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Some mates and I mentioned V.S. Ramachandran’s well-known “mirror field” remedy over drinks final evening, which has lengthy been one in every of my favourite experiments. It alleviates phantom limb ache, utilizing solely a mirror. Then, after I obtained residence from the bar, I noticed a research exhibiting that mice can acknowledge a man-made limb as its personal, too.
Embodiment is so…weird.
Republicans dangle pay elevate to physicians — in the event that they keep quiet on Medicaid cuts
Lawmakers have begun lobbying the lobbyists: asking well being care pursuits to maintain quiet — or converse up — about potential cuts to Medicaid, which is able to put 10.9 million individuals vulnerable to shedding medical health insurance.
Republicans have urged physician teams to carry again on criticisms of the cuts, stating the inclusion of an attractive carrot for docs teams in President Trump’s tax invoice: Pay will increase for physicians from Medicare. Growing the quantity that Medicare pays docs — particularly over the long-term, tied to inflation — has been a high precedence for physicians teams in Washington for years. Conversely, Democrats are asking lobbyists to place Republicans on blast for the way these cuts would have an effect on suppliers and sufferers, however the get together lacks leverage as Republicans can go the measure with out Democratic lawmakers. STAT’s Daniel Payne has the news.
As Congress bats round concepts for slashing Medicaid spending, greater than half of People are fretting that the reductions would impair their household’s capacity to acquire and afford well being care, in keeping with a new ballot from KFF Well being Monitoring Ballot. The worry extends to Republican voters, too, together with 76% of MAGA supporters and different Republican Medicaid enrollees.
NIH, FDA diverge on AI technique
It appears to be like just like the NIH is considering AI in a different way than the FDA, who earlier this week launched a “rushed” AI instrument throughout the company. On the Coalition for Well being AI summit at Stanford College yesterday, NIH principal deputy director Matthew Memoli introduced a request for public enter on the company’s AI technique. The NIH, he mentioned, sees AI as being an integral a part of scientific analysis going ahead — particularly as datasets for analysis swell in dimension. The request seeks strategies on how the NIH can use AI to make its features extra helpful and the way it can foster belief and transparency in utilizing and evaluating AI instruments for functions starting from scientific AI instruments to see evaluation.
The company plans to call a brand new chief AI officer as effectively — STAT seen yesterday that the NIH’s inaugural chief AI officer, Gil Alterovitz, has already stepped down and returned to the Veterans Well being Company, the place he’s additionally chief AI officer, in keeping with his LinkedIn. It’s a bit shocking that the NIH made such an announcement at an occasion for the well being AI nonprofit, as 4 Home Republicans final yr despatched letters to federal officers criticizing the federal government’s relationship to CHAI, leading to Biden officers stepping down from the CHAI board. – Brittany Trang
(In case you like any such content material about AI, you must subscribe to Brittany’s publication.)
Transfer over, Francis Galton
People’ self-reported race is a poor proxy for his or her genetic ancestry, in keeping with a big authorities research revealed Thursday that might have main implications for the way well being disparities are researched.
Writing within the American Journal of Human Genetics, researchers analyzed the genomes of greater than 200,000 individuals within the All of Us cohort, which was established by the Nationwide Institutes of Well being to create a dataset that precisely represented the make-up of the USA. The research arrives amid a heated debate over the position racial classes play in analysis because the Trump administration has focused grants it deems associated to “range, fairness, and inclusion” as being “unscientific.”
“The clear message right here is that these are two distinct constructs, they imply various things, they usually shouldn’t be used interchangeably,” mentioned Luisa Borrell, a social epidemiologist on the CUNY College of Public Well being. STAT’s Anil Oza dives deep into the research and the fraught historical past between geneticists and the thought of race.
GLP-1 medication linked to elevated danger of eye illness
Folks with diabetes taking GLP-1 medication had a low however elevated danger of an age-related eye illness that may generally result in blindness, a new observational research concludes.
The analysis, revealed Thursday in JAMA Ophthalmology, discovered that after one yr, greater than twice as many individuals on GLP-1 medication developed neovascular age-related macular degeneration in comparison with related individuals who weren’t taking the medication. The chance was 0.2% in individuals taking GLP-1s and 0.1% in those that didn’t.
Well-known for his or her success in serving to individuals drop some pounds, GLP-1 medication have been initially meant to manage their blood sugar. However as their use has exploded, varied eye issues have been reported, together with irregular blood vessel progress. STAT’s Elizabeth Cooney has extra about these highly effective drugs and their doable unwanted side effects.
Sadly, Purple Bull doesn’t provide you with wings
To the dismay of line cooks and bodybuilders in all places, a new report discovered that taurine — an amino acid ample in crops, animals and vitality drinks — was discovered to be an unreliable biomarker for ageing.
Taurine has lengthy been a darling of longevity seekers, however outcomes revealed Thursday have forged doubt on a 2023 research that made the amino acid a staple ingredient for biohackers looking for anti-aging components (a la tech mogul Bryan Johnson). The brand new research information confirmed that taurine rises with age, pulling information from 32 monkeys, 39 mice, one cohort of 742 people, one cohort of 159 people, and one other cohort of 72 people.
The information are a reminder of simply how messy and sophisticated longevity research could be, and the way elusive remedies, and even simply dependable markers, for ageing stay. STAT’s Jason Mast has the research’s full readout.
At-home sexual assault kits include authorized, well being dangers
The Meals and Drug Administration lately authorized the primary at-home cervical most cancers screening take a look at in Might, marking a big shift towards accessible, patient-driven well being care. However the company’s determination could revive the talk over at-home sexual assault kits, at a time when states and corporations promoting these kits are battling over their legality, writes Rachell Ekroos, a forensic nursing skilled.
The idea of at-home sexual assault proof assortment kits emerged within the late 2010s on the top of the “Me Too” motion, when firms started providing them as a strategy to empower survivors to gather forensic proof privately and on their very own phrases. However a authorized struggle over their accuracy quickly emerged, and advocacy teams frightened concerning the lack of oversight, high quality management, and linkage to assist choices for the survivor. To know why Ekroos is frightened that the newly authorized at-home cervical screening checks will revive the motion for at-home sexual assault kits, learn on.
What we’re studying
- Breakthrough in seek for HIV treatment leaves researchers ‘overwhelmed’, The Guardian
- The 4chan-coded ideology behind Elon Musk’s warfare on normies, Mom Jones
- Tim Walz calls out RFK Jr on kids’s well being: ‘Simply so blatantly false’, The Unbiased
- Kennedy says ‘charlatans’ aren’t any cause to dam unproven stem cell remedies, New York Instances
- ADHD feels prefer it’s in all places? Researchers see no upswell, Bloomberg
