What the scientists are saying…
The “holy grail” of diet pills Advocates of slimming pills like to claim that they offer a halfway house between dieting and weight-loss surgery, but their use has been limited by concerns over their safety. Several products have been withdrawn from sale after being found to damage the heart. Now a large-scale randomised double-blind trial of the slimming pill lorcaserin has shown it to be both safe and effective, says The Times. Lorcaserin is an appetite suppressant that works by stimulating brain chemicals to induce a feeling of fullness. It has been available in the US (as Belviq) since 2012, but is currently unlicensed in Europe. “There’s a history of these drugs having serious complications,” says Dr Erin Bohula of Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard University, who led the new research into lorcaserin. For the study (sponsored by the drug’s maker, Eisai Inc.), 12,000 obese or overweight adults were given either lorcaserin or a placebo, and were followed up over 40 months, while also being encouraged to exercise more and make dietary changes. Those on lorcaserin lost an average of 4.2kg, compared with 1.4kg in the placebo group, and did not appear to be at any greater risk of cardiovascular “events” such as heart attacks and stroke. Tam Fry, of British charity the National Obesity Forum, said a drug that could suppress appetite without harmful side effects was the “holy grail” of obesity medication.
The filter that keeps out germs Scientists in the US have designed a filter that works in the opposite way to most other filters: it blocks small particles while allowing larger objects to pass through. Made of sodium dodecyl sulfate and water, the “reverse filter” consists of a transparent liquid membrane a bit like the film that stretches across a toy bubble dispenser. Owing to its surface tension, small objects bounce off it, while larger ones puncture the seal – which then instantly self-heals. Among its many possible uses the scientists, writing in the journal Science Advances, highlight using it as a surgical seal to allow operations to be performed in non-sterile environments. “The membrane filter could potentially prevent germs, dust or allergens from reaching an open wound, while still allowing a doctor to perform surgery safely,” said Dr Tak-sing Wong, from Pennsylvania State University. The filter could also be used to keep odours trapped inside waterless toilets.
Car noise makes birds age faster It’s not just humans who are stressed out by city living: scientists have found that the noise of road vehicles produces premature signs of ageing in zebra finches. Studies have suggested that urban birds have shorter lifespans than rural ones, which led researchers from the US and Germany to investigate whether artificial noise could be partly responsible. Their study involved comparing the telomeres of zebra finch offspring exposed to recordings of street traffic with those of birds raised without background noise (telomeres are the caps on the ends of chromosomes that protect genes from damage: they get shorter as the body biologically ages). At 120 days, the telomeres of birds exposed to the sounds after leaving the nest were shorter than those of the control group, and were also shorter than those of birds hatched to parents who’d been exposed to noise. “Our study suggests that urban noise alone, independent from the many other aspects of city life, such as light or chemical pollution, may contribute to ageing in zebra finches,” said Dr Adriana Dorado-correa, of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany.
Cannabis extract eases psychosis A trial involving the brain scans of people who had experienced psychotic episodes may open the way for the first new drug treatment for psychosis in decades. The team from King’s College London found that unusual brain activity in their subjects appeared to be noticeably dampened when their subjects were given cannabidiol, a non-intoxicating extract of the plant. Current antipsychotic drugs, which target the brain chemical dopamine, were discovered and developed in the 1950s, but they don’t work for everyone. The researchers are now launching a large-scale trial, with a view to eventually developing a new, and hopefully more effective, class of antipsychotics.