Oncology & Cancer

Brown fat may help improve cancer survival rates

Brown fat is not linked to cancer-associated loss of body weight and muscle mass, a common condition known as cachexia, according to a new joint study from The Rockefeller University and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center ...

Medical research

How gut microbes help mend damaged muscles

The human immune system is incredibly versatile. Among its most skilled multitaskers are T cells, known for their role in everything from fighting infection to reining in inflammation to killing nascent tumors.

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Muscle

Muscle (from Latin musculus, diminutive of mus "mouse") is the contractile tissue of the body and is derived from the mesodermal layer of embryonic germ cells. Muscle cells contain contractile filaments that move past each other and change the size of the cell. They are classified as skeletal, cardiac, or smooth muscles. Their function is to produce force and cause motion. Muscles can cause either locomotion of the organism itself or movement of internal organs. Cardiac and smooth muscle contraction occurs without conscious thought and is necessary for survival. Examples are the contraction of the heart and peristalsis which pushes food through the digestive system. Voluntary contraction of the skeletal muscles is used to move the body and can be finely controlled. Examples are movements of the eye, or gross movements like the quadriceps muscle of the thigh. There are two broad types of voluntary muscle fibers: slow twitch and fast twitch. Slow twitch fibers contract for long periods of time but with little force while fast twitch fibers contract quickly and powerfully but fatigue very rapidly.

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