Comment

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 6, 2024 at 1:11pm

Study finds new treatment to reverse inflammation and arterial blockages in rheumatoid arthritis

Researchers  have found that the molecule RvT4 enhances the body's natural defenses against atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Studies in mice undertaken by researchers  show that increasing levels of the RvT4 molecule in the body improves the ability of the body's own defense mechanisms (macrophages) to reduce local inflammation and remove blockages in blood vessels. This breakthrough in understanding the processes involved could lead to better treatments for people who have rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and who are at higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

Alongside the more widely-known symptoms of joint inflammation, people with the condition are also twice as likely as others to develop blood vessel disease. This can lead to serious complications and an increased risk of premature death.

One type of blood vessel disease seen in people with RA is atherosclerosis, which is caused by a build-up of fatty material called 'plaque' along the artery walls. This build-up causes the arteries to harden and narrow, making it more difficult to circulate blood around the body. These blockages can also break free, causing heart attacks and strokes. Understanding the reasons why RA patients are at increased risk of these cardiovascular problems is critical in developing better treatments for this group and others.

To gain a better understanding of the causes of blood vessel disease in patients with RA, researchers explored the role of a group of molecules called 13-series resolvins (RvTs). In experimental arthritis the levels of one of these molecules, RvT4, are markedly reduced, a phenomenon that associates with a higher degree of blood vessel disease. This study was designed to explore why this might be the case.

Published in Nature Communications, the study found that treating arthritic mice with RvT4 reduced blood vessel inflammation by re-programming macrophages—a group of white blood cells that accumulate in the diseased vessels—to release stored lipids.

Researchers observed that these lipids were preventing the macrophage from carrying out their usual work of clearing dead cells and reducing localized inflammation in blood vessels. Once freed of their lipid burden, the macrophages were able to move and work much more effectively to reduce the causes of atherosclerosis. The observation that RvT4 restores protective macrophage biological activities is an exciting finding.

Resolvin T4 enhances macrophage cholesterol efflux to reduce vascular disease, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-44868-1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 6, 2024 at 1:06pm

Alzheimer's may have once spread from person to person, but the risk of that happening today is incredibly low

An article published this week in the journal Nature Medicine documents what is believed to be the first evidence that Alzheimer's disease can be transmitted from person to person.

The finding arose from long-term follow up of patients who received human growth hormone (hGH) that was taken from brain tissue of deceased donors. Preparations of donated hGH were used in medicine to treat a variety of conditions from 1959 onwards.

The practice stopped in 1985 when it was discovered around 200 patients worldwide who had received these donations went on to develop Creuztfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), which causes a rapidly progressive dementia. This is an otherwise extremely rare condition, affecting roughly one person in a million.

CJD is caused by prions: infective particles that are neither bacterial or viral, but consist of abnormally folded proteins that can be transmitted from cell to cell. Other prion diseases include kuru, a dementia seen in New Guinea tribespeople caused by eating human tissue, scrapie (a disease of sheep) and variant CJD or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, otherwise known as mad cow disease. This raised public health concerns over the eating of beef products in the United Kingdom in the 1980s.

Human growth hormone (hGH) is produced in the brain by the pituitary gland. Treatments were originally prepared from purified human pituitary tissue. But because the amount of hGH contained in a single gland is extremely small, any single dose given to any one patient could contain material from around 16,000 donated glands. An average course of hGH treatment lasts around four years, so the chances of receiving contaminated material—even for a very rare condition such as CJD—became quite high for such people. hGH is now manufactured synthetically in a laboratory, rather than from human tissue. So this particular mode of CJD transmission is no longer a risk.

Gargi Banerjee et al, Iatrogenic Alzheimer's disease in recipients of cadaveric pituitary-derived growth hormone, Nature Medicine (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-023-02729-2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 6, 2024 at 12:48pm

The reason insects fly around light

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 6, 2024 at 12:44pm

The reason insects circle lights at night: They lose track of the sky

It's an observation as old as humans gathering around campfires: Light at night can draw an erratically circling crowd of insects. In art, music and literature, this spectacle is an enduring metaphor for dangerous but irresistible attractions. And watching their frenetic movements really gives the sense that something is wrong—that instead of finding food and evading predators, these nocturnal pilots are trapped by a light.

Sadly, centuries of witnessing what happens have produced little certainty about why it happens. How does a simple light change fast, precise navigators into helpless, flittering captives? We are researchers examining flight, vision and evolution, and we have used high-speed tracking techniques in research published in Nature Communications to provide an answer.

Samuel T. Fabian et al, Why flying insects gather at artificial light, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-44785-3

https://theconversation.com/the-surprising-reason-why-insects-circl...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 3, 2024 at 11:31am

WHO Warns Cancer Cases Will Jump 77% by 2050. Here's Why.

The number of new cancer cases will rise to more than 35 million in 2050 – 77 percent higher than the figure in 2022, the World Health Organization's cancer agency warned recently.

The WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) cited tobacco, alcohol, obesity and air pollution as key factors in the estimated rise.
"Over 35 million new cancer cases are predicted in 2050", a statement said, a 77-percent increase from the some 20 million cases diagnosed in 2022.

"The rapidly-growing global cancer burden reflects both population ageing and growth, as well as changes to people's exposure to risk factors, several of which are associated with socioeconomic development.

"Tobacco, alcohol and obesity are key factors behind the increasing incidence of cancer, with air pollution still a key driver of environmental risk factors."

The most-developed countries are expected to record the greatest increases in case numbers, with an additional 4.8 million new cases predicted in 2050 compared with 2022 estimates, the WHO said.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 3, 2024 at 10:06am

Doing science is the ultimate act of rebellion

For women in science it is partly about shattering stereotypes and glass ceilings.

For everybody in science, it is about shattering myths, superstitions, ancient way of thinking, unproven and baseless beliefs, irrationality and everything else an evolved human mind shouldn't be doing.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 3, 2024 at 10:00am

Autoimmune disease link to X chromosome
A molecular coating found on the X chromosome might be one of the reasons women account for around 80% of all cases of autoimmune disease, a category that includes conditions such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. In most mammals, including humans, a male’s cells typically include one copy of the X chromosome, whereas a female’s cells typically carry two. Half of women’s X chromosomes are coated with RNA and proteins that muzzle the genes inside — and are targeted by misguided immune molecules. Experiments in male mice with a lupus-like disease showed that those with a form of this coating had higher autoantibody levels and more extensive tissue damage.

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00002-3?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867424000023%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 3, 2024 at 9:47am

Herbivorous animals can be fooled to leave the plants alone 

 Researchers have shown it is possible to shield plants from the hungry maws of herbivorous mammals by fooling them with the smell of a variety they typically avoid.

Findings from the study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution show tree seedlings planted next to the decoy smell solution were 20 times less likely to be eaten by animals.

This is equivalent to the seedlings being surrounded by actual plants that are unpalatable to the herbivore. In most cases it does trick the animals into leaving the plants alone.

Herbivores cause significant damage to valuable plants in ecological and economically sensitive areas worldwide, but killing the animals to protect the plants can be unethical.

So, researchers  created artificial odors that mimicked the smell of plant species they naturally avoid, and this gently nudged problematic herbivores away from areas we didn't want them to be. Given that many herbivores use plant odor as their primary sense to forage, this method provides a new approach that could be used to help protect valued plants globally, either in conservation or protecting agricultural crops.

The researchers selected an unpalatable shrub in the citrus family, Boronia pinnata, and a palatable canopy species, Eucalyptus punctata, to test the concept.

The study compared using B. pinnata solution and the real plant and found both were equally successful at protecting eucalypt seedlings from being eaten by wallabies.

Olfactory misinformation provides refuge to palatable plants from mammalian browsing, Nature Ecology & Evolution (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-024-02330-x

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 2, 2024 at 9:56am

Parrots can move along thin branches using ‘beakiation’

The sidestep involves shuffling across the underside of a branch using both feet and the beak

To move along narrow branches, a parrot can hang from a branch with its beak, swing its body sideways and grab hold farther along with its feet. The newly described gait, dubbed beakiation, expands the birds’ locomotive repertoire and underscores how versatile their beaks are, researchers report January 31 in Royal Society Open Science.

Parrots “are specialized for climbing and moving around in the trees". What would happen if you flip a bird upside down or make them go onto the tiniest branch possible?

Scientists put four rosy-faced lovebirds (Agapornis roseicollis) to the test. Birds placed on a suspended bar just 2.5 millimeters in diameter realized that the best way to shuffle along it was to use their beaks and feet in a cyclical side-swinging motion. The birds traveled 10 centimeters per second on average during each stride (beak touchdown to beak touchdown).

Watch a parrot “beakiate” along a bar

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.231397

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 2, 2024 at 9:17am

Differences in heart rate variability in pregnant women could be marker for premature delivery

A team of obstetricians, gynecologists and data analysts has found evidence that wrist-based heart rate monitors could predict a premature birth.

In their study, reported on the open-access site PLOS ONE, pregnant volunteers wore WHOOP monitors prior to giving birth.

Previous research has shown that after becoming pregnant, women experience heart rate variability, defined as fluctuations in the amount of time between heartbeats. This variability declines as the pregnancy progresses, around 33 weeks. At that point, variability begins to increase steadily until birth.

For this new study, the research team wondered if the same changes in variability occur with women who experience premature deliveries. To find out, they turned to WHOOP, a maker of strap-on wrist sensors that monitor heart rate, noting that a small study conducted previously with researchers at WHOOP had shown that the device could be used to track heart rate variability in pregnant women.

In the new study, 241 pregnant women of various nationalities living in 15 countries agreed to wear the device in the months leading up to their delivery. The researchers found that heart rate variability for the women who delivered on or near their due date corresponded with previous findings—variability declined until approximately seven weeks before delivery. But things were markedly different for those women who delivered early—variability patterns were much less consistent. And variability also began a steady increase approximately seven weeks before delivery, which, in their cases, was well before their due dates.

The research team suggests that heart rate monitoring devices could become a new tool for use by obstetricians in monitoring their patients. Such devices, they note, may not only allow for better prediction of delivery dates, but could also help in employing therapies designed to prolong at-risk pregnancies.

Summer R. Jasinski et al, Wearable-derived maternal heart rate variability as a novel digital biomarker of preterm birth, PLOS ONE (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0295899

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 275
• 276
• 277
• 278
• 279
• …
• 1079
• Next ›
• Page