Could a 'DNA diet' help to reduce health risks linked to high blood sugar?
A U.K. trial has found a DNA-tailored diet could help manage blood glucose and reduce risk of progressing to type 2 diabetes in high-risk individuals.
Mar 7, 2024
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A U.K. trial has found a DNA-tailored diet could help manage blood glucose and reduce risk of progressing to type 2 diabetes in high-risk individuals.
Mar 7, 2024
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Problems with our sleep and internal body clock can trigger or worsen a range of psychiatric disorders, according to a new review of recent research evidence.
Feb 19, 2024
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In 2020, heart failure affected about 6.5 million people in the U.S. and 23 million around the world. Despite recent advances, the five-year survival rate remains approximately 50%, indicating an urgent need for a novel perspective ...
Feb 8, 2024
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Tumors depend heavily on certain genetic changes to thrive, and researchers have discovered many such "genetic dependencies" as targets for potential new cancer drugs. At the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and elsewhere, ...
Jan 23, 2024
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Genetic changes or mutations can cause hereditary kidney disease, which can eventually lead to dialysis or the need for kidney transplantation. Identifying the cause of inherited kidney disease is the first step in identifying ...
Jan 22, 2024
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A UC Riverside study that could motivate your New Year's resolutions demonstrates that high-fat diets affect genes linked not only to obesity, colon cancer and irritable bowels, but also to the immune system, brain function, ...
Jan 3, 2024
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Infertility affects around 48 million couples worldwide and can have various causes. In mammals, including humans, eggs are produced in the ovary. When this process goes wrong, it can lead to female infertility. One example ...
Dec 13, 2023
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Researchers now understand the functional impact of thousands of genetic changes within the DDX3X gene. This could lead to enhanced diagnosis and treatment of various neurodevelopmental disorders and cancers.
Dec 6, 2023
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According to the World Health Organization (WHO), this musculoskeletal disorder affects approximately 1.71 billion people globally. Osteoarthritis is a condition where cartilage gradually breaks down, and joint bones are ...
Nov 24, 2023
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A recently discovered genetic mutation could be the cause of some severe and baffling cases of osteoporosis—including cases in young people.
Nov 22, 2023
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In biology, mutations are changes to the nucleotide sequence of the genetic material of an organism. Mutations can be caused by copying errors in the genetic material during cell division, by exposure to ultraviolet or ionizing radiation, chemical mutagens, or viruses, or can be induced by the organism itself, by cellular processes such as hypermutation. In multicellular organisms with dedicated reproductive cells, mutations can be subdivided into germ line mutations, which can be passed on to descendants through the reproductive cells, and somatic mutations, which involve cells outside the dedicated reproductive group and which are not usually transmitted to descendants. If the organism can reproduce asexually through mechanisms such as cuttings or budding the distinction can become blurred. For example, plants can sometimes transmit somatic mutations to their descendants asexually or sexually where flower buds develop in somatically mutated parts of plants. A new mutation that was not inherited from either parent is called a de novo mutation. The source of the mutation is unrelated to the consequence, although the consequences are related to which cells were mutated.
Mutations create variation within the gene pool. Less favorable (or deleterious) mutations can be reduced in frequency in the gene pool by natural selection, while more favorable (beneficial or advantageous) mutations may accumulate and result in adaptive evolutionary changes. For example, a butterfly may produce offspring with new mutations. The majority of these mutations will have no effect; but one might change the color of one of the butterfly's offspring, making it harder (or easier) for predators to see. If this color change is advantageous, the chance of this butterfly surviving and producing its own offspring are a little better, and over time the number of butterflies with this mutation may form a larger percentage of the population.
Neutral mutations are defined as mutations whose effects do not influence the fitness of an individual. These can accumulate over time due to genetic drift. It is believed that the overwhelming majority of mutations have no significant effect on an organism's fitness. Also, DNA repair mechanisms are able to mend most changes before they become permanent mutations, and many organisms have mechanisms for eliminating otherwise permanently mutated somatic cells.
Mutation is generally accepted by the scientific community as the mechanism upon which natural selection acts, providing the advantageous new traits that survive and multiply in offspring or disadvantageous traits that die out with weaker organisms.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA