Body

Berkeley -- A study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, has identified critical biochemical pathways linked to the aging of human muscle. By manipulating these pathways, the researchers were able to turn back the clock on old human muscle, restoring its ability to repair and rebuild itself.

The findings will be reported in the Sept. 30 issue of the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine, a peer-reviewed, scientific publication of the European Molecular Biology Organization.

Women who put on weight as they approach middle-age could reduce their chances of enjoying a healthy old age by up to 80%, according to research from the University of Warwick.

The study, published today (Wednesday) in the British Medical Journal, suggests that women who have a high body mass index in middle age are significantly more likely to suffer from major chronic diseases such as cancer and coronary heart disease and poor quality of life.

DALLAS – Sept. 30, 2009 – Former professional football players with large bodies don't appear to have the same risk factors for heart disease as their non-athletic counterparts, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found in studying a group of National Football League (NFL) alumni.

Paleontologists Ewan Wolff (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Steve Salisbury (University of Queensland), Jack Horner (Museum of the Rockies) and David Varricchio (Montana State University), published new research in the open-access, peer-reviewed scientific journal PLoS ONE that found the Tyrannosaurus rex and its close relatives suffered from a potentially life-threatening infectious disease similar to one that occurs in living birds known as trichomonosis.

The world's largest living lizard species, the Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis), is vulnerable to extinction and yet little is known about its natural history. New research by a team of palaeontologists and archaeologists from Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia, who studied fossil evidence from Australia, Timor, Flores, Java and India, shows that Komodo Dragons most likely evolved in Australia and dispersed westward to Indonesia.

In new research published in the open-access, peer-reviewed scientific journal PLoS ONE, Dr Patrice Dubreuil and colleagues characterise the pharmacological profile of masitinib (AB1010), a novel tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) that targets the stem cell factor (KIT), PDGFR and Lyn. Masitinib is the active pharmacological ingredient of the first ever registered veterinary anticancer drug, Masivet® (1). The main cellular targets of masitinib are mast cells, meaning this drug also has many potential non-oncology applications.

The more weight women gain from the age of 18 until middle age, the less likely they are to enjoy a long and healthy life, according to new research published on bmj.com today.

Compared with lean women, the results show that being obese in middle age reduces those odds by 79%, underscoring the importance of maintaining a healthy weight from early adulthood, say the authors.

The origin of the 'Celtic fringe' of genetically and culturally distinctive people in the northern and western British Isles is the source of fierce academic controversy.

But new research into the movement of small mammals, such as voles and shrews, at the end of the last Ice Age, could provide important new clues to resolve the debate. The research is published in the latest issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

A new study of microscopic marine microbes, called phytoplankton, by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of South Carolina has solved a ten-year-old mystery about the source of an essential nutrient in the ocean.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — An early laboratory success is taking University of Michigan researchers a step closer to parathyroid gland transplants that could one day prevent a currently untreatable form of bone loss associated with thyroid surgery.

The scientists were able to induce embryonic stem cells to differentiate into parathyroid cells that produced a hormone essential to maintaining bone density. The laboratory results in live cell cultures, published in Stem Cells and Development, need to be tested in further pre-clinical studies.

Researchers studying a large sample of adolescent American boys have found an association between metabolic syndrome, which is a complication of obesity, and elevated liver enzymes that mark potentially serious liver disease.

The link between metabolic syndrome and the suspected liver disease did not appear in adolescent girls, said study leader Rose C. Graham, M.D., a pediatric gastroenterologist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. There were ethnic differences among the boys as well, she added, between Hispanic and non-Hispanic males.

New research announced today, Wednesday 30th September, by a team of leading scientists working with the UK's national Synchrotron, Diamond Light Source, could have a significant impact on the development and refinement of new eco-friendly pest control methods for worldwide agriculture.

MADISON, WI, September 28, 2009 -- Soybeans contain high levels of several health-beneficial compounds including tocopherols, which have antioxidant properties. These molecules can be used in the development of functional foods, which have specific health-beneficial properties and can be used in the treatment or prevention of diseases. Tocopherols exist in four forms (α, β, γ, and δ) of which γ-tocopherol is found in greatest concentration in soybeans. However, α-tocopherol has the greatest antioxidant activity, and is the form converted to vitamin E in the human body.

PHILADELPHIA – Social environment can play an important role in the biology of disease, including breast cancer, and lead to significant differences in health outcome, according to results of a study published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

PHILADELPHIA – Younger women with metastatic colorectal cancer lived longer than younger men. However, this survival advantage disappeared with age, suggesting a benefit from estrogen or other hormones, according to results of a study published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.