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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 24, 2025 at 9:26am

Popular keto diet linked to glucose intolerance and fatty liver in mice

Avocado toast with fried cheese as the bread and zucchini noodles in butter-bacon sauce are among the many recipe ideas fueling social media's beloved high-fat, low-carbohydrate ketogenic, or keto diet. However, scientists have found that while keto can lead to limited weight gain and even weight loss, it does so at the cost of metabolic issues like glucose intolerance.

scientists divided mice into four dietary groups: ketogenic diet (KD, 90% fat), a high-fat diet (HFD, 60% fat), low-fat (LFD), and low-fat moderate protein (LFMP), with varying levels of carbohydrates and proteins.

The mice were allowed to eat freely for up to 36 weeks in males and 44 weeks in females. Test results showed that while the KD supported weight control, it also raised blood cholesterol levels and led to fatty liver in males.

The diet is named "ketogenic" because it sends the body into ketosis—a metabolic state where the body burns fat as the primary fuel instead of the usual carbohydrates, and, as a result, produces molecules called ketone bodies. The diet isn't a new food trend, it has been around for nearly 100 years and is well-established for treating drug-resistant epilepsy in children, by reducing seizures in many cases. The exact way a KD helps control seizures is still unclear, but several ideas have been proposed. Some studies have suggested that KD can stabilize blood glucose (BG), which is beneficial to brain metabolism and neurotransmitter activity, while others highlight the anticonvulsant effects of ketone bodies themselves.

For this study, the researchers included both male and female mice and carried out regular check-ins to assess the long-term effects of KD on health parameters, including body composition, organ health, and blood profile.

They found that KD protected against excessive weight gain compared to the conventional high-fat diet, but gained more weight than low-fat diets. Long-term KD caused severe hyperlipidemia, meaning there were very high levels of fat in the blood.

KD-fed mice developed severe glucose intolerance because the diet caused a severe impairment in insulin secretion from the pancreas. While female mice on KD seemed fine, the male ones showed signs of liver dysfunction and fatty liver.

The findings made it quite evident that long-term KD can trigger several metabolic disturbances, raising caution against its widespread use as a health-promoting diet.

 Molly R. Gallop et al, A long-term ketogenic diet causes hyperlipidemia, liver dysfunction, and glucose intolerance from impaired insulin secretion in mice, Science Advances (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adx2752

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 24, 2025 at 9:21am

The hunted, not the hunters: AI reveals early humans were prey for leopards

A new study may be about to rewrite a part of our early human history. It has long been thought that Homo habilis, often considered the first true human species, was the one to turn the tables on the predator–prey relationship. However, a recent analysis of previous archaeological finds suggests that they were possibly more hunted than hunters and not the dominant species we once believed them to be.

To investigate this, researchers used artificial intelligence and computer vision to analyze tiny tooth marks on two H. habilis fossils. These ancient remains come from Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania and date back almost 2 million years.  

The researchers trained the AI models on a library of 1,496 images of tooth marks made by modern carnivores, including leopards, lions, crocodiles, wolves and hyenas. Once it was trained, they presented the AI with photos of the fossil tooth marks.

As the scientists detail in their paper, published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, the AI compared these marks to what it had learned and concluded, with more than 90% probability, that leopards made the tooth marks. A key reason for this was that the triangular shape of the tooth pits on the bones matched those in the leopard reference samples.

"The implications of this are major, since it shows that H. habilis was still more of a prey than a predator," wrote the researchers in their paper. "It also shows that the trophic position of some of the earliest representatives of the genus Homo was not different from those of other australopithecines."

Although the research was limited to just two individuals, the scientists contend that if H. habilis had become a powerful species that could compete with carnivores, their bones would more likely have been scavenged by bone-crushing animals, such as hyenas, after they died from other causes.

The fact that the bites were from a flesh-eating predator means the leopards were actively hunting them. This suggests that the transition to a dominant position in the food chain came later in human evolution, according to the research team.

Marina Vegara‐Riquelme et al, Early humans and the balance of power: Homo habilis as prey, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (2025). DOI: 10.1111/nyas.15321

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 24, 2025 at 7:21am

UK Biobank analysis finds higher dementia incidence with frailty

Researchers report evidence that physical frailty is associated with dementia and that genetic background, brain structure, and immunometabolic function may mediate this link.

Dementia causes loss of cognitive abilities and daily functioning, and reached an estimated 57 million cases worldwide in 2021 with projections indicating a rise to 153 million by 2050. Treatments remain limited in effectiveness, creating a need for early identification of risk factors.

Previous studies have noted associations between frailty and elevated risk of incident dementia. Frailty is characterized by decreased physical function and a reduced ability to overcome stressors. Genetic susceptibility might influence the frailty-dementia relationship, and immunometabolic processes and brain structure are implicated, though mechanisms remain unclear.

In the study, "Association of Frailty With Dementia and the Mediating Role of Brain Structure and Immunometabolic Signatures," published in Neurology, researchers conducted a prospective cohort investigation to elucidate the link between physical frailty and dementia, assess causality, and explore biologic mechanisms.

UK Biobank contributed data from 489,573 participants without dementia at enrollment between 2006 and 2010, with a median follow-up of 13.58 years during which 8,900 dementia cases were documented. Brain MRI was available for a subset.

Physical frailty was defined by five criteria: weight loss, exhaustion, physical inactivity, slow walking speed, and low grip strength. Components were summed to a 0–5 score and categorized as nonfrail, prefrail, or frail. Biomarker panels included peripheral blood cell counts, biochemical measures, and metabolomic markers with correction for multiple testing.

Risk climbed with frailty status, with prefrailty associated with higher hazard versus nonfrailty (HR 1.50, 95% CI 1.44–1.57) and frailty associated with a larger increase (HR 2.82, 95% CI 2.61–3.04). Joint analyses placed the greatest hazards where frailty met genetic susceptibility, including HR 3.87 (95% CI 3.30–4.55) for high polygenic risk with frailty and HR 8.45 (95% CI 7.51–9.51) for APOE-e4 gene carriers with frailty.

Neuroimaging and biomarker findings linked frailty severity with image-derived brain measures and immunometabolic markers. Mendelian randomization supported a potential causal effect of physical frailty on dementia (OR 1.79, 95% CI 1.03–3.12), with reverse analysis reporting a null association (OR 1.00, 95% CI 0.98–1.01).

Authors conclude that the findings support a causal association between physical frailty and dementia, suggesting frailty may serve as a correlative early marker of vulnerability.

Xiangying Suo et al, Association of Frailty With Dementia and the Mediating Role of Brain Structure and Immunometabolic Signatures, Neurology (2025). DOI: 10.1212/wnl.0000000000214199

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 23, 2025 at 10:20am

And in trials where the target never crossed the middle of the field of view, these handoff dynamics were not apparent in the measurements.

The study shows that the brain is not simply tracking objects in one hemisphere and then just picking them up anew when they enter the field of view of the other hemisphere.

"These results suggest there are active mechanisms that transfer information between cerebral hemispheres," the authors wrote. "The brain seems to anticipate the transfer and acknowledge its completion."

But they also note based on other studies that the system of interhemispheric coordination can sometimes appear to break down in certain neurological conditions including schizophrenia, autism, depression, dyslexia and multiple sclerosis. The new study may lend insight into the specific dynamics needed for it to succeed.

Matthew B. Broschard et al, Evidence for an active handoff between hemispheres during target tracking, The Journal of Neuroscience (2025). DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.0841-25.2025

Part 3

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 23, 2025 at 10:20am

To conduct the study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, the researchers measured both the electrical spiking of individual neurons and the various frequencies of brain waves that emerge from the coordinated activity of many neurons. They studied the dorsal and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex in both hemispheres, brain areas associated with executive brain functions.

The power fluctuations of the wave frequencies in each hemisphere told the researchers a clear story about how the subject's brains transferred information from the "sending" to the "receiving" hemisphere whenever a target object crossed the middle of their field of view. In the experiments, the target was accompanied by a distractor object on the opposite side of the screen to confirm that the subjects were consciously paying attention to the target object's motion and not just indiscriminately glancing at whatever happened to pop up on to the screen.

The highest frequency "gamma" waves, which encode sensory information, peaked in both hemispheres when the subjects first looked at the screen and again when the two objects appeared. When a color change signaled which object was the target to track, the gamma increase was only evident in the "sending" hemisphere (on the opposite side as the target object), as expected.
Meanwhile, the power of somewhat lower frequency "beta" waves, which regulate when gamma waves are active, varied inversely with the gamma waves. These sensory encoding dynamics were stronger in the ventrolateral locations compared to the dorsolateral ones.

Meanwhile, two distinct bands of lower frequency waves showed greater power in the dorsolateral locations at key moments related to achieving the handoff. About a quarter of a second before a target object crossed the middle of the field of view, "alpha" waves ramped up in both hemispheres and then peaked just after the object crossed. Meanwhile, "theta" band waves peaked after the crossing was complete, only in the "receiving" hemisphere (opposite from the target's new position).

Accompanying the pattern of wave peaks, neuron spiking data showed how the brain's representation of the target's location traveled. Using decoder software, which interprets what information the spikes represent, the researchers could see the target representation emerge in the sending hemisphere's ventrolateral location when it was first cued by the color change. Then they could see that as the target neared the middle of the field of view, the receiving hemisphere joined the sending hemisphere in representing the object, so that they both encoded the information during the transfer.

Taken together, the results showed that after the sending hemisphere initially encoded the target with a ventrolateral interplay of beta and gamma waves, a dorsolateral ramp up of alpha waves caused the receiving hemisphere to anticipate the handoff by mirroring the sending hemisphere's encoding of the target information. Alpha peaked just after the target crossed the middle of the field of view, and when the handoff was complete, theta peaked in the receiving hemisphere as if to say, "I got it."
Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 23, 2025 at 10:17am

The brain splits up vision without you even noticing

The brain divides vision between its two hemispheres—what's on your left is processed by your right hemisphere and vice versa—but your experience with every bike or bird that you see zipping by is seamless. A new study by neuroscientists  reveals how the brain handles the transition.

It's surprising to some people to hear that there's some independence between the hemispheres, because that doesn't really correspond to how we perceive reality. In our consciousness, everything seems to be unified.

There are advantages to separately processing vision on either side of the brain, including the ability to keep track of more things at once, researchers have found, but neuroscientists have been eager to fully understand how perception ultimately appears so unified in the end.

Researchers measured neural activity in the brains of animals as they tracked objects crossing their field of view. The results reveal that different frequencies of brain waves encoded and then transferred information from one hemisphere to the other in advance of the crossing and then held on to the object representation in both hemispheres until after the crossing was complete.

The process is analogous to how relay racers hand off a baton, how a child swings from one monkey bar to the next, and how cell phone towers hand off a call from one to the next as a train passenger travels through their area. In all cases, both towers or hands actively hold what's being transferred until the handoff is confirmed.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 23, 2025 at 10:12am

Our actions are dictated by 'autopilot' not choice, finds study

Habit, not conscious choice, drives most of our actions, according to new research . 

The research, published in Psychology & Health, found that two-thirds of our daily behaviors are initiated "on autopilot", out of habit.

Habits are actions that we are automatically prompted to do when we encounter everyday settings, due to associations that we have learned between those settings and our usual responses to them.

The research also found that 46% of behaviors were both triggered by habit and aligned with conscious intentions, suggesting that people form habits that support their personal goals, and often disrupt habits that conflict with them.

The study found that 65% of daily behaviors were habitually initiated, meaning people were prompted to do them out of routine rather than making a conscious decision.

For people who want to break their bad habits, simply telling them to 'try harder' isn't enough. To create lasting change, we must incorporate strategies to help people recognize and disrupt their unwanted habits, and ideally form positive new ones in their place.

The researchers recommend that initiatives designed to help people adopt new behaviors, like exercising or eating healthier, should focus on building new, positive habits.

Amanda L. Rebar et al, How habitual is everyday life? An ecological momentary assessment study, Psychology & Health (2025). DOI: 10.1080/08870446.2025.2561149

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 23, 2025 at 9:38am

Over 60,000 died in Europe alone from heat during 2024 summer: Study

More than 60,000 people died from heat in Europe during last year's record-breaking summer, a benchmark study said this week, in the latest warning of the massive toll climate change is having on the continent.

With Europe heating up twice as fast as the global average, the Spain-based researchers suggested an emergency alert system could help warn vulnerable people—particularly the elderly—ahead of dangerous heat waves.

Europe experienced an exceptionally deadly summer in 2024 with more than 60,000 heat-related deaths, bringing the total burden over the past three summers to more than 181,000,  said the study in the journal Nature Medicine.

Tomáš Janoš, Heat-related mortality in Europe during 2024 and health emergency forecasting to reduce preventable deaths, Nature Medicine (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-025-03954-7. www.nature.com/articles/s41591-025-03954-7

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 23, 2025 at 9:26am

Nanoparticles supercharge vinegar's old-fashioned wound healing power

Wounds that do not heal are often caused by bacterial infections and are particularly dangerous for the elderly and people with diabetes, cancer and other conditions. Acetic acid (more commonly known as vinegar) has been used for centuries as a disinfectant, but it is only effective against a small number of bacteria, and it does not kill the most dangerous types.

New research has resulted in the ability to boost the natural bacterial killing qualities of vinegar by adding antimicrobial nanoparticles made from carbon and cobalt. The findings have been published in the journal ACS Nano.

The acidic environment from the vinegar made bacterial cells swell and take up the nanoparticle treatment.

Once exposed, the nanoparticles appear to attack dangerous bacteria from both inside the bacterial cell and also on its surface, causing them to burst. Importantly, this approach is nontoxic to human cells and was shown to remove bacterial infections from mice wounds without affecting healing.

Adam Truskewycz et al, Cobalt-Doped Carbon Quantum Dots Work Synergistically with Weak Acetic Acid to Eliminate Antimicrobial-Resistant Bacterial Infections, ACS Nano (2025). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5c03108

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 23, 2025 at 7:16am

Sara L. Loo et al, Scenario Projections of COVID-19 Burden in the US, 2024-2025, JAMA Network Open (2025). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.32469

Part 2

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