It is believed that the generation of an exaggerated intestinal immune response to otherwise innocuous stimuli along with generation of oxygen free radicals plays a key role in the pathophysiology of UC. However, no disease-specific treatment for UC has yet emerged. Vitamin E is a major lipophilic antioxidant in cellular membranes with excellent antioxidant activities which protects membrane lipids from peroxidation by scavenging not only chain carrying peroxyl radicals but also singlet oxygen and superoxide anion radicals.
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Scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum für Infektionsforschung (HZI) in Braunschweig, Germany have achieved an important advance in better understanding metabolic pathways in bacteria and their use. Using computer models, the "System and Synthetic Biology" working group, headed up by Vítor Martins dos Santos, calculated the genetic changes that are necessary for increasing the production of biosynthetics in the Pseudomonas putida bacteria. Experiments in the laboratory subsequently confirmed the results.
The question whether a common European position on advance directives, or "living wills" is ethically required and practically feasible was discussed at a recent workshop organised by the European Science Foundation (ESF). Just as a conventional will allows people to specify how they would like their property to be distributed after their death, so a living will is supposed to determine what medical treatment people would like to receive in the event of illness when they are still alive but of unfit mind to decide at the time.
Half of all food allergies are not food allergies at all. This is what Cornelia S. Seitz et al., allergologists from Würzburg University, concluded in a study with 419 patients, as presented in the current edition of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2008; 105[42]: 715-23).
Humanitarian aid workers responding to devastating flooding in Honduras have received assistance from space, with satellite images of affected areas provided rapidly following activation of the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced and 33 lives have been claimed by floods and landslides brought on by a tropical depression that hit the Central American country on 16 October.
A system of presumed consent for organ donation - where people have to opt out of donating their organs when they die - is the best way to tackle a growing waiting list for transplant.
That is the opinion of Dr John Troyer, an expert in organ donation and the illegal trade of body parts, who has recently joined the University of Bath's Centre for Death & Society.
PHILADELPHIA (October 30, 2008) – According to new research from the Monell Center, the degree of change in blood triglyceride levels following a fatty meal may indicate susceptibility to diet-induced obesity. The findings open doors to new methods of identifying people, including children, who are at risk for becoming obese.
Triglycerides are a form of fat that is transported in the blood and stored in the body's fat tissues. They are found in foods and also are manufactured by the body.
University of Delaware scientists, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Arizona and South Dakota State University, have identified unusual differences in the natural mechanisms that turn off, or "silence," genes in corn.
The discovery, which was made by comparing the impact of inactivating a gene that occurs in both corn and in the much-studied laboratory plant Arabidopsis, provides new insight into how one of the world's most important crops protects itself from mutation-causing mobile DNA elements and viruses.
Scientists in Italy have found bacteria in the root of a tropical grass whose oils have been used in the cosmetic and perfumery industries. These bacteria seem to promote the production of essential oils, but also they change the molecular structure of the oil, giving it different flavours and properties: termicidal, insecticidal, antimicrobial and antioxidant.
The sabertooth cat (Smilodon fatalis), one of the most iconic extinct mammal species, was likely to be a social animal, living and hunting like lions today, according to new scientific research. The species is famous for its extremely long canine teeth, which reached up to seven inches in length and extended below the lower jaw.
(PORTLAND, Ore.) October 31, 2008 — A study by the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research of more than 40,000 women and their babies found that women who gained more than 40 pounds during their pregnancies were nearly twice as likely to have a heavy baby. Published in the November issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology, the study found that more than one in five women gains excessive weight during pregnancy, doubling her chances of having a baby that weighs 9 pounds or more.
Cholera is a major killer and since the first pandemic in the early 19th century it has claimed millions of lives. According to Amit Lerner from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, the lethal infection is harboured by an equally infamous insect: chironomids (midges). Lerner explains that the females contaminate water sources with the deadly bacteria when laying their eggs. He adds that his colleagues Nikolay Meltser and Meir Broza had found that females actively choose the body of water where they lay their eggs, but it wasn't clear what drives a female to select a particular pond.
PHILADELPHIA – A study published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, validates a non-invasive screening method with future potential for detection of human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive head and neck cancers.
In the study, researchers at Johns Hopkins University used oral rinses and targeted DNA amplification to track and identify oral HPV infections in patients with HPV16-positive and negative head and neck carcinomas (HNSCC) before and after therapy.
The largest such study ever published finds that, while about 40 percent of women surveyed report having sexual problems, only 12 percent indicate that those issues are a source of significant personal distress. The report led by a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) physician appears in the November issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
BOSTON, Mass. (Oct. 31, 2008) — Adult stem cells resemble couch potatoes if they hang out and divide in a dish for too long. They get fat and lose key surface proteins, which interferes with their movement and reduces their therapeutic potential. Now, via a simple chemical procedure, researchers have found a way to get these cells off the couch and over to their therapeutic target.
To do this, they simply added a molecule called SLeX to the surface of the cells. The procedure took just 45 minutes and restored an important biological function.