Institut de Recerca Sant Pau - Centre CERCA
What has long been interpreted as permanent and irreversible vascular damage may not be exclusively so. In people with Down syndrome—one of the most robust populations for studying Alzheimer’s disease due to the near-universal presence of the characteristic proteinopathies of this dementia from the age of 40—some lesions visible on magnetic resonance imaging do not follow a linear course. A longitudinal study from the Institut de Recerca Sant Pau (IR Sant Pau), published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, shows that these alterations can fluctuate and even decrease over time in the Down syndrome population. This is especially true once the clinical symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease have begun to manifest.
A new international methodological guideline from the GRADE group (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) has updated the criteria for developing and using so-called good practice statements in clinical practice and public health guidelines. The document, published as a special article in Annals of Internal Medicine, one of the most influential medical journals worldwide, seeks to avoid the inappropriate or excessive use of this type of statement and improve its justification, transparency, and credibility.
Reducing chemotherapy toxicity without compromising efficacy remains one of the major challenges in oncology. A research team from the Institut de Recerca Sant Pau (IR Sant Pau) has shown in a study published in Materials Today Bio that a more precise design strategy in nanomedicine can maintain—and even improve—the antitumor effect while using much smaller amounts of drug.
Preeclampsia is a pregnancy complication widely known for its immediate impact on maternal and fetal health. However, scientific evidence accumulated recently has shown that preeclampsia is also associated with an increased long-term cardiovascular risk in women who have experienced it. Despite this, the mechanisms underlying this elevated risk remain incompletely defined. Two recent studies conducted by the Perinatal and Women’s Medicine Research Group at the Institut de Recerca Sant Pau (IR Sant Pau) analyze how preeclampsia and angiogenic imbalance during pregnancy are linked to persistent changes in the female cardiovascular and renal systems several years after childbirth.
Experts agree that today we are much closer to defeating Alzheimer’s and that we are living through a historic paradigm shift. There is still no cure, but for the first time it has been possible to slow the course of the disease thanks to a turning point: a new generation of drugs that remove the beta-amyloid protein that accumulates in patients’ brains and slow the progression of Alzheimer’s by 30%. Plasma biomarkers are also highlighted as a revolution in diagnosis at all stages of the disease through a simple blood test. They also deliver a public health message to society: 45% of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by addressing 14 modifiable risk factors. These are some key conclusions from the recent meeting marking the 20th anniversary of the Memory Unit (MU) at Hospital de Sant Pau, which brought together world experts, patients, and families.
