(Medical Xpress)—Calories in, calories out. Any dieter is familiar with the two sides of the equation for weight loss, usually reduced to eating less and exercising more. But what controls the body's balance ...
A research group has found that FGF21, an endocrine factor which reduces glucose levels, protects against cardiac diseases in mice. The research, published online on the journal Nature Communications, was led by Francesc Villar ...
Inside each of us is our own internal timing device. It drives everything from sleep cycles to metabolism, but the inner-workings of this so-called "circadian clock" are complex, and the molecular processes behind it have ...
Dawn triggers basic biological changes in the waking human body. As the sun rises, so does heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature. The liver, the kidneys and many natural processes also begin shifting ...
Diabetes mellitus, often simply referred to as diabetes, is a group of metabolic diseases in which a person has high blood sugar, either because the body does not produce enough insulin, or because cells do not respond to the insulin that is produced. This high blood sugar produces the classical symptoms of polyuria (frequent urination), polydipsia (increased thirst) and polyphagia (increased hunger).
There are three main types of diabetes:
Other forms of diabetes mellitus include congenital diabetes, which is due to genetic defects of insulin secretion, cystic fibrosis-related diabetes, steroid diabetes induced by high doses of glucocorticoids, and several forms of monogenic diabetes.
All forms of diabetes have been treatable since insulin became available in 1921, and type 2 diabetes may be controlled with medications. Both type 1 and 2 are chronic conditions that usually cannot be cured. Pancreas transplants have been tried with limited success in type 1 DM; gastric bypass surgery has been successful in many with morbid obesity and type 2 DM. Gestational diabetes usually resolves after delivery. Diabetes without proper treatments can cause many complications. Acute complications include hypoglycemia, diabetic ketoacidosis, or nonketotic hyperosmolar coma. Serious long-term complications include cardiovascular disease, chronic renal failure, retinal damage. Adequate treatment of diabetes is thus important, as well as blood pressure control and lifestyle factors such as smoking cessation and maintaining a healthy body weight.
Globally as of 2010 it is estimated that there are 285 million people diabetes with type 2 making up about 90% of the cases.
(Medical Xpress)—Neurophysiologist like to think of neurons as communicating with spikes. If that were the whole story, it might be possible to imagine spike codes which could then be used to estimate the ...
In a study published in the June 19 online edition of the journal Nature, a scientific team led by researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine visually monitored the dynami ...
The number of US girls with the sexually transmitted disease HPV has dropped by about half even though relatively few youths are getting the vaccine, research showed on Wednesday.
Osteomyelitis – a debilitating bone infection most frequently caused by Staphylococcus aureus ("staph") bacteria – is particularly challenging to treat.
A new understanding of the genetic process that can lead to cervical cancer may help improve diagnosis of potentially dangerous lesions for some women, and also raises a warning flag about the use of anti-viral therapies ...
In the cover story for the journal Genetics this month, neurobiologist Dan Chase and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst describe a new experimental technique they developed that will allow scientists to stu ...
Slipping bacteria some silver could give old antibiotics new life, scientists at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University reported June 19 in Science Translational Me ...
Kick back and shut your eyes. Now stop thinking. You have just put your brain into what neuroscientists call its resting state. What the brain is doing when an individual is not focused on the outside world ...
Oscar Wilde called memory "the diary that we all carry about with us." Now a team of scientists has developed a way to see where and how that diary is written.
(Medical Xpress)—A team of researchers from the U.S. and Scotland has developed a new type of retinal prostheses designed to restore sight to blind patients. In their paper published in the journal Nature Co ...