http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. With obesity reaching epidemic levels in some parts of the world, scientists have only begun to understand why it is such a persistent condition. A study in the Journal of Biological Chemistry adds substantially to the story by reporting the discovery of a molecular chain of events in the brains of obese rats that undermined their ability to suppress appetite and to increase calorie burning. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-vicious-obesity-sustained-brain-biochemistry.html Medical research Thu, 16 May 2013 10:26:28 EST news287918780 Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report that tumor cells use stress signals to subvert responding immune cells, exploiting them to actually boost conditions beneficial to cancer growth. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-cancer-cells-co-opt-immune-response.html Cancer Tue, 18 Dec 2012 17:00:02 EST news275072249 (Medical Xpress)—When the heart works too hard, the brain may be to blame, says new Cornell research that is changing how scientists look at high blood pressure (hypertension). The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in November, traces hypertension to a newfound cellular source in the brain and shows that treatments targeting this area can reverse the disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-hypertension-source-brain.html Medical research Tue, 18 Dec 2012 08:38:58 EST news275042323 Inflammation and cell stress play important roles in the death of insulin-secreting cells and are major factors in diabetes. Cell stress also plays a role in Wolfram syndrome, a rare, genetic disorder that afflicts children with many symptoms, including juvenile-onset diabetes. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-treatment-diabetes-wolfram-syndrome.html Inflammatory disorders Tue, 07 Aug 2012 12:44:11 EST news263562230 In type 1 diabetes (T1D), pancreatic beta cells die from a misguided autoimmune attack, but how and why that happens is still unclear. Now, JDRF-funded scientists from the Indiana University School of Medicine have found that a specific type of cellular stress takes place in pancreatic beta cells before the onset of T1D, and that this stress response in the beta cell may in fact help ignite the autoimmune attack. These findings shed an entirely new light into the mystery behind how changes in the beta cell may play a role in the earliest stages of T1D, and adds a new perspective to our understanding how T1D progresses, and how to prevent and treat the disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-beta-cell-stress-trigger-diabetes.html Diabetes Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:39:04 EST news251653138 Something rotten never smelled so sweet. This is what members of a team of scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) are telling one another as they discuss a new finding they did not expect to make. They have discovered that hydrogen sulfide (H2S) – the flammable, highly toxic gas that we usually associate with the smell of rotten eggs in landfills and sewers – plays an important role in the regulation of a signaling pathway implicated in biological malfunctions linked to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, among others. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-unexpected-role-foul-smelling-hydrogen-sulfide.html Medical research Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:47:07 EST news242999213 Increased low-grade inflammation in the body resulting from obesity is widely viewed as contributing to type 2 diabetes. Going against this long-held belief, researchers from Children's Hospital Boston report that two proteins activated by inflammation are actually crucial for maintaining good blood sugar levels – and that boosting the activity of these proteins can normalize blood sugar in severely obese and diabetic mice. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-tactic-blood-sugar-diabetes-contradicts.html Medical research Sun, 04 Sep 2011 13:02:18 EST news234359967