Type 2 diabetes has strong hereditary tendencies and the genes we are born with cannot be changed. However, new research from Lund University in Sweden shows that we can modify the function of the genes through the epigenetic changes that take place in the course of life.
Epigenetic changes are usually described as a link between heredity and environment and come about as a result of factors such as ageing, chemicals, medication, diet, exercise and drugs.
NEW YORK, NY (March 18, 2013) —A multicenter team of researchers, including scientists at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has developed biodegradable nanoparticles that are capable of delivering inflammation-resolving drugs to sites of tissue injury. The nanoparticles, which were successfully tested in mice, have potential for the treatment of a wide array of diseases characterized by excessive inflammation, such as atherosclerosis.
Three-quarters of the DNA in evolved organisms is wrapped around proteins, forming the basic unit of DNA packaging called nucleosomes, like a thread around a spool. The problem lies in understanding how DNA can then be read by such proteins. Now, Arman Fathizadeh, a physicist at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran, and colleagues have created a model showing how proteins move along DNA, in a paper just published in EPJ E.
AUGUSTA, Ga. – A group of tiny RNA molecules with a big role in regulating gene expression also appear to have a role in causing insulin resistance in woman with polycystic ovary syndrome and, perhaps, in all women, researchers report.
Research in the journal Diabetes, indicates that high activity levels of a microRNA called miR-93 in fat cells impedes insulin's use of glucose, contributing to PCOS as well as insulin resistance, said Dr. Ricardo Azziz, reproductive endocrinologist and PCOS expert at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University.
CHICAGO — Osteoarthritis of the hip or knee, affecting millions of Americans each year, is known to limit sexual activity. New research presented today at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) found that total hip (THR) or total knee replacement (TKR) surgery improves sexual function in 90 percent of patients.
Many middle age and older adults have disabling knee pain due to a tear in the meniscus, an important supporting structure in the knee that is often damaged in patients with underlying knee osteoarthritis. In the United States, more than 450,000 arthroscopic meniscal surgeries are performed each year to treat meniscal tears. However, there is little data available to clinicians who must decide with their patients whether it is best to treat tears with surgery or with physical therapy.
Lowering the costs of healthy foods in supermarkets increases the amount of fruits, vegetables and whole grain foods that people eat, while also appearing to reduce consumption of nutritionally less-desirable foods, according to research from the RAND Corporation.
Researchers examined a program available to members of South Africa's largest private health insurance company that provides a rebate of 10 percent or 25 percent on purchases of healthy foods. The program, started in 2009, now has about 800 participating supermarkets and enrolls more than 260,000 households.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a report released today, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues concluded that the federal government would have to take multiple steps before anthrax vaccine trials with children could be ethically considered. The Bioethics Commission was responding to a request from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius who last year asked the members to study the question of anthrax vaccine trials with children after receiving a recommendation from another federal committee that such research be initiated, pending ethical review.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association recommend that all children drink low fat or skimmed milk after the age of 2 to reduce their saturated fat intake and ward off excess weight gain.
But the evidence to back up this stance is somewhat mixed, say the authors, who wanted to find out whether milk consumption patterns among 2 year olds affected weight gain.
Historically, pubic hair used to be removed for religious or cultural reasons, but in recent decades it has become fashionable to shave it off, with men also increasingly following the trend, say the authors.
Molluscum contagiosum is a pox virus, which is relatively common in children and people whose immune systems are compromised by illness or drugs. But it can also be passed on through sex, and over the past decade the number of sexually transmitted cases has risen.
Stingrays living in one of the world's most famous and heavily visited ecotourism sites — Stingray City/Sandbar in the Cayman Islands — have profoundly changed their ways, raising questions about the impact of so-called "interactive ecotourism" on marine wildlife, reports a new study published March 18 in the journal PLOS ONE.
A Chinese herb used in remedies for common ailments such as eczema, acne, liver symptoms, arthritis, and chronic pain remains a worldwide health threat due to its availability online. Approximately 20 years ago, a cohort of young female patients in Belgium presented with a rapidly progressive kidney disease.
Physicians traced the cause of the epidemic to a weight-loss clinic that had treated the women with a Chinese herb containing aristolochic acid (AA). Today, renal disease caused by AA is referred to as aristolochic acid nephropathy, or AAN.
Scientists from King's College London are warning that millions of people may be exposed to risk of developing kidney failure and bladder cancer by taking herbal medicines that are widely available in Asia. The medicines, used for a wide range of conditions including slimming, asthma and arthritis, are derived from a botanical compound containing aristolochic acids. These products are now banned in the USA and many European countries but the herbs containing this toxic acid can still be bought in China and other countries in Asia and are also available worldwide over the internet.
Boston, MA – There is wide variation in the rate of cesarean sections performed at different hospitals across the U.S. and one explanation has been that hospitals with higher c-section rates serve greater numbers of women at high risk for the procedure.
Buried for 100,000 years at Xujiayao in the Nihewan Basin of northern China, the recovered skull pieces of an early human exhibit a now-rare congenital deformation that indicates inbreeding might well have been common among our ancestors, new research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Washington University in St. Louis suggests.