Medicine: 5 Good News Stories of 2024

Thanks to medical research, many diseases that were once a death sentence for patients can now be cured. Every year, new treatments, medications, and prophylactics are developed that can extend life or prevent illnesses. In 2024, there were also breakthroughs in medicine. Here are five highlights.

1. HIV Drug

Every year, the journal 'Science' awards the most important research breakthrough of the year. This year, the drug Lenacapavir was selected, which is administered as an injection every six months. The active ingredient it contains is said to prevent HIV infection 100 percent. The 'Breakthrough of the Year' recognizes the next, but by no means last, step in the fight against AIDS.

2. High-tech against paralysis

A research team from Lausanne may have achieved a breakthrough in the treatment of people with partial paralysis. The team has accelerated the recovery of a spinal cord injury through deep brain stimulation.

Because if the spinal cord is only partially severed, those affected can relearn to walk through intensive training. Special brain implants can support these learning processes. The electrodes used are controlled externally with a device and stimulate specific areas of the brain.

Also interesting: The medical technology company Neuralink, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, has already implanted a brain chip in a second patient – with this implant, paralyzed people may soon be able to control electronic devices just with their thoughts.

3. Preventing dementia through shingles vaccination

A British research team reported an interesting discovery in the journal 'Nature Medicine': herpes viruses could be involved in the development of dementia, so a shingles vaccine could reduce the risk of dementia or at least delay the onset of the disease. The first studies mainly compare the dementia risk of vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, and the result: the vaccination even reduced the risk of dementia by 20 percent.

4. Weight loss injections like Ozempic are supposed to protect against Alzheimer’s

A new study with patient data from more than a million Americans showed: type 2 diabetics treated with semaglutide, the active ingredient in the weight loss injection Wegovy and the type 2 diabetes medication Ozempic, were less likely to develop dementia than with insulin therapies.

The function of semaglutide is actually to regulate appetite in the brain and blood sugar levels. But researchers led by bioinformatician Rong Xu report in the journal 'Alzheimer’s & Dementia' that it also apparently prevents neurodegenerative diseases. Type 2 diabetes patients treated with semaglutide were 40 to 70 percent less likely to receive an Alzheimer’s diagnosis compared to other type 2 diabetics who primarily received insulin.