Intermittent fasting, and fasting in general, has been a popular fad health gimmick, but the science isn't on its side. Instead, proponents believe mice are little people so if mice weaned on starvation diets lived longer, people would also.
Stunning new images and the highest-resolution maps to date of Jupiter at thermal infrared wavelengths give a glowing view of Juno's target, a week ahead of the NASA mission's arrival at the giant planet. The maps reveal the present-day temperatures, composition and cloud coverage within Jupiter's dynamic atmosphere, and show how giant storms, vortices and wave patterns shape the appearance of the giant planet. The observations will be presented on Monday 27 June at the National Astronomy Meeting in Nottingham by Dr Leigh Fletcher of the University of Leicester.
High workload, rigid rules, and conflicting pressures from their employers are all leading to community pharmacy staff deviating from standard procedures at times to ensure patients receive the tailored care they require, a new study from The University of Manchester has found.
The research which was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and published in BMJ Open, analysed interviews with 24 practising staff working at a variety of levels in pharmacies. The interviewees discussed their views and experiences of complying with procedures that had been laid down either for safety or for other company purposes. Participants came from a variety of pharmacy types and from a range of locations across England and Wales.
Respiratory diseases are among the most common ailments in calves. Hubert Pausch from the Chair of Animal Breeding at the Technical University of Munich and his team have now been able to trace a gene mutation responsible in both Braunvieh and Fleckvieh: a recessive mutation that alters the structure of the cilia of the airways is the culprit. It only manifests in homozygous animals. This means that both parents were carriers of the mutation.
The altered structure affects the movement of the cilia, preventing the expulsion of sufficient amounts of secretion from the respiratory tract. Insufficient cleaning of the airways leads to chronic infections. Defective cilia are also the cause of a very rare respiratory disease called primary ciliary dyskinesia in humans.
The immune system is equipped with the mechanisms to adapt to bacterial infection, and one of the keys to this efficient reaction is rooted in changes that take place in the metabolism of mitochondria. These changes are important for adaptation of the response of immune cells to live or dead bacteria. The discovery was made by scientists at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC), led by Johan Garaude, Rebeca Acín-Pérez, José A. Enríquez and David Sancho, and is published in Nature Inmunology. The study findings could help in the design of vaccines and provide new pharmacological targets for the treatment of infections and inflammatory metabolic disorders.
Researchers at Linköping University have made a discovery that could contribute to developing new vaccines and treatment alternatives for tuberculosis in the future. The results have been published in Scientific Reports.
Eight million people suffer from - and two million die from - tuberculosis every year. For HIV patients, tuberculosis is the leading cause of death. Antibiotics are currently used against tuberculosis, as no effective vaccine could be developed thus far - but with growing resistance to antibiotics, the cure for tuberculosis is threatened.
A chemical found in our breath could provide a flag to warn of dangerously-low blood sugar levels in patients with type 1 diabetes, according to new research the University of Cambridge. The finding, published today in the journal Diabetes Care, could explain why some dogs can be trained to spot the warning signs in patients.
Claire Pesterfield, a paediatric diabetes specialist nurse at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has type 1 diabetes, which requires insulin injections to manage blood sugar levels. She also has a golden Labrador dog that has been trained by the charity Medical Detection Dogs to detect when her blood sugar levels are falling to potentially dangerous levels.
Washington, DC-- Brown dwarfs are sometimes called failed stars. They're stars' dim, low-mass siblings and they fade in brightness over time. They're fascinating to astronomers for a variety of reasons, but much about them remains unknown. New work from a Carnegie-led team reports the distances of a number of brown dwarfs, as well as low-mass stars, in The Astronomical Journal.
Brown dwarfs are too small to sustain the hydrogen fusion process that powers stars. Their temperatures can range from nearly as hot as a star to as cool as a planet, and their masses also range between star-like and giant planet-like. They are of particular interest to scientists because they can offer clues to star-formation processes.
New national data suggest lesbian, gay and bisexual adults were more likely to report impaired physical and mental health and heavy drinking and smoking, which may be the result of stressors they experience because of discrimination, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.
For the first time, the 2013 and 2014 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), one of the nation's leading health surveys, included a question on sexual orientation.
Cost sharing for insured adults increased 37 percent per inpatient hospitalization from 2009 to 2013, with variations in insurance policies resulting in a higher burden of out-of-pocket costs for some patients, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.
Patients have been increasingly responsible for a growing share of their health care expenditures in out-of-pocket costs as health insurance policies have changed in recent years. Proponents argue this has the potential to reduce overuse and inappropriate care but increased out-of-pocket spending can also impede access to care and affect treatment choices.
Access and use of health care resources in Sweden is equitable and affordable and the management of those resources is well developed.
Still, low socioeconomic status was associated with an increased risk of death for patients with type 2 diabetes from all causes, cardiovascular disease and diabetes-related mortality, as well as a less pronounced increased risk of cancer death, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.
The study included all 217,364 individuals younger than 70 with type 2 diabetes in a Swedish national register. The study also examined whether educational level, marital status and country of birth were associated with causes of death in individuals with type 2 diabetes.
(PHILADELPHIA) -- About 5.7 million Americans have heart failure, half of whom will die from the disease within 5 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Two processes help drive the disease: a weakened heart muscle that is less able to pump, and the death of heart cells that irreparably damage the heart. Beta-blockers, commonly used to treat heart disease, work by blocking the beta-adrenergic receptors in the heart, saving heart cells from cell death. But beta-adrenergic receptors also help keep the heart pumping, a function that this medication also blocks.
Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumors (IMTs) -- masses of immune cells-- are benign, but poorly understood. Current IMT treatments often have side effects and surgery is sometimes not an option due to the tumor's proximity to vital organs. A better understanding of how IMTs form could spur the development of more effective therapeutics. Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have now found that a likely cause of IMT is deficiency in nonsense-mediated RNA decay (NMD), a system cells use to control which genes are activated.
The study is published June 27 by the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
