Body

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Scientists have identified a key molecular player in a chain of events in the body that can lead to fatty liver disease, Type II diabetes and other metabolic abnormalities associated with obesity. By blocking this molecule, the researchers were able to reverse some of the pathology it caused in obese mice.

Their findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

WHAT:

The VIB scientists had serious reservations about the Séralini publication, which appeared today in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology. The conclusions drawn by Séralini could not be derived from the publication. The data will have to be subjected to a thorough analysis.

A person can be obese and metabolically healthy at the same time, which means that this person will have the same mortality risk for heart disease or cancer that people of normal weight. This is the conclusion of a study published in the prestigious journal European Heart Journal [1].

"Obesity is associated with a large number of chronic diseases as heart diseases or cancer. However, there is a group of obese people that do not suffer the metabolic complications associated with obesity", the author of the study, Prof. Francisco B.Ortega, explains.

A study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Niger Countdown Case Study Working Group found that child mortality in Niger—one of the world's poorest countries—declined nearly 50 percent over the last decade. According to the authors, the advances in survival made in Niger far outpaced other nations in the West Africa region. The study appears in a special issue of The Lancet examining the United Nations Millennium Challenge Goals for 2015.

ATHENS, Ohio (Sept. 19, 2012)—An Ohio University anthropologist reports the first observation of dominance relationships among adolescent male chimpanzees, which he attributes to the composition of their community.

Hogan Sherrow spent eight years studying the Ngogo community of chimpanzees in Kibale National Park in western Uganda. Ngogo is the biggest chimpanzee community on record, with more than 150 members and about twice as many males as found in other chimp communities across Africa.

Researchers studying the origins of sudden cardiac death have found that in both men and women a thin placenta at birth was associated with sudden cardiac death. A thin placenta may result in a reduced flow of nutrients from the mother to the foetus. The authors suggest that sudden cardiac death may be initiated by impaired development of the autonomic nervous system in the womb, as a result of foetal malnutrition. The new study, published today in the International Journal of Epidemiology, also found that sudden death was associated independently with poor educational attainment.

Obese kids have less sensitive taste-buds than kids of normal weight, indicates research published online in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

This blunted ability to distinguish all five tastes of bitter, sweet, salty, sour, and umami (savoury) may prompt them to eat larger quantities of food in a bid to register the same taste sensation, suggest the authors.

They base their findings on 94 normal weight and 99 obese children aged between 6 and 18, who were in good health and not taking any medications known to affect taste and smell.

Lugano, Switzerland / Vienna, Austria, 20 September 2012 – Films that feature characters with cancer have become a familiar sight for movie-goers in recent years, but they rarely portray the patient's chances of survival accurately, Italian reserachers will report at the ESMO 2012 Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Vienna, Austria.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 19. 2012 -- Malaria has been found in birds in parts of Alaska, and global climate change will drive it even farther north, according to a new study published today in the journal PLOS ONE.

PHILADELPHIA— A natural substance found in the surrounding tissue of a tumor may be a promising weapon to stop triple negative breast cancer from metastasizing.

Shortly after expressing a moral view about a difficult topic, people may easily endorse the opposite view and remain blind to the psychological mismatch, according to research published Sep. 19 in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

The Rasberry Crazy Ant is an invasive ant that was first noticed infesting areas around Houston, Texas ten years ago, but its species identity has remained undetermined until now. In a paper published Sep. 19 in the open access journal PLOS ONE, a research team led by John LaPolla from Towson University in Maryland identifies the species as Nylanderia fulva. Identifying the species should help control this emerging pest, the authors write.

Researchers may have uncovered new evidence of ancient dentistry in the form of a 6,500-year-old human jaw bone with a tooth showing traces of beeswax filling, as reported Sep. 19 in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

Boston, MA — All major clinical trials now include disclosures detailing who funded the study to ensure transparency. However, is it possible that this transparency is actually hurting research? One might assume that the methodological rigor of the study matters to physicians more than the disclosure. However, in a new study, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have found that pharmaceutical industry sponsorship of a research study negatively influences physicians' perceptions of the study and their willingness to believe and act on the research findings.