Researchers in Singapore and UK as part of the EpiGen consortium worked together with scientists at the Nestlé Research Center, Switzerland, on a new study on the bacterial makeup of the gut (gut microbiota) of infants in Singapore. Their study reveals that the rate of bacterial colonisation of the gut is influenced by external factors such as the method of delivery and duration of gestation.
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A newfound link between chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and early menopause was reported online today in Menopause. This link, as well as links with other gynecologic problems and with pelvic pain, may help explain why chronic fatigue syndrome is two to four times more common in women than in men and is most prevalent in women in their 40s. Staying alert to these problems may also help healthcare providers take better care of women who may be at risk for chronic fatigue syndrome, say the authors of this population-based, case-control study.
Cell cultures used in biology and medical research may not act as a faithful mimic of real tissue, according to research published in Genome Biology.
The study finds that laboratory-grown cells experience altered cell states within three days as they adapt to their new environment. Studies of human disease, including cancer, rely on the use of cell cultures that have often been grown for decades. The findings could therefore affect the interpretation of past studies and provide important clues for improving cell cultures in the future.
One in two people will develop cancer at some point in their lives, according to the most accurate forecast to date from Cancer Research UK, and published in the British Journal of Cancer today (Wednesday).
The new figure highlights the urgent need to bolster public health and NHS cancer services so they can cope with a growing and aging population and the looming demands for better diagnostics, treatments, and earlier diagnosis. Prevention must also play an important role in the concerted effort required to reduce the impact of the disease in coming decades.
An insulin-regulating hormone that, until now, only had been postulated to exist has been identified by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
The hormone, called limostatin after the Greek goddess of starvation, Limos, tamps down circulating insulin levels during recovery from fasting or starvation. In this way, it ensures that precious nutrients remain in the blood long enough to rebuild starving tissues, rather than being rapidly squirreled away into less-accessible fat cells.
While families around the world delay childbearing to later in life, cancer diagnoses are affecting people ever earlier in life. When these lifestyle trends collide, we see an increasing number of young women rendered infertile by cancer or cancer treatments.
What can be done about it? What do doctors need to know? And does a cancer diagnosis mean that a patient can never have children?
Cancers that have spread throughout the body, a process known as metastasis, are difficult, often impossible, to control. They are the leading cause of cancer-related deaths.
Twenty years ago, however, two University of Chicago cancer specialists--Samuel Hellman, former dean of the University of Chicago's Division of the Biological Sciences, and Ralph Weichselbaum, chairman of radiation oncology--described what they considered an intermediate and potentially treatable state between a single tumor and widespread cancer. They labelled it oligometastasis.
The discovery of the first gene causing familial scoliosis was announced by an international France-Canada research team today. "Mystery surrounds the cause of scoliosis, which is a three dimensional deformation of the vertebral column. Many researchers have been attempting to uncover the origins of this disease, particularly from a genetic point of view," explained leading co-author Dr Florina Moldovan of the University of Montreal and the CHU Sainte Justine research hospital.
No one had checked before, but RNA, the nucleic acid involved in many cell functions including protein synthesis, appears to be the only "strand of life" not to have knots.
Over the years, advances in structural biology have firmly established that both proteins and DNA, although subject to evolutionary selection, do not escape the statistical law whereby a sufficiently long and compacted molecular strand will inevitably be entangled. However, no one to date had looked into the case of RNA.
n a study to be presented on Feb. 5 in an oral concurrent session at 1:15 p.m. PST, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting™, in San Diego, researchers will report that the use of a system that provides precise measurement of fetal decent and maternal feedback during second stage labor substantially shortens second stage and improves outcomes.
In a study to be presented on Feb. 5 in an oral concurrent session at 1:15 p.m. PST, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting™, in San Diego, researchers will report on the impact of maternal glycemia on childhood obesity and metabolic dysfunction.
n a study to be presented on Feb. 5th at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting, in San Diego, researchers will report on the effect of a probiotic capsule intervention on maternal metabolic parameters and pregnancy outcomes among women with gestational diabetes.
In a study to be presented on Feb. 6 in an oral concurrent session at 1:15 p.m. PST, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting™, in San Diego, researchers will present findings on a study of mothers and daughters where low birth weight and preeclampsia were found to reoccur in the next generation.
Some babies seem to have a genetic predisposition to a higher risk of being born too soon, according to researchers in a study to be presented on Feb. 5 in an oral concurrent session at 8 a.m. PST, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting in San Diego. The study titled Neonatal, not Maternal, Copy Number Variants are Associated with Spontaneous Preterm Birth found that variants in the fetus's DNA - not the mother's - may be what triggers some early births.
In a study to be presented on Feb. 5 in an oral pleanary session at 8 a.m. PST, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting in San Diego, researchers will report that induced or augmented labor are not associated with increased odds of Autism spectrum disorder.