Key Takeaways A man who received the world’s first combined whole-eye and partial face transplant is doing well His body has not rejected either his new face of his new left eye However, vision has not returned in the donated eye The recipient of the world’s first combined whole-eye and partial face transplant is doing well more than a year out from his groundbreaking surgery, NYU Langone doctors report. Aaron James, a 46-year-old military veteran from Arkansas, says over the past year his new face has allowed him to enjoy things others take for granted. No more stares from strangers. The ability to taste and enjoy solid foods again. The simple pleasure of smelling. Trading in his old driver’s license, which displayed his injured face, for a new one. James is now back to daily life in Arkansas and focused on sending his daughter, Allie, off to college. “I’m pretty much back to being a normal guy, doing normal things,” James said in an NYU Langone news release. “All in all, though, this has been the most transformative year of my life. I’ve been given the gift of a second chance, and I don’t take a single moment for granted. James was maimed in June 2021 when his face touched a live wire on the job as a high-voltage lineman in Arkansas. The deadly 7,200-volt…  read on >  read on >

Losing weight can help a person with obesity — especially those with diabetes — fend off serious infections, new data shows. It’s an important finding, since “up to one in three hospitalizations in people with diabetes are for infections and people with diabetes are twice as likely to be hospitalized with infections than the general population. They are also at high risk of readmission,” said study co-lead author Rhian Hopkins. She’s at the University of Exeter Medical School in the U.K. Hopkins presented the research Saturday in Madrid at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD). The new study used data from the ongoing UK Biobank, a database that includes health info on almost 500,000 Britons. According to the data, about 64,000 had been hospitalized for a bacterial infection (such as a urinary tract infection or pneumonia); almost 15,000 had been hospitalized with a viral infection (such as the flu), and about 408,000 had never been hospitalized for infection. Obesity seemed linked to a higher risk for severe infection, the team found. Every 5-point increase in BMI — for example, from a BMI of 30 (the threshold for obesity) to 35 — incurred a 30% rise in the risk of a serious bacterial infection and a 32% rise for severe viral infection. These associations were for all people, regardless…  read on >  read on >

A slow-release form of semaglutide could allow people who use Wegovy or Ozempic to get shots once a month, instead of the weekly injections they now take, a new study demonstrates. The new formulation encases semaglutide in a hydrogel that slowly releases the drug as the gel dissolves, researchers said. “A small dollop of gel, known as a ‘depot,’ of the semaglutide-laden hydrogel is injected under the skin,” said lead researcher Dr. Claire Megret, director of clinical and preclinical development for the French biotech company ADOCIA, which developed the gel. The hydrogel successfully released a smooth, steady stream of semaglutide to six lab rats, researchers said in a presentation at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes’ annual meeting in Madrid. “Next we will be testing the hydrogel platform in pigs, whose skin and endocrine systems are most similar to those in humans,” Megret said in a meeting news release. “If that goes well, we will move forward the platform development by expecting clinical trials within the next few years.” Semaglutide promotes weight loss and helps control diabetes by mimicking the GLP-1 hormone, which is released in the gut in response to eating. The drug helps suppress appetite, slows down digestion and prompts the body to produce more insulin in response to elevated blood sugar levels. Unfortunately, semaglutide now must be given in weekly…  read on >  read on >

Getting older tends to go hand in hand with failing vision, but eye experts say there are things you can do to preserve your sight as you age. The risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy increases among seniors, but vision loss and blindness aren’t a foregone conclusion, according to the American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS). Not only is healthy vision key to staying active, but studies have shown that older adults with vision issues face a higher risk of developing dementia. What can you do to avoid that fate? Here are some tips from the ASRS: Learn the signs of common retinal conditions. AMD affects 19.8 million Americans and is the leading cause of vision loss among older Americans. Another retinal condition, diabetic retinopathy, strikes 9.6 million Americans and is the leading cause of blindness in working-age adults. Hallmark symptoms of AMD include warping of straight lines, a decrease in the brightness of colors, gradual or sudden loss of central vision and dark, blurry areas in the center of vision. Diabetic retinopathy symptoms include blurry central vision, seeing spots, floaters or a shadow across the field of vision, difficulty reading, eye pressure and difficulty with color perception. Know your family history. Ask older family members if they have had vision issues. Retinal conditions may have a genetic component that runs in families. Other common risk factors…  read on >  read on >

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 >

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 >

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 >