Food additive mixtures are an everyday feature of our diets, especially through ultra-processed foods. Until recently, safety evaluations of these additives have been conducted substance by substance due to a lack of data on the effect of them ingested together. In a new study, researchers from Inserm, INRAE, Sorbonne Paris Nord University, Paris Cité University and Cnam, as part of the Nutritional Epidemiology Research Team (CRESS-EREN), examined the possible links between exposure to mixtures of commonly consumed food additives and the onset of type 2 diabetes. They analysed the health data of over 100 000 adults participating in the French NutriNet-Santé cohort. Two out of the five mixtures tested were found to be associated with a higher incidence of type 2 diabetes, particularly one mixture containing different emulsifiers such as carrageenans, modified starches and other additives (found in stocks, milky desserts, fats and sauces, etc.), and another containing sweeteners, colourings and acidifiers (characteristic of artificially-sweetened drinks and sodas).

The American College of Cardiology’s (ACC’s) five-year Strategic Plan includes a major initiative focused on transforming care delivery in new areas and recognizing the importance of delivering care within the communities where patients reside.¹ As part of this initiative, the ACC and MedAxiom, an ACC Company focused on cardiovascular organizational improvement solutions, are partnering on a series of care transformation resources designed to provide a framework for health systems to effectively integrate novel paradigms of care into their delivery models. 

 

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.