Health

This month we catch up with METSY, featured in our October 2018 special section that focused on mental health. METSY unveiled the links between psychotic disorders and metabolic co-morbidities and thus opened the door for new therapeutic options tackling psychosis whilst preventing metabolic complications.

Using real-world data from two European countries, scientists have found that a certain type of drug prescribed to lower blood pressure may actually increase the risk of cardiac arrest.

The first study in humans to show that something like a cup of coffee can have a direct effect on our brown fat functions has been carried out with the partial help of the EU. CASCADE Fellow Dr Ksenija Velickovic was a member of the team whose findings could have major implications in the light of the increasing levels of obesity. Brown fat metabolism could, potentially, be key to finding a solution to the growing diabetes epidemic.

New insight into how a cell responds to DNA damage opens the way to better cancer treatments.

A mobile-based monitoring system helps patients undergoing chemotherapy manage their symptoms and side effects while going about their everyday lives.

A clever sensor device can tell if you have stomach cancer, and it does this just by ‘smelling’ your breath.

Fast, accurate and affordable food safety testing is now possible. Thanks to a portable scanner, farmers, food manufacturers and retailers can now do their own tests in the field, eliminating costly and time-consuming lab tests.

Is healthy ageing possible for both rich and poor? To find out, EU-funded researchers studied the processes driving healthy ageing in a person’s lifespan.

Landmark study finds processed food causes overeating and weight gain.

There’s promising news for the overweight. A supplement based on lemon verbena and hibiscus extracts can help manage body weight and improve health.

Researchers have identified a novel approach to test the adverse impacts of man-made chemical mixtures. Their methodology will help improve the assessment and management of health risks.

A crucial part of what gives the brain its power is its ability to learn from the interactions of the body under its control with the world. Neurorobotics research offers a unique opportunity to understand how this action-perception loop works, and to use this knowledge to build the next generation of robotic systems.

The human ability to use a ‘tool’ (our brain), to build another tool to explain the workings of the first tool, is an evolutionary gift that distinguishes us from other animals. Powerful simulation engines like “The Virtual Brain” exemplify both this gift, as well as its unwrapping.

As a European Flagship Programme, the Human Brain Project (HBP) embraces ICT advances and pools distributed neuroscience and neuromedicine resources and competences. This more unified view of the brain will benefit both people and technology.

Definitions and understandings of consciousness have been hotly contested down the centuries, engaging philosophers and more recently neuroscientists. To make further sense of it all, the HBP models both the neurological ‘wood and the trees’ simultaneously.

EU-funded researchers have developed nano-vehicles that can overcome the body’s immune response and biological barriers to deliver drugs to the target site.

Scientists have started testing the effectiveness of a novel mesothelioma treatment that uses the body’s immune system to fight cancer.

Scientists have developed a new type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique to provide doctors with more reliable information about breast cancer.

The EU- and industry-funded Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) held its annual Stakeholders Forum in Brussels on a very rainy 12 June, the venue being the gorgeous Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. The topic discussed: Brain health and disease, and how digital technologies are transforming the search for new treatments and patient care.

A steerable needle mimicking the wood wasp’s stinger can deliver life-saving cancer drugs directly to a brain tumour.