Body

Drinking red grape juice or wine - in moderation - could improve the health of overweight people by helping them burn fat better, according to a new study coauthored by an Oregon State University researcher.

The findings suggest that consuming dark-colored grapes, whether eating them or drinking juice or wine, might help people better manage obesity and related metabolic disorders such as fatty liver.

Psoriatic arthritis is a common form of inflammatory form of arthritis causing pain and stiffness in joints and tendons that can lead to joint damage. Nearly all patients with psoriatic arthritis also have skin psoriasis and, in many cases, the skin disease is present before the arthritis develops. However, only one third of patients with psoriasis will go on to develop psoriatic arthritis.

To help people with hormone deficiencies, scientists have developed a potential new therapy based on an unlikely model: immune molecules from cows. Their research, published recently in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that human hormones and antibodies can be fused together--mimicking long, stalk-like cow antibodies.

Researchers have uncovered a pathway that's key for protecting healthy tissue from overly active immune responses. The findings, which are described in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, may help clinicians provide better treatments for patients with a variety of autoimmune diseases.

Forget the 5 million commuters and untold number of rats - many of the living things crowded into the New York City subway system are too small to see. An interest in the more menacing among these microbes led high school student Anya Dunaif, a participant in Rockefeller's Summer Science Research Program, to spend her vacation swabbing benches and turn styles beneath the city. Among her findings: bacteria impervious to two major antibiotics.

A close examination of gut bacteria reveals that exclusively breastfed babies are better equipped for the transition to solids and potentially an early life with fewer stomach woes. The moment of birth marks the beginning of a beautiful, lifelong relationship between a baby and the billions of microbes that will soon colonize his or her gastrointestinal tract.

Some studies on the genetic roots of aging will need a second look after the discovery that a common lab chemical can extend the life span of female fruit flies by 68 percent.

For years, scientists have engineered fruit flies whose genes can be turned on and off by a synthetic hormone, allowing detailed studies of the effects of single genes on life span. Many of the genes have close relatives in humans.

Unfortunately, the hormone used to perform the studies turns out to be anything but neutral.

A worldwide study of the DNA of 100,000 women has discovered two new genetic variants associated with an increased risk of breast cancer.

The genetic variants are specifically linked to the most common form of breast cancer, oestrogen receptor positive, and provide important insights into how the disease develops.

Scientists believe screening women for all the genetic variants so far identified could eventually pick out those at highest risk of breast cancer and improve strategies for preventing the disease.

Primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) is the second most common systemic autoimmune disease behind rheumatoid arthritis, with female patients outnumbering males by a ratio of 9:1. Those affected often experience dryness of the eyes and mouth, together with a variety of other symptoms such as extreme fatigue and arthritis. There is also a high prevalence of vaginal dryness and difficult or painful sexual intercourse in women with pSS, along with symptoms common across rheumatic diseases such as pain, stiffness, negative body image, anxiety, reduced libido, and side-effects from treatments.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.