Body

If you're looking for a simple way to lower your risk of dying from a heart attack, consider going nuts.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University and the Shanghai Cancer Institute examined the association of nut consumption with mortality among low-income and racially diverse populations and found that intake of peanuts was associated with fewer deaths, especially from heart disease.

The loss of a gene in male mice results in the premature exhaustion of their fertility. Their fundamental new insights into the complex process of sperm generation may have direct applications to a similar loss of fertility in men.

No one wants to have child who is born underweight, but for numerous reasons, this may be unavoidable. An intriguing research report involving rats suggests that helping fetuses achieve optimal weight before birth is of even greater importance than currently believed: Underweight infants may eventually become the grandparents of children at a higher risk for metabolic problems like high cholesterol, diabetes, and obesity. This report appears in the March 2015 issue of The FASEB Journal.

Walk down the aisles of any food supplement store and you'll see that the use of nitrate supplements by athletes and fitness buffs has been popular for years. The hope is that these supplements will increase endurance (and possibly other performance/health benefits) by improving the efficiency at which muscles use oxygen.

Mitochondrial dysfunction is a hallmark of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease (AD), with morphological and functional abnormalities limiting the electron transport chain and ATP production. A contributing factor of mitochondrial abnormalities is loss of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), an important cofactor in multiple metabolic reactions.

A team of Spanish scientists, which includes several researchers from the University of Granada, has confirmed that there is a relation between the levels of certain environmental pollutants that a person accumulates in his or her body and their level of obesity. Subjects with more pollutants in their organisms present besides higher levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, which are important risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Scientists have captured the first detailed microscopy images of ultra-small bacteria that are believed to be about as small as life can get. The research was led by scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley. The existence of ultra-small bacteria has been debated for two decades, but there hasn't been a comprehensive electron microscopy and DNA-based description of the microbes until now.

About 10 percent of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) discontinued therapy with the Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor drug ibrutinib because of disease progression during clinical trials, according to a study published online in JAMA Oncology.

CLL is the most prevalent leukemia in adults and it is not considered curable without an allogeneic (donor) stem cell transplant. However, advances in therapy have been made, notably the emergence of kinase inhibitors for patients whose disease relapsed, according to the study background.

Researchers at the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health identified distinct immune changes in patients diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, known medically as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) or systemic exertion intolerance disease. The findings could help improve diagnosis and identify treatment options for the disabling disorder, in which symptoms range from extreme fatigue and difficulty concentrating to headaches and muscle pain.

Think of it as interval training for the dinner table.

University of Florida Health researchers have found that putting people on a feast-or-famine diet may mimic some of the benefits of fasting, and that adding antioxidant supplements may counteract those benefits.

Fasting has been shown in mice to extend lifespan and to improve age-related diseases. But fasting every day, which could entail skipping meals or simply reducing overall caloric intake, can be hard to maintain.

In a nested-case control study of individuals living in the UK, a part of the world with a relatively low incidence of liver cancer, statin use is associated with a decreased risk of liver cancer, according to a new study published February 26 in the JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

A connection between persistent insomnia and increased inflammation and mortality has been identified by a group of researchers from the University of Arizona. Their study, published in The American Journal of Medicine, found that people who suffer from persistent insomnia are at greater risk than those who experience intermittent insomnia.

A three-character code brings relief to patients with psoriasis and sheds light on complex immunoregulation processes: IL-4, an abbreviation for the endogenous signaling molecule Interleukin 4. The substance's ability to inhibit inflammation is well known, but its mechanism of action was not fully understood. Scientists from the Technische Universität München (TUM) and the University of Tübingen have now shown in an animal model and in a study on patients exactly how IL-4 helps against psoriasis at the molecular level and the important role it plays in our immune system.

Despite only finding an association between fluoridated water and underactive thyroid gland, the paper says we should try to reduce all sources of fluoride in the environment. Flickr, CC BY-NC

People who sleep for more than eight hours a day have an increased risk of stroke, according to a study by the University of Cambridge - and this risk doubles for older people who persistently sleep longer than average. However, the researchers say it is unclear why this association exists and call for further research to explore the link.