Wegovy Approved for New Indication: Reducing Risk of Cardiovascular Diseases
According to recent news, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new indication for the use of a medication named Wegovy (semaglutide) injection developed by Novo Nordisk. This decision allows Wegovy to be used to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death, heart attacks, and strokes in obese or overweight patients with cardiovascular diseases. The decision is based on a 5-year, large-scale clinical trial showing that compared to a placebo, Wegovy significantly reduces the risk of non-fatal heart attack by 28%, non-fatal stroke by 7%, and death from heart-related causes by 15%.
Consumption of Beverages with Sugar or Artificial Sweeteners Linked to Increased Risk of Atrial Fibrillation
Prior studies have connected the intake of sugary drinks to various cardiometabolic diseases, but their relation to atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat condition, had not been clear. Atrial fibrillation significantly raises the risk of stroke. A new study published in the journal Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology suggests that both sugary and artificially sweetened beverages are associated with an increased risk of atrial fibrillation. The study assessed data from the UK Biobank involving over 200,000 adults who had no record of atrial fibrillation between 2006 and 2010. During nearly a decade of follow-up, 9,362 adults were diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. The analysis revealed that those who consumed over 2 liters per week of artificially sweetened beverages had a 20% increased risk of atrial fibrillation; the risk increased by 10% for those consuming the same amount of sugary drinks. In contrast, drinking 1 liter or less of pure fruit juice per week potentially reduced the risk of atrial fibrillation by 8%. Furthermore, smokers who consumed over two liters of sugary drinks per week saw their risk of atrial fibrillation soar to 31%. This finding further emphasizes the importance of reducing consumption of sweetened beverages for better heart health.
The Coronavirus Can Linger in the Human Body for Over a Year
Research indicates that many COVID-19 patients may experience long-term COVID-19 symptoms for months or even years after infection, such as memory loss (brain fog), gastrointestinal, and vascular issues. At a significant scientific conference, the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), scientists from the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine shared their latest findings. They discovered that fragments of the coronavirus antigen could remain in an infected person’s blood for up to 14 months and possibly linger in the body’s tissue samples for more than two years.
A group of scientists used an extremely sensitive detection technique aimed at the virus’s spike protein. They analyzed blood samples from 171 COVID-19 patients and found that the virus could still be detected in the blood of some individuals 14 months post-infection. The study found that patients with more severe symptoms had a higher frequency of detecting coronavirus antigen in their blood. The research went on to analyze tissue donated by patients with long-term COVID-19 symptoms as well as those without such symptoms and found traces of viral RNA even two years post-infection. Furthermore, viral RNA was detected in the connective tissues where immune cells reside, highlighting that the viral fragments were inciting an immune response. Moreover, researchers observed signs of possible viral activity in some tissue samples. They noted that further research is needed to confirm whether the persistent presence of these coronavirus fragments is related to the emergence of long-term COVID-19 symptoms and whether it is associated with an increased risk of heart disease and stroke.
In the field of astronomy, detecting ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves has become a hot topic, as they can provide information about the early state of the universe. Previously, scientists have monitored gravitational waves with frequencies as low as a few nanoHertz. Now, a team of physicists from the University of Florida has developed a new detection method that can pick up ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves that oscillate only once per millennium. Their findings have been published in the journal Physical Review Letters. The team, by analyzing the highly regular radio pulses emitted from pulsars and neutron stars, has devised a new way to search for signs of incremental delays in the arrival time of these radio pulses, thereby achieving the detection of ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves. These waves have frequencies as low as 10 picoHertz, which is just one percent of the frequency of the nanoHertz gravitational waves previously detected. This cutting-edge discovery provides a new perspective for understanding the behavior of supermassive black holes and opens up ways to differentiate whether these ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves are produced by the merging of two supermassive black holes or by extreme events in the early universe. To further deepen our understanding of cosmic history, the research team plans to use the University of Florida’s HiPerGator supercomputer to simulate and analyze a broader dataset of pulsar data.
In the field of neuroscience, researchers are attempting to unravel how the brain coordinates attention amidst distractions in its environment, focusing on specific tasks. The latest research in this field has been published in the journal Nature. In the study, participants were asked to identify the color of fast-moving dots within a group of moving dots colored green and purple. To increase difficulty, researchers introduced distractions by changing the proportions of differently colored dots. During the process, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor the participants’ brain activity in real-time. The results show that the brain’s parietal cortex is responsible for simultaneously regulating focused attention and filtering distractions, while the anterior cingulate cortex adjusts the intensity of these two functions in the parietal cortex based on the difficulty of the task and the source of distractions.
For example, when the motion trajectory of the dots is the source of distraction, the anterior cingulate cortex will direct the parietal cortex to reduce the sensitivity of the related brain areas to motion, focusing more on color. This study provides new insights into understanding the coordination of attention and treatments for attention deficits.
