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Leicester's cardiovascular research hub shines spotlight on life-saving innovations

The latest medical innovations in cardiovascular research have been showcased by the British Heat Foundation Leicester Centre of Research Excellence.

8 Sep 2026

Could scorpion venom inspire new treatments for liver disease?

Scorpion venom peptides show promising anti-inflammatory, antiviral, analgesic, and immunomodulatory effects, with experimental evidence suggesting that some candidates could target pathways involved in chronic liver disease and viral hepatitis. The review highlights Kv1.3-blocking peptides and antiviral compounds as potential therapeutic leads, while emphasizing that limited hepatic efficacy data, poor pharmacokinetics, immunogenicity, and manufacturing challenges must be overcome before clinical translation.

8 Sep 2026

Inhibitory neurons act as a brake on brain tumor growth

Brain tumors do not grow in isolation. They develop within the highly active environment of the brain, where neurons continuously exchange electrical and chemical signals.

7 Sep 2026

High-energy tissues rely on macrophages to clear cellular waste

The body's heart muscle (for pumping blood), skeletal muscle (for movement and posture), and brown fat (for heat production), each require a lot of energy and make a lot of waste. And that waste needs to be managed.

4 Sep 2026

Near-real-time data tracks health impacts during heat waves

As summer heat waves grow longer and more dangerous, public health officials often must wait months to learn who and how many people were harmed.

31 Aug 2026

Study shows how temperature extremes can contribute to heart failure hospitalizations

Heart failure hospitalization risk increases after short-term exposure to cold spells, lower ambient temperatures and higher ambient temperatures, according to a study published in JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology, and simultaneously presented at ESC Congress 2026.

28 Aug 2026

Extreme heat exposure triggers broad range of medical emergencies

When temperatures spike, emergency physicians expect to see more cases of dehydration and heat stroke.

27 Aug 2026

Can caffeine make you mentally sharper in the morning? This study tested the idea

In a controlled crossover study of 51 recreationally active young men with low habitual caffeine intake, researchers tested whether 300 mg of caffeine taken about an hour before morning testing affected cognition, mood, temperature, appetite, and related outcomes, with reactive agility assessed in 27 participants. Caffeine did not improve cognitive or reactive agility performance or meaningfully alter mood, tiredness, appetite, or thermoregulation under the study conditions.

27 Aug 2026

Faulty myelin-making brain cells may help drive cognitive decline with age

Researchers found that greater age-related cognitive decline was associated with more dysfunctional oligodendrocytes, reduced NRF2 expression, smaller myelinated axons, and abnormally thicker myelin in human white matter. Experiments in mice showed that deleting NRF2 specifically from oligodendrocytes reproduced key white matter abnormalities and reduced cognitive improvement over time, implicating this pathway in cognitive aging.

26 Aug 2026

Children bear the greatest burden of climate-driven heat exposure

New research by Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) shows that globally up to 560 million children aged 0 to 9 years old (43% of all children in this age group) are living through at least one additional month (30 or more days) of heat stress per year due to human-induced climate change.

26 Aug 2026

Researchers traced lifelong obesity resistance in mice back to an early microbial encounter

Natural wild-derived microbiota protected mice against diet-induced obesity across sexes, genetic backgrounds, and age by increasing energy expenditure and promoting a thermogenic program in brown adipose tissue. The effect depended on the immune system’s initial encounter with the microbiota and required CCR2-associated myeloid activity, revealing a long-lasting microbiota-immune-brown fat pathway.

25 Aug 2026

Novel blood-based method diagnoses Alzheimer’s disease with high accuracy

Alzheimer's disease (AD) accounts for 60–80% of global dementia cases, with its core pathological feature being the misfolding and aggregation of β-amyloid (Aβ) proteins in the brain.

25 Aug 2026

Exposure to drought during pregnancy associated with higher risk of preterm birth

Climate change is making droughts more frequent, prolonged, and intense in many regions of the world, increasing the need to understand their effects on health.

25 Aug 2026

New review challenges the eight-hour ancestral sleep myth

Everyone knows the number. Eight hours. It sits on wellness dashboards, on pediatric handouts, on the label of the melatonin bottle in the medicine cabinet.

25 Aug 2026

New sweating discovery reveals hidden limits of body cooling

The purpose of perspiration was a mystery in 1775, when English physician Charles Brian Blagden and a few inquisitive friends experimented on themselves by spending time in rooms heated to over 230° Fahrenheit.

20 Aug 2026

Review reveals how nicotine damages blood vessels and heart health

A review published today in Nature Reviews Cardiology provides the most detailed picture yet of how nicotine damages the cardiovascular system – tracing the biological chain of events from the moment nicotine binds to receptors in blood vessel walls through to the atherosclerotic plaque rupture that triggers heart attacks and strokes.

19 Aug 2026