A new blood test could reveal Parkinson’s diagnoses up to seven years before symptoms emerge.

Researchers from University College London and University Medical Center Goettingen in Germany used artificial intelligence to develop the test.

The study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications, included 72 patients with rapid eye movement behavior disorder (iRBD), a condition that has been linked to a higher risk of Alzheimer’s.

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When the researchers used machine learning to analyze blood samples from the patients, they discovered that 79% of them had the same biomarkers as people with Parkinson’s.

Over a 10-year follow-up period, the researchers confirmed that 16 of the patients went on to develop Parkinson’s, a movement disorder that affects nearly one million people in the U.S.

“By determining eight proteins in the blood, we can identify potential Parkinson’s patients several years in advance,” said co-first-author Dr. Michael Bartl from the University Medical Center Goettingen in a press release.

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“This means that drug therapies could potentially be given at an earlier stage, which could possibly slow down disease progression or even prevent it from occurring.”

“We have not only developed a test, but can diagnose the disease based on markers that are directly linked to processes such as inflammation and degradation of non-functional proteins. So these markers represent possible targets for new drug treatments.”

When the researchers used machine learning to analyze blood samples from the patients, they discovered that 79% of them had the same biomarkers as people with Parkinson’s. (iStock)

Blood tests provide a less invasive alternative to a lumbar puncture (also known as a spinal tap), which has been used more often to diagnose Parkinson’s in clinical research, according to professor David Dexter, director of research at Parkinson’s UK.

“This research, co-funded by Parkinson’s UK, represents a major step forward in the search for a definitive and patient friendly diagnostic test for Parkinson’s,” Dexter said in the release. 

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Looking ahead, the researchers plan to follow the participants to confirm the accuracy of the test, and will also analyze samples from others in the population who have a genetic mutation that puts them at a higher risk of developing Parkinson’s.

“The findings add to an exciting flurry of recent activity toward finding a simple way to test for and measure Parkinson’s.”

“With more work, it may be possible that this blood-based test could distinguish between Parkinson’s and other conditions that have some early similarities, such as multiple systems atrophy or Lewy body dementia,” Dexter said in the release.

“The findings add to an exciting flurry of recent activity toward finding a simple way to test for and measure Parkinson’s.”

Dr. Harvey Castro, a Dallas, Texas-based board-certified emergency medicine physician and national speaker on AI in health care, said the blood test could serve as a model for other diseases. (Dr. Harvey Castro)

Dr. Harvey Castro, a Dallas, Texas-based board-certified emergency medicine physician and national speaker on AI in health care, was not involved in the blood test but spoke to Fox News Digital about its potential impact.

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“As an ER physician deeply involved in AI applications in health care, I find this development particularly promising,” Castro said. 

“It exemplifies the potential of AI to diagnose and predict serious health conditions, allowing for earlier and potentially more effective interventions.”

Nearly one million people in the U.S. are living with Parkinson’s disease, according to the Parkinson’s Foundation. (iStock)

This approach could serve as a model for other diseases, Castro suggested.

“Having a tool that provides more time before significant nerve cell damage occurs offers a substantial opportunity to address diseases at very early stages, where traditional diagnostic methods might not detect them,” the doctor said.

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“This early intervention capability could significantly slow the disease progression.”

Although knowing about a disease in advance can help patients prepare mentally and emotionally, Castro warned that it could be a “double-edged sword.” 

“Having a tool that provides more time before significant nerve cell damage occurs offers a substantial opportunity to address diseases at very early stages,” one doctor said. (iStock)

“While some patients may benefit from early knowledge and the ability to plan their lives accordingly, others might prefer not to know about a potential future illness due to the psychological burden it could impose,” he said.

Overall, Castro said, this AI-powered blood test represents a “paradigm shift” in the approach to neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s. 

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“It underscores the importance of integrating advanced technologies into medical practice to enhance patient outcomes and transform health care delivery,” he said.

Fox News Digital reached out to the study researchers for additional comment.

Night owls might want to start turning in earlier.

A recent study by Stanford University, published in the journal Psychiatry Research, found that going to bed after 1:00 a.m. could lead to mental health issues.

Researchers analyzed the data of more than 73,000 adults in the U.K., looking into their chronotype (inclination to rise early or stay up late) and actual sleep timing.

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The study then examined the alignment between the two and the prevalence of mental, behavioral and neurodevelopmental disorders (MBN), as well as depression and anxiety.

People with a morning preference who go to bed early exhibit “better mental health” compared to morning types who go to bed late, the study found.

Morning types who tend to go to bed late have an increased risk of MBNs, depression and anxiety.

People with an evening preference who sleep late were also found to demonstrate poorer mental health. Evening types who wake up early, conversely, have a lower risk of developing depression. 

Based on these findings, the researchers recommended going to sleep before 1:00 a.m., regardless of preference.

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Study co-author Jamie Zeitzer, Ph.D., a professor at Stanford University’s department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences in California, said he was surprised by the results.

“They were not what we expected at all,” he wrote in an email to Fox News Digital. “We spent more than a year trying to disprove our findings, but could not find an alternate explanation.” 

“We had expected that night owls who stayed up late would be OK, but they ended up being at a greater risk for developing mental health disorders than night owls who went to bed earlier,” one researcher said. (iStock)

The researchers originally anticipated that individuals who aligned their actual sleep timing with their morning/evening preference would have the best mental health, Zeitzer noted – but this was not the case.

“Rather, we found that being awake late at night, irrespective of preferred sleep timing, was associated with worse mental health,” he said.

Good sleep is “crucial for establishing a pillar of good mental health,” according to Zeitzer.

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“It is not necessarily [the case] that bad sleep causes poor mental health, but it can definitely facilitate poorer mental health,” he said. 

“There are several aspects of sleep that contribute [to mental health], including the duration (which we accounted for in our study) and the timing (which we directly examined in our study).”

Not getting enough sleep has been proven to compromise mental health, according to a sleep expert. (iStock)

While it might not be detrimental for all night owls to stick to their preferred nighttime sleep schedule, Zeitzer said, the research highlights that it presents a risk for some.

“We are not clear as to why this is the case, but it may have to do with the isolation that often accompanies such late-night behavior,” he said. 

“So, being aware of how you are spending your late nights and whether these behaviors are conducive to good mental health is crucial.”

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Dr. Wendy Troxel, a Utah-based sleep expert who was not involved in the study, agreed that the findings are “very interesting” – particularly the fact that going to bed later is associated with poorer mental health regardless of one’s natural tendency.

“These findings underscore that sleep health is a multidimensional state,” Troxel said in an interview with Fox News Digital. 

“It’s not just about getting enough sleep or good quality sleep that matters, but the timing matters, too.”

“Going to bed excessively late on a regular basis may lead to impairments in decision-making and emotion regulation.”

Failing to get enough sleep has been proven to compromise mental health by “influencing brain mechanisms that help to regulate emotions,” she added.

“Going to bed excessively late (i.e., after 1 a.m.) on a regular basis may lead to impairments in decision-making and emotion regulation, which may underlie associations with mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety,” she said.

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The study results are also interesting when applied to specific groups who tend to be night owls, like teenagers, Troxel noted.

“Biologically, teenagers are predisposed to stay awake later and sleep in later, which is in conflict with early school start times,” she said.

“This can set them up for a ‘double whammy’ of both insufficient sleep and delayed sleep schedules, which can contribute to mental health problems — a major public health issue among teenagers.”

Dr. Wendy Troxel, senior behavioral scientist for RAND Corporation, is the author of “Sharing the Covers: Every Couple’s Guide to Better Sleep” and is also a scientific advisor for the Sleep Foundation. (Diane Baldwin)

3 critical steps for better sleep

Troxel recommends taking  the following steps to improve the quality of sleep.

First, slowly advance bedtime earlier by 15-minute increments each week.

Next, allow for plenty of sunlight in the morning, she advised, as sunlight is “one of the most powerful cues to help set the circadian rhythm.” In the evening, keep the lights low.

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It’s important to stay consistent with sleep schedules, even on the weekends, one sleep expert advised. (iStock)

Finally, stay consistent with your sleep schedule, including on weekends, Troxel suggested. 

While this can be challenging, especially for night owls, reverting to a later bedtime and wake-up times will “set you back to square one,” she warned.

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The key to successfully shifting sleep habits is to do it gradually, Troxel said.

“It’s similar to the approach we would recommend for changing one’s schedule to manage jetlag,” she said.

Being aware of how you’re spending your late nights is “crucial” to good mental health, one of the study researchers said. (iStock)

Zeitzer noted that it can be difficult for anyone to switch up their sleep schedules, especially for those who prefer more “extreme times,” like staying up until 4:00 a.m. or waking up before 5:00 a.m.

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Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day is the best way to successfully make a shift, he said, along with exposure to bright light.

As temperatures and humidity soar outside, what’s happening inside the human body can become a life-or-death battle decided by just a few degrees.

The critical danger point outdoors for illness and death from relentless heat is several degrees lower than experts once thought, say researchers who put people in hot boxes to see what happens to them.

With much of the United States, Mexico, India and the Middle East suffering through blistering heat waves, worsened by climate change, several doctors, physiologists and other experts explained to The Associated Press what happens to the human body in such heat.

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Heat waves can raise your body temperature

The body’s resting core temperature is typically about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

That’s only 7 degrees away from catastrophe in the form of heatstroke, said Ollie Jay, a professor of heat and health at the University of Sydney in Australia, where he runs the thermoergonomics laboratory.

Dr. Neil Gandhi, emergency medicine director at Houston Methodist Hospital, said during heat waves anyone who comes in with a fever of 102 or higher and no clear source of infection will be looked at for heat exhaustion or the more severe heatstroke.

“We routinely will see core temperatures greater than 104, 105 degrees during some of the heat episodes,” Gandhi said. Another degree or three and such a patient is at high risk of death, he said.

How heat kills

Heat kills in three main ways, Jay said. The usual first suspect is heatstroke — critical increases in body temperature that cause organs to fail.

When inner body temperature gets too hot, the body redirects blood flow toward the skin to cool down, Jay said. But that diverts blood and oxygen away from the stomach and intestines, and can allow toxins normally confined to the gut area to leak into circulation.

“That sets off a cascade of effects,” Jay said. “Clotting around the body and multiple organ failure and, ultimately, death.”

But the bigger killer in heat is the strain on the heart, especially for people who have cardiovascular disease, Jay said.

It again starts with blood rushing to the skin to help shed core heat. That causes blood pressure to drop. The heart responds by trying to pump more blood to keep you from passing out.

“You’re asking the heart to do a lot more work than it usually has to do,” Jay said. For someone with a heart condition “it’s like running for a bus with dodgy (hamstring). Something’s going to give.”

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The third main way is dangerous dehydration. As people sweat, they lose liquids to a point that can severely stress kidneys, Jay said.

Many people may not realize their danger, Houston’s Gandhi said.

Dehydration can progress into shock, causing organs to shut down from lack of blood, oxygen and nutrients, leading to seizures and death, said Dr. Renee Salas, a Harvard University professor of public health and an emergency room physician at Massachusetts General Hospital.

“Dehydration can be very dangerous and even deadly for everyone if it gets bad enough — but it is especially dangerous for those with medical conditions and on certain medications,” Salas said.

Dehydration also reduces blood flow and magnifies cardiac problems, Jay said.

Intense heat can ‘fry’ your brain

Heat also affects the brain. It can cause a person to have confusion, or trouble thinking, several doctors said.

“One of the first symptoms you’re getting into trouble with the heat is if you get confused,” said University of Washington public health and climate professor Kris Ebi. That’s little help as a symptom because the person suffering from the heat is unlikely to recognize it, she said. And it becomes a bigger problem as people age.

One of the classic definitions of heat stroke is a core body temperature of 104 degrees “coupled with cognitive dysfunction,” said Pennsylvania State University physiology professor W. Larry Kenney.

Heat and humidity are a dangerous duo

Some scientists use a complicated outside temperature measurement called wet bulb globe temperature, which takes into account humidity, solar radiation and wind. In the past, it was thought that a wet-bulb reading of 95 Fahrenheit was the point when the body started having trouble, said Kenney, who also runs a hot box lab and has done nearly 600 tests with volunteers.

His tests show the wet-bulb danger point is closer to 87. That’s a figure that has started to appear in the Middle East, he said.

And that’s just for young healthy people. For older people, the danger point is a wet bulb temperature of 82, he said.

“Humid heat waves kill a lot more people than dry heat waves,” Kenney said.

When Kenney tested young and old people in dry heat, young volunteers could function until 125.6 degrees, while the elderly had to stop at 109.4. With high or moderate humidity, the people could not function at nearly as high a temperature, he said.

“Humidity impacts the ability of sweat to evaporate,” Jay said.

How to cool down heat exhaustion patients

Heatstroke is an emergency, and medical workers try to cool a victim down within 30 minutes, Salas said.

The best way: Cold water immersion. Basically, “you drop them in a water bucket,” Salas said.

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But those aren’t always around. So emergency rooms pump patients with cool fluids intravenously, spray them with misters, put ice packs in armpits and groins and place them on a chilling mat with cold water running inside it.

Sometimes it doesn’t work.

“We call it the silent killer because it’s not this kind of visually dramatic event,” Jay said. “It’s insidious. It’s hidden.”

A new drug to control liver disease has gotten the green light.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the French drugmaker Ipsen’s medication Iqirvo (elafibranor).

The drug, an 80 mg tablet administered orally once daily, is intended to treat an autoimmune cholestatic liver disease called primary biliary cholangitis (PBC). 

What is PBC?

PBC is a disease in which the immune system attacks and destroys the small bile ducts of the liver. 

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Without the active bile ducts, acids can then leak into the nearby tissue and cause liver damage or failure, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The disease typically involves chronic inflammation along with a stagnant build-up of bile and toxins known as cholestasis, which can lead to irreversible scarring of the liver and ultimately destroy the bile ducts. 

Although PBC is considered a rare condition, it can often go undetected, some health experts said.

“PBC is likely to be way underdiagnosed,” Dr. Douglas Dieterich, M.D., director of the Institute for Liver Medicine at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, told Fox News Digital.

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“Many people — mostly women — have elevated liver enzymes that can be easily diagnosed with a simple blood test called the AMA.”

Patients typically experience severe fatigue and significant itching called pruritus. 

If the disease is not treated or an individual does not respond to current therapies, it can lead to liver failure, the need for a liver transplant or even early death, according to experts.

PBC is a disease in which the immune system attacks and destroys the small bile ducts of the liver. Without the active bile ducts, acids can then leak into the nearby tissue and cause liver damage or failure. (iStock)

PBC is diagnosed with a blood test that measures liver enzymes. 

One common test analyzes the patient’s alkaline phosphatase (ALP), an enzyme that helps detect liver or bone disease. 

Another blood test to diagnose PBC measures antimitochondrial antibodies (AMAs), which are positive in approximately 95% of patients with the condition, according to several liver experts.

Patient welcomes more treatment options

One New York patient with PBC told Fox News Digital that she did not know she had a liver disease until her primary care physician performed routine blood work and noticed that her liver enzymes were elevated. 

Meredith S., who withheld her last name for privacy reasons, was referred to a hepatologist, whom she credits for saving her life. 

“It is distressing to know that your body is fighting itself and you can’t figure out how to stop it.”

“I was feeling tired, but attributed it to working and studying at school,” she told Fox News Digital. 

“I was completely surprised to find out I had a liver disease and learned it was PBC.”

She went on, “My doctor performed a liver biopsy and I had significant scarring of my liver in my 30s, even though I didn’t drink alcohol.”

Patients have expressed relief at having another treatment option for liver disease. (iStock)

Meredith S. said she is glad there are more treatment options available, and hopes for more awareness and research of PBC.

“It is distressing to know that your body is fighting itself and you can’t figure out how to stop it,” she told Fox News Digital.

Addressing an ‘unmet need’

Dieterich of New York City, who is also a professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told Fox News Digital that this newly approved medication “is a giant step forward in the treatment of PBC.”

He noted, “Up until now, there has been only one drug available … Now there are two.”  

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The existing drug, ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) — commonly called ursodial or “urso” — is a naturally occurring bile acid that has been used to treat liver disease for decades. 

The newly approved Iqirvo (elafibranor) is intended to be used in combination with UDCA in patients who are not responding to the first medication on its own, or can be used on its own for people who cannot tolerate UDCA.

The disease typically involves chronic inflammation along with a stagnant build-up of bile and toxins known as cholestasis, which can lead to irreversible scarring of the liver and ultimately destroy the bile ducts.  (iStock)

“For a significant number of people living with PBC, available treatments do not control the condition and may exacerbate symptoms of PBC,” said Christelle Huguet, executive vice president and head of research and development at Ipsen, in a press release.

“Iqirvo demonstrated statistically significant improvements in biochemical response compared to UDCA alone. Iqirvo is therefore a much-needed treatment option and the first new medicine for PBC in nearly a decade.”

Primary biliary cholangitis affects approximately 100,000 people in the U.S.

The accelerated approval for Iqirvo was based on positive results from the Phase III ELATIVE trial, which showed reduced levels of the alkaline phosphatase enzyme, which is elevated in people with liver disease.

The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, included 161 patients with PBC who were inadequately responding to treatment with UDCA or could not tolerate that medication. 

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Researchers found that 51% of the patients who received the elafibranor had a biochemical response, compared to only 4% who received a placebo.

After 52 weeks, the patients who were treated with elafibranor showed normalized liver enzymes, compared to 15% of patients in the placebo group.

The study, which was published in The New England Journal of Medicine, included 161 patients with PBC. (iStock)

“Data from the pivotal Phase III ELATIVE clinical trial demonstrated that Iqirvo is an effective second-line treatment for patients with PBC with favorable benefit and risk data,” Dr. Kris Kowdley, a primary investigator on the ELATIVE study and the director at Liver Institute Northwest, Washington, said in a news release.

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“The approval of Iqirvo will allow health care providers in the U.S. to address an unmet need, with the potential to significantly reduce ALP levels for our patients with PBC,” he added. 

Continued approval is contingent upon further studies showing improved survival or prevention of liver decomposition, the FDA report noted. 

Potential side effects and limitations

Some reported side effects of Iqirvo included muscle pain, rhabdomyolysis, myopathy, fractures, weight gain and drug-induced liver injury, according to the FDA report.

Some reported side effects of Iqirvo included muscle pain, rhabdomyolysis, myopathy, fractures, weight gain and drug-induced liver injury, according to the FDA report. (iStock)

Also noted was the potential risk to the fetus in pregnant patients, based on animal study data. 

The FDA cautioned health care providers to ensure that patients are not pregnant prior to starting the medication.

Iqirvo is also not recommended in patients who have advanced stages of cirrhosis. 

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Primary biliary cholangitis affects some 100,000 people in the United States, according to the drugmaker Ipsen.

It is a lifelong disease that can result in liver failure if left untreated, according to experts.