Vitamin D is important for optimal reproductive function in both animals and humans. It has long been known that serum vitamin D level is important for reproductive function in various animals, but now researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Copenhagen University Hospital have shown that this relationship can also be demonstrated in humans.
Body
Scientists have discovered an important enzyme molecule that may prevent fatal cardiac disorders associated with cardiac hypertrophy – the leading cause of sudden cardiac death in young athletes.
Cardiac hypertrophy is a disease of the heart muscle where a portion of the tissue is thickened without any obvious cause. It is commonly linked to high blood pressure (hypertension) and excessive exercises and results in a shrinking of the heart chamber and a reduction of its blood-pumping volume.
Seoul, Korea, 24th May 2011 – Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) today unveiled its pioneering efforts in the breakthrough field of 'Omics' that is set to solve the molecular puzzles of beauty and leapfrog innovations in this space. Twenty-one years after the start of the Human Genome Project in 1990, the science of genomics has come of age and led to a new era of 'Omics'-based research. This approach brings together genomics, proteomics and metabolomics to map the entire biological system, illuminating new pathways to better skin and hair science for years to come.
"Sweet wheat" has the potential for joining that summertime delight among vegetables — sweet corn — as a tasty and healthful part of the diet, the scientific team that developed this mutant form of wheat concludes in a new study. The report appears in the ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
The formation of abnormal strands of protein called amyloid fibrils — associated with two dozen diseases ranging from Alzheimer's to type-2 diabetes — may not be permanent and irreversible as previously thought, scientists are reporting in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Rather, protein molecules are constantly attaching and detaching from the fibrils, in a recycling process that could be manipulated to yield new treatments for Alzheimer's and other diseases.
Temptations to exceed the speed limit are always plentiful, but only reckless drivers give in to such impulses. Likewise, numerous growth factors always abound in our bodies, but only cancerous cells are quickly "tempted" by these chemicals to divide again and again. Healthy cells, in contrast, divide only after being exposed to growth factors for eight continuous hours. What happens during these eight hours in a healthy cell that resists the call to divide? And even more important, what fails to work properly in the cancerous cell during these same hours?
The molecular machines that defend our body against infection don't huff and puff, but some of them The molecular machines that defend our body against infection don't huff and puff, but some of them apparently operate on the same principle as a steam engine.
Women who reported not taking a daily prenatal vitamin immediately before and during the first month of pregnancy were nearly twice as likely to have a child with an autism spectrum disorder as women who did take the supplements — and the associated risk rose to seven times as great when combined with a high-risk genetic make-up, a study by researchers at the UC Davis MIND Institute has found.
Two new studies led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco have found some antibiotics may be overused for children with asthma and urinary tract infections.
The findings raise concerns around breeding drug resistance in children and underscore the need for pediatricians to take a more prudent approach when prescribing antibiotic medications. In the case of asthma, the findings have led to a new trial, in which the value of targeted antibiotics is being tested.
In a first-of-its-kind study comparing human walking and running motions – and whether the hips, knees or ankles are the most important power sources for these motions – researchers at North Carolina State University show that the hips generate more of the power when people walk, but the ankles generate more of the power when humans run. Knees provide approximately one-fifth or less of walking or running power.
A new study has gone some way to answering the question about whether or not a technique called lipofilling is safe for women who are having their breasts reconstructed after surgery for breast cancer.
In Wales, the NHS is set for a real budget cut of nearly 11% over four years, while England escapes the deepest cuts across the four nations, according to John Appleby, Chief Economist at the King's Fund on bmj.com today.
In much of the discussion and debate about health care spending and reform, the "N" in NHS seems often to stand for England, writes Appleby. Yet around 10 million people in the UK do not live in England or use its health care services.
Eighteen-day periods of mandatory school closures and other social distancing measures were associated with a 29 to 37 percent reduction in influenza transmission rates in Mexico during the 2009 pandemic. The research was carried out by scientists at the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health and published in PLoS Medicine.
For more than 40 years, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has published the Red List of Threatened Species describing the conservation status of various species of animals. They are now also including plants in their lists and the picture they present is dramatic. According to recent estimates, around 20 per cent of flowering plants are currently at risk of extinction – though the exact number is unknown since such a small proportion of plant species has even been measured.
A study of tissue samples from 161 marine mammals that died between 2004 and 2009 in the Pacific Northwest reveals an association between severe illness and co-infection with two kinds of parasites normally found in land animals. One, Sarcocystis neurona, is a newcomer to the northwest coastal region of North America and is not known to infect people, while the other, Toxoplasma gondii, has been established there for some time and caused a large outbreak of disease in people in 1995.