A research group led by investigators at Dartmouth and Massachusetts General Hospital, and including seven other institutions across the U.S., have received a five-year, $13 million funding award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Their project will test the effectiveness of video as a communication tool during patient visits for people living with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and their caregivers.

 

New research from Weill Cornell Medicine has uncovered a surprising culprit underlying cardiovascular diseases in obesity and diabetes—not the presence of certain fats, but their suppression. The study, published Feb. 25 in Nature Communications, challenges the conventional belief that a type of fat called ceramides accumulates in blood vessels causing inflammation and health risks. Instead, their findings reveal that when ceramides decrease in endothelial cells lining blood vessels, it can be damaging and cause chronic illnesses. Ironically, the findings could ultimately lead to therapies that maintain high levels of these protective lipids in patients with obesity.

A recent publication in the International Journal of Cardiology, Pulmonary artery denervation in pulmonary hypertension: A comprehensive meta-analysis, has shed light on the potential of pulmonary artery denervation (PADN) as an innovative intervention for pulmonary hypertension (PH), a condition that places patients at risk for right heart failure and death.

Experimental drug NU-9 — a small molecule compound approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for clinical trials for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) — improves neuron health in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new Northwestern University study.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is lauding a Community Review Board after it voted unanimously on Monday to reject a merger between Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), which houses one of seven primate research centers left in the United States, and Legacy Health.