Linda Geddes, Author at ��è��Ƶ

��è��Ƶ recommends an unsettling deep dive into forensic science

Linda Geddes — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 18:00:00 +0000

Esteemed forensic anthropologist Sue Black gives a candid insight into the UK criminal justice system and how it really works in her book An Expert Witness, finds Linda Geddes

Your body clock has seasonal rhythms and it matters for vaccines

Linda Geddes — Mon, 18 May 2026 11:00:51 +0000

We think of our body clock ticking over on a 24-hour cycle, but evidence is growing that it has seasonal rhythms, which could affect our response to vaccines

Your oral microbiome could affect your weight, liver and diabetes risk

Linda Geddes — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 16:00:53 +0000

An ambitious study has explored how the oral microbiome may affect our metabolic health, raising hopes that conditions like pre-diabetes could one day be screened for via a simple mouth swab

Body fat supports your health in surprisingly complex ways

Linda Geddes — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 19:00:22 +0000

Too much body fat isn’t healthy, but some kinds can be beneficial

happyfoto/Getty Images

If you thought body fat was just a passive storage depot for calories, think again. Research increasingly suggests that it plays an important role in our overall health, with two studies shedding new light on its complexity.

Fat exists in several forms. For instance, there’s white fat, which stores energy and releases hormones that influence metabolism; brown fat, which generates heat; and beige fat, which sits somewhere in between, switching on heat production under certain conditions. Even within these categories, location matters: fat under the skin is generally less harmful, while fat deep inside the abdomen – known as visceral fat – is strongly linked to inflammation, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

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The vital, overlooked role of body fat in shaping your health and mind

The latest research adds further flesh to this picture, suggesting that fat, or adipose tissue, actively helps to regulate blood pressure and coordinate immune responses at key locations.

In one of the studies, at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, and her colleagues mapped the cellular architecture of visceral fat from multiple locations within the abdomen. They found that epiploic fat, which wraps around the large intestine, is unusually rich in immune cells, as well as specialised fat cells that produce inflammatory proteins associated with immune activation. Further experiments showed that microbial products originating in the gut trigger these fat cells to activate nearby immune cells.

“Our work shows that fat depots appear to be specialised according to their anatomical location, and those that sit right next to the intestine seem particularly adapted for immune interaction,” says Jalkanen.

Although the study involved people with obesity, Jalkanen suspects that epiploic fat serves similar core functions in people of all body weights, since everyone has some fat surrounding their intestine.

“The intestine is constantly exposed to nutrients, microbial products and substances coming from our environment,” says Jalkanen. “Having fat tissue nearby that can sense, respond to, and help coordinate immune reactions could provide an additional layer of protection.”

In obesity, however, this system may become chronically overactivated. Eating too much, or too much of certain foods, and having particular bacterial compositions within the gut microbiome could potentially drive persistent immune signalling in intestinal fat, contributing to the low-grade inflammation linked to a range of metabolic conditions, such as type 2 diabetes and obesity.

The second study reveals another unexpected role for fat: controlling blood pressure. at The Rockefeller University in New York and her colleagues set out to understand why obesity, characterised by excess white fat, is linked to high blood pressure, while brown and beige fat appear to be protective.

They focused on perivascular adipose tissue, a fatty layer rich in beige fat calls that surrounds blood vessels. In mice genetically engineered to lose their beige fat, blood vessels became stiffer and overreacted to everyday hormonal signals that constrict arteries, leading to elevated blood pressure.

The team traced this effect to an enzyme called QSOX1, released by dysfunctional fat cells. Blocking it prevented blood vessel damage and normalised blood pressure in mice, regardless of their body weight. “What this nicely shows is that the communication between different organ systems is critical to understand complex diseases such as hypertension and blood pressure regulation,” says Koenen.

How a new way of thinking about fat could transform your health

Body fat, often reviled, is actually a vital organ that contributes to your health and well-being. It is time for us to stop vilifying fat and to start exploring how we can harness its power

“This study reveals an under-appreciated role for brown or beige fat,” says at The Ohio State University in Columbus. While deposits of perivascular adipose tissue are proportionately smaller in people than they are in mice, they are still probably physiologically relevant in us, she says. “[The study] emphasises a need for nuanced understanding of adipose impacts on health, independent of fat mass or body mass index (BMI) overall.”

The findings point to future therapies that focus less on simply reducing fat and more on preserving or restoring its beneficial functions by targeting specific fat depots, modulating immune-fat communication or maintaining healthy beige fat activity. However, any clinical applications would require further research.

Together, the studies highlight fat as an active, functionally diverse tissue involved in multiple aspects of human physiology. “When I started working in this field in the late 1990s, the prevailing view was that fat was just a simple bag of cells that stored excess nutrients,” says , also at The Rockefeller University, who was involved with the second study. “These studies illustrate a growing shift in the field: recognising fat not as a single cell type, but as a complex tissue with many different types of cells with different roles and diverse processes, extending well beyond just nutrient storage and mobilisation.”

Journal reference:

Cell Metabolism

Journal reference:

Science

Timing cancer drug delivery around our body clock may boost survival

Linda Geddes — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 14:38:59 +0000

We already know that timing chemotherapy correctly can minimise side effects

Paul Springett/Alamy

They say timing is everything, and treating cancer may be no exception. Researchers have found that simply shifting when people with cancer receive immunotherapy drugs could improve their survival, adding to evidence that our body’s internal clocks influence how well cancer treatments work. The activity of our cells and tissues works on 24-hour cycles, known as circadian rhythms, which coordinate everything from hormone release to the timing of cell division and repair. These rhythms are often disrupted in cancer cells, which tend to divide continuously, rather than at set times.

Read more

How to harness your body clock for a longer, healthier life

This has prompted efforts to reduce the side effects of chemotherapy, which targets rapidly dividing cells, by administering it when healthy tissues are least active. Increasingly, however, researchers are exploring whether the effectiveness of cancer drugs might also be improved by giving them at particular times. One such group of drugs is immune checkpoint inhibitors, which help immune T-cells recognise and attack tumours more effectively. “T-cells and other immune defenders are naturally more active in the morning; primed to respond,” says at Ysbyty Gwynedd hospital in Bangor, UK, who wasn’t involved in the study. “Administering immune checkpoint inhibitors during this window may amplify anti-tumour effects and enhance efficacy.” Earlier this year, at Central South University in Changsha, China, and his colleagues reported that giving the checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab alongside chemotherapy to people with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) before 11.30am was associated with seen in those who received most of their treatment in the afternoon. To investigate whether timing treatments around circadian rhythms – known as chronotherapy – might also benefit people with small cell lung cancer, a faster-growing and more aggressive form of the condition, the same team analysed data from 397 people treated with the checkpoint inhibitors atezolizumab or durvalumab alongside chemotherapy between 2019 and 2023. “Compared with patients treated later in the day, those treated before 3pm had significantly longer progression‑free survival and overall survival,” says team member , also at Central South University. After adjusting for multiple confounding factors, earlier administration was associated with a 52 per cent lower risk of cancer progression and a 63 per cent lower risk of death. Zhang believes this effect probably exists for other tumour types, pointing to hints from studies of and . As to why this dosing regimen has this effect, the NSCLC trial showed that morning administration boosted circulating T-cell numbers and activation, while late-day dosing had the opposite effect. have also shown that tumour-infiltrating T-cells vary in function over 24 hours, and that the circadian clocks of nearby endothelial cells can regulate when immune cells enter tumours. Although randomised controlled trials with larger sample sizes are needed, this study “further supports the growing number of reports from all over the world describing better results with early time of day of immunotherapy drugs administration,” says at the University of Warwick, UK.

Let a breakthrough in measuring body clocks ease the ills of shiftwork

New tests to gauge an individual's circadian rhythms could be put to good use helping night workers fend off the ill effects of their unsocial hours

But could hospitals realistically implement this? Compared with adding treatments, “adjusting the infusion time is a simple clinical decision that adds almost no cost”, says Zhang. Still, treating everyone early in the day isn’t practical, says , also at the University of Warwick, and individuals’ internal clocks differ. “The difference in biological time between ‘early birds’ and ‘night owls’, for example, can be many hours.” But biomarkers to accurately determine people’s chronotypes are being developed. Once tested and validated, chronotherapy “could represent a low-cost, resource-efficient innovation with the power to profoundly improve outcomes: a simple shift in timing that unlocks a new dimension of precision medicine,” says Ismail-Sutton, who recently published on this approach.

Journal reference:

Cancer

The vital, overlooked role of body fat in shaping your health and mind

Linda Geddes — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 16:00:22 +0000

The discovery that fat is a communicative organ with a role in everything from bone health to mood is forcing a rethink of how we view our bodies

How to harness your body clock for a longer, healthier life

Linda Geddes — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 15:00:46 +0000

Your circadian rhythm influences mood, metabolism and even how well you respond to medical treatment. Now we finally have the tools to harness it to help us live longer and feel better

We’re finally learning how perimenopause profoundly changes the brain

Linda Geddes — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 16:00:35 +0000

The hormonal upheaval in the run-up to menopause can cause cognitive difficulties. But researchers are also finding that this can be a critical window for protecting long-term brain health

A better understanding of our hormones and sleep could improve both

Linda Geddes — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 16:00:00 +0000

The hormonal changes of puberty, the menstrual cycle and menopause can all affect our sleep, but there are also subtler ways that hormones and sleep interact

The only four skincare ingredients that have been proven to work

Linda Geddes — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:00:00 +0000

In the quest for better skin, we are faced with an overwhelming choice of creams and serums to enhance our appearance. Here's what works – and what doesn't

Linda Geddes, Author at ��è����Ƶ

��è����Ƶ recommends an unsettling deep dive into forensic science

Your body clock has seasonal rhythms and it matters for vaccines

Your oral microbiome could affect your weight, liver and diabetes risk

Body fat supports your health in surprisingly complex ways

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Timing cancer drug delivery around our body clock may boost survival

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The vital, overlooked role of body fat in shaping your health and mind

How to harness your body clock for a longer, healthier life

We’re finally learning how perimenopause profoundly changes the brain

A better understanding of our hormones and sleep could improve both

The only four skincare ingredients that have been proven to work

Linda Geddes, Author at ��è��Ƶ

��è��Ƶ recommends an unsettling deep dive into forensic science