Body
By studying blood vessel tissue from 674 patients, a research team has discovered how insulin contributes to the dysfunction of blood vessels in atherosclerosis, one of the most common chronic health conditions worldwide. Their research explains why insulin treatment fails to treat vessel damage in patients with diabetes and highlights a promising alternative therapy to correct insulin signaling and protect blood vessels. Insulin is a fundamental hormone in the body, as it regulates processes ranging from blood sugar control to chemical reactions in the cardiovascular system.
A new COVID-19 transmission model, based on contact survey data from nearly 1200 people in the cities of Wuhan and Shanghai, China, suggests that strict social distancing measures implemented there were sufficient to curtail the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show that the average resident's daily interpersonal contacts dropped 7- to 9-fold, from 14 and 20 people per day in Wuhan and Shanghai, respectively, to about two contacts per day in both locations by early February, after social distancing measures were put in place.
Whether or not you are a smoker could condition how the coronavirus affects you. At least that is what numerous researchers are saying, insisting that tobacco use is to blame for the weakened cardiovascular systems which are at greatest risk from COVID-19. Among these researchers are Javier C. Vázquez, from the Bordeaux Neurocampus, and Diego Redolar, from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), who confirm that the data indicates that "tobacco use is one of the reasons that more men die from the virus than women in Spain".
Philadelphia, April 29, 2020—Patients with untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic lymphoma now have a new treatment option—a combination of the targeted agent ibrutinib with the immunologic agent rituximab. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the combination based on data from E1912, a phase 3 trial developed and led by the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group (ECOG-ACRIN).
Study stopped early by data safety monitoring board because of difficulty recruiting patients after COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China brought under control, so the true effectiveness of antiviral drug remdesivir remains unclear.
Treatment with remdesivir did not speed recovery or reduce deaths from COVID-19 compared with placebo in hospitalised patients in the trial.
The new procedure will help to meet the high demand for testing in the mass coronavirus screening programmes needed in the early identification and isolation of asymptomatic individuals. The pooling of samples before testing is a well-established and safe procedure in blood banking. The team from the Institute of Virology has adapted and tested this method for use in coronavirus diagnostics.
In a special report published today in the journal Blood, an international working group of experts in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) proposes - for the first time - the recognition of a distinct subtype of MDS based on the presence of a nonheritable genetic mutation that causes the disease. The mutation is found in approximately one in every five patients with MDS.
A University of Washington researcher calculates that 14.4 million workers face exposure to infection once a week and 26.7 million at least once a month in the workplace, pointing to an important population needing protection as the novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, continues to break out across the U.S.
New physiotherapy guidelines are targeting COVID-19 patient recovery for respiratory management, exercise and mobilisation in acute hospital wards and Intensive Care Units.
The new guidelines published in Australian Journal of Physiotherapy aim to prevent complications of the respiratory system and muscle deconditioning, speed up recovery from mechanical ventilation, and improve long-term physical function and recovery.
An important goal of early-phase clinical trials is to discover a drug's possible side effects. But despite FDA guidelines seeking to standardize this reporting, a University of Colorado Cancer Center study finds significant variation in how drug side effects are reported, potentially making some drugs seem safer or less safe than they really are.
Diabetes is called an incurable disease because once it develops, it does not disappear regardless of treatment in modern medicine. Having diabetes means a life-long obligation of insulin shots and monitoring of blood glucose levels. But what if you could control the secretion of insulin just by wearing contact lenses?
Recently, a research team at POSTECH developed wirelessly driven 'smart contact lens' technology that can detect diabetes and further treat diabetic retinopathy just by wearing them.
WASHINGTON, April 28, 2020 -- Many months since the first COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China, countries continue to explore solutions that are effective at managing the spread of the virus and culturally feasible to implement. Chaos theory analysis has provided insight on how well infection prevention strategies can be adopted by multiple countries.
Researchers in Brazil analyzed the growth of confirmed infected COVID-19 cases across four continents to better characterize the spread of the virus and examine which strategies are effective in reducing its spread.
BROOKLYN, New York, Tuesday, April 28, 2020 – The dissemination of fake news on social media is a pernicious trend with dire implications for the 2020 presidential election. Indeed, research shows that public engagement with spurious news is greater than with legitimate news from mainstream sources, making social media a powerful channel for propaganda.
Researchers increasingly aim at utilising the manifold functions of lipids in our bodies, e.g. as blood fats or in blood coagulation, to better understand and predict diseases. An international team around Robert Ahrends at the Faculty of Chemistry of the University of Vienna now presented a groundbreaking tool for efficient lipid analysis in the journal Nature Communications. Their software LipidCreator highly accelerates the analysis of specific lipid groups and lipid signal molecules, and allows both, their qualitative and quantitative characterisation with mass spectrometry.
African Americans with severe sleep apnea and other adverse sleep patterns are much more likely to have high blood glucose levels --a risk factor for diabetes--than those without these patterns, according to a new study funded in part by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health.