Scientists have identified five sleep profiles, each of which is linked to distinct mental health symptoms and brain activity patterns
Category: health – Page 7
Scientists Discover Food Molecules That Trick Cells Into Staying Young
Researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland have discovered that certain nutrients in food can cause a mild stress reaction in nematodes. Surprisingly, rather than harming the organisms, this slight stress appears to boost their overall health and help them maintain vitality as they grow o
Genetically encoded biosensor tracks plants’ immune hormone in real time
From willow bark remedies to aspirin tablets, salicylic acid has long been part of human health. It also lies at the heart of how plants fight disease. Now, researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a pioneering biosensor that allows scientists to watch, for the first time, how plants deploy this critical immune hormone in their battle against pathogens.
Published in Science, Dr. Alexander Jones’s group at the Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge University (SLCU) presents SalicS1, a genetically encoded biosensor that can detect and track the dynamics of the plant immune hormone salicylic acid (SA) with exquisite precision inside living plants.
Salicylic acid is a central regulator of plant immunity, triggering defense responses against a huge diversity of invaders. Until now, however, scientists have lacked the tools to measure SA at high enough spatial and temporal resolution to understand how plants balance growth with immune defense.
Research highlights solutions to critical gaps in dementia and childhood cancer care
In the United States, significant numbers of adults with dementia require long-term care services. For example, around 750,000 people who live in nursing homes have a diagnosis of dementia. However, transportation insecurity for this population has not received sufficient attention. Although long-term care facilities provide basic medical services, residents with dementia often need external, preventative, and follow-up care such as specialist visits, diagnostics, and dental or vision services. Without reliable nonemergency medical transportation, these needs may go unmet.
To demonstrate the extent of this problem, Postdoctoral Research Scientist Soojeong Han, Ph.D., and her colleagues reviewed existing literature on non-emergency medical transportation services for individuals with dementia living in long-term care (LTC) facilities. The study, “Transportation Services in Society for Individuals Living With Dementia in Long-Term Care Facilities: A Scoping Review,” was published in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association.
Their review found only five publications that mentioned this topic, and even then, only briefly. Across these studies, caregivers, health care professionals, and people with dementia consistently described nonemergency medical transportation as a critical need. Reported barriers included financial strain, rural-urban disparities, lack of continuity among transportation vendors, and dementia-specific challenges such as cognitive decline, stigma, and the need for caregiver accompaniment.
Our Future in Imaging Comes Into Focus
Pushing the bounds of imaging isn’t new for the San Francisco Biohub and Imaging Institute. Both organizations have already taken down barriers to research by building imaging tools that don’t exist anywhere else, as well as creating pioneering cell atlases that have redefined how we understand health and disease.
One example is the San Francisco Biohub’s research on how zebrafish embryos develop over time. In order to capture video images of whole zebrafish embryos through various developmental stages, Biohub scientists built a custom microscope, along with novel software that can find and track the movement of each cell in the videos. The “Google Earth” of embryology resulting from this research is Zebrahub, which brings a new vision to developmental biology and helps us understand our own cellular origins.
Projects like Zebrahub require scientists from a host of different disciplines. Teams across the Biohub, along with interdisciplinary partners, worked to build the microscope, develop the cell tracking software and interpret the resulting images. The collaborative nature of this project isn’t unique to our research on zebrafish — it’s part of our philosophy, and we believe collaboration is critical to drive scientific advancement in all of our work.
Bird flu persists in raw milk cheese, study demonstrates
Raw milk cheese products contained infectious avian influenza virus when made with contaminated raw milk, creating potential health risks for consumers, according to a new study.
At the same time, no virus was detected in test samples of highly acidic raw milk cheese. Feta cheese is an example of a more acidic variety.
The study is published in Nature Medicine.
Scientists are collecting toenail clippings to reveal radon exposure and lung cancer risk
At 47 years of age, Emi Bossio was feeling good about where she was. She had a successful law practice, two growing children and good health. Then she developed a nagging cough. The diagnosis to come would take her breath away.
“I never smoked, never. I ate nutritiously and stayed fit. I thought to myself, I can’t have lung cancer,” says Bossio. “It was super shocking. A cataclysmic moment. There are no words to describe it.”
Bossio had to give up her law practice to focus on treatment and healing. As part of that journey, she’s taken on a new role as an advocate to increase awareness about lung cancer. She still has no idea what caused her lung cancer. Trying to answer that question is how Bossio became interested in the research Dr. Aaron Goodarzi, Ph.D., is doing at the University of Calgary.
1,000-year-old gut microbiome revealed for young man who lived in pre-Hispanic Mexico
Analysis of preserved feces and intestinal tissue has revealed specific types of bacteria that were present in the microbiome of a young adult man who lived in Mexico about 1,000 years ago, prior to Spanish colonization. Santiago Rosas-Plaza of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and colleagues present these findings in PLOS One.
The human gut microbiome consists of microorganisms, including bacteria, that naturally live in people’s intestines. Certain types of bacteria are widely associated with the human gut microbiome, but a person’s particular mix of bacteria may vary depending on factors such as age, diet, health, and where they live. Studying ancient microbiomes using mummies and human remains can therefore deepen understanding of ancient populations and show how the human microbiome may have changed over time.
A growing number of ancient microbiomes have been revealed, including for an ancient Incan person and Germany’s “Tyrolean Iceman.” To further expand the field, Rosas-Plaza and colleagues analyzed the exceptionally well-preserved remains of a man discovered in a rock shelter in Zimapán, Mexico. Prior analyses suggest the “Zimapán man” was most likely a seasonal seminomadic hunter-gatherer who was part of the ancient Mesoamerican Otopame culture and died about 1,000 years ago between the ages of 21 and 35.
‘Traffic controller’ protein that protects DNA discovered, and it may help kill cancer cells
Mayo Clinic researchers have identified a protein that acts like a traffic controller for DNA, preventing damage during cell division—a discovery that could lead to new cancer therapies, according to a study published in Nature.
“DNA is the code of life. It’s critical for how a cell functions, but it’s also critical for our own being and defines what we are,” says Zhenkun Lou, Ph.D., the Swanson/Schmucker Endowed Professor to Support Health and Cancer Research at Mayo Clinic and the senior author of the new study.
When cells divide, DNA must be copied from one cell to the next—a process called replication. Dr. Lou’s research team discovered that a protein called KCTD10 plays a surprising role in protecting DNA during this critical stage. Acting like a built-in sensor, KCTD10 helps shield the DNA replication machinery from damage.
Alzheimer’s disease research in brain tissue from African American donors points to roles for many novel genes
The prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is approximately two times higher in African Americans (AA) compared to white/European-ancestry (EA) individuals living in the U.S. Some of this is due to social determinants of health such as disparities in health care access and quality of education, biases in testing and higher rates of AD risk factors such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes in those who identify as African American.
Although many studies have examined differences in gene expression (a measure of the amount of protein encoded by a gene) in brain tissue from AD cases and controls in EA or mixed ancestry cohorts, the number of AA individuals in these studies was unspecified or too small to identify significant findings within this group alone.
In the largest AD study conducted in brain tissue from AA donors, researchers from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine have identified many genes, a large portion of which had not previously been implicated in AD by other genetic studies, to be significantly more or less active in tissue from AD cases compared to controls. The most notable finding was a 1.5 fold higher level of expression of the ADAMTS2 gene in brain tissue from those with autopsy-confirmed AD.