http://medicalxpress.com/research-news/ en-us PhysOrg Team Medical Xpress provides the latest news on medicine research, health research, medicine, health and medical science. Trends in Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) and smoking explain a significant proportion of the decline of intestinal-type noncardia gastric adenocarcinoma (NCGA) incidence in US men between 1978 and 2008, and are estimated to continue to contribute to further declines between 2008 and 2040. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-pylori-trends-gastric-cancer-men.html Medical research 2013-05-21T17:00:03-07:00 Widely available in pharmacies and health stores, phosphatidylserine is a natural food supplement produced from beef, oysters, and soy. Proven to improve cognition and slow memory loss, it's a popular treatment for older people experiencing memory impairment. Now a team headed by Prof. Gil Ast and Dr. Ron Bochner of Tel Aviv University's Department of Human Molecular Genetics have discovered that the same supplement improves the functioning of genes involved in degenerative brain disorders, including Parkinson's disease and Familial Dysautonomia (FD). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-common-food-supplement-degenerative-brain.html Medical research 2013-05-21T12:20:01-07:00 Researchers at Emory University have identified a protein that stimulates a pair of "orphan receptors" found in the brain, solving a long-standing biological puzzle and possibly leading to future treatments for neurological diseases. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-family-pair-orphan-receptors-brain.html Medical research 2013-05-21T11:49:55-07:00 Australian scientists have charted the path of insulin action in cells in precise detail like never before. This provides a comprehensive blueprint for understanding what goes wrong in diabetes. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-insight-dazzling-impact-insulin-cells.html Medical research 2013-05-21T11:25:38-07:00 Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine will study gender differences in how the heart uses and stores fat—its main energy source—and how changes in fat metabolism play a role in heart disease, under a new $2 million, 4-year grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-men-women-hearts-fuel-differently.html Medical research 2013-05-21T08:30:02-07:00 Nearly 20 percent of kidneys that are recovered from deceased donors in the U.S. are refused for transplant due to factors ranging from scarring in small blood vessels of the kidney's filtering units to the organ going too long without blood or oxygen. But, what if instead of being discarded, these organs could be "recycled" to help solve the critical shortage of donor organs? http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-source-kidneys-transplant.html Medical research 2013-05-20T16:20:04-07:00 Discovering that mouse hair has a circadian clock - a 24-hour cycle of growth followed by restorative repair - researchers suspect that hair loss in humans from toxic cancer radiotherapy and chemotherapy might be minimized if these treatments are given late in the day. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-discovery-circadian-clock-mice-hair.html Medical research 2013-05-20T15:53:42-07:00 Salamanders' immune systems are key to their remarkable ability to regrow limbs, and could also underpin their ability to regenerate spinal cords, brain tissue and even parts of their hearts, scientists have found. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-salamanders-solution-regeneration.html Medical research 2013-05-20T15:00:10-07:00 New research from the University of Southampton has shown that blind and visually impaired people have the potential to use echolocation, similar to that used by bats and dolphins, to determine the location of an object. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-people-potential.html Medical research 2013-05-20T12:21:27-07:00 A novel vaccine study from South Dakota State University (SDSU) will headline the groundbreaking research that will be unveiled at the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists' (AAPS) National Biotechnology Conference (NBC). The meeting takes place Monday, May 20 - Wednesday, May 22 at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-germ-fighting-vaccine-great-delivery.html Medical research 2013-05-20T12:00:03-07:00 Every 20 seconds, a limb is lost as a consequence of diabetic foot ulcer that does not heal. To date, medical solutions that can change this situation are very limited. In his doctoral thesis Yue Shen from the Industrial Doctoral School and the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at Umeå University presented a novel medicine for chronic wound treatment that may completely change the lives of millions of patients. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-discovery-medicine-treatment-chronic-wounds.html Medical research 2013-05-20T07:20:03-07:00 When tumours metastasise, they can block lymphatic vessels, as researchers from ETH Zurich have discovered using a new method. The lymphatic fluid subsequently has to find a new path through the tissue. Such "detours" could well be the reason why metastasis misdiagnoses can occur in hospitals. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-lymphatic-fluid-detour.html Medical research 2013-05-20T07:18:59-07:00 In their quest to learn more about the variability of cells between and within tissues, biomedical scientists have devised tools capable of simultaneously measuring dozens of characteristics of individual cells. These technologies have led to new challenges, however, as scientists now struggle with how to make sense of the resulting trove of data. Now a solution may be at hand. Researchers at Columbia University and Stanford University have developed a computational method that enables scientists to visualize and interpret "high-dimensional" data produced by single-cell measurement technologies such as mass cytometry. The method, published in the online edition of Nature Biotechnology, has particular relevance to cancer research and therapeutics. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-tool-complex-dimensional-images.html Medical research 2013-05-19T13:10:01-07:00 In 2008 researchers from the University of Southern Denmark showed that the drug thioridazine, which has previously been used to treat schizophrenia, is also a powerful weapon against antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as staphylococci (Staphylococcus aureus). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-scizophrenia-medicine-antibiotics-resistant-bacteria.html Medical research 2013-05-17T17:06:57-07:00 Scientists investigating the interaction of a group of proteins in the brain responsible for protecting nerve cells from damage have identified a new target that could increase cell survival. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-sumo-cells-reveal-mechanism.html Medical research 2013-05-17T11:30:01-07:00 New findings by researchers carrying out experiments at the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science's Advanced Photon Source (APS) help explain why some drugs that interact with two kinds of human serotonin receptors have had unexpectedly complex and sometimes harmful effects. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-serotonin-receptors-drug-effects-lsd.html Medical research 2013-05-17T09:52:09-07:00 Peptide molecules derived from the body's natural immune system can help boost the body's defence against life-threatening blood poisoning, joint University research has uncovered. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-blood-poisoning.html Medical research 2013-05-17T09:20:01-07:00 A new Montréal study conducted by Dr. May Faraj, associate research professor at the Université de Montréal and invited scientist at the IRCM, along with her research team and medical collaborators, shows that the number of particles carrying bad cholesterol in the blood is an important factor in promoting the risk for type 2 diabetes in obese individuals. Their results are published in the May issue of the Journal of Lipid Research. This scientific breakthrough may help prevent diabetes by targeting treatments to higher-risk individuals. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-mechanism-diabetes-obese-individuals.html Medical research 2013-05-17T09:00:05-07:00 Scientists at Montana State University have developed a therapeutic that has potential as a biological drug or probiotic food product to combat many of the more than 80 autoimmune disorders that affect some 23.5 million people in the United States. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-scientists-potential-treatment-autoimmune-diseases.html Medical research 2013-05-17T08:37:08-07:00 Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology report details on the biological mechanisms through which cells degrade own cellular material, allowing them to survive starvation conditions. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-insight-cell-survival.html Medical research 2013-05-17T08:23:25-07:00 As scientists learn more about processing bodies (PBs), granules present within normal cells, they are unraveling the complex role PBs play in maintaining cellular homeostasis by regulating RNA metabolism and cell signaling. Emerging research is revealing how virus infection alters PBs to enhance viral replication and how, in turn, PBs are able respond and limit a virus's ability to reproduce. This novel mechanism allows PBs to contribute to the body's immune defenses, as described in an article in DNA and Cell Biology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-role-bodies-cell-survival-viral.html Medical research 2013-05-16T11:40:02-07:00 Infections can trigger hematopoiesis at sites outside the bone marrow – in the liver, the spleen or the skin. LMU researchers now show that a specific type of immune cell facilitates such "extra medullary" formation of blood cells. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-herpes-infections-natural-killer-cells.html Medical research 2013-05-16T10:36:54-07:00 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 2013-05-16T10:26:28-07:00 (Medical Xpress)—The endothelium, the cellular layer lining the body's blood vessels, is extremely resilient. Measuring just a few hundred nanometers in thickness, this super-tenuous structure routinely withstands blood flow, hydrostatic pressure, stretch and tissue compression to create a unique and highly dynamic barrier that maintains the organization necessary to partition tissues from the body's circulatory system. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-endothelium-thyself-fresh-resilient-tissue.html Medical research 2013-05-16T06:58:10-07:00 Scientists at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio have identified four genes in baboons that influence levels of "bad" cholesterol. This discovery could lead to the development of new drugs to reduce the risk of heart disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-genes-indentified-bad-cholesterol.html Medical research 2013-05-15T13:50:01-07:00 Melbourne scientists have made the surprise discovery that malaria parasites can 'talk' to each other – a social behaviour to ensure the parasite's survival and improve its chances of being transmitted to other humans. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-idle-chatter-malaria-parasites.html Medical research 2013-05-15T13:28:48-07:00 Transplant researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine challenge a long-held assumption about how biologic pathways trigger immune system rejection of donor organs in a report published online today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Their study, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, suggests a different paradigm is needed to develop better anti-rejection therapies. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-transplant-experts-assumption-pathway.html Medical research 2013-05-15T12:00:01-07:00 How cells regulate their own function by "accelerating and braking" is important basic knowledge when new intelligent medicines are being developed, or when plant cells are tweaked to produce more bioenergy. In a study published by Nature Communications on May 14, researchers at Uppsala and Umeå universities show a model of how cells' regulatory systems work. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-cells-moderately-effective.html Medical research 2013-05-15T11:30:48-07:00 From the chimera in Greek mythology to the sphinx in ancient Egypt, humans have imagined making creatures from pieces of different organisms for millennia. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-tissue-rebuild-bones.html Medical research 2013-05-15T09:10:04-07:00 Even with a greater muscle mass, a sprinter cannot win a marathon. His specially-trained and strengthened muscles will fatigue faster than the endurance-trained muscles of a long distance runner. The research group of Prof. Christoph Handschin of the Biozentrum, University of Basel, shows that during endurance exercise the protein PGC-1α shifts the metabolic profile in the muscle. The results are published in the current issue of the journal PNAS. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-marathon-runner-protein-pgc-1alpha.html Medical research 2013-05-15T07:28:42-07:00