Body

A team of researchers, led by a UC Davis veterinary endocrinologist, has shown for the first time that a surgical procedure in rats that is similar to bariatric surgery in humans can delay the onset of type 2 diabetes. The researchers also have identified biochemical changes caused by the surgeries that may be responsible for that delay.

DALLAS – March 25, 2010 – Using leptin alone in place of standard insulin therapy shows promise in abating symptoms of type 1 diabetes, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report.

UT Southwestern researchers, using mouse models, found that leptin administered instead of insulin showed better management of blood-sugar variability and lipogenesis, the conversion of simple sugars into fatty acids. Leptin is a hormone produced by fat cells and involved in the regulation of body weight.

Barcelona, Spain: Many patients with metastatic breast cancer believe that the primary goal in survival with new treatment should be to prolong life by at least a year over the survival they might expect from using current best therapies, a researcher will tell the seventh European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC7) in Barcelona today (Wednesday). This finding contrasts with doctors' perception that an additional four to six months' survival is significant enough to consider a new treatment worthwhile.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- With loggerhead sea turtle nests in dramatic decline, researchers would love to know more about where the turtles go, and what they eat, so they can better protect the creatures' habitat.

Now, a team of University of Florida biologists from the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research teasing that information from the turtles' shells is reporting some surprising findings.

SALT LAKE CITY, March 23, 2010 – Utah's red rocks – world-famous attractions at numerous national parks, monuments and state parks – have yielded a rare skeleton of a new species of plant-eating dinosaur that lived 185 million years ago and may have been buried alive by a collapsing sand dune. The discovery confirms the widespread success of sauropodomorph dinosaurs during the Early Jurassic Period.

Women whose diets are rich in foods containing Omega-3 oils might be less likely to develop endometriosis, while those whose diets are heavily laden with trans fats might be more likely to develop the debilitating condition, new research published today (Wednesday 24 March) suggests.

Hair dye and smoking both increase the risk of progressive liver disease, suggests research involving around 5000 people published in the journal Gut.

Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), which is an early form of liver cirrhosis, is a long term progressive autoimmune disease, in which environmental factors are thought to play a part.

It causes the liver's plumbing system of bile ducts to become inflamed, scarred, and blocked, leading to extensive tissue damage and irreversible, and ultimately fatal, liver cirrhosis.

Curcumin, one of the principal components of the Indian spice turmeric, seems to delay the liver damage that eventually causes cirrhosis, suggests preliminary experimental research in the journal Gut.

Curcumin, which gives turmeric its bright yellow pigment, has long been used in Indian Ayurvedic medicine to treat a wide range of gastrointestinal disorders.

Previous research has indicated that it has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties which may be helpful in combating disease.

A study from Denmark published on bmj.com today finds no effect of the Danish screening programme on breast cancer deaths.

Similar results have been seen in other countries, including the UK, leading the authors to question whether screening has delivered the promised effect on breast cancer mortality.

New guidance to improve the reporting of trial findings is published simultaneously today (24 March 2010) by the BMJ and eight other leading journals around the world.

Full and transparent reporting of trials is crucial to ensure that decisions about health care are based on the best available evidence.

Following months of gruelling tests and trials, scientists now reveal the World's strongest insect to be a species of dung beetle called Onthophagus taurus.

In an experiment to find out why animals vary so much in strength and endurance, Dr Rob Knell from Queen Mary, University of London and Professor Leigh Simmons from the University of Western Australia found the strongest beetle could pull an astonishing 1,141 times its own body weight - the equivalent of a 70kg person lifting 80 tonnes (the same as six full double-decker buses).

Taking arginine supplements can improve the cycling ability of over-50s. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition tested a combination of the amino acid and an antioxidant in sixteen cyclists, finding that it enhanced their anaerobic threshold – the amount of work done before lactic acid begins to accumulate in the blood.

In the coming decades, climate change is set to produce worldwide changes in the living conditions for plants, whereby major regional differences may be expected to occur. Thus today´s cool, moist regions could in future provide habitats for additional species, and in arid and hot regions the climatic prerequisites for a high degree of plant diversity will deteriorate. This is the conclusion reached in a new study by scientists at the Universities of Bonn, Göttingen and Yale, and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society London.

SAN FRANCISCO, March 23, 2010 — The plant that gave the world tequila contains a substance that seems ideal for use in a new genre of processed foods -- so-called "functional foods" -- with health benefits over and above serving as a source of nutrients, scientists reported here today at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Foods spiked with "fructans" from the agave plant may help protect against osteoporosis by boosting the body's absorption of calcium and could have other health benefits, they said.