Low-dose CT chest scans could help detect pneumonia in at-risk patients while exposing them to only small amounts of radiation, a new study has found. The research, published in Radiology: Cardiothoracic Imaging, shows that ultra-low-dose scans can effectively detect pneumonia in patients with compromised immune systems, enabling doctors to treat the infection before it becomes life-threatening. According to the researchers, these scans expose patients to just 2% of the radiation dose used in a standard CT scan.

"This study paves the way for safer, AI-driven imaging that reduces radiation exposure while preserving diagnostic accuracy,” lead researcher Dr Maximiliano Klug, a radiologist with the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel, said in a news release. He added that CT scans are the gold standard for detecting pneumonia but there are concerns regarding the risk posed by repeated exposure to radiation. There is a solution- ultra-low-dose CT scan. However, the problem is that these scans can be grainy and hard to read, researchers said.

Study Gives Solution To This

To overcome that, Klug's team developed an AI program that could help "de-noise" low-dose scans, making them sharper and easier to read. Between September 2020 and December 2022, 54 patients with compromised immune systems who had fevers underwent a pair of chest CT scans -- a normal dose scan and an ultra-low-dose scan. The AI program cleaned up the low-dose scan, and then both sets of images were given to a pair of radiologists for assessment. Radiologists had 100% accuracy in detecting pneumonia and other lung problems with the AI-cleaned low-dose scans, but 91% to 98% accuracy in examining the scans that hadn’t been improved through AI, results show.

"This pilot study identified infection with a fraction of the radiation dose," Klug said. "This approach could drive larger studies and ultimately reshape clinical guidelines, making denoised ultra-low dose CT the new standard for young immunocompromised patients.

How Can You Detect Pneumonia?

Pneumonia is a lung infection that causes the air sacs in the lungs to fill with fluid or pus and can be caused by bacteria, viruses, or fungi. The symptoms can range from milk to severe, which includes:

Coughing with or without cough

Fever

Chills

Trouble breathing

Chest pain, especially when breathing deeply or coughing

Sweating or chills

Rapid heart rate

Loss of appetite

Bluish skin, lips, and nails

Confusion.

How to detect Pneumonia in coughing newborns and toddlers?

Pneumonia can severely affect newborns and young children as their lungs are comparatively more sensitive. As per Dr Goyal, young children can cough for various reasons including seasonal infections and tonsillitis, which is very common in this age group. But if they look visibly irritable and have poor sleep patterns, then parents must reach out to an expert. "I am not saying that parents must visit a hospital but any local paediatrician would be able to detect pneumonia in your kid.

For people living with alopecia areata, hair loss can be unpredictable, persistent, and difficult to treat. Now, amid lack of a definitive cure, a medicine originally developed for inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, is showing striking results in patients with severe alopecia areata.

Two large Phase III clinical trials involving 1,399 adults and adolescents found that the drug upadacitinib significantly improved scalp hair regrowth compared with placebo. The trial’s findings were published in JAMA Dermatology.

The results are both striking and promising as alopecia areata is an autoimmune condition, in which the immune system mistakenly attacks hair follicles.

How Can An Arthritis Drug Help Hair Grow?

Upadacitinib, sold under the brand name Rinvoq, belongs to a class of medicines called JAK inhibitors.

JAK proteins help transmit signals that are involved in immune and inflammatory responses. In alopecia areata, abnormal immune response contributes to the attack on hair follicles.

By blocking JAK1 signaling, upadacitinib can slow down some of these immune responses, potentially allowing damaged or suppressed hair follicles to resume producing hair for some time.

The drug is already used for other autoimmune conditions including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

Its potential use in alopecia is an example of drug repurposing, where an existing medicine gets used for a completely different disease.

Also read: Going Slow & Steady Really Help With Sustainable Weight Loss? New Study Challenges The Norm

How Much Hair Did Patients Regrow?

The Phase III programme included two parallel trials, UP-AA1 and UP-AA2, involving adults and adolescents with severe alopecia areata.

After 24 weeks, about 45% of patients taking 15 mg of upadacitinib achieved at least 80% scalp hair coverage. More than 54% of those taking 30 mg reached the same threshold.

In comparison, only about 2% of placebo recipients achieved that level of regrowth.

Researchers also reported improvements in eyebrow and eyelash hair and indirectly in quality of life

Strikingly, benefits were seen in people with severe disease, rather than only those with a few small bald patches. Severe alopecia areata in the trials was defined as hair loss affecting at least half of the scalp.

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What Does This Mean For Alopecia Areata Treatment?

Alopecia areata currently has no guaranteed permanent cure. And this trial does not mean that the condition can be cured.

The disease can follow a relapsing and unpredictable course, with hair growing back and then falling out again.

The new findings show that upadacitinib can promote substantial hair regrowth while patients are receiving treatment. They do not prove that the underlying autoimmune disease can be permanently eliminated.

There are already approved JAK inhibitors for alopecia areata, including baricitinib, ritlecitinib and deuruxolitinib, so upadacitinib would not be the first drug in this category.

Side Effects

The safety findings in the trials were consistent with the known safety profile of upadacitinib, and researchers reported no new safety concerns during the study period.

Common adverse events included upper respiratory infections, acne, increased creatine phosphokinase and nasopharyngitis.

But JAK inhibitors are powerful medicines that regulates immune system and are not something people should take simply because they are experiencing hair loss. Their risks and benefits need to be assessed by a doctor.

The Karnataka government has launched a QR code-based grievance system that allows consumers to lodge food and drug safety complaints directly with authorities. The move is aimed at making food and drug safety-related violations easier to report.

The Integrated Public Grievance Redressal System (IPGRS) was launched by Karnataka Health Minister U T Khader on August 17. The system has been developed by the state’s Food Safety and Drugs Administration (FSDA) in coordination with the Centre for e-Governance.

QR codes will be displayed at hotels, restaurants, eateries and drug stores, allowing customers to scan them and register complaints. They will also be able to track the status of complaints, according to officials.

What Can You Complain About?

The system is designed to cover both food and medicine-related violations. For food establishments, consumers can report:

• Unhygienic food or poor sanitation
• Food safety violations
• Use of artificial colours
• Problems at restaurants, hotels and street-food outlets
• Other food-related regulatory or service complaints
• For pharmacies and medicines, complaints can include:
• Expired medicines
• Overcharging or excessive pricing
• Adverse drug reactions
• Pharmacy-related grievances
• Other violations under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act

Also read: Immunity-Boosting Peptide Shows Promise In Long COVID Treatment, So Why FDA Has Not Approved It?

Why Has Karnataka Introduced This Now?

The QR system comes as Karnataka's food safety authorities ramp up inspections across the state. In one recent operation, inspections at government facilities reportedly uncovered food safety problems, while canteens at Vidhana Soudha and the health department headquarters in Bengaluru were sealed after officials found expired food and unhygienic conditions, including cockroaches.

The move came after complaints about unhygienic food handling and the use of artificial colours in shawarma and kebabs.

During the checks, 61 samples were collected, with nine shawarma samples and one kebab sample subsequently declared unsafe. Officials said legal action is now being initiated against those responsible.

The department also turned its attention to food warehouses used by e-commerce platforms, inspecting 236 facilities and initiating proceedings against 44 for violations. Eight of these warehouses were fined a total of Rs 1.97 lakh after officials found unhygienic conditions.

Also read: Taiwan FDA Recalls 87,000 Blood Pressure Tablets: Here’s Why The Medicine May Not Work As Intended

Concerns were also raised over milk and dairy products entering the state. Of the 25 samples collected from batches coming into Karnataka from Tamil Nadu, one was found to be substandard.

In Bengaluru Urban, inspection teams visited more than 60 three- and five-star hotels, eight warehouses and four international restaurants.

The inspections also uncovered large quantities of expired, spoiled and improperly labelled food. Officials seized 429 kg of mutton and chicken, 203 kg of fish, and 200 kg of vegetarian food that had been stored alongside non-vegetarian items.

The seized material also included 76 kg of rotten or mouldy vegetables, 45 litres of expired milk and curd, and 12 kg of expired bakery products. Another 67 kg of cereals and other food products were confiscated for being expired or mislabelled, while 49 litres of used or non-compliant cooking oil were also seized.

How Will The QR System Help?

Traditionally, consumers had to go through a complex complaint-lodging process to report an unsafe restaurant, suspicious food product or expired or harmful medicines. The new system essentially puts a digital window to lodge complaints right at the place where the problem is discovered.

A customer who notices poor hygiene at a restaurant, for example, can scan the QR code displayed at the establishment and submit the complaint without having to separately search for the relevant authority. The system is also intended to make complaints easier for officials to monitor and follow up on.

The state government has described the initiative as the first of its kind in India, with the system integrated with the government's Centre for e-Governance.

That could become particularly useful in a state where food is sold through a huge network of restaurants, street vendors, hotels, pharmacies and institutional kitchens.

Even as global temperatures continue to climb, increased exposure to extreme heat may be more dangerous for people aged 60 and over than previously thought, according to a new study published in The Lancet Planetary Health.

The global study found that older adults may face serious health risks as their bodies struggle to keep up with extreme heat, a state physiologists call “uncompensable heat stress.” This occurs when sweating and other biological cooling mechanisms are overwhelmed and core body temperature continues to rise.

“The human body can tolerate only a limited range of ambient heat,” said lead author Qinqin Kong from Stanford Health Policy (SHP).

“Understanding where, when, and to what extent these limits are exceeded is critical for informing climate prevention policies,” Kong said.

What Did The Study Find?

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The study accounts for age-related differences in heat tolerance on a global scale. Researchers drew on previously published laboratory experiments that measured heat tolerance across three age groups:

• Younger adults: 15–39 years
• Middle-aged adults: 40–59 years
• Older adults: 60 years and over

The researchers then mapped where heat would become dangerous for each group and how many people would be affected.

They used a high-resolution heat stress metric across scenarios ranging from 1°C to 4°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels, in 0.5°C increments, combined with population projections.

Based on at least 180 hours of dangerous heat annually, assuming roughly six hours of such heat per day:

• At 1.5°C warming: 22% of the world's older adults — about 290 million people — could face unsafe heat for at least one month each year.
• At 3°C or higher warming, older adults could face dangerous heat day and night for three months straight.
• A similar level of risk is not projected until 4°C warming, when about 17% (490 million people) could be affected.

Which Countries Will Be Most Affected?

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According to the study, South Asia and the Persian Gulf regions are projected to be among the most exposed.

At that level of warming, just four countries—India, China, Pakistan and Bangladesh—would account for 1.5 billion people, or 73% of the total population affected worldwide, across all age groups.

The researchers warned that the greatest challenge will fall on countries that combine high heat exposure with high poverty rates and limited access to cooling, including:

• India
• Pakistan
• Bangladesh
• Myanmar
• Niger

Why Are Older Adults at Higher Risk?

Each additional degree of warming exposes roughly 1 billion more people to at least 180 hours of uncompensable heat a year, with older adults bearing a disproportionate share of the risk.

When researchers accounted for the reduced heat tolerance associated with aging, the number of people facing repeated, uncompensable heat exposure was two to eight times higher than earlier estimates that used young-adult thresholds for everyone.

This is particularly concerning because extreme heat is already one of the leading causes of weather-related deaths worldwide. Heat-related mortality may also become the largest contributor to climate-related costs in a warming world.

Why Prolonged Heat Can Be Dangerous?

The researchers noted that sustained exposure beyond the body's heat tolerance limits can lead to dangerous or even fatal hyperthermia and can worsen pre-existing chronic illnesses, particularly those affecting the:

• Cardiovascular system
• Respiratory system
• Renal system

These findings underscore the urgent need for age-specific adaptation strategies alongside ambitious climate change-mitigation efforts to protect clinically vulnerable populations from escalating heat-related hazards.

The study calls on governments to develop heat emergency plans and improve access to cooling and heat-warning systems.

The team also stress that cutting emissions remains essential to reduce older people's risk of prolonged, round-the-clock heat exposure and protect future generations from widespread heat danger.