LiveWell Clinic

04/30/2026

And now I just read this other great news .
Pancreatic cancers are rare - but deadly.
The fact that we now may be able to predict them or at least detect them early enough before any hope of curative treatment is lost, is another heartening advance in modern medicine.

04/30/2026

Some great news for people needing intestinal cancer treatments:

Patients with a particular form of bowel cancer have remained cancer-free for nearly three years after receiving a short course of immunotherapy before surgery, rather than chemotherapy afterward. These findings come from the NEOPRISM-CRC clinical trial led by researchers at UCL and UCLH.
The results, presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2026 in April, expand on earlier data showing that nine weeks of preoperative treatment with pembrolizumab significantly reduced tumor size in patients with stage two or three bowel cancer.
Dr. Kai-Keen Shiu, Chief Investigator of the trial from the UCL Cancer Institute and a Consultant Medical Oncologist at UCLH, said: “Seeing that no patients have experienced a cancer recurrence after almost three years of follow-up is extremely encouraging and strengthens our confidence that pembrolizumab is a safe and highly effective treatment to improve outcomes in patients with high-risk bowel cancers.
What is particularly exciting is that we now may be able to predict who will respond to the treatment using personalized blood tests and immune profiling. These tools could help us tailor our approach, identifying patients who are doing well and may need less therapy before and after surgery versus patients at higher risk of disease progression or relapse who need additional treatment.”

A new approach to treating certain bowel cancers is showing long-lasting effects.

04/15/2026

- partial epigenetic reprogramming -
A new method of reversing cellular aging in organs and tissues will be tested in humans in a clinical trial this year

Life Biosciences has received FDA clearance to begin the first human clinical trial of a cellular rejuvenation therapy in 2026, targeting age-related diseases by reversing cellular aging. The trial will test partial epigenetic reprogramming to restore aged or damaged cells to a more youthful state.
Key Aspects of the Trial:
• Methodology: The therapy, dubbed ER-100, uses three of the Yamanaka factors (OCT-4, SOX-2, KLF-4) to safely reset the cell's age.
• Target Condition: The Phase 1 trial will focus on treating age-related eye diseases, specifically open-angle glaucoma.
• Mechanism: Instead of turning adult cells into stem cells, this approach, or "partial epigenetic reprogramming," rejuvenates cells while maintaining their original identity, reducing cancer risks.
• Developer: The research stems from the lab of Harvard's Dr. David Sinclair.
This is a major milestone in reversing cellular aging. Similar rejuvenation techniques have successfully reversed symptoms of aging in animals. Lifespan Research Institute highlights this trial's focus on reversing cellular dysfunction, rather than just slowing it. MIT Technology Review explains the use of a genetic switch to trigger the rejuvenation.

The FDA has greenlighted Life Biosciences’ first human trial testing whether their gene therapy can confer a near-total rejuvenating reset of cells.

03/24/2026

Mediterranean- DASH diet slows brain aging

Some foods stood out as especially neuroprotective or detrimental. Berries and poultry, for example, were linked to healthier brain changes, while sweets and fried foods were associated with faster brain shrinkage.

“These healthy foods have been specifically noted to benefit our brain, lowering the risk of diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s disease,” Weinandy said.

Not all of the study's results were straightforward. Whole grains and cheeses showed inconsistent links with brain aging. Their intake was sometimes tied to brain changes that looked beneficial and sometimes with changes that did not, something researchers said will need more study.

The study, which tracked brain changes in more than 1,600 adult participants in the Framingham Heart Study Offspring Cohort, or group, over about 12 years, found that people who closely followed the MIND diet — an acronym for Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay, an eating pattern designed to protect brain health by emphasizing foods like leafy greens, berries and fish while limiting fried foods and red meat — had brains that appeared about 2.5 years younger on MRI scans than those who adhered to the diet the least.

https://abcnews.com/Health/healthy-eating-brain-younger-study-suggests/story?id=131041135

03/12/2026

A single course of some antibiotics affected microbial diversity in the gut more than others, a new study found. And the effects can last for several years.

A recent study published in Nature Medicine indicates that certain antibiotics significantly disrupt gut microbial diversity, with effects persisting for four to eight years post-treatment. Broad-spectrum antibiotics, such as clindamycin and fluoroquinolones, cause the most severe, long-lasting damage by eliminating beneficial bacteria like Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium.
Antibiotics like penicillin V, extended-spectrum penicillins and nitrofurantoin were associated with only a few species. Enhanced antibiotics like Augmentin (amoxicillin-clavulanate) also significantly disrupt the gut microbiome for weeks to months after use.

Key Findings on Antibiotic Impact
• Long-Term Effects: While some gut bacteria recover within weeks, significant alterations in microbial composition can last for several years.
• High-Impact Antibiotics: Clindamycin, fluoroquinolones, and flucloxacillin are noted for causing severe, long-lasting disruptions.
• Consequences: Reduced diversity can lead to the growth of opportunistic pathogens like Klebsiella pneumoniae and Enterococcus faecium, as well as a higher risk of Clostridium difficile infections.
• Disease Association: The alteration of gut flora from high antibiotic use is associated with chronic inflammation, metabolic issues (like type 2 diabetes), obesity, colon cancer and gastrointestinal infections.

What You Can Do:
If you do have to use antibiotics to treat a bacterial infection, add daily probiotics of variable sources, with a variety of probiotic strains included, and continue this probiotic use for at least another two weeks after finishing antibiotics treatment.

Using individual-level data from the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register and f***l metagenomes of 14,979 individuals in Sweden, the authors examined the association between oral antibiotic use over 8 years and gut microbiome and found evidence that antibiotics can have long-lasting impacts on the gut m...

03/03/2026

AI tools aren’t ready to triage you… yet

People want more control over their own health. Health care is expensive, hard to access, and appointments aren’t always easy to get. There is a lot of promise for AI, and people are already using it for their health: 230 million people ask ChatGPT health questions every week. So if AI tools could reliably help people decide when to seek care, that would be a big deal.

But a new study suggests we’re not there yet.

Researchers published a study last week in Nature Medicine testing ChatGPT Health, a new consumer health AI tool, on a basic but critical task: triage. Given a set of symptoms, could it correctly tell you whether to stay home, schedule a routine appointment, get seen urgently, or go to the ED?

The results were mixed, and concerning at the extremes:

For people who didn’t need a doctor at all, it sent them to one 65% of the time. A waste of time and money.
For routine visits, it correctly recommended seeing a doctor 95% of the time.
For people who needed emergency care, it only recommended the ED about half the time. It handled classic emergencies well, like allergic reactions or stroke, but struggled to recognize how sick someone was about to become, like the early stages of a diabetic complication.
More detailed medical data improved accuracy, but adding irrelevant information confused it. For example, when normal lab results were included alongside a note that a patient was suicidal, ChatGPT got it wrong. That’s obviously deeply concerning.

What this means for you: For straightforward health questions, AI tools can genuinely help and can certainly supplement a visit with a clinician. Add more details for more accuracy, but proceed with caution and certainly do not use it for emergency health issues.

03/01/2026

Comprehensive care for beast health at menopause and with starting perimenopause includes multiple aspects - not just treatment of symptoms and use of hormone therapy - but also addressing the associated metabolic changes and mental wellness needs of women reaching their Wise Woman years.
Treatment should also avoid the cookie-cutter approach, and be rather highly individualized for personal health, genetic and endocrine needs of the woman, as well as weighing risk levels and the preferences and goals of the woman seeking medical help for her ensuing symptoms.
As experienced primary care provider with insight into chronic conditions, weight loss treatments and hormone therapy for women at menopause, I know good results cannot be achieved in a single session or a 15 minutes appointment. Mutual trust and respect, as well as in-depth consideration of the patient characteristics are needed for optimal results. Multiple visits and treatment may be necessary until the treatment choices begin to show noticeable results. While we should give some time to treatments to work and reach their full effects, the need for adjustment or even radical change should be always considered at every new visit.
My professional approach is a shared decision-process with the patient, after obtaining in-depth history and additional data to help complete the picture of the woman working with me on her wellness. Sometimes a longer than typical visit is needed to sift out the real needs and the complex factors influencing health of each patient I see. Even addressing a single health component should be done while considering all other contributing factors - something that many specialists have stopped doing at their visits - mainly due to liability and time constraints experienced in their own practice. Systemic pressures like documentation burdens, and specialized training models that focus on specific organ systems rather than the whole patient have been limiting the value of specialist care for years now in the USA.
Sadly, primary care is among the lowest insurance-reimbursed healthcare specialties, while the greatest burden of providing comprehensive complex care is placed on the shoulders of primary care providers everywhere.
It is thus no wonder that doctors preferring to provide good comprehensive care may choose to use a direct-care, no insurance-billing approach in their private practice, to be able to focus on actual care needs of the patient, not on insurance required paperwork. Sadly this disconnect will become even greater, as insurance carriers have started using the approach of flat-out declining complex visits billed for very good reasons by providers, and automatically downgrading the billing codes to a less complex, less-costly visit for them to pay the provider for doing. Providers now have to fight and waste time on resubmitting legitimate claims to be properly reimburesed for their work.
Don't be surprised if in the future the availability of insurance-billing providers will go down, as providers simply do not get paid for the hours long work hidden behind their shortening times spent face-to-face with you as a patient. We are reaching the point where many providers will seriously consider no longer accepting insurance in their practice as they are getting the other short stick end of care reimbursement that you the patient are getting in your more and more limited coverage of care services.
Practically, a revolution of healthcare coverage in the USA is becoming more and more needed to continue giving people the humane care they need.

03/01/2026

Women who used menopausal hormone therapy did not have an increased risk of death, and some even had longer survival, according to a large Danish cohort study.

Among 876,805 women, those who redeemed a prescription for menopausal hormone therapy had a slightly lower risk of all-cause mortality compared with women without menopausal hormone therapy over a median follow-up of 14.3 years (adjusted HR 0.96, 95% CI 0.93-0.98), Anders Pretzmann Mikkelsen, PhD, of the University Hospital Herlev in Denmark, and colleagues reported in The BMJ.

Large Danish cohort study reassures, with some women appearing to have a survival benefit

01/11/2026

Perfluorooctanoic acid raises fatty liver MASLD risk in teens

Perfluorooctanoic acid, a type of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, may be linked to a higher risk of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease in teens, according to a study in the journal Environmental Research that found each doubling of PFAS blood levels was associated with 2.7 times the risk of MASLD. "When liver fat starts accumulating in adolescence, it may set the stage for a lifetime of metabolic and liver health challenges," said researcher Lida Chatzi. "If we reduce PFAS exposure early, we may help prevent liver disease later. That's a powerful public health opportunity."

THURSDAY, Jan. 8, 2026 (HealthDay News) — PFAS “forever chemicals” might nearly triple a young person’s risk of developing fatty liver disease, a new study says

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…