General

It is thought that an appreciable fraction of the chronic inflammation of aging is caused by changes in the gut microbiome. There is a bidirectional interaction between the immune system and the microbial populations of the intestinal tract. The immune system gardens these populations, destroying problematic microbes. Microbes secrete metabolites […]

A new study by researchers at University of Illinois Chicago suggests that when the protein optineurin, or OPTN, is present in cells it restricts the spread of HSV-1, the herpes simplex virus type 1. In a “first of its kind” study, researchers also found a potential direct connection between neurodegenerative […]

The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Guidelines on cardiovascular disease prevention in clinical practice are published online today in European Heart Journal.1 As much as 90% of the risk of a heart attack, stroke, or peripheral arterial disease (PAD) can be explained by smoking, poor eating habits, lack of physical […]

Pregnancy may be an extremely stressful time in people’s lives. Moms-to-be need to take really good care of themselves. One of the very important things that pregnant women need is sunlight. Scientists at the University of Edinburgh found that pregnant women can reduce the risk of premature birth by getting […]

Researchers have reversed lung fibrosis in a mouse model of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, or IPF, as reported in a study published in the journal Cell Death and Differentiation. Mice were given bleomycin for 12 days to establish lung fibrosis, and then treated daily until 21 days with ABT-199, whose medical form is […]

Aggressive blood pressure treatment in older hypertensive patients lowers the incidence of cardiovascular events compared to standard therapy, without increasing adverse outcomes. That’s the finding of late breaking research presented in a Hot Line session at ESC Congress 20211 and published in the New England Journal of Medicine2. More than […]

A new study has shown that the tumour-inhibiting gene TET2 is silenced in a large fraction of cases of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in children. The scientists show that the gene can be reactivated by an existing drug, 5-azacytidine. The results suggest that 5-azacytidine may function as targeted therapy for […]

A small group of nerve cells in the brain determines whether an individual continues to consume alcohol even when it has negative consequences. This is the conclusion of a study carried out on rats by researchers at LiU. The scientists have identified a previously unknown mechanism that may be a […]

All other things being equal, more cells in the body undertaking more activity means a larger risk in any given period of time of one of those cells undergoing a cancerous mutation. Given this, larger and longer-lived species have necessarily evolved superior mechanisms of cancer suppression in order to avoid […]