It seems like a kind of superpower, but scientists say they’ve used a common food dye to render the skin of a mouse transparent, revealing the workings of blood vessels and organs underneath. It’s not yet clear if the procedure could work on human skin, which is thicker than that of a mouse. But the prospect is tantalizing, researchers said. ″Looking forward, this technology could make veins more visible for the drawing of blood, make laser-based tattoo removal more straightforward, or assist in the early detection and treatment of cancers,″ said study co-leader Guosong Hong, a Stanford University assistant professor of materials science and engineering. ″For example, certain therapies use lasers to eliminate cancerous and precancerous cells, but are limited to areas near the skin’s surface,” he explained in a news release from the U.S. National Science Foundation. “This technique may be able to improve that light penetration.″   The Foundation helped fund the new study, which was published Sept. 5 in the journal Science. Dr. Zihao Ou, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Texas (UT) at Dallas, helped lead the research. In a UT news release, he explained that living skin can’t normally be seen through because its various components — fats, cellular fluids, proteins — scatter light waves. But when the researchers applied a mix of water and a safe,…  read on >  read on >

Saltwater nose drops can reduce the length of a kid’s cold by two days, a new study demonstrates. “We found that children using saltwater nose drops had cold symptoms for an average of six days, where those with usual care had symptoms for eight days,” said researcher Dr. Steve Cunningham, a professor of pediatric respiratory medicine with the University of Edinburgh in the U.K. “The children receiving salt water nose drops also needed fewer medicines during their illness,” he added. Children tend to have 10 to 12 colds a year, “which have a big impact on them and their families,” Cunningham said. Over-the-counter remedies containing drugs like acetaminophen and ibuprofen can treat symptoms, but until now no treatments have been identified that could speed up recovery from a cold, Cunningham said. For the new study, researchers recruited more than 400 kids aged 6 years or younger and randomly assigned them to take either salt-water nasal drops or usual care if they caught a cold. Saltwater solutions often are used by people in South Asia as nasal irrigation or gargling to treat a cold, researchers noted. Overall, about 300 of the kids caught a cold and half were given saltwater drops as their treatment. Parents administered three drops per nostril a minimum of four times per day, using a saltwater solution they made at home with…  read on >  read on >

Gene therapy may restore vision to children and adults robbed of their sight by a rare inherited condition called Leber congenital amaurosis, researchers report. The illness is caused by mutations in the GUCY2D gene, which is critical to producing proteins that enable vision. People with this form of Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA1) typically lose their vision in early childhood. Just under 100,000 people are thought to be affected worldwide. However, a team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say that a new gene therapy injected under the retinas of children and adults with LCA1 improved vision by 100 to 10,000 times. “Even though we previously predicted a large vision improvement potential in LCA1, we did not know how receptive patients’ [eye] photoreceptors would be to treatment after decades of blindness,” noted study co-lead author Artur Cideciyan, a research professor of ophthalmology at the university. “It is very satisfying to see a successful multi-center trial that shows gene therapy can be dramatically efficacious.” The findings were published Sept. 5 in The Lancet journal. A total of 15 LCA1 patients — 12 adults and three children — participated in the new trial. All had vision that was equal to or below 20/80, meaning that objects a normally sighted person could see at 80 feet could only be clear at 20 feet away for a person with…  read on >  read on >

The maker of the ADHD drug Vyvanse has been given approval by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to make more of the medication as a shortage of the critical drugs continues. Following a request from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in July, the DEA said Thursday that Takeda Pharmaceuticals may now increase its production limit by 24%. “These adjustments are necessary to ensure that the United States has an adequate and uninterrupted supply of lisdexamfetamine [Vyvanse] to meet legitimate patient needs both domestically and globally,” the DEA said in a notice it posted on the approval. ADHD drugs have been in short supply for years. The FDA first warned of a shortage of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries’ Adderall medication in October 2022, as the company was plagued by manufacturing delays. That prompted a spike in demand and subsequent shortage of Takeda’s Vyvanse. Why was the DEA’s approval to boost production needed? Vyvanse (lisdexamfetamine) is classified by the DEA as a schedule II controlled substance, which is applied to drugs considered to have a high likelihood of being abused, so additional prescribing safeguards are put in place. The production limit for lisdexamfetamine was increased by 13, 478 pounds (6,236 kilograms), which includes 3,434 pounds (1,558 kg) to address domestic demand and 10,313 pounds (4,678 kg) for foreign demand for finished dosage medications, according to the DEA. After Takeda lost exclusivity…  read on >  read on >

Thinking about quitting smoking? There are three top ways to help you stop, a new review finds. According to the study, folks wanting to quit should turn to: Varenicline, a prescription nicotine-blocking drug sold under the brand names Chantix and Champix Cytisine, a plant-based compound sold as an over-the-counter supplement in Canada and Europe Nicotine e-cigarettes “Quitting smoking is difficult, and some people find it harder to quit than others, but tobacco is uniquely deadly among legal consumer products, so it’s important to seek help quitting,” said lead investigator Jonathan Livingstone-Banks, a lecturer and researcher in evidence-based health care with the University of Oxford in the U.K. “There’s a range of effective forms of support for smoking cessation, and cytisine, varenicline and e-cigarettes are all evidence-based ways to greatly increase people’s chances of successfully quitting smoking,” Livingstone-Banks added. These strategies work best when combined with counseling or other behavioral support, researchers said. “For behavioral support, evidence is strongest for counseling and for programs that reward people for stopping smoking,” said senior researcher Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, an assistant professor of health policy and management with the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences. Bupropion and nicotine replacement therapy are also effective, especially if nicotine patches are combined with fast-acting forms like gum, researchers said. The new study was published Sept. 4 in the…  read on >  read on >