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Overweight kids at risk for esophageal and gastric cancer
Date: Oct-14-2013Overweight adolescents are twice as likely as their normal-weight peers to develop esophageal cancer later in life, a recent study shows. The Israeli study also found that lower socioeconomic status as well as immigration from higher risk countries were important determinants of gastric cancer. Young Israelis are obliged to undergo a medical examination when they are about 17-years-old to assess their suitability for military service. Dr. Zohar Levi, of the Rabin Medical Center, and his team used this data as the basis of their research...
Mitochondrial dysfunction in diabetic kidney disease diagnosed viaurine biomarkers
Date: Oct-14-2013Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified 13 metabolites - small molecules produced by cellular metabolism - that are significantly different in patients with diabetes and chronic kidney disease compared to healthy controls. Twelve of the 13 metabolites are linked to mitochondrial function, suggesting that suppression of mitochondria - the powerhouses of cells - is a fundamental characteristic of diabetic kidney disease. The findings are published in the November edition of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology...
Innate virus-killing power discovered in mammals
Date: Oct-14-2013Scientists have a promising new approach to combating deadly human viruses thanks to an educated hunch by University of California, Riverside microbiology professor Shou-Wei Ding, and his 20 years of research on plants, fruit flies, nematodes and mice to prove his theory true. Researchers led by Ding, who heads a lab in UC Riverside's Institute for Integrative Genome Biology, have discovered that, like plants and invertebrate animals, mammals use the RNA interference (RNAi) process to destroy viruses within their own cells. Their findings were published in the journal Science...
Europe's genetic diversity unraveled by Ancient DNA
Date: Oct-14-2013Ancient DNA recovered from a time series of skeletons in Germany spanning 4,000 years of prehistory has been used to reconstruct the first detailed genetic history of modern-day Europeans. The study, published in Science, reveals dramatic population changes with waves of prehistoric migration, not only from the accepted path via the Near East, but also from Western and Eastern Europe...
Synapse formation in the brain: new theory
Date: Oct-14-2013The human brain keeps changing throughout a person's lifetime. New connections are continually created while synapses that are no longer in use degenerate. To date, little is known about the mechanisms behind these processes. Jülich neuroinformatician Dr. Markus Butz has now been able to ascribe the formation of new neural networks in the visual cortex to a simple homeostatic rule that is also the basis of many other self-regulating processes in nature. With this explanation, he and his colleague Dr...
High-risk travelers account for nearly 1 in 5 persons seeking pre-travel advice
Date: Oct-14-2013Researchers from Boston University Schools of Medicine (BUSM) and Public Health (BUSPH) and Boston Medical Center (BMC) have found that high-risk travelers account for nearly 20 percent of patients using the five clinics of the Boston Area Travel Medicine Network (BATMN). The study, which appears online in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, also found that these travelers often visited destinations with malaria and typhoid risk. In 2010, an estimated 935 million travelers crossed international borders, including 28.5 million from the U.S...
New model for neurotransmitter release reported by Sudhof, Nobel Prize winner
Date: Oct-14-2013In a Neuron article published online, recent Nobel Laureate Thomas C. Sudhof challenges long-standing ideas on how neurotransmitter gets released at neuronal synapses. On October 7th, Südhof won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, alongside James Rothman and Randy Schekman, for related work on how vesicles - such as those in neurons that contain neurotransmitter - are transported within cells. Neurotransmitter-containing vesicles are found inside neurons very close to the end of the axon...
Difficult-to-match blood types and geographic location result in hispanics facing disparities in kidney transplantation
Date: Oct-14-2013In the United States, Hispanics with kidney failure are less likely than non-Hispanic whites to receive a kidney transplant largely due to their blood type and because of where they live, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). The findings highlight the need to implement new deceased donor organ allocation policies that distribute organs over wider geographic areas to help reduce barriers to transplantation for Hispanics...
Worm study provides clues to better fat-loss therapies for humans
Date: Oct-14-2013Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered key details of a brain-to-body signaling circuit that enables roundworms to lose weight independently of food intake. The weight-loss circuit is activated by combined signals from the worm versions of the neurotransmitters serotonin and adrenaline, and there are reasons to suspect that it exists in a similar form in humans and other mammals...
Cells in stomach naturally revert to stem cells
Date: Oct-14-2013New research has shown that the stomach naturally produces more stem cells than previously realized, likely for repair of injuries from infections, digestive fluids and the foods we eat. Stem cells can make multiple kinds of specialized cells, and scientists have been working for years to use that ability to repair injuries throughout the body. But causing specialized adult cells to revert to stem cells and work on repairs has been challenging. Scientists from Washington University School of Medicine in St...
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