Medical Bulletin 6/June/2025 - Video

Here are the top medical news for the day:

How Consuming Tea, Dark Chocolate and Apples May Help You Live Longer

A new study has found that those who consume a diverse range of foods rich in flavonoids, such as tea, berries, dark chocolate, and apples, could lower their risk of developing serious health conditions and have the potential to live longer. The findings are published in Nature Food.

The findings reveal that increasing the diversity of flavonoids within your diet could help prevent the development of health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancer and neurological disease. Flavonoids are found in plant foods like tea, blueberries, strawberries, oranges, apples, grapes, and even red wine and dark chocolate.

The study tracked over 120,000 participants aging from 40 to 70 years old for over a decade.

ECU Research Fellow, first author and co-lead of the study Dr Benjamin Parmenter, made the initial discovery that a flavonoid-diverse diet is good for health.

"Flavonoid intakes of around 500 mg a day was associated with a 16% lower risk of all-cause mortality, as well as a ~10% lower risk of CVD, type 2 diabetes, and respiratory disease. That's roughly the amount of flavonoids that you would consume in two cups of tea."

Dr Parmenter added, however, that those who consumed the widest diversity of flavonoids, had an even lower risk of these diseases, even when consuming the same total amount. For example, instead of just drinking tea, it's better to eat a range of flavonoid-rich foods to make up your intake, because different flavonoids come from different foods.

Reference: Benjamin H. Parmenter, Alysha S. Thompson, Nicola P. Bondonno, Amy Jennings, Kevin Murray, Aurora Perez-Cornago, Jonathan M. Hodgson, Anna Tresserra-Rimbau, Tilman Kühn, Aedín Cassidy. High diversity of dietary flavonoid intake is associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality and major chronic diseases. Nature Food, 2025; DOI: 10.1038/s43016-025-01176-1

Study Unveils Protein That May Be Responsible for Spread of Pancreatic Cancer

A protein called PCSK9 determines how pancreatic cancer cells metastasize to different parts of the body especially the lungs or liver. The findings are published in Nature.

The spread of cancer cells to organs like these often produces the very first symptoms of pancreatic cancer. But by that time, the pancreatic cancer has spread out of control.

Researchers analyzed data from MetMap, a project at the Broad Institute, an independent research organization, to find pancreatic cancer cell lines that had a tendency to colonize either the lung or the liver. Then, they looked for genomic differences that could reveal why, or even how, these cells preferred one organ over the other.

Their analysis turned up a protein called PCSK9 that controls how cells obtain cholesterol. When PCSK9 levels are low, pancreatic cancer cells consume nearby cholesterol, which is abundant in the liver. When PCSK9 levels are high, the cancer cells produce their own cholesterol.

They also make molecules that protect them from damage by oxygen, a perfect adaptation to survival in the lungs. When the team forced pancreatic cancer cells that were destined for the liver to express PCSK9, the cells made a detour to the lungs.

"Cancers persist by adapting to live in new tissues and organs, and we found that pancreatic tumors use PCSK9 to adapt as they spread," said Rushika Perera, PhD, the Deborah Cowan Endowed Associate Professor of Anatomy at UCSF and senior author of the paper. "It opens the door to fighting metastatic cancer growth by manipulating how cells acquire their cholesterol.

Reference: Gilles Rademaker, Grace A. Hernandez, Yurim Seo, Sumena Dahal, Lisa Miller-Phillips, Alexander L. Li, Xianlu Laura Peng, Changfei Luan, Longhui Qiu, Maude A. Liegeois, Bruce Wang, Kwun W. Wen, Grace E. Kim, Eric A. Collisson, Stephan F. Kruger, Stefan Boeck, Steffen Ormanns, Michael Guenther, Volker Heinemann, Michael Haas, Mark R. Looney, Jen Jen Yeh, Roberto Zoncu, Rushika M. Perera. PCSK9 drives sterol-dependent metastatic organ choice in pancreatic cancer. Nature, 2025; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09017-8

Molecular Links between Air Pollution and Negative Birth Outcomes: Study Finds

A new study by Emory University researchers, published in Environmental Science & Technology, found that exposure to the tiny particles in air pollution during pregnancy can disrupt maternal metabolisms, altering key biological pathways. These changes were associated with increased risk of various negative birth outcomes, including premature birth.

The study analyzed blood samples provided by 330 pregnant women from the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Key Findings of the study are:

• The study uncovered the specific pathways and molecules involved in energy and amino acid metabolism that may explain how exposure to PM2.5 contributes to preterm and early term births.

• The researchers identified two substances -- cortexolone and lysoPE(20:3) -- as factors in the relationship between short-term air pollution exposure and elevated risk of early births, offering a potential mechanism through which air pollution triggers premature labor.

• The study highlighted disruptions in protein digestion and absorption -- which are vital to fetal development and immune function -- as potential links between air pollution and early births, also offering new potential targets for prevention efforts.

• Of the 330 women who participated in the Emory study, 66 (20%) delivered preterm babies and 54 (16.4%) delivered early term babies, both of which are significantly higher than the prevalence in the general U.S. population.

"As an air pollution scientist, I do not think air pollution is going away anytime soon. Even at lower levels, we continue to see harmful health effects, but we can't just ask people to simply move away from highly polluted areas," says Donghai Liang, PhD, study lead author and associate professor of environmental health at the Rollins School of Public Health. "So, from a clinical intervention standpoint, that's why it's critical to gain a better understanding on these pathways and molecules affected by pollution. In the future, we may be able to target some of these molecules to develop effective strategies or clinical interventions that could help reduce these adverse health effects."

Reference: Zhenjiang Li, Anne L. Dunlop, Jeremy A. Sarnat, Anke Hüls, Stephanie M. Eick, Audrey Gaskins, Howard Chang, Armistead Russell, Youran Tan, Haoran Cheng, Dana Boyd Barr, Alicia K. Smith, Carmen Marsit, Dean P. Jones, Donghai Liang. Unraveling the Molecular Links between Fine Particulate Matter Exposure and Early Birth Risks in African American Mothers: A Metabolomics Study in the Atlanta African American Maternal-Child Cohort. Environmental Science & Technology, 2025; DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5c02071