General

New research from the University of Maryland and the National Institutes of Health reveals a new role for the enzyme telomerase. Telomerase’s only known role in normal tissue was to protect certain cells that divide regularly, such as embryonic cells, sperm cells, adult stem cells and immune cells. Scientists thought […]

An international collaboration, using data from more than 100,000 women with breast cancer from 58 epidemiological studies worldwide, has found that using menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, and that some increased risk persists for more than a decade after use stops. The […]

A common problem in diagnosing infectious disease is that the presence of a potential pathogen in the body does not necessarily mean the patient is sick. This can be particularly challenging for the treatment of organ transplant recipients, who often grapple with infection as well as complications related to immunosuppression. […]

The number of patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction is on the rise, and the search is on for a therapy that can improve health outcomes in this group of patients for whom no approved therapies are available. In a Hot Line Session at the European Society of […]

Eating red meat, especially in large quantities, is not good for you. In fact, eating a lot of red meat has been associated with heart disease and cancer. Meanwhile chicken, according to this new international study, might actually reduce the risk of breast cancer. We say “might” because, regardless what […]

A Florida State University researcher is examining how the polyphenol compounds found in blackberries could be used to help fight the buildup of artery plaque. Gloria Salazar, associate professor of nutrition, has received $805,409 from the James and Esther King Biomedical Research Program at the Florida Department of Health to […]

An Australian-developed mobile app supported system that helps health systems identify and better manage people at high risk of cardiovascular disease has been shown to improve the use of appropriate medications and lower blood pressure in rural Indonesian communities. The study, published in JAMA Cardiology, showed that 15% of high […]

Researchers at the University of Bristol and Imperial College London have established a new model system that uses red blood cells grown in the laboratory to study how malaria parasites invade red blood cells. The work, which was funded by the National Institute for Health Research and NHS Blood and Transplant and is published in […]

Alpacas aren’t the typical animals that drivers spot as they wind their way through rural Tennessee, but there’s a happy herd of them outside Waverly, where they eat the finest pellets, walk up and down a scenic hill and potentially save lives. They’re owned by a team of Vanderbilt University […]

Achieving or maintaining a healthy body weight is one key to preventing cardiovascular disease. But even experts don’t agree on the best way to achieve that goal, with some recommending eliminating carbohydrates and others emphasizing reducing fats to lose weight. Few studies have investigated the effects of these specific macronutrients […]

University of Alberta researchers identified a unique biological marker that can be used to identify the presence of the rare autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis, predict the course of the disease and identify new, personalized treatments. In a study published in the journal Metabolomics, neurologist Zaeem Siddiqi, graduate student Derrick Blackmore and their […]

Pregnancy can be a time of anxious uncertainty, particularly if there are any risks of complications. The question always arises, from parents, grandparents, friends and others: “Will the baby be OK?” In cases where the baby has been exposed to opioids in the womb, the answer is unclear. As part […]

For people with polycystic kidney disease (PKD), life can be a never-ending cycle of symptoms: aches and pains, abdominal swelling, kidney stones, high blood pressure. The disease frequently leads, at worst, to a suite of major issues, including kidney failure, cysts in the liver and vascular problems, including strokes. PKD is a […]

You are what you eat — right down to the microbiome living in your gut. Diet can affect which microbes are in the intestinal tract, and research has shown that harmful gut microbiome changes can lead to illnesses such as heart disease, obesity and cancer. Today, scientists will report the […]

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) –– defined as a bump, blow or jolt to the head that disrupts normal brain function –– sent 2.5 million people in the U.S. to the emergency room in 2014, according to statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Today, researchers report a […]

Researchers at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center provide the first concrete evidence for the long-held belief that sick mitochondria pollute the cells they’re supposed to be supplying with power. The paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involves a causal experiment to kick off a mitochondrial chain reaction that […]

Cancer immunotherapies have given patients with particularly intractable cancers new hope, but not everyone benefits. One such immunotherapy, known as CAR T-cell therapy, works only in about a third of the people who take it – and the reason may lie in the microbes residing in our guts. Over the […]

After a sports-related concussion, traditional recovery recommendations have previously called for weeks or months of rest, depending on the duration of a person’s symptoms. But Michael Popovich, M.D., M.P.H., a sports neurologist at Michigan NeuroSport, thinks this method could actually do more harm than good. Recent studies have suggested that regular, daily activities during […]

The development of new bone can be a multistep process: first, stem cells differentiate into cartilage cells. Next, the cartilage cells become bone cells. But that’s not all: the cells must experience some mechanical stresses during the transformation in order to transform efficiently from stem cells to bone cells. Researchers […]

Finding cure to cancer is a major goal for the scientific community. Although we’ve seen major advancements, the goal is still yet to be reached. Now scientists from the Victoria University of Wellington might have made a breakthrough in cancer drug development. Their versions of a natural compound could target […]

Children with a high genetic risk of developing type 1 diabetes have different gut microbiomes than children with a low risk, according to a new study. The results suggest that genetic risk can shape an individual’s response to environmental factors in the development of autoimmune diseases. Both hereditary and environmental […]

Former professional football players who have experienced concussion symptoms, including loss of consciousness, disorientation or nausea after a head injury, are more likely to report low testosterone and erectile dysfunction (ED), according to research published in JAMA Neurology. The research—based on a survey of more than 3,400 former NFL players […]

Help may be on the way for people who might lose contact with reality through a psychotic disorder, such as schizophrenia. People who may hear and see things that are not there could have symptoms of psychosis, better known as psychotic disorders. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have found neurological […]

Exercise seems to endow a wealth of benefits, from the release of happiness-inducing hormones to higher physical fitness. New research shows it may provide a boost to the mind too. University of Iowa researchers have found that a single bout of exercise improves cognitive functions and working memory in some older […]

A new piece of a difficult puzzle — the nature of memory — fell into place this week with a hint at how brain cells change structure when they learn something. Interactions between three moving parts — a binding protein, a structural protein and calcium — are part of the […]

Organophosphates are among the most commonly used classes of pesticides in the United States, despite mounting evidence linking prenatal exposure to the chemicals to poorer cognition and behavior problems in children. A new study led by University of California, Berkeley, researchers is one of the first to use advanced brain […]

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Nourianz (istradefylline) tablets as an add-on treatment to levodopa/carbidopa in adult patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) experiencing “off” episodes. An “off” episode is a time when a patient’s medications are not working well, causing an increase in PD symptoms, such as tremor […]

We already know that screen time for children should be limited. Watching too much TV impedes their creative abilities and imagination and sitting for extensive periods of time with smartphones or tablets in their hands just make them lazy. But there is another negative – scientists studied more than 10,000 […]

The molecular mechanism used by many bacteria to kill neighboring cells has redundancy built into its genetic makeup, which could allow for the mechanism to be expressed in different environments, say researchers at Penn State and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A paper online in the Journal of Bacteriology provides insights into the molecular mechanisms of competition […]

Researchers from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) at Trinity College have shown in the largest study to date that lower levels of specific dietary vitamins and antioxidants are associated with frailty. Their findings have been published in the prestigious Journal of American Medical Directors Association. Frailty is a common chronic […]