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A new research claims that teenage girls who eat high amounts of saturated fats tend to develop denser breasts 15 years later. This is a breakthrough because greater breast density is a risk factor for breast cancer. Adolescent years are a critical time for breast development in girls.

The most common reason for egg donation is maternal age and therefore the failure of a patient to conceive together with her own eggs-even with advanced fertility treatments like In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). Despite all of the medical breakthroughs and despite what quantity we've learned concerning the consequences of maternal age on fertility, nobody has nevertheless developed an efficient treatment to truly reverse the mechanism.

A new study published in The Lancet has revealed that a total of 1.7 million people could be living with dementia in England and Wales by 2040. The research highlighted increasing numbers of people who will suffer from Alzheimer's. The disease would massively increase the burden on the healthcare system. The research was led by University of College London (UCL). Lead researcher, Dr Yuntao Chen said, "It is shocking to think that the number of people living with dementia by 2040 may be up to 70 per cent higher than if dementia incidence had continued to decline. "Not only will this have a devastating effect on the lives of those involved but it will also put a considerably larger burden on health and social care than current forecasts predict.

According to Alzheimer's Disease International, more than 55 million people worldwide will have Alzheimer's disease by 2020. This figure will nearly double every 20 years, reaching 78 million in 2030 and 139 million in 2050. The WHO Global Status Report for 2021 estimated the yearly global cost of dementia to be more than USD 1.3 trillion, with a projected increase to USD 2.8 trillion by 2030. To date most drugs developed to treat Alzheimer's disease have failed, largely because they target wrong biomarkers and individuals already exhibiting signs of the disease. Once symptoms appear, however, many brain cells responsible for memory and cognition are likely already damaged and beyond repair. Professor Shai Rahimipour in the Chemistry Department at Bar-Ilan University in Israel has pioneered a different approach utilizing theranostics to pinpoint and treat the earliest, pre-symptomatic signs of Alzheimer's disease. Showing promise in stopping progression of the disease before onset of irreversible brain cell damage, Rahimipour's groundbreaking approach has garnered significant attention in the scientific world.

Thousands of lung cancer patients in England will benefit from a ground-breaking new drug that can reduce the risk of relapse. This follows a deal brokered by NHS England and approval from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for atezolizumab therapy to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). More than 850 patients are expected to be eligible for the drug in the first year, rising to more than 1000 in the third year. It is the first immunotherapy approved for patients with early-stage NSCLC who have undergone surgery and chemotherapy. Clinical trials have shown that atezolizumab can reduce the risk of cancer relapse or death by 34 per cent in patients with early-stage NSCLC.

In a significant leap forward in the fight against HIV, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has given the green light to two groundbreaking formulations of cabotegravir. Apretude 30 mg film-coated tablets and Apretude 600 mg prolonged-release suspension for injection are now authorized for preventing sexually transmitted HIV-1 infection in adults and adolescents weighing at least 35kg at increased risk. This approval marks a pivotal moment in HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) prevention, offering an alternative to existing standard pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP treatments. HIV, a virus notorious for compromising the immune system, has long been a global health concern. Cabotegravir, a member of the integrase inhibitor group, works by blocking a key enzyme necessary for the replication of HIV-1, thereby reducing the virus's ability to spread.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) on Monday (29 January 2024) approved the medicine Rezzayo (rezafungin) to treat invasive candidiasis, an infection caused by a yeast called Candida. Invasive candidiasis can pose a serious health risk as it can affect the blood, heart, brain, eyes, bones and other parts of the body. Napp Pharmaceuticals Ltd was granted the marketing authorisation for the medicine based on phase 3 clinical trial data. In the randomised, double-blind, controlled study, more than half of the invasive candidiasis patients who were given a weekly dose of rezafungin were cured at day 14. Among 94 patients who were given a daily dose of caspofungin (another antifungal treatment), 57 of them were cured during the same time.

Cancer patients in the UK are being given a new immunotherapy treatment at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust as part of a global phase 1/2 clinical trial, which aims to evaluate its safety and potential for treating 'solid tumour' cancers such as melanoma and lung cancer. The experimental therapy, called mRNA-4359, has been designed to train patients' immune systems to recognise and fight cancer cells, according to researchers at Imperial College London. For the first time in the UK, cancer patients received the treatment at the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Imperial Clinical Research Facility at Hammersmith Hospital. In this non-randomised trial, mRNA-4359 is administered to patients either alone or in combination with an existing cancer drug called pembrolizumab, a type of immune checkpoint inhibitor. The researchers are hopeful that this new therapeutic approach, if proven to be safe and effective in clinical trials, could lead to a new treatment option for difficult-to-treat cancers.