Aluminium (Al) is the most ubiquitous metal in the Earth’s crust. Even though its toxicity is well-documented, the role of Al in the pathogenesis of several neurological diseases remains debatable. To establish the basic framework for future studies, we review literature reports on Al toxicokinetics and its role in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), alcohol use disorder (AUD), multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson’s disease (PD), and dialysis encephalopathy (DE) from 1976 to 2022. Despite poor absorption via mucosa, the biggest amount of Al comes with food, drinking water, and inhalation. Vaccines introduce negligible amounts of Al, while the data on skin absorption (which might be linked with carcinogenesis) is limited and requires further investigation. In the above-mentioned diseases, the literature shows excessive Al accumulation in the central nervous system (AD, AUD, MS, PD, DE) and epidemiological links between greater Al exposition and their increased prevalence (AD, PD, DE). Moreover, the literature suggests that Al has the potential as a marker of disease (AD, PD) and beneficial results of Al chelator use (such as cognitive improvement in AD, AUD, MS, and DE cases).

Lennox–Gastaut syndrome (LGS) is a severe form of childhood-onset epilepsy, often associated with pharmacoresistance. As complete seizure control is usually not achievable with the use of drug therapy, non-pharmacological treatment may be offered to intractable patients. In this review, we are going to present literature reports on various non-pharmacological treatments, including surgical and dietary methods. Surgical interventions, such as resective surgery, corpus callosotomy (CC), or neuromodulation therapies such as vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), deep brain stimulation (DBS), and responsive neurostimulation (RNS), can be offered to pharmacoresistant patients. If the epileptogenic area can be detected, resective surgery is a treatment of choice. On the contrary, if non-invasive and invasive diagnostic methods fail to detect epileptogenic lesions, CC and VNS are considered palliative surgical methods. While both CC and VNS are considered effective in seizure reduction, CC is still more popular than VNS, although VNS seems to be related to better tolerability. Although all neuromodulation therapies require multidirectional optimization, DBS appears to be particularly promising for LGS. The classic ketogenic diet (cKD) is considered an effective and well-tolerated method in LGS treatment. The modified Atkins diet (MAD) and the low glycemic index treatment (LGIT) could be used as valuable alternatives due to their lower restrictiveness and better tolerability. Moreover, combinations of several treatment methods could significantly improve LGS patients’ seizure outcomes.

As speech-related symptoms of Landau–Kleffner syndrome (LKS) are often refractory to pharmacotherapy, and resective surgery is rarely available due to the involvement of the vital cortex, multiple subpial transection (MST) was suggested to improve patient outcome and preserve cortical functions. Here, we analyze the reports about MST use in LKS, regarding its impact on seizures, language, behavior, EEG, cognition, and reported adverse effects. In conditions like LKS, surgery is not a popular treatment option and presumably should be considered sooner. Candidates for MST should be selected carefully, optimally with the unilateral onset of epileptic activity. Laterality can be assessed using a methohexital suppression test (MHXT), electrical intracarotid amobarbital test, or magnetoencephalography. After MST, a significant percentage of LKS patients present seizure-free status, normalization of EEG patterns, and rapid behavior improvement. Data comprising language outcomes are mixed, with improvement reported in 23.8–100% of cases, and no superiority was found in the only study comparing MST with a non-surgical group. Cognitive outcomes are not well described. The risk linked to MST is described as low, with cerebral edema and transient neurological deficits being the most common complications. MST successfully improves seizure, EEG, and behavioral outcomes in LKS patients. However, its beneficial impact on language and cognition is not well proven. It is generally a safe neurological operation.

Backgorund: Diabetes is one of the biggest public health problems of the current era. It develops numerous complications, which can be divided into macroangiopathies (ischemic heart disease, limb and cerebral vascular disease) and microangiopathies (retinopathy, nephropathy, neuropathy). They significantly limit patients' quality of life and survival. Therefore, it is extremely important to prevent and treat them early. For this reason, it is important to search for new biomarkers that will make this possible. The purpose of this paper is to search for such predictors using a systematic review method.Methods: A systematic review was conducted in online databases of full-text scientific papers from 2020-2025. 49 papers were included in the review.Results: Capillary blood glucose and HbA1c are adequate indicators of diabetes control, but have their limitations as predictors of distant complications in the disease. Among the best predictors are: fructosamine (nephropathy, macroangiopathy, postsurgica complications), interleukin 6 (microangiopathies), fetuin A (nephropathy, macroangiopathy), 1,5-anhydroglucitol (coronary heart disease), adiponectin (nephropathy, neuropathy), transferrin and ferritin (nephropathy, retinopathy), acylcarnitines (retinopathy, neuropathy), lipoprotein a and plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (mainly macroangiopathies). Determination of their levels in blood or other biological materials can serve as a good predictor of the development of distant complications of diabetes, making it possible to identify patients at risk.Conclusions: There are good potential predictors (especially fructosamine) of distant diabetes complications other than glycemia and HbA1c. Their determination in the future may be incorporated into diagnostic protocols alone or in combination with older markers to identify at-risk patients and for effective prevention.

The milestone – role of miRNAs as predictors of diabetes complications: a literature review. Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the biggest health problems of the 21^st century. The complications of DM are macrovascular (ischemic di...