Obesity interventions, such as gastric bypass surgery, can alter the signaling of the vagal nerve, which plays a crucial role in regulating digestion. In addition to traditional obesity interventions, new weight-management medications, such as Wegovy, are becoming increasingly popular options for patients with obesity since they are non-invasive and require minimal lifestyle modifications. Developing a variety of non-invasive, convenient weight-management options for patients with obesity is essential to help reduce comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer ...

A common stomach bacteria found in two thirds of the world population may be linked to a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease, new research suggests. The study, published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association, investigated whether a clinically apparent Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection increased the risk of Alzheimer's disease in people aged 50 and older. The prevalent infection can trigger indigestion, gastritis, ulcers, and even stomach cancer. A team of McGill University researchers analyzed health data of over 4 million people in the United Kingdom aged 50 and above between 1988 and 2019. It found ...

Building on the momentum of the 6th World Congress on Targeting Phage Therapy, that gathered more than 150 attendees from over 30 countries and featured over 71 presentations, the highly anticipated Targeting Phage Therapy 2024 is set to unfold. Mark Your Agendas for the 7th World Congress on Targeting Phage Therapy Date: June 20-21, 2024 Location: Corinthia Palace, Malta What to Expect: Cutting-edge insights into phage therapy advancements and its potential to revolutionize medicine. Engaging keynotes and expert panels tackling ...

Liver cancer screening among patients with cirrhosis almost doubled when they were mailed a signed order from their specialist, according to a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. However, when researchers added an incentive of $20 to the mailed orders, it made no difference in whether patients completed their screenings. The work was published this week in Hepatology Communications. “Our findings show that an approach like this can meaningfully increase liver cancer surveillance, ...

Texas A&M University School of Public Health research on attitudes toward pet vaccination and how they may be linked with human vaccine hesitancy was the subject of a new study recently published in the journal Vaccine. Simon Haeder, Ph.D., associate professor, analyzed data from an August 2023 survey of more than 2,000 dog and more than 1,400 cat owners to measure pet vaccination rates, perceptions of vaccines and support for pet vaccination requirements. “Decreasing pet vaccination rates pose challenges to society for a number of reasons, including increased incidents ...

Writing in Nature Communications on November 24, engineers at Columbia and theoretical collaborators at the Max Planck for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter find that pairing laser light to crystal lattice vibrations can enhance the nonlinear optical properties of a layered 2D material. Cecilia Chen, a Columbia Engineering PhD student and co-author of the recent paper, and her colleagues from Alexander Gaeta’s Quantum and Nonlinear Photonics group used hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). hBN is a 2D material similar to graphene: its atoms are arranged in a ...

Low-income U.S. veterans who are experiencing feelings of loneliness are more likely to purchase firearms, according to new research from UTHealth Houston. A study led by principal investigator Alexander Testa, PhD, assistant professor, and co-investigator Jack Tsai, PhD, professor, from the Department of Management, Policy and Community Health with UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, was published recently in Social Science & Medicine.  “Loneliness was significantly associated with a higher likelihood ...

Waltham — December 19, 2023 — For patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty (TKA), treatment with diosmin – a flavonoid supplement derived from citrus fruits –reduced swelling of the knee and leg and some measures of associated pain can be achieved, reports a clinical trial in The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio in partnership with Wolters Kluwer.  "The use of diosmin after TKA reduced lower-extremity swelling and pain during motion and was not associated with an increased incidence of short-term complications involving the outcomes studied," according ...

  There does not appear to be any profound differences between so-called exposure-based CBT and traditional CBT in the treatment of fibromyalgia, according to a study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet. Both forms of treatment produced a significant reduction in symptoms in people affected by the disease. The study is one of the largest to date to compare different treatment options for fibromyalgia and is published in the journal PAIN. About 200,000 people in Sweden currently live with fibromyalgia, a long-term pain syndrome that causes great suffering for patients through widespread pain, fatigue, and stiffness in the body. There is no cure ...

People who maintain or increase their aerobic fitness are at less risk of being hospitalized in future, particularly if they were hospitalized previously. These are the findings of a study conducted at the University of Gothenburg. Regular physical activity is linked to a number of health benefits, including a reduced risk of developing and dying from cardiovascular disease. However, there has been little research into the link between development of aerobic fitness and the likelihood of being hospitalized. The study in question, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, includes ...

A new study published today (22 December 2023) in Nature Communications details that markers of brain injury are present in the blood many months after COVID-19 infection, despite inflammation blood tests being normal. The findings represent a major output from the University of Liverpool and King’s College London led COVID-19 Clinical Neuroscience Study (COVID-CNS) and also involves scientists from the ISARIC4C consortium, The Pandemic Institute and the NIHR BioResource. Professor Benedict Michael, Principal Investigator and Director of the University of Liverpool’s Infection Neuroscience Laboratory ...

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have become a rapidly growing threat to public health. Each year, they account for more than 2.8 million infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Without new antibiotics, even common injuries and infections harbor the potential to become lethal. Scientists are now one step closer to eliminating that threat, thanks to a Texas A&M University-led collaboration that has developed a new family of polymers capable of killing bacteria without inducing antibiotic resistance by disrupting the membrane of these microorganisms. “The new polymers we synthesized could help fight antibiotic ...

At about the size of a pinkie nail, the jellyfish species Cladonema can regenerate an amputated tentacle in two to three days — but how? Regenerating functional tissue across species, including salamanders and insects, relies on the ability to form a blastema, a clump of undifferentiated cells that can repair damage and grow into the missing appendage. Jellyfish, along with other cnidarians such as corals and sea anemones, exhibit high regeneration abilities, but how they form the critical blastema has remained a mystery until now. A research team based in Japan has revealed that stem-like proliferative cells — which are actively growing and dividing but ...

Researchers report December 22 in the journal Current Biology that the more time reindeer spend ruminating, the less time they spend in non-rapid eye movement (non-REM) sleep. EEG recordings revealed that reindeer’s brainwaves during rumination resemble the brain waves present during non-REM sleep, and these brainwave patterns suggest that the reindeer are more “rested” after ruminating. The researchers speculate that this multitasking might help reindeer get enough sleep during the summer months, when food is abundant ...

Waltham — December 22, 2023 —   Abdominoplasty continues to be a safe and effective procedure, with more cases performed on an outpatient basis and increased use of concomitant liposuction, according to a new 16-year analysis in the January issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.   "Taking advantage of quality-improvement data submitted by US Board-certified plastic surgeons, our study provides new insight ...

Kyoto, Japan – A non-prescription drug abuse crisis in Japan seems only one overdose away. The demand for a particular anti-cough drug has been rising, along with the social impact of its abuse due to its psychosomatic effects.  The ease of obtaining information online about how to acquire over-the-counter medications or OTCs for achieving overdose, however, does not appear to be the real problem. Now, a study by a team of researchers at Kyoto University suggests that reliable information about OTC abuse needs to be readily available and effectively disseminated.  "We ...

In this digital age, children are exposed to overwhelming amounts of information online, some of it unverified and increasingly generated by non-human sources, such as AI-driven language models. As children grow older, the ability to assess a source’s reliability is an important skill in cultivating critical thinking. Children aged three to five years display selective trust based on the informant’s past accuracy when faced with both humans and robots, according to a study published in the journal Child Development titled, ‘Younger, not older, ...

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), in collaboration with Aster-CMI Hospital, have developed an AI tool that can identify the median nerve in ultrasound videos and detect carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). The study was published in IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control.   CTS arises when the median nerve, which runs from the forearm into the hand, is compressed at the carpal tunnel part of the wrist, resulting in numbness, tingling or pain. It ...

  Tiny things matter – for instance, one amino acid can completely alter the architecture of the cell. Researchers at the Universities of Göttingen and Warwick investigated the structure and mechanics of the main component of the cytoskeleton of the cell: a protein known as actin. Actin is found in all living cells where it has a range of important functions – from muscle contraction to cell signalling and cell shape. This protein comes in two different varieties termed “isoforms”, which are known as gamma actin and beta actin. The difference between the two proteins is ...

For the first time, an instrument to find planets light years away was used on an object in the Solar System, in a study on Jupiter's winds. We find ourselves at a time when it has become almost commonplace to discover planets orbiting another star, with more than 5,000 already registered. The first distant worlds to incorporate this list were mainly giant planets, similar to but also very different in many ways from Jupiter and Saturn. Astrophysicists have already begun to obtain data on the atmospheres of exoplanets, but fundamental ...

Osaka, Japan - As the world grappled with lockdowns and restrictions brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers at Osaka Metropolitan University conducted an extensive study to elucidate the link between changes in human mobility and the impact on medical costs associated with lifestyle-related diseases. Dr. Haruka Kato and Professor Atsushi Takizawa of the Graduate School of Human Life and Ecology at Osaka Metropolitan University were concerned by the negative health effects resulting from the restriction of ...

1. NIMS has succeeded in directly observing the "anisotropic magneto-Thomson effect," a phenomenon in which the heat absorption/release proportional to an applied temperature difference and charge current (i.e., Thomson effect) changes anisotropically depending on the magnetization direction in magnetic materials. This research is expected to lead to further development of basic physics and materials science related to the fusion area of thermoelectrics and spintronics, as well as to development of new functionalities to control thermal energy with magnetism. 2. The Thomson effect has long been known as one of the fundamental ...

Okazaki, Japan – crop damage in agriculture and the transmission of vector-borne diseases by insect pests have become worldwide threat nowadays. Chemical treatments such as insecticides and repellents have been a major strategy against insect pests for centuries. Due to limited understanding of mechanisms of insect avoidance behavior, however, development of insect repellents has been delayed. To discover compounds that effectively repel insect pests, it is important to focus on key molecules associated with sensory, particularly aversive, responses. In this study, researchers ...

Though it may be a surprise to the millions of people who undergo general anesthesia every year for medical procedures, the biological mechanism for how different anesthetics block consciousness is still not fully understood. However, researchers may be one step closer after uncovering the way small immune cells in the brain called microglia are impacted by general anesthesia. The research was presented in a paper published in eLife on 22/Dec/2023. “We found that microglia play an important role in regulating the body’s response to general anesthesia. ...

The cranial bone in the human body performs very important functions, such as protecting the brain and enabling the passage of the cranial nerves that are essential to physiological functioning. Critical-sized cranial defects can disrupt both the physical and psychological well-being of patients. Restoration of critical-sized cranial defects by cranioplasty is challenging for reconstructive surgeons, who prefer to use autologous bone grafts. The acquisition of autologous bone requires additional surgeries concomitant with risks such as free flap loss, infection, deep venous thrombosis, and nerve injury. These limitations necessitate the development ...