LiveWell Clinic

11/26/2025

Flu Season Forecast

U.S. flu rates currently are low, but public health experts are bracing for a brutal season following unexpectedly early upticks in severe cases in Japan and the U.K., as well as rising case numbers in other European countries. Additional warning signs include a record 2025 flu season in Australia, where about 11 percent more cases have been reported than in 2024 (the most in the last two decades).

Influenza A and B are the two virus subtypes that primarily infect humans, with two A strains reported last year—H1N1 and H3N2, followed by B viruses later on. In the U.S., more than half of a small number of recently collected and analyzed samples of influenza A H3N2 strains was found to belong to a so-called K subclade, the new variant causing flu surges in many countries.

Current flu vaccines protect against multiple influenza A and B strains, but not the K variant, as the vaccine was developed before the new form emerged. Nonetheless, experts encourage people to get vaccinated because any reduction in the risk of severe flu is better than none. If you are high risk yourself or have vulnerable loved ones, including young babies who cannot get vaccinated until they are 6 months old, get vaccinated to protect yourself and others .

10/28/2025

Good nutrition while in utero and in the first 3 years of life is highly consequential for cardio-metabolic health later in life.

A British study established that early life sugar rationing was tied to less diabetes and hypertension, two important risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Sugar rationing lasted until 1953 in the UK, starting in the WW II period.

Investigators reported that incident diabetes and hypertension jointly mediated 31.1% of the link between sugar rationing and cardiovascular disease, while birth weight contributed only 2.2%, growing evidence that very early life exposures have profound and lasting effects on adult disease.

"The maturation of metabolic and cardiovascular systems during the first 1,000 days shows exceptional plasticity, with their developmental trajectories being markedly responsive to nutritional inputs, endocrine signals, and broader environmental conditions," according to the research team. "Moreover, nutritional interventions in the first 1,000 days was shown to yield greater cost efficiency and long term health benefits than managing non-communicable diseases in adulthood."

Maybe added sugars should be banned in children under 3 years old, to set a better pathway for later life.

Historical rationing may have had cardioprotective effects

10/24/2025

Gut Virome

A vast collection of viruses deep in our digestive system has now been catalogued, revealing how the so-called gut virome constantly changes in response to our diet, environment and age. The researchers focused on bacteriophages—viruses that affect bacteria and make up more than 90 percent of the virome, reports journalist Kate Graham-Shaw. Bacteriophages, or phages, are a mixed bag. Some can kill harmful gut bacteria but others can carry a gene for antibiotic resistance or otherwise strengthen a pathogen.

Why it matters: Exposures to certain drugs and foods can trigger imbalances in the diversity of the gut virome, which in turn can lead to inflammatory bowel disease, age-related diseases or other disorders. Insights into these relationships could aid someday in the development of phage therapies to enlist viruses that can fight unwanted bacteria.

What the experts say: “A key challenge is distinguishing causality from correlation. Each individual’s virome is unique, so we cannot make sweeping statements about the health of an individual by looking at their virome alone,” says microbiologist Evelien Adriaenssens, who was not involved in the new study.

The human gut virome plays a crucial role in the gut and overall health; its diversity and regulatory functions influence bacterial populations, metab…

10/22/2025

Hidden fat can increase stroke and heart attack risks
A study published in Communications Medicine found that visceral and liver fat can increase the risk of stroke and heart attack, even in people with a healthy BMI. The study, which involved MRI data from more than 33,000 adults in Canada and the UK, found that increased visceral and liver fat were associated with thickening of artery walls and the formation of plaques. (Full Story: HealthDay News)

Generally, a waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) under 0.90 in men and under 0.85 in women is considered normal and healthy. Anything above that starts increasing the cardiovascular risk and metabolic complications. WHR is considered a better measure of obesity and of health risks than BMI.

Abdominal obesity seen in patients with normal BMI
Two studies in JAMA Network Open showed the cardiometabolic risks associated with abdominal obesity, even among individuals with a normal body mass index. A global study found that 21.7% of adults with normal BMI had abdominal obesity, which was linked to higher rates of hypertension, diabetes and lipid disorders. A separate study using data from the US-based All of Us cohort found that more than a quarter of participants had "anthropomorphic-only obesity," defined by elevated waist measurements without meeting traditional BMI obesity criteria, and that this also was associated with increased risks of diabetes and cardiovascular disease (Medscape article below).

Two studies demonstrate that a large proportion of the population has visceral adiposity even at BMIs below the obesity threshold, and their cardiometabolic risk is elevated.

10/17/2025

Though thousands of products claim to “support immunity” or “reduce inflammation,” most lack solid evidence.
The Scientific American reviewed dozens of studies and spoke with researchers to find out whether any supplements demonstrate anti-inflammatory activity not just in laboratory animals and cultured cells but in human trials. Just three compounds, it turns out, have good evidence of effectiveness: omega-3 fatty acids, curcumin and—in certain ailments—vitamin D.

What they looked at: Scientific studies vary in how they’re designed and carried out. They looked for consistent results across several studies that scientists described as large and well designed. Ones that passed muster tended to focus on biomarkers that researchers use to track inflammation in the body. These include C-reactive protein (CRP), a molecule produced by the liver when inflammation is active, and cytokines, which are chemical messengers. For example, omega-3 fatty acids, which have the most compelling evidence behind them, come in two forms, and they signal the production of molecules in the body that block certain cytokines associated with inflammation.

What the experts say: Inflammation involves hundreds of different types of cells and many signaling pathways, says Prakash Nagarkatti, director of the National Institutes of Health Center of Research Excellence in Inflammatory and Autoimmune Diseases at the University of South Carolina. This complexity makes it difficult to prove that any supplement works consistently.

10/15/2025

MetaGraph an open source new search engine can quickly sift through the staggering volumes of biological data (like DNA and RNA) housed in public repositories. It's dubbed "Google for DNA.
Published in the journal Nature in October 2025, the tool addresses the challenge of making the massive volumes of raw sequencing data from public repositories searchable.
Public repositories such as the American Sequence Read Archive (SRA) and the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) contain petabytes of genomic data.

How MetaGraph works:
MetaGraph revolutionizes this process by creating a compressed, indexed representation of biological data. Its key features include:
• Graph-based compression: The tool organizes the raw sequencing data into complex mathematical graphs that link together overlapping DNA fragments. This process dramatically compresses the data, reducing the storage needed by a factor of 300.
• Full-text search: Much like a standard web search engine, MetaGraph allows scientists to search the indexed sequence data directly. Researchers can input a DNA, RNA, or protein sequence and quickly find where it appears across millions of public datasets.
• Scalability: The system is designed to be highly scalable. As the amount of biological data grows, the tool requires minimal additional computing power, making it a sustainable solution for future research.
Applications and benefits

MetaGraph has significant implications for accelerating biomedical research:
• Pathogen research: Scientists can quickly scan biological repositories to track the emergence and spread of pathogens, such as tracking variants of SARS-CoV-2.
• Antibiotic resistance: Researchers can efficiently identify and study antibiotic resistance genes in bacteria across various environments.
• Disease research: The tool can be used to identify genetic indicators of diseases and accelerate research into rare genetic conditions.
• Biodiscovery: As demonstrated by a related tool, this technology can help uncover naturally occurring variants of enzymes, such as those that can degrade plastic.

With tools like MetaGraph scientists can make potentially explosive new discoveries, understand etiology of diseases and develop effective treatments or possible cures using gene therapy. It will be an exciting time to watch science!

Now biology has MetaGraph. Detailed today in Nature, the search engine can quickly sift through the staggering volumes of biological data housed in public repositories. “It’s a huge achievement,” says Rayan Chikhi, a biocomputing researcher at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

10/07/2025

Actually some pretty good advice for cooking safely and very well explained for everyone.

Click the link to learn the 5 Do's and Don'ts in order to avoid food poisoning. Cartoon for something pretty to look at.
https://ipcblog.org/2022/05/11/five-dos-and-donts-to-avoid-food-poisoning/

10/07/2025

Nobel For Immune Science - the concept of peripheral immune tolerance

How does your immune system know what’s you and what’s an outside germ invader or foreign material? The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded today to three scientists who conducted fundamental research on the immune system. Specifically, the scientists studied peripheral immune tolerance, a system that pumps the brakes on the immune system and keeps it from harming the body.

The details: The work of prize winner Shimon Sakaguchi, now a distinguished professor at Osaka University, in Japan, helped him establish a new class of immune cells: regulatory T cells. Winners Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell, both then researchers at the biotech company Celltech Chiroscience, pinpointed a mutant gene called Foxp3 as the key gene that controls T regulatory cells.

Why this matters: The immune system is the first line of defense against germs and illness. Run amok, this system sometimes mistakes the body’s own cells for foreign bodies, which can cause autoimmune diseases like arthritis and type I diabetes. The awardees’ body of work has spurred hundreds of clinical trials on potential new treatments, such as therapies that may propagate regulatory T cells that can suppress overreactive immune responses in an autoimmune disease or organ transplant.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2025 was awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi “for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.”

10/02/2025

Mature adults are at risk for ultraprocessed food addiction.
If you’re wondering if you are addicted to junk food - you probably are. This does not come only with overweight problems , but also with deficiencies in crucial nutrients and with metabolic changes that make it much harder to lose the weight - or combat the food addiction .

Research published in the journal Addiction suggests that 21% of mature women and 10% of mature men meet the criteria for addiction to ultraprocessed foods and beverages including packaged snacks, high-sugar drinks and fast food.
The age range at greatest risk includes Generation X members and the "last wave" of Baby Boomers (up to people born in the 1950s-‘60s), researchers reported.

09/10/2025

Study on alcohol, cancer link not expected to be published

The study, which found that having two drinks each day significantly raises the risk of dying from any alcohol-related cause versus one drink daily, was intended to inform new dietary guidelines. The Trump administration chose not to publish the final draft of the Alcohol Intake and Health Study, which highlights the health risks of alcohol consumption, including increased cancer mortality.
This suppression is likely a result of industry lobby pressure, especially at a time when young people are drinking significantly less than the generations that came before them.
The authors of the Alcohol Intake and Health Study pointed out that, despite mounting evidence showing that even moderate alcohol consumption is linked to an increased risk of cancer, less than half of Americans know of its carcinogenic properties.
According to their analysis, at one drink per day, a man has a one in 1,000 chance of dying from any alcohol-related cause. At two drinks, the odds increase to one in 25—that’s significantly higher than previously thought to be true.

Speaking to Vox, the authors said they were informed the results of their major study commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would not be published. However, there appeared to be nothing wrong with the methodology of the analysis.

09/10/2025

The gut virome is the community of viruses, primarily bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria), that inhabit the gastrointestinal tract. It is a crucial, but complex, component of the human microbiome and plays a significant role in maintaining gut homeostasis and immune function, though its precise interactions with bacteria and the host are still being explored. Factors like diet, antibiotic use, birth mode, and genetics shape the virome's composition and diversity. An imbalance (dysbiosis) in the gut virome is linked to various conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease, metabolic disorders, and liver disease.
A new medical study explored the many functions and benefits of a healthy gut virome (in addition to the gut biome/ gut flora made up by other microbes like bacteria, yeasts or fungi).
It’s amazing how complex life is, and how we truly are symbionts, unique beings and hosts of a gazillion of other life forms. So much is needed to stay well and balanced.