvironment
Suppression of pathogenicity and minimization of side effects, including the avoidance of CRS
Notably, UN-gyo functions as a regulatory partner only when coexisting with A-gyo, helping to suppress the pathogenicity of both strains while simultaneously enhancing their tumor-specific cytotoxicity. This "cooperation of labor" mirrors the Japanese philosophical concept of AUN—perfect harmony between opposites. It is this delicate and dynamic interplay between the two bacterial species that unlocks the remarkable antitumor efficacy—a feat previously unattainable through conventional therapies.

Tumour-resident oncolytic bacteria trigger potent anticancer effects through selective intratumoural thrombosis and necrosis, Nature Biomedical Engineering (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41551-025-01459-9

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 6, 2025 at 2:18pm

Bacterial duo eliminates tumors without immune system help in new cancer therapy

A  research team has developed an immune-independent bacterial cancer therapy using a novel microbial consortium called AUN.

Cancer immunotherapy originated in 1868 when the German physician Busch reported a case of a cancer patient who was intentionally infected with bacteria and subsequently cured. In 1893, Dr. William Coley proposed the use of bacteria for cancer treatment, and immunotherapies have been evolving into modern treatments such as checkpoint inhibitors and CAR-T cells for over 150 years. While powerful, these approaches fundamentally depend on immune cells—making them ineffective for many cancer patients with compromised immune systems due to chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

The newly developed AUN therapy overturns this long-standing limitation. The research is published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

AUN is composed of two naturally occurring bacteria:

• Proteus mirabilis (A-gyo), a tumor-resident microbe
• Rhodopseudomonas palustris (UN-gyo), a photosynthetic bacterium

Working in perfect synergy, these AUN bacteria produce exceptional tumor eradication in both murine and human cancer models, even in immunocompromised environments—all without the help of immune cells. The therapy exhibits high biocompatibility and minimal side effects, including suppression of cytokine release syndrome (CRS).

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 6, 2025 at 2:14pm

Study finds Ozempic may weaken muscles even as muscle size remains stable

As use of the popular anti-diabetic and weight-loss drug Ozempic skyrockets, so have concerns about the medication's side effects. One such side effect is loss of "lean mass"—body weight that isn't fat—raising concerns that Ozempic could be reducing muscle mass and strength.

New research in mice suggests that muscle mass changes less than expected, but muscles may still get weaker, pointing out an urgent need for clinical studies to pin down the full effects of the popular medications.

Researchers found that Ozempic-induced weight loss did decrease lean mass by about 10%. Most of this lost weight wasn't from skeletal muscles but instead from other tissues like the liver, which shrank by nearly half. The researchers emphasize that more research is needed to determine whether similar changes to organ size occur in humans—and whether those changes come with any risks.

Interestingly, when the researchers tested the amount of force the mice's muscles could exert, they found that, for some muscles, strength decreased as the mice lost weight, even when the size of the muscle stayed roughly the same. For other muscles, strength was unchanged. It's unknown how weight loss drugs affect this balance in people, the researchers say.

A potential loss of strength when taking Ozempic may be of particular concern for adults over the age of 60, who are at higher baseline risk for muscle loss and reduced mobility. "The loss of physical function is a strong predictor of not just quality of life but longevity," they add.

However,  mice and humans gain and lose weight in different ways and unless tested in humans, we can't apply the same results to human beings. 

Unexpected effects of semaglutide on skeletal muscle mass and force-generating capacity in mice, Cell Metabolism (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2025.07.004. www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/f … 1550-4131(25)00331-6

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 6, 2025 at 2:04pm

Science in History's help

Napoleon's doomed retreat: DNA from Vilnius mass grave reveals signs of foodborne and lice-borne fever

Institut Pasteur and partner institutions report genetic evidence of Salmonella enterica lineage Para C and Borrelia recurrentis in Napoleonic soldiers from Vilnius, indicating paratyphoid fever and louse-borne relapsing fever were present during the 1812 retreat.

Napoleon assembled about 500,000–600,000 soldiers to invade Russia in 1812. After arriving in Moscow without decisively defeating the Russian army, the Napoleonic forces found themselves isolated in a ruined city and initiated a retreat to establish winter encampments along the border with Poland.

Retreat from Russia spanned October 19 to December 14, 1812 and resulted in massive losses attributed by historians to cold, hunger, and diseases. Physicians and officers documented typhus, diarrhea, dysentery, fevers, pneumonia, and jaundice.

Previous reports described body lice in Vilnius remains and PCR-based claims of Rickettsia prowazekii and Bartonella quintana using short fragments, alongside Anelloviridae in other soldiers from Kaliningrad.

In the study, "Paratyphoid Fever and Relapsing Fever in 1812 Napoleon's Devastated Army," published on the pre-print server bioRxiv, researchers recovered and sequenced ancient DNA from the teeth of soldiers who likely died from infectious diseases to identify pathogens that could have contributed to their deaths.

The sampling drew on 13 intact teeth from different individuals recovered from a mass grave in Vilnius, Lithuania associated with the December 1812 retreat, from a site with a minimum of 3,269 exhumed individuals. No battle trauma was observed at the site.

Initial analysis flagged fourteen possible pathogens. Salmonella enterica and Borrelia recurrentis showed the strongest signals. Four soldiers (87A, 92B, 95A and 97B) yielded between roughly 30 and 970 unique DNA fragments matching the Paratyphi C strain, with read-mismatch patterns indicating authentic ancient bacterial DNA.

Sample 93A produced about 4,060 unique fragments covering the chromosome and all seven plasmids of B. recurrentis, while 92B contributed around 320 unique reads and 18 confirmed hits after detailed filtering.

Phylogenetic placement positioned all Salmonella sequences firmly within the Paratyphi C lineage, a pathogen known to cause paratyphoid fever. No authenticated DNA matches Rickettsia prowazekii or Bartonella quintana. While no authenticated reads for R. prowazekii or B. quintana were found, the authors note this does not rule out their presence due to limitations of ancient DNA preservation.

Authors conclude that paratyphoid fever lineage Para C and louse-borne relapsing fever were present among Napoleonic soldiers during the 1812 retreat.

Historical testimony described widespread diarrhea and consumption of salted beets and brine along the route to Vilnius, consistent with a foodborne route for paratyphoid fever.

A scenario of fatigue, cold, and overlapping infections likely contributed to mortality.

Rémi Barbieri et al, Paratyphoid Fever and Relapsing Fever in 1812 Napoleon's Devastated Army, bioRxiv (2025). DOI: 10.1101/2025.07.12.664512

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 6, 2025 at 1:54pm

In their experiment, the researchers first squeezed their hydrocarbon samples to pressures greater than those within Earth's mantle using a diamond anvil cell. Then, they heated the samples to over 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit by hitting them repeatedly with X-ray pulses from the European XFEL.

The team recorded and analyzed how the X-rays scattered off the samples, which allowed them to resolve the structural transformations within. As expected, the recorded scattering patterns showed that the carbon atoms had formed a diamond structure. But the team also saw unexpected signals that were due to hydrogen atoms reacting with the gold foil to form gold hydride. Under the extreme conditions created in the study, the researchers found hydrogen to be in a dense, "superionic" state, where the hydrogen atoms flowed freely through the gold's rigid atomic lattice, increasing the conductivity of the gold hydride.

Mungo Frost et al, Synthesis of Gold Hydride at High Pressure and High Temperature, Angewandte Chemie International Edition (2025). DOI: 10.1002/anie.202505811

Part2

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