New research by University of Iowa scientists helps explain how a hormone system often targeted to treat cardiovascular disease can also lower metabolism and promote obesity.
The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) controls blood pressure and is important for cardiovascular health. Many of the drugs used to treat hypertension (high blood pressure) and heart failure block or inhibit the RAS.
Official government statistics on traffic deaths in southwest India significantly misrepresented the number of pedestrian and motorcycle deaths in the region over a two-year period, casting doubt on the reliability of that country's government data on traffic fatalities, a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests.
There are likely to be many more pedestrian and motorcycle deaths in India than official government figures state, suggests research published online in the journal Injury Prevention.
Police reports of the actual toll of road traffic injuries differ substantially from official statistics, the study shows, prompting the authors to urge researchers and policy makers to steer clear of government stats on this topic until the problem has been fixed.
Cold Spring Harbor, NY - Reducing levels of antioxidants in pancreatic cancer cells can help kill them, newly published research reveals, suggesting an entirely new treatment strategy for the notoriously lethal illness, in which less than 5 percent of patients survive 5 years.
An international team of researchers has discovered the mutation responsible for a rare, newly identified genetic disorder that causes craniofacial abnormalities and developmental delays. The mutation disrupts normal protein transport within cells, shedding light on a fundamental process in cell biology and early human development.
Overall incidence of type 2 diabetes has stabilised over recent years, according to a new study published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes), whilst mortality has declined, suggesting that increasing prevalence of the disease within the population may be attributed not to increasing numbers but to longer survival of patients with diabetes. The findings were not equal across the population, however: significant differences are noted based on gender, age, and socioeconomic status.
Scientists at the John Innes Centre have taken another crucial step towards understanding how plants initiate flowering.
This new development uncovers a previously unidentified step in the process of vernalisation, which links an important gene responsible for flowering time to the proteins that regulate it.
This new finding could contribute towards the development of new varieties of crops adapted to produce the food we need in a changing climate.
Women could prevent contracting the mosquito-borne Zika virus while pregnant by timing the first months of pregnancy with seasonal declines in mosquito activity, according to a new paper. The paper is the first to suggest that women in the numerous countries affected by the Zika virus epidemic can still safely pursue motherhood rather than forgo pregnancy altogether.
Oxford University researchers have found a way to detect ovarian cancer early and identified an enzyme that is key in making ovarian cancer more deadly. Their results, published in two journals, provide new research routes for scientists trying to detect and beat the disease.
In what is being called the first-ever test of open-source drug-discovery, researchers from around the world have successfully identified compounds to pursue in treating and preventing parasite-borne illnesses such as malaria as well as cancer.
Cell reprogramming involves making one cell type into another. In theory, all cells can be reprogrammed, but there is evidence that the original cell (founder cell) influences the type of cell to which it can be reprogrammed. In general, founder cells are easy to acquire from a donor and come in one of four types: fibroblasts, keratinocytes, peripheral and umbilical cord blood, and dental pulp cells. Labs from around the world have made iPS cell lines using different founder cells.
The formation of large numbers of polyps in the colon has a high probability of developing into colon cancer, if left untreated. The large-scale appearance of polyps is often due to a hereditary cause; in this case the disease can occur in multiple family members. Under the leadership of human geneticists of the University Hospital Bonn, a team of researchers discovered genetic changes in the MSH3 gene in patients and identified a new rare form of hereditary colon cancer. The results have now been published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
Barcelona, Thursday 28 July 2016.- Our skin renews, heals wounds, and regenerates the hair that covers it thanks to a small group of stem cells. These cells continually produce new ones, which appear on the skin surface after a few days. A study led by ICREA researcher Salvador Aznar Benitah and undertaken at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) has identified two proteins that are fundamental to conserve skin stem cells and has shown that without these proteins these cells are lost.
Although it reads like European license plate number, a protein known as ZMYND8 has demonstrated its ability to block metastasis-linked genes in prostate cancer, according to a study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The findings, resulting from cell line and mouse model studies, are published in the July 28 online issue of Molecular Cell.
Children with flat feet, also called pes planus, have a flattening of the arch during standing and walking. Flat foot is normal in infants and young children (up to 44% of three- to six-year-olds). At this age, in the absence of any associated symptoms, treatment is highly debatable.