Culture

Harvard University scientists have identified a new gut-brain connection in the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. The researchers found that in mice with a common ALS genetic mutation, changing the gut microbiome using antibiotics or fecal transplants could prevent or improve disease symptoms.

Published in the journal Nature, the findings provide a potential explanation for why only some individuals carrying the mutation develop ALS. They also point to a possible therapeutic approach based on the microbiome.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have compared two ways of delivering cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT, to treat people with health anxiety, a condition that may increase in the wake of COVID-19. Out of about 200 study participants, half received CBT over the Internet and half were treated with conventional face-to-face CBT. The results, published in JAMA Psychiatry, show that Internet-delivered treatment had comparable effects, and could serve as an alternative to physical meetings in helping people who are worried about their health.

A study led by researchers at the Babraham Institute in collaboration with the Wellcome Sanger Institute has uncovered how variations in a non-protein coding 'dark matter' region of the genome could make patients susceptible to complex autoimmune and allergic diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease. The study in mice and human cells reveals a key genetic switch that helps immune responses remain in check.

MINNEAPOLIS - It's never too late to lace up some sneakers and work up a sweat for brain health, according to a study published in the May 13, 2020, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study suggests older adults, even couch potatoes, may perform better on certain thinking and memory tests after just six months of aerobic exercise.

Doctors regularly warn their patients that having high levels of triglycerides, a major dietary fat, can increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and fatty liver disease. There is considerable interest in finding novel ways to effectively regulate triglycerides in the blood to help manage these potentially life-threatening common conditions.

In 2015 Francesco Greco, head of the Laboratory of Applied Materials for Printed and Soft electronics (LAMPSe) at the Institute of Solid State Physics at Graz University of Technology, developed so-called "tattoo electrodes" together with Italian scientists. These are conductive polymers that are printed using an inkjet printer on standard tattoo paper and then stuck to the skin like transfers to measure heart or muscle activity.

Microplastics are everywhere - including in our drinking water, table salt and in the air that we breathe. Having studied the scope of microplastics in a number of countries, researchers are worried.

- Given the lifetime inevitable exposure to microplastics, we urgently call for a better understanding of the potential hazards of microplastics to human health, says Dr Elvis Genbo Xu, an Assistant Professor of environmental toxicology at the University of Southern Denmark.