Videos

Do you have a lot of fast or rather slow muscle fibers? No worries if you don't know the answer. But for athletes, this is crucial info as it determines how best to train. Only there is one big problem, about 15 centimeters big to be precise .... That's how long the needle, used to remove a piece of muscle to find out someone's muscle fiber type, is. Sounds painful and it is. That's why Freek Van de Casteele is looking for new, reliable, and painless methods.

Do you often eat fish? 🐟 Through fish, you get a lot of healthy #omega3 fatty acids. Yet we don't owe those omega-3 to the fish themselves. Marine biologist Jens Boyen tells you about the little heroes who provide the healthy omega-3.

As many as one in five Belgians struggle with depression at some point in their lives. Doctors then often opt for therapy and medication, including antidepressants. Yet 1/3rd of patients do not respond to those antidepressants. For them, anti-inflammatories may offer relief. Céline Wessa tells you how in this video.

Alzheimer's not only affects memory, but also balance and orientation. "People with Alzheimer's move more slowly and unsafely, putting them at greater risk of falls and broken bones than their healthy peers," Joyce Bosmans explains. She advocates helping people with Alzheimer's to get balance training.

Did you know that as many as 3 in 4 women suffer from a vaginal yeast infection at some point in their lives? But does the type of underwear they wear play a role in this? That's what Leonore Vander Donck (UAntwerpen) is looking into.

Tim Boogaerts (UAntwerp) dives into sewers for his research. "Why would you do that?", we hear you thinking. Well, because sewage offers a wealth of information on the use of drugs, alcohol, and medicines in our society. Tim explains how that works.

Have you ever enjoyed a delicious smoothie? The way this tasty drink is made has similarities to how Alzheimer's disease research has been approached in the past decades. In this video, Lara De Deyn explains why she chooses a fruit salad approach in her research. A very nice metaphor to tell how Alzheimer's disease research is evolving.

Did you know that 20% of all healthcare expenses are 'waste'? "We are spending large sums of money on things that don't really improve patients' health, such as overtreatment, administrative efficiencies, and so on", says Joke Borzee. To treat our financially ill healthcare sector, she is working on a scoring model to assess the overall value of treatments. Watch her explain how this would work.

Thanks to advanced proton therapy, doctors can precisely start irradiating brain tumours. Unfortunately, they do not yet dare to use this technique on tumours in the belly. Why? Because it's a bit like playing darts with a blindfold, while you have to hit a moving target, as Sophie Heymans explains in this video. She tells you about the technique she is working on to help doctors face this challenge.

Do you ever wake up feeling like you have been run over by a truck? You are not alone. As many as 1 in 5 adults suffer from a sleep disorder, ranging from sleep apnoea to insomnia. With a compact, wearable device and AI, Elisabeth Heremans wants to analyse sleep problems in patients from the comfort of their own bed, instead of having them spend the night in a sleep clinic attached to a bunch of wires.

Up to 25% of the cells present in lung cancer tumours are currently ignored. As such, we don't know what the role of these so-called B cells is. "It is crucial to figure that out because we cannot efficiently fight something we do not fully understand," says Pauline Bardet (VUB - VIB - FWO).

In her PhD, she wants to get to the bottom of those B cells and thus find out whether those cells are "good guys" or "bad guys".

To measure is to know. That is the credo of Michelle Laeremans (VITO). Together with a team of researchers, she monitors the health of 300 children in Mol, Dessel, and Retie (Belgium). They do this from pregnancy until the child reaches the age of 18. In this way, they map exposure to chemicals.