For decades, electricity has played a role in medicine, through pacemakers that have delivered electric pulses to keep heartbeats steady and electroconvulsive therapy that has helped people with serious mental illness after other treatments failed.

Today, new technologies and devices are widening the scope of how electric fields and pulses could be used as medicine.

This week, Brianna Abbott reports on how biotech companies and researchers are developing ways to use electricity to treat diseases from rheumatoid arthritis to pancreatic cancer.

Novocure, an oncology company, has developed technology that uses low-intensity electric fields to disrupt the electrical forces at play in cell division to slow down tumor growth.

The company’s system—which consists of adhesive patches that contain electrodes and a battery pack—is approved by the FDA for patients with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer.

A similar Novocure device is also used to treat mesothelioma, and was approved for some lung cancer patients late last year. 

Separately, researchers are developing tiny pacemakers for newborn babies who have heart defects, and seeing whether electrical stimulation to a person’s spinal cord can help treat depression.

More on this topic:

• OpenAI expanded its healthcare push with Color Health’s cancer copilot. (Read)
• The hologram doctor will see you now. (Read)
• Reid Hoffman raised $24.6 million for an AI cancer-research startup. (Read)

🤔 Would you consider newly developed medical treatments that use electricity? Why or why not? Send me your thoughts, questions and predictions by hitting "reply" to this email.

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On Tuesday, longevity researcher Dr. Eric Topol joined WSJ health reporters to answer questions from subscribers. Here are a few of his responses:

Q: What are some accessible and practical ways to prioritize health and longevity to become a ‘Super Ager’?

• “The good news is that most of the practical ways to extend healthspan are free or very low cost. For nutrition, the main goal is to reduce ultraprocessed foods that promote body-wide inflammation—that can be achieved by reading labels and avoiding foods with long lists of ingredients that are things you would not have in your kitchen. Exercise, even without going to any extreme, is remarkably powerful for promoting healthspan.”

Q: How can I get more deep sleep?

• “This is very important since it’s during deep sleep we clear metabolic waste products from our brain; as we get older, our deep sleep tends to decrease. Deep slow wave sleep is very much influenced by what we eat, when we eat, how we exercise, when we exercise, alcohol, stress, regularity (going to bed at the same time each night), bedroom temperature and darkness, etc. Everyone is different as far as what are key influencing factors. We can track deep sleep through smartwatches or rings and use that data to learn what factor(s) help or hurt your deep sleep. That has helped me considerably. But, as I point out in my book, we don’t have studies that show increasing deep sleep improves outcomes such as less neurodegenerative disease—only that the risk of low deep-sleep time correlates with increased risk. So it’s intuitive, but not yet proven.”

(Responses have been condensed and edited.)

• These startups think zeppelins could be the future of air travel. (The Washington Post)
• Inside the elite Microsoft unit constantly working to thwart hackers. (Bloomberg)
• Montana is on track to be the first U.S. hub for experimental medical treatments. (MIT Technology Review)

Thanks for reading The Future of Everything. We cover the innovation and tech transforming the way we live, work and play. This newsletter was written by Conor Grant. Get in touch with us at future@wsj.com.

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