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Altron HealthTech Set to Pilot South Africa’s First Oncology Companion App

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ThriveLink to connect patients, doctors, caregivers, and medical schemes in a seamless digital platform

The last thing someone dealing with a life-threatening disease wants is the pain of endless administrative paperwork and confusion that arises when aspects of their care are not easily coordinated. Altron HealthTech is set to pilot a solution designed to minimise these burdens by integrating various aspects of care management into one solution.   

The company announced today that it will soon begin piloting ThriveLink, South Africa’s first platform to connect patients, doctors, caregivers, and medical schemes in one integrated digital space. The oncology companion app is designed to help cancer patients flourish during a trying time by providing seamless care coordination, access to key information and educational content and removal of administrative obstacles. 

“We’ve built this tool with the ultimate goal of making life easier for cancer patients to be empowered throughout managing their treatment journey,” says Altron HealthTech MD Leslie Moodley. “They’ll receive appointment tracking, medication reminders, and secure communication with their care team – all customised for their unique treatment plan in one digital space – so they can focus on what matters most: their health and wellbeing.” 

Addressing a growing crisis

The development team was inspired to create ThriveLink after frontline agents logged an alarming increase in cancer diagnoses. Cancer cases in South Africa are projected to nearly double from 62 000 in 2019 to 121 000 nationally by 2030 based on data compiled by the SA Journal of Oncology, driven by an aging population and increased lifestyle risks. 

“We have insight into anonymised and aggregated data, and were shocked at the increase in cancer volumes,” says Moodley. “We realised there was value in developing a tool that could span the entire healthcare value chain and all the various touchpoints, to solve for a very real issue. This insight sparked a critical question: how can we make it easier for oncologists, our key stakeholders, to focus on what matters most – patient care? 

ThriveLink brings together data from specialists, medical aids, pharmacies, and other relevant sources to coordinate care to connect healthcare providers. Beyond appointment tracking and medication reminders, the app offers educational content, emotional support tools, and secure communication channels. 

“The solution enables these data points to collaborate in a technical sense to coordinate care,” explains Moodley. “Our response was to build a technology-driven platform that not only streamlines authorisations and treatment protocols but also enables real-time interoperability. This empowers oncologists to coordinate care more efficiently, track treatment pathways, and adapt plans based on patient-specific outcomes. Patients won’t have to worry about burdensome details and will get reminded when it’s time to take their medication or schedule a follow-up.” 

Built on medical expertise and security

The app serves as the vital link in a complex ecosystem, ensuring secure information flow, informed decision-making, and trust at every stage.  

Altron HealthTech consulted widely with oncologists, patients, and other medical professionals before beginning development. A base application was rolled out to specialists about a year ago, and feedback from that pilot informed the expanded platform now ready for patient testing. 

The app has been built on secure, cloud-based software-as-a-service architecture in compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act and all relevant regulatory requirements. Patients must provide informed consent before signing up. 

Beyond supporting patients directly, ThriveLink is designed to help control healthcare costs. Cancer is among the most expensive therapeutic burdens, with the Cancer Alliance having predicted that this disease will cost the public sector an additional R50 billion between 2020 and 2030. 

“By streamlining processes and integrating claims, authorisations, and clinical data, we remove duplication and costs from the system,” says Moodley. “This can indirectly help keep medical aid premiums down, benefiting all medical scheme patients.” 

Altron HealthTech is in early-stage discussions with medical aid schemes interested in integrating the app into their mobile solutions. 

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Number of Steps Matters More for Older Women’s Health than the Frequency

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4000 steps once/twice weekly is associated with 26% lower risk of death rising to 40% if done on 3 days of the week – but it’s daily step count rather than number of days that matters, findings suggest 

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Clocking up at least 4000 daily steps on just 1 or 2 days per week is linked to a lower risk of death and cardiovascular disease among older women, according to research published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

This large prospective study examined not only how many steps older women take but how often they reach their step targets across the week, addressing a key gap in current physical activity guidelines.

Researchers found that achieving at least 4000 steps per day on 1-2 days per week was associated with a significantly lower risk of death and lower risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), compared with not reaching this level on any day.

A large body of evidence shows that lifelong physical activity is important for improving the healthspan, say the researchers. But it’s not entirely clear how much physical activity people should do as they age to reap appreciable health benefits, particularly in respect of step counts which are yet to make it into physical activity guideline recommendations, they add.

To explore this further, they set out to look at the associations between daily step counts of between 4000 and 7000 and death from all causes and from cardiovascular disease in older women.

They also wanted to find out if the total number of daily steps might drive any observed associations, rather than the frequency of achieving step count thresholds, with a view to informing future guidelines–in particular the US Physical Activity Guidelines, the next edition of which is planned for 2028.

The study followed 13547 women (average age 71) from the US Women’s Health Study who wore accelerometers (activity trackers) for seven consecutive days between 2011–2015 and were tracked for nearly 11 years. The women were free of cardiovascular disease or cancer at the start of the study.

During the monitoring period of nearly 11 years up to the end of 2024, 1765 women (13%) died and 781 (5%) developed cardiovascular disease.

Clocking up at least 4000 steps/day on 1–2 days of the week was associated with a 26% lower risk of death from all causes and a 27% lower risk of a cardiovascular disease death compared with not reaching this threshold on any day of the week.

For those achieving this step count on at least 3 days of the week, the lower risk of death from any cause increased to 40%, but remained at 27% for the risk of cardiovascular death.

But while higher daily step counts of 5000 to 7000 on 3 or more days of the week were associated with a further fall in all-cause mortality risk (32%) they were associated with a levelling out in cardiovascular disease mortality risk (16%).

When the findings were adjusted to take account of average daily steps, previously observed associations weakened, suggesting that [average] steps is the key driver of the protective effect, suggest the researchers.

This is an observational study, and as such, no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect. The researchers also acknowledge that physical activity was assessed only for 1 week, and therefore couldn’t account for variations in behaviour over longer periods, nor did they have information on dietary patterns.

Nevertheless, they suggest: “The present study….suggests that frequency of meeting daily step thresholds is not critical (even 1–2 days/week of ≥4000 steps/day was related to lower mortality and CVD), and that step volume is more important than the frequency of meeting daily step thresholds in the older population.”

And they go on to explain: “An important translational implication of these findings is that since step volume is the important driver of the inverse associations, there is no ‘better’ or ‘best’ pattern to take steps; individuals can undertake [physical activity] in any preferred pattern (eg, ‘slow and steady’ vs ‘bunched patterns’) for lower mortality and CVD risk, at least among older women.”

They conclude: “These findings provide additional evidence for considering including step metrics in the next [physical activity] guidelines, and that ‘bunching’ steps is a viable option for health.”

Source: BMJ Group

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Teens More Likely to Use Opioids when Parents Have Prescriptions

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Norwegian study of more than 21 000 young people found that those whose parents had persistent opioid prescriptions faced more than double the risk of persistent opioid use

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If a parent has persistent opioid prescriptions, their adolescent or young adult offspring has more than double the risk of persistent opioid use, according to a new study published October 23rd in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine by Anna Marcuzzi of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway, and colleagues.

The prescription of strong analgesics such as opioids is not recommended for young people. However, despite potential adverse long-term consequences, opioids are often prescribed for non-malignant pain in this population.

In the new study, researchers analysed data from 21 470 adolescents and young adults aged 13-29 years who participated in the population-based Young-HUNT or HUNT Study in Norway in 2006-2008 or 2017-2019. Each participant was linked with at least one parent who also participated in the HUNT study, and opioid prescription data were obtained from the Norwegian Prescription Database.

24.4% of young people had at least one opioid prescription during the seven-year follow-up period, while 1.3% had persistent opioid prescriptions, defined as prescriptions in at least three out of four quarters of a year. When a mother had persistent opioid prescriptions over a five-year period (two years before and three years after offspring participation), their offspring had 2.60 times the risk of persistent opioid use compared to those whose mothers had no prescriptions. When a father had persistent opioid prescriptions, their offspring had 2.37 times the risk of persistent opioid use. The association was also present but weaker for non-persistent opioid prescription – offspring whose mothers had two or more prescriptions had 1.34 times the risk of receiving any opioid prescription, while those whose fathers had two or more prescriptions had 1.19 times the risk, compared to offspring whose parents had no prescriptions. There was no clear evidence that parental chronic musculoskeletal pain status influenced these associations.

The authors note that because parental opioid prescriptions were measured both before and after offspring HUNT participation, some parental opioid prescriptions could have begun after offspring opioid use. However, they conclude that there is an association between parental and offspring opioid prescriptions.

“The study findings suggest that family-based strategies should be considered when managing pain conditions in adolescents and young adults to avoid potentially unnecessary opioid use,” they say.

The authors add, “Despite restrictive opioid policies, one in four adolescents and young adults received an opioid prescription during the seven years follow-up.”

“Adolescents whose parents had two or more opioid prescriptions had a more than two-fold higher risk of persistent opioid use (ie, multiple prescriptions in a year) than if the parents had no opioid prescriptions.”

Provided by PLOS

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Remission Achievable for 1 in 3 Indian Diabetics Through Intensive App-based Lifestyle Programme

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Across 2384 Indian adults with type 2 diabetes, 31% achieved remission through a comprehensive mobile-based programme combining diet, exercise, stress management, and medical support

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Nearly one-third of people with type 2 diabetes (T2D) in an Indian cohort achieved remission through an intensive lifestyle intervention program, according to a new study publishing October 22, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS One by Pramod Tripathi of Freedom from Diabetes Clinic & Diabetes Research Foundation, India, and colleagues.

Type 2 diabetes affects more than 72 million people in India. While lifestyle interventions have shown promise for diabetes management in Western populations, limited data exists on their effectiveness in India, where genetic and lifestyle factors place the population at higher risk.

In the new study, researchers analysed data from 2384 adults with T2D who enrolled in a one-year online intensive lifestyle intervention programme at the Freedom from Diabetes Clinic in India between May 2021 and August 2023. The intervention, provided by a six-member care team through a mobile application, included a personalised plant-based diet, structured physical activity, group therapy and individual psychological counselling, and medication management.

Overall, 744 participants (31.2%) achieved diabetes remission, defined as maintaining glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) levels below 48mmol/mol for at least three months without glucose-lowering medications. The remission group showed significantly greater improvements than the non-remission group in weight (8.5% vs 5.2% reduction), body mass index (8.6% vs 5.2% reduction), HbA1c (15.3% vs 12.4% reduction), fasting insulin (26.6% vs 11.4% reduction), and insulin resistance (37.3% vs.19.7% reduction). People under 50 years of age, with higher BMI, no prior medication use, and a shorter duration of diabetes (<6 years) were most likely to achieve remission. 

The study was limited by its retrospective design and lack of a control group. Because the programme required a subscription and participants who lacked follow up data were excluded from the analysis, there may have been selection biases. However, the authors conclude that a significant proportion of individuals with T2D can achieve remission through a comprehensive, culturally adapted lifestyle programme.

The authors add: “Our research demonstrates that nearly one-third of individuals with type 2 diabetes can achieve remission through a scientifically designed, culturally tailored, and structured lifestyle intervention. This represents the first large-scale evidence from India highlighting the potential of intensive lifestyle modification in achieving type 2 diabetes remission.”

Provided by PLOS

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New Evidence that Stress Alters Metabolic Hormone with Health Consequences

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A new biomarker for mental health called FGF21 offers a window into aging and disease risk

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A long-studied metabolic hormone, FGF21, also acts as a stress hormone – a discovery that helps explain how psychological stress causes metabolic dysregulation and drive physical disease, according to a new study published in Nature Metabolism.

FGF21 (fibroblast growth factor 21) has been researched for over two decades for its role in metabolism, glucose regulation, and diabetes. 

The new findings, from researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Butler Columbia Aging Center, show for the first time that psychological stress acutely alters FGF21 levels in the bloodstream, highlighting the hormone’s potential to link mental states to metabolic responses and ultimately affect overall health and biological aging.

“This is the first human evidence that FGF21 responds to mental stress, acting as a hormonal bridge between body and mind,” said senior author Martin Picard, PhD, associate professor of behavioural medicine at Columbia and co-director of the Columbia Science of Health programme. “It integrates psychosocial experiences with systemic metabolic signalling – expanding the neuroendocrine framework beyond traditional stress hormones.”

The study tracked hormonal changes following acute psychological stress in both healthy individuals and patients with mitochondrial disease, a group of genetic disorders that impair cellular energy transformation. In healthy participants, FGF21 levels on average dropped immediately after exposure to a standardised stressor, returning to baseline within 90 minutes – demonstrating a tightly regulated, dynamic hormonal pattern.

In contrast, participants with mitochondria that cannot transform energy normally showed a different pattern: FGF21 levels rose following stress and peaked at 90 minutes, indicating a fundamentally different stress response, likely regulated by mitochondrial biology.

“These results reveal a new axis of vulnerability,” said Mangesh Kurade, lead author on the study at Columbia. “The way our social environment and psychological experiences interact with mitochondrial health may directly shape metabolic outcomes and long-term disease risk.”

To validate their findings, the team analysed data from more than 20 000 participants in the UK Biobank and also drew on data from their ongoing MiSBIE study (Mitochondrial Stress and Biomarkers in Emotion), which investigates how psychosocial variables map onto biological processes.

The results showed that loneliness, childhood neglect, or recent relationship breakdowns including marital separation was linked to higher FGF21, while individuals with stronger social ties and emotional well-being – including frequent social interactions and high couple satisfaction and social support, were associated with lower levels – providing population-level evidence that FGF21 tracks with psychosocial conditions.

“Our findings suggest that the stress hormone and mitochondrial disease biomarker FGF21 signals not just acute stress, but also reflects a person’s social and emotional life over time,” said co-author Michio Hirano, MD, professor of Neurology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center who led the clinical portion of the study.

This cross-validation strengthens the case for FGF21 as a reliable biomarker of how psychological and social environments shape metabolic biology and perhaps also the clinical trajectory of mitochondrial diseases. By identifying FGF21 as both a biological mediator and potential biomarker of psychological stress, the study opens new avenues for research and clinical monitoring.

“This study bridges traditionally separate fields – metabolism and stress biology – suggesting that future precision mental health strategies may benefit from incorporating FGF21 and other biomarkers to monitor metabolic stress vulnerability and therapeutic responses,” said Kurade.

As a hormone once studied strictly within metabolic disease contexts, FGF21 now appears to straddle the boundary between mind and body, offering biological insight into how we age, adapt, and break down under pressure.

“This is about more than a single hormone,” said Picard, who is also associate professor at the Columbia Butler Aging Center. “It’s about understanding how our lived experience – our relationships, our stress, our resilience – gets translated into biology. A more accurate, holistic picture of human health is emerging. It’s an exciting time for science and medicine.”

Source: Columbia Mailman School of Public Health

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Pioneering Retinal Implant Restores Reading Vision to Blind Eyes

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Study participant Sheila Irvine training with the device. Credit: Moorfields Eye Hospital

After being treated with an electronic eye implant paired with augmented-reality glasses, people with sight loss have recovered reading vision, reports a trial involving a UCL and Moorfields clinical researcher.

The results of the European clinical trial, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, showed 84% of participants were able to read letters, numbers and words using prosthetic vision through an eye that had previously lost its sight due to the untreatable progressive eye condition, geographic atrophy with dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Those treated with the device could also read, on average, five lines of a vision chart; some participants could not even see the chart before their surgery.

The trial, with 38 patients in 17 hospital sites across five countries, was testing a pioneering device called PRIMA, with Moorfields Eye Hospital being the sole UK site. All patients had lost complete sight in their eye before receiving the implant.

Dry AMD is a slow deterioration of the cells of the macula over many years, as the light-sensitive retinal cells die off. For most people with dry AMD, they can experience a slight loss of central vision. Through a process known as geographic atrophy (GA), it can progress to full sight loss in the eye, as the cells die and the central macula melts away. There is currently no treatment for GA, which affects 5 million people globally. All participants in this trial had lost the central sight of the eye being tested, leaving only limited peripheral vision.

This revolutionary new implant is the first ever device to enable people to read letters, numbers and words through an eye that had lost its sight.

Mr Mahi Muqit, associate professor in the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and senior vitreoretinal consultant at Moorfields Eye Hospital, who led the UK arm of the trial, said: “In the history of artificial vision, this represents a new era. Blind patients are actually able to have meaningful central vision restoration, which has never been done before.

“Getting back the ability to read is a major improvement in their quality of life, lifts their mood and helps to restore their confidence and independence. The PRIMA chip operation can safely be performed by any trained vitreoretinal surgeon in under two hours – that is key for allowing all blind patients to have access to this new medical therapy for GA in dry AMD.”

The procedure involves a vitrectomy, where the eye’s vitreous jelly is removed from between the lens and the retina, and the surgeon inserts the ultra-thin microchip, which is shaped like a SIM card and just 2mm x 2mm. This is inserted under the centre of a patient’s retina, by creating a trapdoor into which the chip is posted. The patient uses augmented-reality glasses, containing a video camera that is connected to a small computer, with a zoom feature, attached to their waistband.

Around a month or so after the operation, once the eye has settled, the new chip is activated. The video camera in the glasses projects the visual scene as an infra-red beam directly across the chip to activate the device. Artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms through the pocket computer process this information, which is then converted into an electrical signal. This signal passes through the retinal and optical nerve cells into the brain, where it is interpreted as vision. The patient uses their glasses to focus and scan across the main object in the projected image from the video camera, using the zoom feature to enlarge the text. Each patient goes through an intensive rehabilitation programme over several months to learn to interpret these signals and start reading again.

No significant decline in existing peripheral vison was observed in trial participants.

These findings pave the way for seeking approval to market this new device.

Sheila Irvine, one of Moorfields’ patients on the trial who was diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration, said: “I wanted to take part in research to help future generations, and my optician suggested I get in touch with Moorfields. Before receiving the implant, it was like having two black discs in my eyes, with the outside distorted.

“I was an avid bookworm, and I wanted that back. I was nervous, excited, all those things. There was no pain during the operation, but you’re still aware of what’s happening. It’s a new way of looking through your eyes, and it was dead exciting when I began seeing a letter. It’s not simple, learning to read again, but the more hours I put in, the more I pick up.

“The team at Moorfields has given me challenges, like ‘Look at your prescription’, which is always tiny. I like stretching myself, trying to look at the little writing on tins, doing crosswords.

“It’s made a big difference. Reading takes you into another world, I’m definitely more optimistic now.”

The global trial was led by Dr Frank Holz of the University of Bonn, with participants from the UK, France, Italy and the Netherlands.

The PRIMA System device used in this operation is being developed by Science Corporation (science.xyz), which develops brain-computer interfaces and neural engineering.

Mr Muqit added: “My feeling is that the door is open for medical devices in this area, because there is no treatment currently licensed for dry AMD – it doesn’t exist.

“I think it’s something that, in future, could be used to treat multiple eye conditions.”

More about the device:

The device is a novel wireless subretinal photovoltaic implant paired with specialised glasses that project near-infrared light to the implant, which acts like a miniature solar panel.

It is 30 micrometres/microns (0.03mm) thick, about half the thickness of a human hair.

A zoom feature gives patients the ability to magnify letters. It is implanted in the subretinal layer, under the retinal cells that have died. Until the glasses and waistband computer are turned on, the implant has no visual stimulus or signal to pass through to the brain.

In addition to practising their reading and attending regular training, patients on the trial were encouraged to explore ways of using the device. Sheila chose to learn to do puzzles and crosswords while one of the French patients used them to help navigate the Paris Metro – both tasks being more complex than reading alone.

Source: University College London

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New Antivirals Could Help Prevent HSV-1 by Changing Cell Structures

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Lab tests confirm that antiviral class known as Pin1 inhibitors could reduce and stop outbreaks of herpes simplex virus-1

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A class of antivirals called Pin1 inhibitors could reduce or stop outbreaks of herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1), the common infection behind oral herpes, according to new research published in Antiviral Research.

HSV-1 causes sores around the mouth, commonly called cold sores or fever blisters. Most people are infected with HSV-1 in childhood, and between 50% and 90% of people worldwide have HSV-1. After the initial infection, HSV-1 remains in the body and can reactivate throughout a person’s life. While HSV-1 infections are usually mild, they can be serious and even deadly for people with suppressed immune systems. Finding new, more effective antivirals for this common illness is essential. 

Pin1 inhibitors suppress HSV-1 replication by inhibiting viral protein synthesis and preventing nucleocapsid egress from the nucleus. (Takemasa Sakaguchi/Hiroshima University)

Researchers focused on an enzyme called peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase NIMA-interacting 1, or Pin1, that regulates protein stability, function, and cellular structure. When this enzyme is dysregulated, it can play a role in a variety of conditions, including obesity, cancer, heart failure, and more. Viruses, such as cytomegalovirus (CMV) and SARS-CoV-2, are known to affect Pin1, and Pin1 inhibitors have been developed to reduce the impact of these viruses. 

Because HSV-infected cells over-express Pin1, researchers wanted to know if Pin1 inhibitors could also be used to treat HSV-1. “This study revealed that the host factor Pin1 is a crucial therapeutic target for the proliferation of HSV-1. Pin1 inhibitors potently suppress HSV-1 replication at low concentrations,” said Takemasa Sakaguchi, a professor at the Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences at Hiroshima University in Hiroshima, Japan. 

In laboratory tests, the Pin1 inhibitor H-77 and the four newly developed Pin1 inhibitors successfully stopped the replication of HSV-1. VeroE6 cells, derived from the kidney of an African green monkey and commonly used in virology research, were infected with HSV-1 and cultured in the presence of different amounts of a Pin1 inhibitor. As the amount of the inhibitor increased, the effects of HSV-1 on the cells became less pronounced and completely disappeared at 1 μM. They also found that any viral particles released from the treated cells were non-infectious. 

The most important finding is how Pin1 inhibitors affect cell structures to prevent the virus from escaping. They do this by stabilising nuclear membrane structure, physically trapping the virus in the cell nucleus. “The nuclear lamina initially functions as a ‘barrier’ when nucleocapsids of progeny viruses, that replicate within the nucleus, bud from the nuclear membrane. Pin1 overexpressed by the virus removes this barrier. However, through the action of the Pin1 inhibitor H-77, this barrier is rather reinforced, forming a thick and robust lamina layer. This demonstrates that H-77 transforms the nuclear lamina into an ‘impregnable defensive wall,’ physically blocking the escape of viruses from the nucleus of the cell,” said Sakaguchi.

Looking ahead, researchers will continue to evaluate the effectiveness of Pin1 inhibitors to treat HSV-1. They will also research how Pin1 inhibitors could be used to treat other viruses. “The ultimate goal for the future is to aim for the clinical application of Pin1 inhibitors as ‘host-directed therapeutics,’ which are less likely to cause drug resistance. To achieve this, we will first evaluate their efficacy against diverse viruses to clarify the treatable range. Simultaneously, research to optimise the compound structure is essential for creating more potent and selective drugs,” said Sakaguchi. 

Source: University of Hiroshima

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Quitting Smoking Late in Life May Still Slow Cognitive Decline

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Quitting smoking in middle age or later is linked to slower age-related cognitive decline over the long term, according to a new study by UCL researchers.

The study, published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity, looked at data from 9436 people aged 40 or over (average age: 58) in 12 countries, comparing cognitive test results among people who quit smoking with those of a matched control group who kept smoking.

The research team found that the cognitive scores of those who had quit smoking declined significantly less than their smoking counterparts in the six years after they quit. For verbal fluency, the rate of decline roughly halved, while for memory it slowed by 20%.

Since slower cognitive decline is related to reduced dementia risk, their findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting quitting smoking might be a preventative strategy for the disease. Still, more research is needed to confirm this.

Lead author Dr Mikaela Bloomberg (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care) said: “Our study suggests that quitting smoking may help people to maintain better cognitive health over the long term even when we are in our 50s or older when we quit.

“We already know that quitting smoking, even later in life, is often followed by improvements in physical health and well-being. It seems that, for our cognitive health too, it is never too late to quit.

“This finding is especially important because middle-aged and older smokers are less likely to try to quit than younger groups, yet they disproportionately experience the harms of smoking. Evidence that quitting may support cognitive health could offer new compelling motivation for this group to try and quit smoking.

“Also, as policymakers wrestle with the challenges of an ageing population, these findings provide another reason to invest in tobacco control.”

Smoking is thought to harm brain health in part because it affects cardiovascular health – smoking causes damage to blood vessels that supply oxygen to the brain. Smoking is also thought to affect cognitive health by causing chronic inflammation and directly damaging brain cells through oxidative stress (due to the creation of unstable molecules called free radicals).

Co-author Professor Andrew Steptoe (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care) said: “Slower cognitive decline is linked to lower dementia risk. These findings add to evidence suggesting that quitting smoking might be a preventative strategy for the disease. However, further research will be needed that specifically examines dementia to confirm this.”

Previous studies, the researchers noted, had found a short-term improvement in cognitive function after people stopped smoking. But whether this improvement was sustained over the longer term – particularly when people quit smoking later in life – was not known.

To answer this question the research team looked at data from three ongoing studies* where a nationally representative group of participants answered survey questions every two years. The studies covered England, the US, and 10 other European countries.

More than 4,700 participants who quit smoking were compared with an equal number of people who carried on smoking. The two groups were matched in terms of their initial cognitive scores and other factors such as age, sex, education level, and country of birth.

The research team found that the two groups’ scores in memory and verbal fluency tests declined at a similar rate in the six years prior to participants of one group quitting smoking. These trajectories then diverged in the six years following smoking cessation.

For the smokers who quit, the rate of decline was about 20% slower for memory and 50% slower for verbal fluency. In practical terms, this meant that with each year of ageing, people who quit experienced three to four months less memory decline and six months less fluency decline than those who continued smoking.

This was an observational analysis, so unmeasured differences between smokers who quit and continuing smokers could remain; while the trends before quitting were similar, the study cannot prove cause and effect.

However, the research team noted their findings were consistent with earlier studies showing that adults aged over 65 who quit smoking during early- or mid-life have comparable cognitive scores to never smokers, and that former and never smokers have a similar risk of dementia a decade or longer after quitting.

*The longitudinal studies were the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS).

Source: University College London

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mRNA-based COVID Vaccines Improved Responses to Immunotherapy

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Patients with cancer who received mRNA-based COVID vaccines within 100 days of starting immune checkpoint therapy were twice as likely to be alive three years after beginning treatment, according to a new study led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

These findings, which include more than 1000 patients treated between August 2019 and August 2023, were presented today at the 2025 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress (Abstract LBA54). The study was led by Steven Lin, MD, PhD, professor of Radiation Oncology, and Adam Grippin, MD, PhD, senior resident in Radiation Oncology.

“This study demonstrates that commercially available mRNA COVID vaccines can train patients’ immune systems to eliminate cancer,” Grippin said. “When combined with immune checkpoint inhibitors, these vaccines produce powerful antitumour immune responses that are associated with massive improvements in survival for patients with cancer.”

How was this association discovered?

The discovery that mRNA vaccines were powerful immune activators came from research conducted by Grippin during his graduate work at the University of Florida in the lab of Elias Sayour, MD, PhD. While developing personalised mRNA-based cancer vaccines for brain tumours, Grippin and Sayour found that mRNA vaccines trained immune systems to eliminate cancer cells, even when the mRNA didn’t target tumours directly.

This finding led to the hypothesis that other types of mRNA vaccines might have the same effect, and the approval and use of mRNA-based COVID vaccines created an opportunity to test this hypothesis. Lin and Grippin initiated a major effort to retrospectively study if MD Anderson patients who received mRNA COVID vaccines lived longer than those who did not receive these vaccines.

How do mRNA COVID vaccines impact immunotherapy responses in cancer?

To better understand the mechanisms at work that can help explain the clinical data, the Lin and Sayour labs at both institutions studied preclinical models. They discovered that mRNA vaccines work like an alarm, putting the body’s immune system on high alert to recognise and attack cancer cells.

In response, the cancer cells start making the immune checkpoint protein PD-L1, which works as a defence mechanism against immune cells. Fortunately, several immune checkpoint inhibitors are designed to block PD-L1, creating a perfect environment for these treatments to unleash the immune system against cancer.

These preclinical observations held up in clinical studies as well. The investigators found similar mechanisms, including immune activation in healthy volunteers and increased PD-L1 expression on tumours in patients who received COVID mRNA vaccines.

While the mechanisms are not yet fully understood, this study suggests COVID mRNA vaccines are powerful tools to reprogram immune responses against cancer.

What are the major implications of this discovery?

“The really exciting part of our work is that it points to the possibility that widely available, low-cost vaccines have the potential to dramatically improve the effectiveness of certain immune therapies,” Grippin said. “We are hopeful that mRNA vaccines could not only improve outcomes for patients being treated with immunotherapies but also bring the benefits of these therapies to patients with treatment-resistant disease.”

A multi-centre, randomised Phase III trial currently is being designed to validate these findings and investigate whether COVID mRNA vaccines should be part of the standard of care for patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibition.

What are the key data from this study on mRNA COVID vaccines and immunotherapy outcomes?

This study included multiple cohorts of several cancer types, evaluating patients who had received an mRNA vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy treatment.

In the first group, 180 patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer who received a vaccine had a median survival of 37.33 months, compared to 20.6 months in 704 patients who did not receive a vaccine. In a cohort of patients with metastatic melanoma, median survival was 26.67 months in 167 patients who did not receive a vaccine, but it had not yet been reached in 43 patients receiving a vaccine – suggesting a significant improvement.

Importantly, these survival improvements were most pronounced in patients with immunologically “cold” tumors, which would not be expected to respond well to immunotherapy. These patients, who have very low PD-L1 expression on their tumours, experienced a nearly five-fold improvement in three-year overall survival with receipt of a COVID vaccine.

Findings were consistent even when considering independent factors, such as vaccine manufacturer, number of doses, and when patients received treatment at MD Anderson.

Source: University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

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Link Between Calcium Supplements and Dementia Debunked by New Research

On By ModernMedia

New research has found no evidence that calcium monotherapy increases the long-term risk for dementia.

Photo by cottonbro studio

New research from Edith Cowan University (ECU), Curtin University and the University of Western Australia has found no evidence that calcium monotherapy increases the long-term risk for dementia, helping to dispel previous concerns about its potential negative effects on brain health in older women.

This study, which leveraged outcomes from prior research that provided calcium supplements or a placebo to 1460 older women over a five-year period, found that the supplement did not increase the long-term risk of dementia.

“Calcium supplements are often recommended to prevent or manage osteoporosis,” said ECU PhD student Ms Negar Ghasemifard.

Around 20 per cent of women over the age of 70 are affected by osteoporosis and calcium supplementation is widely recommended as a preventative measure against fracture.

“Previous research has raised concerns around the impacts that calcium supplements could have on cognitive health, particularly dementia. Results from our study provides reassurance to patients and clinicians regarding the safety of calcium supplements in the context of dementia risk for older women,” Ms Ghasemifard said.

ECU Senior Research Fellow Dr Marc Sim noted that when the analysis was adjusted for supplement compliance, a range of lifestyle factors, including dietary calcium intake and genetic risk, the results remained unchanged.

“Previous research suggesting potential links between calcium supplement use and the risk for dementia was purely observational in nature. Our research, in comparison, consisted of a post-hoc analysis from a 5-year double-blind, placebo controlled randomised clinical trial on calcium supplements to prevent fracture. Whilst our study is still epidemiology, its design does reduce the likelihood of unmeasured confounding”

“Some 730 older women were given calcium supplements over five years, and a further 730 were given placebo. This study design offers more accurate data on dosage and duration, and we had a long follow-up period of 14.5 years, which strengthens our results,” Dr Sim said.

While these findings may alleviate concerns regarding calcium supplementation and all-cause dementia risk in older women, particularly after the age of 80 years, Professor Simon Laws, Director of ECU’s Centre for Precision Health, said further research was required.

“Whether this extrapolates to other demographics, such as men or even women commencing supplementation earlier in life, remains unknown. To confirm the current findings, particularly regarding brain health, and to address these population gaps, future clinical trials of calcium supplements, with or without vitamin D, would need to be undertaken. These should include specific and robust assessments of brain health as the primary outcome measures.”

Curtin University’s Professor Blossom Stephan, Director of the Dementia Centre of Excellence and a Dementia Australia Honorary Medical Advisor said the research highlighted a very important finding that provides reassurance to clinicians and patients about the long-term safety of calcium supplementation.

“Given calcium’s critical role in multiple physiological functions, including bone health, these results provide reassurance that long-term calcium supplementation did not increase dementia risk in older women,” she said.

Source: Edith Cowan University