Richmond, Va. (May 23, 2023) — New research is shedding light on global disparities in mortality rates from late-stage liver disease, also called cirrhosis. The study, published Monday in Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, revealed that the risk of death for hospitalized cirrhosis patients was more than twice as high in lower-or lower-middle income countries compared to high-income countries, largely because of limited access to diagnostic and therapeutic resources. Liver disease occurs when a person’s liver experiences chronic inflammation, often due to obesity, excessive alcohol use, viral hepatitis or a combination. ...

Toronto, ON - The US Surgeon General issued an advisory on social media and youth mental health a week after the American Psychological Association issued a health advisory on social media use in adolescence. Both advisories note potential links between social media use and poor sleep quality in teens. Given these concerns, what specific actions can teens and parents take to optimize sleep? A new national study, published in Sleep Health, offers insights into screen habits linked with better sleep. “Getting enough sleep is crucial ...

EL PASO, Texas (May 24, 2023) – Researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso have successfully mapped specific regions in the brain that are activated in association with changes in blood sugar — also known as glucose — providing fundamental location information that could ultimately lead to more targeted therapies for people who struggle with conditions like diabetes. The landmark 13-year study, published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, describes how the team used careful microscopic analysis to pinpoint specific cell populations ...

“Recent findings suggest that neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases may have overlapping etiologies [...]” BUFFALO, NY- May 24, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 9, entitled, “Exogenous exposures shape genetic predisposition to lipids, Alzheimer’s, and coronary heart disease in the MLXIPL gene locus.” In this new study, researchers Yury Loika, Elena Loiko, Fan ...

A UBC Okanagan researcher is cautioning that a person’s poor eating habits established during post-secondary studies can contribute to future health issues including obesity, respiratory illnesses and depression. Dr. Joan Bottorff, a Professor with UBCO’s School of Nursing, is one of several international researchers who published a multi-site study looking at the eating habits of university students. Almost 12,000 medical students from 31 universities in China participated in the study that aimed to determine the association between eating behaviours, obesity and various diseases. The point, ...

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, today announced that Aayush Jain receives the 2022 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award for his dissertation “Indistinguishability Obfuscation from Well-Studied Assumptions,” which established the feasibility of mathematically rigorous software obfuscation from well-studied hardness conjectures. The central goal of software obfuscation is to transform source code to make it unintelligible without altering what it computes.  Additional conditions may be added, such as requiring the transformed code to perform ...

The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology announced the 12 delegates who will participate in the society’s Advocacy Training Program this summer. The ATP is a three-month summer externship that provides hands-on science policy and advocacy training and experience. After completing the educational component of the program, delegates will visit Capitol Hill to meet with policymakers in 2024. The ASBMB public affairs department runs the program. The society has trained 42 ASBMB members in four ATP cohorts, providing the foundational knowledge, skills ...

MINNEAPOLIS – People with a genetic predisposition for Alzheimer’s disease may have an increased risk of epilepsy and people with a certain type of epilepsy may have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study published in the May 24, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Our research found that not only are people with Alzheimer’s disease more likely to develop epilepsy, but also that those with focal epilepsy, which accounts for ...

Scientists at Klick Labs have developed a new way to catch the earliest signs the human body is failing to control blood glucose levels, before it reaches prediabetic levels in patients.   In findings published today in Mayo Clinic Proceedings: Digital Health, researchers outlined a new method of analysis that flags a precursor to prediabetes called impaired glucose homeostasis (IGH). When they applied their patented mathematical method to data obtained from continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), scientists found about one in five study participants, considered healthy by medical standards, actually had glucose metabolism similar to those with prediabetes.   “For people ...

Irvine, CA – May 24, 2023 – A University of California, Irvine-led team of researchers have discovered that the oldest-old, those who live to be 90+ and have superior cognitive skills, have similar levels of brain pathology as Alzheimer’s patients, however, they also have less brain pathology of other neurodegenerative diseases that cause memory and thinking problems. The study, “Superior Global Cognition in Oldest-Old is Associated with Resistance to Neurodegenerative Pathologies: Results from the 90+ Study,” was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. “People ...

“Recent findings suggest that neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases may have overlapping etiologies [...]” BUFFALO, NY- May 24, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 9, entitled, “Exogenous exposures shape genetic predisposition to lipids, Alzheimer’s, and coronary heart disease in the MLXIPL gene locus.” In this new study, researchers Yury Loika, Elena Loiko, Fan Feng, Eric Stallard, Anatoliy I. Yashin, Konstantin Arbeev, Allison L. Kuipers, Mary F. Feitosa, Michael A. Province, and Alexander ...

SEATTLE – MAY 24, 2023 – Researchers from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, IAVI and other collaborating institutions have characterized robust T-cell responses in volunteers participating in the IAVI G001 Phase 1 clinical trial to test the safety and immune response of a self-assembling nanoparticle HIV vaccine. Their work, published in Science Translational Medicine, signals a major step toward development of a vaccine approach to end the HIV/AIDS ...

AMHERST, Mass. – While an overwhelming majority of cancer patients experience taste disruption from their disease or treatment, they have consistently reported a lack of support from their doctors about this troubling side effect, according to research. A new study by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, focusing for the first time on the issue from the cancer clinicians’ point of view, reveals not a lack of concern about their patients’ taste loss but a lack of access to educational materials, ...

(Memphis, Tenn.—May 24, 2023) Like thread tightly wrapped around a spool, DNA is wrapped around histones and packaged into structures called nucleosomes. Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital are exploring how a type of transcription factor called a pioneer transcription factor accesses DNA even when it is tightly wound. Their work revealed how the epigenetic landscape influences transcription factor binding. Problems with transcription have been implicated in numerous cancers, so this more detailed understanding of the process may aid in developing future therapeutics. The study ...

A widely used compostable plastic persists unchanged in marine environments for at least 14 months, according to a new study in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Sarah-Jeanne Royer and colleagues from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. The study highlights the distinction between textile materials that can be composted in a controlled, industrial setting (PLA), and the ones that can undergo biodegradation in natural environments (cellulose-based textiles). The accumulation and persistence of oil-based plastic waste ...

A new analysis of data from more than 10,000 adults shows that people who were physically active had higher pain tolerance than those who were sedentary, and that those with a higher level of activity had a higher level of pain tolerance. Anders Årnes of the University Hospital of North Norway, Tromsø, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on May 24, 2023. Prior research has suggested the possibility that a habit of engaging in a higher level of physical activity might help ease or prevent chronic pain by boosting pain tolerance. However, most studies on this topic have been small or focused on narrow groups of people. To help clarify the ...

Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0285446 Article Title: Psychosocial correlates in patterns of adolescent emotional eating and dietary consumption Author Countries: USA Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Coccolithophores, a globally ubiquitous type of phytoplankton, play an essential role in the cycling of carbon between the ocean and atmosphere. New research from Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences shows that these vital microbes can survive in low-light conditions by taking up dissolved organic forms of carbon, forcing researchers to reconsider the processes that drive carbon cycling in the ocean. The findings were published this week in Science Advances. The ability to extract carbon from the direct absorption of dissolved organic carbon is known as osmotrophy. ...

Plastic pollution is seemingly omnipresent in society, and while plastic bags, cups, and bottles may first come to mind, plastics are also increasingly used to make clothing, rugs, and other textiles.  A new study from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, published May 24 in the journal PLOS One, for the first time tracked the ability of natural, synthetic, and blended fabrics to biodegrade directly in the ocean.  Lead author Sarah-Jeanne Royer conducted an experiment off the Ellen Browning Scripps Memorial Pier and found that natural and wood-based cellulose fabrics degraded within a month. Synthetic textiles, including so-called compostable ...

Rising temperatures due to climate change are likely influencing human migration patterns, according to a new study by Rita Issa of University College London and colleagues, published May 24 in the open-access journal PLOS Climate. In the last decade, heatwaves were frequent, and surface temperatures were the warmest on record. As the planet warms, many people are expected to leave their homes to escape extreme temperatures. However, the exact role of heat in human migration is not yet understood. To illuminate this relationship, Issa’s team conducted a review of research documents, ...

The epidemic of firearm injury and death in the USA is preventable, and the field of public health can offer practical solutions, argue Dr. Megan L. Ranney and colleagues in an opinion article in PLOS Global Public Health. Through harm reduction and community engagement programs, public health professionals, healthcare providers and community members can reduce the impact on individuals, families and communities. Despite the attention school and public mass shootings in the US gain, they make up a minority of US firearm injuries and deaths. Most firearm deaths are from homicide and suicide: ...

Political parties regularly claim to have their finger on the pulse and be able to read the public mood. Yet a new study challenges the idea that being political makes you good at understanding others: it shows gender, not politics, is a far more important factor in determining people’s social skills. Analysis of a sample of 4,000 people from across the UK, compiled by a team of psychologists at the University of Bath, highlights that being female and educated are the biggest determinants of whether you can understand or read others’ ...

The prevalence of sleep disorders, like sleep apnea, is on the rise in the U.S., but current protocols to conduct clinically accepted assessments are expensive and inconvenient. Georgia Tech researchers have created a wearable device to accurately measure obstructive sleep apnea — when the body repeatedly stops and restarts breathing for a period — as well as the quality of sleep people get when they are at rest. Under conventional methods, people who are suspected of having some sleep issue or disorder ...

To know when it’s time for a meal – and when to stop eating again – is important to survive and to stay healthy, for humans and animals alike. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence investigated how the brain regulates feeding behavior in mice. The team found that the hormone ghrelin activates specialized nerve cells in a brain region known as the amygdala. Here, the interaction between ghrelin and the specialized neurons promotes food consumption and conveys ...

A team of researchers at the University of Houston College of Pharmacy is reporting that by manipulating TAK1, a signaling protein that plays an important role in development of the immune system, they can slow down disease progression and improve muscle function in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).  DMD, caused by mutations in dystrophin gene, is an inheritable neuromuscular disorder that occurs in one out of 3,600 male births. DMD patients undergo severe muscle wasting, inability to walk and eventually death in their early thirties due to respiratory failure. The ...