COVID-19 increases mortality rate among pregnant women

Diabetics living in the UK worry about disruption to insulin supplies as a result of Brexit, new research shows. Insulin is the hormone that helps control the body's blood sugar level and is critical to the survival of many people living with Type 1 diabetes. Currently most insulin used in the UK is imported. The research - by the University of York - analysed 4,000 social media posts from the UK and the States in order to explore the experiences of living as an insulin-dependent person. Around 25 per cent of the posts relating to health were made by diabetics and about ...

Rapid, sensitive diagnosis of COVID-19 is essential for early treatment, contact tracing and reducing viral spread. However, some people infected with SARS-CoV-2 receive false-negative test results, which might put their and others' health at risk. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Nano Letters have developed ultra-absorptive nanofiber swabs that could reduce the number of false-negative tests by improving sample collection and test sensitivity. Currently, the most sensitive test for COVID-19 involves using a long swab to collect a specimen from deep inside a patient's nose, and then using a method called reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA. But if the viral load is low, which can occur early in the course of infection, the swab ...

Widespread use of antibiotics in human healthcare and livestock husbandry has led to trace amounts of the drugs ending up in food products. Long-term consumption could cause health problems, but it's been difficult to analyze more than a few antibiotics at a time because they have different chemical properties. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry have developed a method to simultaneously measure 77 antibiotics in a variety of foods. Antibiotics can be present at trace amounts in meat, eggs and milk if the animals aren't withdrawn from the drugs for a sufficient period of time before the products are collected. Also, ...

DALLAS, Jan. 27, 2021 -- Stroke survivors who completed a cardiac rehabilitation program focused on aerobic exercise, currently not prescribed to stroke survivors, significantly improved their ability to transition from sitting to standing, and how far they could walk during a six-minute walking test, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access journal of the American Heart Association. Cardiac rehabilitation is a structured exercise program prevalent in the U.S. for people with cardiovascular disease that has been shown to increase cardiovascular endurance and improve quality of life. Despite many similar ...

Tracking milk drinking in the ancient past is not straightforward. For decades, archaeologists have tried to reconstruct the practice by various indirect methods. They have looked at ancient rock art to identify scenes of animals being milked and at animal bones to reconstruct kill-off patterns that might reflect the use of animals for dairying. More recently, they even used scientific methods to detect traces of dairy fats on ancient pots. But none of these methods can say if a specific individual consumed milk. Now archaeological scientists are increasingly ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Researchers used single-molecule imaging to compare the genome-editing tools CRISPR-Cas9 and TALEN. Their experiments revealed that TALEN is up to five times more efficient than CRISPR-Cas9 in parts of the genome, called heterochromatin, that are densely packed. Fragile X syndrome, sickle cell anemia, beta-thalassemia and other diseases are the result of genetic defects in the heterochromatin. The researchers report their findings in the journal Nature Communications. The study adds to the evidence that a broader selection of genome-editing tools is needed to target all parts of the genome, said Huimin Zhao, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Illinois ...

A characteristic feature of all stem cells is their ability to self-renew. But how is this potential maintained throughout life? Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Technology and Experimental Medicine* (HI-STEM) have now discovered in mice that cells in the so-called "stem cell niche" are responsible for this: Blood vessel cells of the niche produce a factor that stimulates blood stem cells and thus maintains their self-renewal capacity. During aging, production of this factor ceases and blood stem cells begin to age. Throughout life, blood stem cells in the bone marrow ensure that our body is adequately supplied with mature blood cells. If there is no current need for cell ...

Much of the earth's carbon is trapped in soil, and scientists have assumed that potential climate-warming compounds would safely stay there for centuries. But new research from Princeton University shows that carbon molecules can potentially escape the soil much faster than previously thought. The findings suggest a key role for some types of soil bacteria, which can produce enzymes that break down large carbon-based molecules and allow carbon dioxide to escape into the air. More carbon is stored in soil than in all the planet's plants and atmosphere combined, and soil absorbs about 20% of human-generated carbon emissions. Yet, factors that affect carbon storage and release from soil have been challenging to study, placing limits on the relevance of ...

DALLAS, Jan. 27, 2021 -- Heart disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide, according to the American Heart Association's Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics -- 2021 Update, published today in the Association's flagship journal Circulation, and experts warn that the broad influence of the COVID-19 pandemic will likely continue to extend that ranking for years to come. Globally, nearly 18.6 million people died of cardiovascular disease in 2019, the latest year for which worldwide statistics are calculated. That reflects a 17.1% increase over the past decade. There were more than 523.2 million cases of cardiovascular disease in 2019, an increase ...

(Boston)--When severely or chronically injured, the liver loses its ability to regenerate. A new study led by researchers at the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Boston Medical Center (BMC) now describes a safe new potential therapeutic tool for the recovery of liver function in chronic and acute liver diseases. Researchers utilized the lipid nanoparticle-encapsulated messenger RNA (mRNA-LNP) currently used in COVID-19 vaccines, to deliver regenerative factors to injured livers in a timely, controlled fashion. "We found that this intervention successfully induces the rapid expansion of the functional ...