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.
Though gluten sensitivity can be claimed by anyone embracing a popular food fad, celiac disease must be diagnosed, and that requires a tissue sample from the small intestine, which can be extremely unpleasant. But it's important because in celiac disease the immune system regards gluten as a virus or bacteria, which causes the body to trigger an unnecessary inflammatory reaction in the small intestine - an autoimmune reaction. When the food that you eat enters the small intestine, it is reduced to tiny fractions and presented to the T cells on HLA molecules. The HLA molecules present various elements of what you consume, as well as what is inside the cells.
A recent paper suggests cooking with spices and herbs could close the 1,000 mg gap between the amount of sodium Americans actually consume on a daily basis and the amount recommended by the government Dietary Guidelines for Americans committee.
In the study, researchers taught adults to flavor their food with spices and herbs instead of salt. At the end of the trial, the intervention group, who had tools including spices and herbs as well as cooking demonstrations, were able to reduce sodium intake by an average of 956.8 mg/day – which is about one-third of the average sodium adults consume each day.
On average, American adults consume 3,300 mg of sodium a day, which is 1,000 mg more than the 2,300 mg/d recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
Men with higher exposure to diethylhexyl phthalate
(DEHP), one of the phthalates, which is an umbrella term for a group of substances based on phthalic acid, have lower sperm motility and may therefore experience more difficulties conceiving children, according to a new paper.Many phthalates are found in soft plastics in our daily surroundings: wallpaper, sandals, nail polish, perfume, floors, carpets and more. Some suspect phthalates
may be endocrine disruptors and since phthalate molecules leak out of plastics, we are exposed to it daily and absorb the chemicals through food, drink, skin contact and inhalation. Phthalate levels can be measured by a simple urine sample.
Researchhas linked the abnormal behavior of two genes (BDNF and DTNBP1) to the underlying cause of schizophrenia. These findings have provided a new target for schizophrenia treatment.
Schizophrenia is a devastating mental disorder that affects nearly 1% of the total human population. The dominant cause of the disorder lies in impaired brain development that eventually leads to imbalanced signals within the brain. This imbalance within the brain is thought to cause hallucinations and paranoia in people with schizophrenia.
In this age of the 24-hour news cycle, instant access to all information everywhere, PubMed, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and hundreds of other ways to glean and share knowledge beyond the traditional stack of printed journals delivered to their door, physicians continue to struggle to arm themselves with the most effective therapies.
Fast access to information may result in practice change; however, subsequent data may disprove effectiveness and require even more practice change. The cycle may continue over several years and several studies, with the potential for missed information growing with each practice-change decision.
Researchers have identified for the first time the triple mechanism that stops chromosome separation in response to situations that compromise the integrity of the genetic information. The loss of this response capacity is characteristic of cancerous cells.
Cell proliferation requires the chromosomes to be copied (replicated) and distributed (segregated) to the two future daughter cells. Cells continually undergo spontaneous alterations (injuries) to the DNA that makes up the chromosomes, because of their aqueous (reactive) environment, for example. In response to DNA injuries, cells put a stop to the cell division cycle, in order to allow time for the injuries to be repaired and prevent the transmission of damaged, incompletely replicated chromosomes.
A new study has found that the Africanized honey bee, an aggressive hybrid of the European honey bee, is continuing to expand its range northward since its introduction into Southern California in 1994.
The paper in PLOS ONE showed that more than 60 percent of the foraging honey bees in San Diego County are Africanized and that Africanized bees can now be found as far north as California's delta region.
"Our study shows that the large majority of bees one encounters in San Diego County are Africanized and that most of the bees you encounter are from feral colonies, not managed hives," said Joshua Kohn, a professor of biology at U.C. San Diego, who headed the study.
Neural stem cells generate new neurons throughout life in the mammalian brain. However, with advancing age the potential for regeneration in the brain dramatically declines. Scientists from the University of Zurich now identified a novel mechanism of how neural stem cells stay relatively free of aging-induced damage.
A diffusion barrier regulates the sorting of damaged proteins during cell division.
New research shows that current and former users of marijuana are more likely to have the poorly-named prediabetes, poor blood sugar that might progress to type 2 diabetes, thanpeople who have never used marijuana.
Researchers are saying a new analysis of data on the genetics of autism spectrum disorder disputes a commonly held belief that autism results from the chance combinations of commonly occurring gene mutations, which are otherwise harmless.
They find, instead, further evidence to suggest that devastating "ultra-rare" mutations of genes that they classify as "vulnerable" play a causal role in roughly half of all autism spectrum disorder cases. The vulnerable genes to which they refer harbor what they call an LGD, or likely gene-disruption. These LGD mutations can occur "spontaneously" between generations, and when that happens they are found in the affected child but not found in either parent.
With an aging baby-boomer population and an estimated 10 million Americans predicted to develop some form of brain disease, supplements claiming to help brain function are flooding the market. Wisconsin-based Quincy Bioscience, the self-proclaimed industry leader, has sold more than two million bottles of its jellyfish-based supplement Prevagen since its launch in 2007 on the premise that it is clinically proven to improve memory. But an investigation by ad watchdogTINA.org has found that the company does not have reliable scientific evidence to back up its claim and the organization has filed a deceptive advertising complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.
MGA Entertainment has developed Project Mc², a new doll line with science experiment kits based in S.T.E.M. / S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) curriculum. Designed with the help of a former CIA agent and a science PhD, here are a couple examples from the new line:
-McKeyla McAlister: doll and experiment activity set that guides through the process of creating a lava lamp with ingredients from the kitchen.
-Camryn Colye, the doll that comes with blueprint instructions to engineer a skateboard from materials found around the home.
