More men than women develop Parkinson’s disease and new work presented at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies says that it is do to sex differences in how brain cells change. Parkinson’s disease affects about 9 million people and becomes increasingly prevalent with age.
Newborns with the common virus in the herpes family known as congenital cytomegalovirus have an increased risk of developing acute lymphocytic leukemia, according to a new analysis. The authors say the risk is even greater in Hispanic children, who are already at the highest risk for developing ALL.
Pigs are a main livestock species for food production worldwide and is also widely used as an animal model in biomedical research. Today we know that the many types of bacteria that inhabit the gut are important for health and disease. Knowledge of the genes of these bacteria and their function therefore constitutes the first step towards a more comprehensive understanding of how bacteria in the gut affect health and disease.
An international consortium of researchers from INRA (France), University of Copenhagen and SEGES (Denmark), BGI-Shenzhen (China) and NIFES (Norway) has now established the first catalog of bacterial genes in the gut of pigs. This achievement is published in the latest issue of Nature Microbiology.
Vitamin D, which is produced by the body through exposure to sunshine, helps the body control calcium and phosphate levels, important for healthy bones. It can also be obtained from food sources such as fatty fish and egg yolks but it can be difficult to obtain enough vitamin D from food alone in countries with little sunlight so food is often fortified.
For the benefit of the never-ending supplement fad industry, some papers have linked vitamin D deficiency with a host of health problems including cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment, autoimmune conditions, and now Vitamin D levels have been linked to an increased risk of bladder cancer, though the source is a systematic review of just seven studies so it may not warrant a panic attack just yet.
A new paper links specific types of intestinal bacteria in the development of colorectal cancer - in animal models, at least. Finding it in humans is another matter.But if such a link is ever found, and currently these findings are only exploited by people selling something, it could lead to dietary-based therapeutic interventions which may be able to modify the composition of the gut microbiome and reduce
colorectal cancer
risk.
Women taking tamoxifen for breast cancer were less likely to continue taking the drug if they suffered nausea and vomiting - yet so were women given a placebo who experienced the same symptoms. This is evidence that drugs are being unfairly blamed for natural symptoms. It's a chemophobia culture. People embrace homeopathy, naturopathy and various alternative techniques because they aren't required to have elaborate disclosures of side effects like real medicines have. And there is a culture war against drug companies, so if symptoms occur it may be easy to blame Big Pharma or Big Generic.
Currently, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and other biomarkers are used for diagnosing and monitoring prostate cancer. However, biomarkers to selectively identify patients with high risk of recurrence, those who might benefit from intervention, and those who can safely choose active surveillance, are lacking. A new study in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics describes a biomarker, PITX2 DNA methylation, which is capable of distinguishing cancerous tissue from non-cancerous tissue and predicting the risk of cancer recurrence using only small amounts of tissue obtained from core needle biopsies.
In the United States, legalization of marijuana is happening at a record pace, thanks to governments hoping for new tax streams and public health claims giving it a free pass that literally no other product has ever gotten. However, a few experts and some users agree that package warnings stating the health risks are needed, yet what marijuana smokers think is needed is different from what the medical community believes should be required. Given the craze, it is no surprise journal publishers are scrambling to push out new places to lend marijuana a veneer of scientific authenticity. One new one, Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research,
Ernst Haeckel created the first phylogenetic ‘tree of life’ of organisms 150 years ago in Jena, and published it in his major work, the ‘General morphology of organisms.’ It allowed for us to see diversity and the connections between species.It was not only Darwin who influenced Haeckel’s creation. He was also inspired by a linguist who was his colleague and friend in Jena. “As early as 1863, the linguist August Schleicher created a first ‘family tree’ to represent the development of Indo-Germanic languages,” says Prof. Uwe Hoßfeld of Friedrich Schiller University Jena in Germany. “Ernst Haeckel eventually adopted this form of visualization.”
Evidence preserved in the internal skeletal structure of the famous Lucy fossil (
Australopithecus afarensis -
"southern ape of Afar") suggests the ancient human species frequently climbed trees, according to a new anal
There is no clear cut-off age to stop breast cancer screening, according to a new analysis which adds support for guidelines that encourage screening decisions based on individual patients and their health status. But which puts doctors, hospitals and insurance companies at risk in a defensive medicine environment where there are unlimited potential damages if an attorney gets a cancer patient in front of a jury.
Neanderthals modified their survival strategies even without external influences like environmental or climate changes, according to an analysis using carbonate isotopy in fossilized teeth that 250,000 years ago, the ancestors of modern man were more advanced in their development than previously thought.The fossils were from the excavation site at Payre in southeastern France. Carbonate is an essential mineral component of the hard tissue in bones and teeth. Among other things, the isotope composition in the carbonate reflects an organism’s drinking and feeding habits.If the climate becomes cooler or warmer, species are forced to adapt their survival strategies – this also holds true for our ancestors, the extinct Neanderthals.
Across Europe, town and city councils are becoming increasingly interested in energy decentralization, i.e. in producing power closer to where it is consumed, which could reduce energy costs for citizens who already feel their economic backs being broken by political beliefs about alternative energy that doesn't involve nuclear. Heidelberg is a city in Germany with a long-running energy company that has managed to keep costs lower than centralized schemes. The city-owned company is responsible for managing gas, heating, and the water and sewage systems. They even have a plan to migrate more to renewables in the future.
