The founding editor of Comprehensive Clinical Nephrology teases out for us our physiologic response to salt, sugar, fat, and water that creates a recipe for obesity – a recipe being used daily by many Americans with obvious results. His recommendation? “Drinking more water and reducing salt intake offer cheap, easy and healthy strategies that may prevent or treat obesity.” Click to see the evidence behind the conclusion.

This review with case example explores pericarditis and myocarditis and implications on limiting exercise. The authors summarize relevant guidelines and provide their own conclusion and guidance. They offer a helpful algorithm combining the ESC, ACC, and AHA guidelines and suggest an additional element around limiting heart rate during an acute inflammatory episode.

Among 150 people ages 65 to 88, investigational transcranial alternating current stimulation for 20 minutes over 4 consecutive days produced selective improvements in working and long-term memory in older adults that lasted for at least a month The rate of memory improvement over 4 days predicted the size of memory benefits 1 month later, the researchers found. Moreover, people with lower baseline cognitive function experienced larger and longer lasting memory improvements. “We found that by applying extremely weak electrical current safely and noninvasively to the prefrontal cortex at a high frequency, we could selectively improve long-term memory in older people aged 65 to 88 years old without changing short-term memory.” Robert Reinhart, PhD, Boston University in Nature Neuroscience

In this double-blind randomized clinical trial with 93 participants, the percentage of heavy drinking days during 32 weeks of follow-up was significantly lower in the psilocybin group than in the diphenhydramine group and was accompanied by a decrease in daily alcohol consumption.

This single-center observational study sought to assess the diagnosis of somatic symptom disorder (SSD) in patients with unexplained neurological symptoms occurring in the setting of long COVID. Fifty patients were included in the study. SSD diagnosis based on DSM-5 criteria was positive in 32 (64%) patients. In the remaining 18 patients, SSD was considered possible given the high score on diagnostic scales.

Adult-onset genetic disorders may present with clinical and brain imaging features suggestive of acquired inflammatory diseases. An ever-growing number of potentially treatable adult-onset genetic neuroinflammatory disorders have been described in the past few years that need to be rapidly identified. This review aims to provide insights to neurologists so they can confirm a diagnosis early, when some of these genetic disorders can be successfully treated.