Body

Study identifies an association between eating four or more servings a week of boiled, baked, mashed potatoes or French fries and an increase in the risk of high blood pressure

Boston, MA - In a new study, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health have found that a higher intake of potatoes and French fries may be associated with an increased risk of high blood pressure (hypertension) in adults.

The findings are published online in the British Medical Journal on May 17, 2016.

London, UK (May 18, 2016). Following the decision by NHS England to not make pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) available to HIV-negative persons in England at risk of acquiring HIV, Dr Michael Brady, Medical Director of the Terrence Higgins Trust, in an editorial published today in the SAGE journal Therapeutic Advances in Chronic Disease responds and outlines how:

"PrEP is undoubtedly an essential addition to our approach to combination HIV prevention and needs to be available now."

For the first time, scientists have identified how differences in individuals' immune responses might be linked to the effectiveness of the seasonal influenza vaccination programme. The findings are published in the journal, Immunology.

For the first time, the genomes of the giraffe and its closest living relative, the reclusive okapi of the African rainforest, have been sequenced -- revealing the first clues about the genetic changes that led to the evolution of the giraffe's exceptionally long neck and its record-holding ranking as the world's tallest land species. The research will be published in the scientific journal Nature Communications on May 17, 2016.

Researchers at King's College London have found no significant link between eating the evening meal after 8pm and excess weight in children, according to a paper published this month in the British Journal of Nutrition.

Previous evidence suggested that the timing of food intake can have a significant impact on circadian rhythms (i.e. the body's internal daily clock) and therefore on metabolic processes within the body, potentially leading to an increased risk of being overweight or obese.

Female cancer patients of reproductive age could preserve their fertility during radiation and chemotherapy through treatments that target the DNA damage response in oocytes (the cells that develop into eggs), an approach that works in animal models.

Jackson Laboratory Assistant Professor Ewelina Bolcun-Filas, Ph.D., and Terri L. Woodward, M.D., assistant professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, describe the method in "Prolonging Reproductive Life after Cancer: The Need for Fertoprotective Therapies," an opinion article in Cell Press Trends in Cancer.

Researchers from New Zealand's University of Otago have undertaken the first-ever study looking at what infants eat when they follow baby-led weaning and found that they have a lot of healthy eating habits, but also some less healthy ones.

Study co-author and co-Principal Investigator, Dr Anne-Louise Heath, says that baby-led weaning (BLW) is becoming an increasingly popular alternative to spoon-feeding. BLW involves allowing infants from around six months of age to feed themselves all their foods as finger foods, preferably during family meals.

Gene thought active only in embryos and permanently silenced in adults is actually critical in preventing heart attacks and strokes

Manipulating expression of this gene might help block age-related decline in the body's ability to carry out repairs and heal wounds

This is an atherosclerotic lesion. Such lesions can rupture and cause heart attacks and strokes. Credit: UVA School of Medicine

A study by researchers at New Zealand's University of Otago, Wellington shows that smokers who used a nicotine inhaler were twice as likely to quit smoking as smokers using a placebo inhaler.

The researchers developed and tested a novel nicotine inhaler to see whether it helps smokers to quit smoking. Participants in the study were randomly assigned to receive either a nicotine inhaler plus a nicotine patch, or a placebo inhaler plus a nicotine patch.

Virologists from KU Leuven, Belgium, have shown that an experimental antiviral drug against hepatitis C slows down the development of Zika in mice. The research team was led by Professor Johan Neyts from the Laboratory of Virology and Chemotherapy.

A ground-breaking study by University of Manchester and Liverpool scientists and published in the journal eLife has identified a new link between inflammation and cell division.

Two of the most important processes in the human body, their accurate control is a holy grail for scientists researching the prevention of infection, inflammatory disease and cancer.

People suffering from major depressive disorder may have altered purine metabolism, according to a new study from the University of Eastern Finland and Kuopio University Hospital. Purines are nitrogenous compounds that serve as building blocks for DNA and they also play a role in cellular signalling, among other things.

Compared to their surroundings, cities can be hot -- hot enough to influence the weather. Industrial, domestic, and transportation-related activities constantly release heat, and after a warm day, concrete surfaces radiate stored heat long into the night. These phenomena can be strong enough to drive thunderstorms off course. But it isn't only about the heat cities release; it's also about their spatial layout. By channeling winds and generating turbulence hundreds of meters into the atmosphere, the presence and organization of buildings also affect weather and air quality.

Climate change creates more shrub vegetation in barren, arctic ecosystems. A study at Lund University in Sweden shows that organisms, such as bacteria and fungi, are triggered to break down particularly nutritious dead parts of shrubbery. Meanwhile, the total amount of decomposition is reducing. This could have an inhibiting effect on global warming.

Holidays abroad may hold the key to tackling Scotland's vitamin D deficiency, research suggests.

People who take foreign breaks have higher levels of vitamin D in their blood, which has been linked to wide-ranging health benefits, a study has found.

Farmers also have higher levels of the vitamin -- which is produced in the skin after exposure to sunlight -- according to the findings.Researchers at the University of Edinburgh surveyed the vitamin D levels of around 2000 people in Orkney -- 1 in 10 of the population -- as part of the ORCADES study.