PHILADELPHIA – Previous studies linking older age with kidney and heart disease have raised concerns about the safety of living kidney donation among older adults. However, in the first study to look closely at this issue, researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania report that older kidney donors (55 years and above) enjoy similar life expectancy and cardiovascular health as very healthy older people who did not donate their kidneys.
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The common frog is one of the amphibians with the highest distribution in the Iberian Peninsula. It reproduces preferably in permanent areas of water where it comes into contact with the red swamp crayfish, which preys on its larvae. Research carried out by the Spaniard Germán Orizaola from the University of Uppsala (Sweden) confirms that the larvae of these frogs have developed a defensive response to the invasive species. They also have deeper tails and larger bodies if they co-exist with the crayfish.
It may smell of flatulence and have a reputation for being highly toxic, but when used in the right tiny dosage, hydrogen sulfide is now being being found to offer potential health benefits in a range of issues, from diabetes to stroke, heart attacks and dementia. A new compound (AP39), designed and made at the University of Exeter, could hold the key to future therapies, by targeting delivery of very small amounts of the substance to the right (or key) places inside cells.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has launched an early-stage clinical trial of CRS3123, an investigational oral antibiotic intended to treat Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infection. CRS3123 (previously known as REP3123) is a narrow-spectrum agent that inhibits C. difficile growth while sparing normal intestinal bacteria.
Bowel cancer patients with high levels of vitamin D in their blood are more likely to survive the disease, a study shows.
Patients with the highest levels of vitamin D have half the risk of dying compared with those with the lowest levels, the findings reveal.
The study is the first to correlate total blood levels of vitamin D in bowel cancer patients after their diagnosis – which includes that produced after exposure to sunlight and that obtained from dietary sources – with their long term survival prospects.
Jena (Germany) They are amongst the most numerous inhabitants of the sea: tiny haptophytes of the type Emiliania huxleyi. Not visible to the naked eye, when they are in bloom in spring, they form square kilometer sized patches, they are even visible on satellite images. "Together with other phytoplankton, Emiliania huxleyi is responsible for approximately half of the global photosynthesis output," states Prof. Dr. Georg Pohnert of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany).
Lithium, as a neuroprotective agent, benefits for neuronal survival. Recent cDNA array studies have demonstrated that mood stabilizer lithium exhibits neuroprotective effects through multiple targets. Dr. Riadh Nciri and his team, Purpan Medicine Faculty, Paul Sabatier University, France, exposed SH-SY5Y cells to 0.5 mmol/L lithium carbonate for 25-50 weeks and then detected the expression levels of some neurobiology related genes and post-translational modifications of stress proteins in SH-SY5Y cells.
Adolescents in southern Europe are less fit in terms of cardiorespiratory capacity, strength and speed-agility than their central-northern European peers. Moreover, southern adolescents are more obese and present higher levels of total and abdominal fat than those from the centre-north of Europe.
The occurrence of allergic diseases has risen dramatically in Western societies. One frequently cited reason is that children are less exposed to microorganisms and have fewer infections than previous generations, thereby delaying maturation of the immune system.
Molecular microbiologists from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) have discovered that mice lacking a specific component of the immune system are completely resistant to sepsis, a potentially fatal complication of infection. The discovery suggests that blocking this immune system component may help reduce inflammation in human autoimmune and hyper-inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and Type 2 diabetes.
When a cell divides, it must first make a copy of its DNA, a fundamental step in the life cycle of cells that occurs billions of times a day in the human body. While scientists have had an idea of the molecular tools that cells use to replicate DNA—the enzymes that unzip the double-stranded DNA and create "daughter" copies—they did not have a clear picture of how the process works.
Older kidney donors enjoy similar longevity and cardiovascular health as other healthy mature individuals, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Transplantation. The findings may provide some reassurance to older individuals considering donation and the transplant professionals caring for them.
COLUMBUS, Ohio—The future health of the world's coral reefs and the animals that depend on them relies in part on the ability of one tiny symbiotic sea creature to get fat—and to be flexible about the type of algae it cooperates with.
In the first study of its kind, scientists at The Ohio State University discovered that corals—tiny reef-forming animals that live symbiotically with algae—are better able to recover from yearly bouts of heat stress, called "bleaching," when they keep large energy reserves—mostly as fat—socked away in their cells.
There is an increased risk of severe perineal tearing during childbirth in women who had such a tear in a previous delivery, suggests a new study published today (9 July) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG).
This study, investigates among women who have had a third or fourth degree perineal tear, the mode of delivery in subsequent pregnancies and the recurrence of severe perineal tears.
SALT LAKE CITY, July 9, 2014 – Collectors found the first two specimens of the prickly plant in 1974 and 1990 in west Texas. Then, for two decades, the 14-inch-tall plant was identified wrongly as one species, then another and then a third.
Now – after a long search turned up a "pathetic, wilted" third specimen – a University of Utah botanist and her colleagues identified the spiny plant as a new, possibly endangered species and named it "from the heart" in Latin because it was found in Valentine, Texas, population 134 in 2010.