Hypertension is a very common condition that is responsible for more than one of every eight premature deaths nationwide.
Diuretics are commonly prescribed to treat hypertension, and recent reports suggest that chlorthalidone may work better than hydrochlorothalizide.
Considering the potential for adverse effects, hydrochlorothiazide may be a safer treatment than chlorthalidone for elderly patients with uncomplicated hypertension.
A new technique for detecting cancer by imaging the consumption of sugar with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been unveiled by UCL scientists. The breakthrough could provide a safer and simpler alternative to standard radioactive techniques and enable radiologists to image tumours in greater detail.
The new technique, called 'glucose chemical exchange saturation transfer' (glucoCEST), is based on the fact that tumours consume much more glucose (a type of sugar) than normal, healthy tissues in order to sustain their growth.
STANFORD, Calif. — Children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy often die as young adults from heart and breathing complications. However, scientists have been puzzled for decades by the fact that laboratory mice bearing the same genetic mutation responsible for the disease in humans display only mild symptoms and no cardiac involvement.
Storrs, Conn. — Using highly sensitive fluorescent probes, a team of scientists from the University of Connecticut has captured the never-before-seen structural dynamics of an important protein channel inside the cell's primary power plant – the mitochondrion.
University of Toronto researchers are helping demystify an important class of proteins associated with disease, a discovery that could lead to better treatments for cancer, cystic fibrosis and many other conditions.
Igor Stagljar, Professor in the Faculty of Medicine's Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, and his team developed the first roadmap for ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter proteins. These proteins are crucial components of every cell, and are also involved in tumor resistance.
Cancer cells spread and grow by avoiding detection and destruction by the immune system. Stimulation of the immune system can help to eliminate cancer cells; however, there are many factors that cause the immune system to ignore cancer cells.
Regulatory T cells are immune cells that function to suppress the immune system response. In the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Ronald Levy at Stanford University found that regulatory T cells that infiltrate tumors express proteins that can be targeted with therapeutic antibodies.
The bone cell-derived hormone osteocalcin promotes the production of testosterone in the mouse testis.
Interestingly, osteocalcin-deficient mice exhibit increased levels of leutenizing hormone (LH), a pituitary hormone that regulates sex steroid synthesis in the testes. Additionally, osteocalcin levels appear to be linked to insulin secretion and sensitivity and circulating levels of testosterone in humans.
C3 glomerulopathy refers to a group of kidney conditions characterized by innappropriate activation of an immune system response mechanism known as complement.
Normally the complement system helps to clear pathogens from the body. It consists of a number of small proteins that, upon immune activation, are broken up into fragments that bind to foreign material or pathogen-infected cells to trigger their destruction.
In terms of environmental and economic impact, the Columbia River is the most important river in the US Pacific Northwest.
To characterize the microbial diversity within its estuary, Holly M. Simon and colleagues from Oregon Health & Science University's Center for Coastal Margin Observation and Prediction and the J. Craig Venter Institute, sequenced total DNA from water in four habitats: the Columbia River's immediate outflow; the river plume that extends into Pacific Ocean; upwelling low-oxygen water off the coast; and the ocean bottom.
Dextrose prolotherapy – injection therapy using a sugar solution to relieve musculoskeletal pain – offers sustained improvement of pain, function and stiffness for patients with knee osteoarthritis.
Ninety adults who had at least three months of painful knee osteoarthritis were randomized to receive dextrose prolotherapy injections, saline injections or at-home exercise.
Borrelia miyamotoi infection, a newly-recognized tick-borne illness, has been observed in patients thought to have human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA).
There are 11 recognized tick-borne illnesses in the northeastern United States and all can present as undifferentiated flu-like illness. In areas where deer ticks are common and Lyme disease, babesiosis, and HGA are prevalent, patients presenting with sudden fever, myalgia, leucopenia, and elevated aminotransferase levels are presumptively diagnosed with HGA.
Many microbes use nitrate in the environment for growth. Nitrate can be converted to ammonium and used in molecules such as proteins, or used as a terminal electron acceptor to make energy.
A new report in Frontiers in Microbiology sheds light on how the deep-sea hydrothermal vent bacterium Nautilia profundicola strain AmH carries out these functions.
Electrical phenomena in plants have attracted scientists since the eighteenth century.
Similar to animal cells, also plant cells possess the ability to become excited under the influence of certain environmental factors and to generate rapid electrical signals propagating over long distances. The reason why plants have developed pathways for fast signal transmission presumably lies in the necessity to rapidly respond to environmental stress factors.
An estimated one-third of people around the world are infected by the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, a distant relative of the malaria parasite, although normally only persons with a weakened immune response show any symptoms.
Researchers have found that bipedal desert rodents manage to compete with their quadrupedal counterparts by using a diverse set of jumps, hops and skips. A new study, to be presented at the Society for Experimental Biology meeting in Valencia on July 6, suggests that it is this unpredictable movement that allows the bipedal rodents to coexist in Old World deserts with quadrupedal rodents.