Is your teenager skipping breakfast? Why is that happening and what can you do? As per the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which surveyed adolescent health and well-being found that 1 in 4 students in high school ate breakfast, which means 3 in 4 high school students are not eating their breakfast. This data is as per the 2023 survey.

What Did The Study Intend?

The report describes a 10-year long trend and also recent changes among the two years. The study delved deeper into adolescents' dietary, physical activity and sleep behaviors. The study is also based on a national youth risk behavior survey of a representative sample of students from grade nine to 12.

What Did The Study Find?

The study found that while high school students drank slightly less soda and sports drinks and consumed more water, other healthy eating habits declined. In 2023, only 27% of students ate breakfast every day in the past week. The numbers were even lower for female students, with just 22% eating breakfast daily, compared to 32% of male students. Boys were also more likely to eat fruits and vegetables daily and drink water at least three times a day. Poor mental health and lack of physical activity have also been linked to skipping breakfast.

The other findings included a survey across 10-year period, where a decrease in the percentage of students eating fruits from 65% to 55%, eating vegetables, from 61% to 58%, and having breakfast daily from 38% to 27% was noted.

However, there was a positive trend among this, which was in children drinking plain water at least three times a day, which increased from 49% to 54% from when the survey began in 2015.. There were fewer students who also said that they drank soda in 2023 than in 2013. On an average, in 2013, around 22% students avoided soda, whereas in 2023, 31% students avoided it.

The report also emphasized that a healthy diet, along with daily physical activity and sufficient sleep further contributes to a healthy lifestyle. “The 10-year trends from 2013 to 2023 also show a decline in healthy dietary, physical activity, and sleep behaviors,” the survey reported.

Why Do High School Students Skip Breakfast?

While there is no one straightforward answer to it, psychologists and those who study children, believe that for many high school going kids, it is the easiest time to skip a meal. This is because they are caught between rushing to school, or not just that hungry in the morning. So for them, to sit down to have a breakfast may seem hassle and something they would have to take time out from their busy schedule. They at this age also prioritize their extra-curricular activities.

There has also been a shift in their circadian rhythm, and most teens cannot fall asleep before 11 pm, or even at midnight. Which means they wake up tired and struggle to do things right in the morning, which is why they choose to skip breakfast or give extra minutes to any other activities.

There is of course another, more popular reason, to lose weight. While experts and studies, like the one published in the Journal of Nutrition that found skipping breakfast leads to higher levels of hunger hormones, the students still feel the need to do this. However, it could lead to a slow metabolism, prompt the body to conserve energy and burn fewer calories, weight gain and deprive yo off the essential nutrients like calcium, iron, and vitamin D.

Without a morning breakfast, your blood sugar might drop too, which can increase irritability and stress, along with including the risk of depression in teenage.

Google DeepMind has launched AlphaGenome Atlas, an AI-powered database that maps the predicted effects of all 9 billion possible single-letter changes in the human genome.

The novel tool could help scientists identify genetic changes linked to rare diseases, understand how mutations affect gene function and uncover new clues about human health and disease.

AlphaGenome Atlas: Explore DNA We Don’t Understand

Scientists have a strong understanding of the roughly 2% of the genome that codes for proteins. But interpreting mutations in the remaining 98% of non-coding regulatory DNA has been much more difficult.

Changes in these regions can disrupt how genes are regulated and affect cellular functions. By pre-computing the predicted effects of billions of genetic variations, AlphaGenome Atlas aims to give researchers a map for navigating this largely unexplored part of the genome.

The resource could help researchers investigate unsolved rare diseases, uncover biological mechanisms behind common illnesses and support drug discovery.

One Score to Help Researchers Prioritise Variants

The Atlas introduces the AlphaGenome Variant Impact (AVI) score, a single score that combines predictions for genetic effects across coding and non-coding regions.

This allows researchers to prioritise potentially important variants without having to sift through thousands of individual data points.

Each AVI score is also linked to the biological features contributing to the prediction, including aspects of gene regulation predicted by AlphaGenome and protein-impact information from AlphaMissense.

A Genetic Database

AlphaGenome Atlas contains predictions for the effects of 9 billion single-nucleotide variants in the human genome.

The dataset is about 1 petabyte in size, making it more than 30 times larger than the previous AlphaFold Database.

The Atlas brings together several resources, including:

• Molecular effect predictions: Thousands of predictions for each variant across multiple aspects of gene regulation, covering hundreds of human and mouse cell types and tissues.
• AVI score: A single score indicating the predicted impact of each genetic variant.
• AVI feature attributions: Information showing the biological features driving each AVI score.
• DNA sequence motifs: A collection of more than 2,500 recurrent DNA sequences and their locations in the genome.

Helping Solve Rare Genetic Diseases

One of the biggest challenges in rare disease research is identifying the few potentially causal variants among thousands of genetic changes.

Researchers at the Broad Institute, working with the GREGoR Consortium, used the AVI score to prioritise variants in unsolved rare disease cases

and identified a variant affecting the DNM1 gene, which is strongly linked to epileptic encephalopathy.

Finding Genetic Links to Complex Traits

AlphaGenome Atlas is also being used to study rare, non-coding variants linked to complex traits, where the large number of harmless genetic changes can create substantial statistical noise.

Researchers at the University of Exeter applied the Atlas to identify 22% more non-coding genetic associations.

Among the top 1% of variants predicted to have the greatest impact, the analysis identified 19 genetic regions linked to body mass index (BMI), helping direct further targeted research.

AlphaGenome Atlas Is Free for Academic Research

Google DeepMind said AlphaGenome Atlas is being made free to the scientific community for academic research, with the aim of opening new pathways for genetic and biomedical discovery.

The company described it as a comprehensive catalogue of how genetic mutations are predicted to affect molecular biology, covering every possible single-letter genetic change across the human genome.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the first drug for Alexander disease, a rare and progressive neurological disorder. Alexander disease is marked by symptoms like seizures, slow development, muscle weakness, difficulty in walking and problems with speech and swallowing.

The FDA approved Zanvastro (zilganersen) for children and adults afflicted with Alexander disease. Being the first approved treatment for the condition, the drug is designed to directly target the abnormal protein buildup, one of the major factors that drives the disease.

Talking about the landmark drug, Emily Freilich, MD, Director of the Division of Neurology I at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research said, “For patients with Alexander disease and their families, there have been no approved treatment options, only supportive care while the disease progresses. Today’s approval is a landmark moment for this community, offering the first therapy that addresses the underlying cause of this rare and serious disease.”

What Is Alexander Disease?

According to the FDA, Alexander disease is extremely rare as it affects fewer than one in a million people. Alexander disease is a rare, genetic neurodegenerative disorder that is caused due to mutations in the GFAP gene. GFAP gene promotes the production of glial fibrillary acidic protein, a type of protein found in the central nervous system.

GFAP is found primarily in astrocytes, a type of specialised cells in the brain and spinal cord that support and protect nerve cells.

In Alexander disease, abnormal GFAP accumulates inside these cells. This leads to formation of cumulative protein called Rosenthal fibres. This disrupts the normal function of astrocytes and ultimately damages the nervous system.

In simple terms, the issue is not that the brain suddenly loses a particular protein. It is that a genetically altered version of GFAP is produced and progressively accumulates where it should not. This is why Alexander disease is considered an astrogliopathy, a disorder which is primarily driven by astrocyte dysfunction.

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Symptoms Of Alexander Disease

The disease can present very differently depending on the timing of its onset. In infants and young children, it can cause delay in development, loss of previously acquired essential skills, seizures, unusually large head, muscle weakness, feeding difficulties and problems with movement. Some severe early-onset cases may progress rapidly.

Juvenile and adult forms can be slower and may involve speech and swallowing difficulties, abnormal way of walking, muscle stiffness, poor coordination, weakness, breathing or sleep problems and autonomic dysfunction.

As symptoms of Alexander disease may overlap with many other neurological disorders, its diagnosis remains challenging. Doctors typically diagnose it by combining key findings in brain MRI with genetic testing for a disease-causing GFAP variant.

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What Makes The New Drug Different?

Until now, the treatment for Alexander Disease has largely focused on managing individual symptoms, like seizures, feeding problems and difficulties with movement, speech or swallowing.

Taking a different approach, Zanvastro, a type of RNA-targeted medicine is designed to reduce production of the abnormal GFAP protein.

Its goal is to lower the amount of disease-driving protein before it can continue accumulating and damaging astrocytes. The drug is administered once every three months as an injection into the spinal canal.

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Zanvastro's FDA Approval

The FDA's approval arrived after a controlled study involving 49 patients aged two and older, along with an open-label substudy involving four children younger than two.

Among patients aged five and older who already had walking difficulties, those receiving Zanvastro had significantly better walking speed after 61 weeks than others.

For children aged two to four, researchers used broader measures of motor development because walking speed alone is not a reliable measure at that age. Those children showed improvement in motor skills, while the control group declined.

The most common side effects included vomiting, back pain, cough, headache and post-lumbar-puncture syndrome. The FDA also warned that aseptic meningitis has been reported.

Alexander disease has long been a condition in which doctors treated complications but had no approved therapy that aimed at the biological process causing the disease.

Zanvastro does not reverse genetic mutations themselves. Instead, it targets one of the consequences of those mutations by reducing production of abnormal GFAP.

As Ionis Pharmaceuticals CEO Brett P. Monia said following the approval, the treatment allows the field to move “beyond managing individual manifestations of the disease to addressing its underlying biology.”

Creating a new senior position to focus entirely on technology and artificial intelligence, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just got its first AI chief. The move could change how the agency evaluates medicines, pharmaceutical products and new technologies in the healthcare sector.

On September 8, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that Jared Seehafer, M.S. will be FDA’s first Deputy Commissioner for Technology and Artificial Intelligence. The newly formed role puts AI and technology directly into the agency’s senior leadership structure.

Seehafer has around two decades of experience working at the intersection of software, AI and FDA-regulated medical technology.

As deputy commissioner, he will be the FDA’s senior leader for technology, software and AI and will help establish an agency-wide strategy for their use.

Why Does The US FDA Need An AI Chief?

From identifying potential drug candidates to analysing clinical-trial data and developing medical devices, the use of AI is increasing rapidly across pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.

But, for regulators, AI presents a different challenge. The FDA must determine whether AI-generated or AI-assisted evidence is reliable enough to support decisions about the safety and effectiveness of a product.

The agency has already begun moving in this direction. In May 2026, the FDA issued draft guidance on the use of artificial intelligence to generate information or data intended to support regulatory decision-making for drugs and biological products.

The FDA has also been exploring AI and cloud-based approaches to make clinical trials more efficient, including a pilot focused on early-phase trials.

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AI May Make Drug Approvals Faster

One of the biggest opportunities is using artificial intelligence to process large volumes of information that regulators already receive during drug development and review.

AI could eventually help regulators identify patterns in clinical-trial data, analyse safety aspects, review large regulatory submissions and support more efficient assessment of complex datasets in health and pharmaceutical sector.

But does faster automatically mean better? AI systems may produce incorrect outputs. So regulators need to understand how an algorithm reached a particular conclusion before relying on it for decisions that affect patients. That makes validation, transparency, data quality and human supervision critical in this area.

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The Future Of Drug Regulation

The appointment comes alongside several other leadership changes at the FDA. HHS also named Michael Davis as permanent director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Karim Mikhail as director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, and Bret Koplow as director of the Center for Tobacco Products.

The broader message from HHS is that the FDA wants to modernise its regulatory infrastructure while accelerating innovation.

“We are building an FDA that moves faster, demands excellence, and delivers results for the American people,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said. “These leaders will drive the reforms needed to confront our nation’s most serious health challenges and strengthen American leadership in medical innovation.”

FDA Acting Commissioner Kyle Diamantas said the appointments were intended to help build the workforce and infrastructure needed to “accelerate innovative” work across the agency.