Diagnostics
Episodes
Dr. Derya Unutmaz joins Dr. Rhonda Patrick to discuss how AI could extend lifespan, personalize cancer care, and transform medicine within a decade.
In this clip, Dr. Peter Attia discusses the unpredictability of cancer and underscores the vital role of aggressive screening.
Vascular dysfunction, the loss of normal endothelial tone and permeability of blood vessels, is a common feature of most forms of dementia, including Alzheim...
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Dr. Derya Unutmaz joins Dr. Rhonda Patrick to discuss how AI could extend lifespan, personalize cancer care, and transform medicine within a decade.
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In this clip, Dr. Peter Attia discusses the unpredictability of cancer and underscores the vital role of aggressive screening.
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Vascular dysfunction, the loss of normal endothelial tone and permeability of blood vessels, is a common feature of most forms of dementia, including Alzheim...
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Aliquot #31: A powerful tool for assessing cholesterol levels: The ion mobility particle test PremiumCholesterol is vital to human health, but an oversimplified view of cholesterol — that high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol is good, and low-density li...
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"If you can not measure it, you can not improve it." - William Thompson Getting regular checkups and undergoing blood tests are fundamental to maintaining...
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If a participant's heart rate jumps up for a prolonged period, it might suggest a physiological response to infection.
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Dr. Valter Longo highlights which biomarkers, both currently available and forthcoming, that he considers relevant when assessing longevity and biological age.
Topic Pages
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Liquid biopsy (cancer screening)
Liquid biopsy functions diagnostically by extracting circulating tumor DNA, cells, or exosomes from blood to detect and characterize cancers.
News & Publications
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New type of blood test may detect a hidden toxin behind Alzheimer's disease years before patients show symptoms of memory loss or confusion. (2022) www.sciencealert.com
From the article:
Researchers at the University of Washington (UW) created the novel blood test. It’s designed to pick up on a molecular precursor in the blood that can cause proteins to irregularly fold and clump in the brain, ultimately forming amyloid beta (Aβ) plaques.
Aβ plaques are a famous hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, but their role in cognitive decline is uncertain. Historically, these extracellular plaques have been considered an early trigger of neuron dysfunction and loss, ultimately leading to cognitive decline.
But recent studies have shown that Aβ plaques are only present in a third of Alzheimer’s patients, and sometimes, they are present in the brains of people who experience no cognitive deficits.
In other words, extracellular Aβ plaques in the brain aren’t necessarily toxic in and of themselves, but they might stem from notoriously difficult-to-detect molecular toxins.
These toxins are essentially the functional versions of the Aβ found within cells. They are known as ‘toxic Aβ oligomers’, and some scientists think they could subtly damage neurons from afar, somehow predisposing the cells to extracellular plaques and clumps.
Scientists are still figuring out the details, but the hypothesis has led UW researchers to make an impressively accurate soluble oligomer binding assay, nicknamed SOBA.
Researchers first tested SOBA on 310 participants' blood plasma. Some participants showed mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease, while others were in good cognitive health.
By measuring toxic Aβ oligomers in the blood plasma, SOBA picked out all 53 participants with Alzheimer’s who were later confirmed to have the disease post-mortem.
Meanwhile, in the control group, SOBA detected oligomers in the blood plasma samples of 11 individuals. Ten of these participants were later diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s.
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Misfolding proteins also seem to be associated with Parkinson’s disease, type II diabetes, and Lewy body dementia, which means SOBA could one day be tweaked to pick up early markers of these other illnesses.
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Perceptions of sleep depth don't correlate with sleep phase. medicalxpress.com
Sleep scientists generally categorize the various phases of human sleep as REM (rapid-eye movement – the period when dreams occur) and NREM (non-rapid-eye movement – the period typically described as “deep sleep”). Subjective perceptions of sleep and sleep quality or “depth” vary, however. Findings from a recent study suggest that some people’s perceptions of how deeply they sleep don’t align with objective measures of their sleep.
Objective measures of sleep quality are based on multiple physiological and neurological parameters that gauge the depth, quality, and duration of a person’s sleep. Typical measures include assessments of brain waves (via electroencephalogram, or EEG), heart rate, and respiration rate, among others.
The authors of the study recruited 20 healthy adults (average age, 38 years) who considered themselves good sleepers and 10 healthy adults of similar ages who had insomnia. While the participants slept, the authors measured the participants' brain waves via EEG, periodically waking them to obtain subjective assessments of their sleep depth and quality.
The good sleepers reported that their sleep was lightest in the first two hours of NREM sleep (generally considered “deep sleep”) and deepest during REM sleep. Conversely, participants with insomnia reported feeling awake more often during the first two hours of NREM sleep and often reported having lighter REM sleep. Interestingly, the EEGs revealed that the participants with insomnia were asleep during periods when they reported being awake. During periods of subjective deep sleep, participants reported having dream-like mental activity.
These findings suggest that subjective perceptions about how deeply a person is sleeping don’t necessarily align with the phase of sleep they are in. Such findings could have relevance for future sleep studies, especially those aimed at improving sleep quality for people with insomnia.
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A concussion is a type of brain injury that causes temporary loss of brain function. Concussions are common among student athletes and can affect memory, judgment, reflexes, speech, balance, and coordination. Findings from a recent study suggest that sleep deprivation mimics many of the symptoms of post-concussion syndrome.
Post-concussion syndrome is a condition in which the symptoms of concussion linger far beyond the expected recovery period, lasting months or even years after the original injury. Between 10 and 20 percent of people who experience concussion will have post-concussion syndrome.
The study was part of the NCAA-U.S. Department of Defense Concussion Assessment, Research, and Education Consortium, an ongoing project investigating the effects of concussion and repetitive head impact. More than 30,000 military cadets and university student athletes provided demographic data as well as information on current and previous sport participation, concussion history, and preexisting personal and medical history.
They also completed the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool–3rd Edition (SCAT3) symptom evaluation as part of baseline preseason testing. The SCAT3 is a self-reported inventory of 22 symptoms and includes questions about the number of hours of sleep obtained the night before testing.
The majority of the participants (63 percent of the men and 74 percent of the women) reported having at least one symptom, the most common of which was fatigue or low energy. A subset of the cadets (18 percent of the men and 28 percent of the women) and the university students (11 percent of the men and 20 percent of the women) reported having enough symptoms to meet the diagnostic criteria for post-concussion syndrome. A common denominator among this subset was sleep deprivation (fewer than five hours) the night before the assessment.
These findings suggest that many of the symptoms people report after a concussion are fairly common among cadets and university athletes who have not sustained a recent injury. They also highlight the need to take sleep and other environmental factors into consideration when determining whether athletes are ready to return to activity.
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Assessment of cardiorespiratory fitness using submaximal exercise testing predicts 5-year mortality risk beyond conventional risk factors. www.mayoclinicproceedings.org
Cardiorespiratory fitness is a measure of the body’s aerobic capacity – the ability to deliver oxygen to skeletal muscles – during sustained physical activity. Poor cardiorespiratory fitness, along with dyslipidemia, family history, hypertension, age, cigarette smoking, diabetes mellitus, obesity, and physical inactivity, increases a person’s risk for cardiovascular disease and death. Findings from a new study indicate that cardiorespiratory fitness measured by submaximal testing predicts risk for deaths from all causes.
The most accurate way to assess cardiorespiratory fitness involves measuring maximal oxygen uptake, often referred to as VO2 max, during a graded exercise test in a laboratory, clinical, or research setting. The sheer logistics of measuring VO2 max in large groups of people present challenges, however. Submaximal exercise testing, which typically involves completion of a standardized exercise or task using a treadmill or bicycle, is a viable option in these settings.
The study involved more than 58,000 people between the ages of 40 and 69 years who were enrolled in the UK Biobank Prospective Study. The authors of the study categorized the participants according to their level of risk based on the participants' age, sex, medical history, and biochemical indicators. Then the participants underwent submaximal exercise testing using a stationary exercise bicycle.
The results of the submaximal exercise testing revealed a linear relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and the risk of death. In fact, submaximal exercise testing served as a highly reliable predictor of death, even beyond conventional risk factors, especially among people with few risk factors.
- Link to full study.31129-2/pdf)
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To-date, only one significant study has looked at ADHD misdiagnosis and found 20-25% of boys were misdiagnosed and this was before ADHD was as common as it is now.
The most common treatment for ADHD is a prescription stimulant such as Adderall or Ritalin.
“According to manufacturers of ADHD stimulants, they are associated with sudden death in children who have heart problems, whether those heart problems have been previously detected or not. They can bring on a bipolar condition in a child who didn’t exhibit any symptoms of such a disorder before taking stimulants. They are associated with "new or worse aggressive behavior or hostility.” They can cause “new psychotic symptoms (such as hearing voices and believing things that are not true) or new manic symptoms.” They commonly cause noticeable weight loss and trouble sleeping. In some children, some stimulants can cause the paranoid feeling that bugs are crawling on them. Facial tics. They can cause children’s eyes to glaze over, their spirits to dampen. One study reported fears of being harmed by other children and thoughts of suicide."