Science Snippet: The Power of Proteins
Some might think that protein is only important for weightlifters. In truth, all life relies on the activity of protein molecules. A single human cell contains thousands of different proteins with diverse roles, including:
Actin proteins in a cell’s cytoskeleton. Credit: Xiaowei Zhuang, HHMI, Harvard University, and Nature Publishing Group.
Providing structure. Proteins such as actin make up the three-dimensional cytoskeleton that gives cells structure and determines their shapes.
Aiding chemical reactions. Many proteins are biological catalysts called enzymes that speed up the rate of chemical reactions by redu...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - May 3, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Cells Molecular Structures Cellular Processes Medicines Proteins Science Snippet Source Type: blogs
Answer to Case 715
Answer to theParasite Case of the Week 715: Cockroach ootheca (egg case or ' purse ' )These fascinating structures contain about 30-40 eggs each. The female cockroach carries her ootheca until the eggs hatch and the first instar nymphs emerge. For those of you who had never heard of this phenomenon before, you can read moreHERE. In this case, we can see the emerging nymphs:Laura noted that the ootheca was hard and solid when it first arrived in the lab so she added some saline and waited for 30 minutes. This is when the nymphs began to poke out and she was able to remove them for individual viewing. Thinking abo...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - April 23, 2023 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, April 17th 2023
In conclusion, oral NR altered the gut microbiota in rats and mice, but not in humans. In addition, NR attenuated body fat mass gain in rats, and increased fat and energy absorption in the HFD context.
Glycine Supplementation as a Methionine Restriction Mimetic
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2023/04/glycine-supplementation-as-a-methionine-restriction-mimetic/
Supplementation with the non-essential amino acid glycine has been shown to modestly slow aging in short-lived laboratory species. In today's open access review paper, researchers note glycine supplementation as essentially a calorie restricti...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 16, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Researchers Adjust the Regulation of Declining Beige Fat Production with Age
Brown fat and beige fat are involved in generating heat, while white fat is not. In white fat deposits, some fraction of fat cells become beige, behaving like brown fat in generating heat. That fraction increases in a cold environment. Because of this direction of energy towards heat production, and related behavior of beige fat cells, having a greater proportion of beige fat rather than white fat is metabolically favorable in this era of excess calories and metabolic disorders. With age, there is less beneficial production of beige fat and more production of white fat tissue, however. Researchers are thus interested in fi...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 14, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 20th 2023
This study also provides the potential for de novo generation of complex organs in vivo.
T Cells May Play a Role in the Brain Inflammation Characteristic of Neurodegenerative Conditions
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2023/03/t-cells-may-play-a-role-in-the-brain-inflammation-characteristic-of-neurodegenerative-conditions/
Alzheimer's disease, and other forms of neurodegenerative condition, are characterized by chronic inflammation in brain tissue. Unresolved inflammatory signaling is disruptive of tissue structure and function. Here, researchers provide evidence for T cells to become involved in thi...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 19, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Reprogramming Tumor Cells into Antigen-Presenting Cells
Today's research materials describe a clever approach to cancer immunotherapy, focused on the goal of enabling the immune system to better identify cancerous cells. In the past, researchers have made some inroads in training the immune system to attack specific target molecules characteristic of cancerous cells, but this is a slow and expensive process when progressing from single target to single target. Further, any given cancer might be capable of evolving to function without exhibiting any one specific target molecule, and only some cancers of a particular type will exhibit that specific signature molecule to start wit...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 13, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
5 Things Parents Should Look for in Their Children ’ s Medical Records
Here are five things I think parents should look for in their children’s medical records and have at their fingertips:
BMI Percent – Parents are often stunningly wrong about whether or not their children are at a healthy weight. We are so familiar with our kids that they often look normal to us even when they are not. And more than 75% of parents of overweight children aged 2 to 15 report never being told the child is overweight by the pediatrician.The Body Mass Index is a calculation that looks at appropriate weight for height for a given age and gender. If children’s BMI is below the 5th percentile, they are likel...
Source: Conversations with Dr Greene - March 7, 2023 Category: Child Development Authors: Alan Greene MD Tags: Dr. Greene's Blog Growth & Development Source Type: blogs
I Love Explaining Medical Things
BY HANS DUVEFELT
A lot of people don’t know much about how the body works. One of my jobs as a physician is to explain how things work in order to empower my patient to choose how to deal with it when the body isn’t working right.
On my blog I have written about this many times, for example in the 2010 post GUY TALK:
Guy Talk
One of the first challenges I faced as a foreign doctor from an urban background practicing in a small town in this country was finding the right way to explain medical issues to my male patients. They were farmers and fishermen without much experience with illness, medications or medi...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 2, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Medical Practice Guy Talk Hans Duvefelt Rural medicine Source Type: blogs
Anaphylaxis, chest pain, and ST elevation in aVR
Sent by anonymous, written by Pendell MeyersA man in his late 40s presented to the ED with concern for allergic reaction after accidentally eating a potential allergen, then developing an itchy full body rash and diarrhea. In the ED he received methylprednisolone, diphenhydramine, and epinephrine for possible anaphylaxis. Shortly after receiving epinephrine, the patient developed new leg cramps and chest pain. The chest pain was described as sharp and radiated to both arms.During active chest pain an ECG was recorded:Meyers ECG interpretation: Sinus tachycardia, normal QRS complex, STD in V2-V6, I, II, III and aVF. R...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - March 1, 2023 Category: Cardiology Authors: Pendell Source Type: blogs
Neuroimmune Modulation for Inflammatory Disease: Interview with Dr. Simhambhatla, President and CEO of SetPoint Medical
SetPoint Medical, a medtech company based in California, is developing a neuromodulatory device that is intended to treat rheumatoid arthritis. The overlap between the nervous and immune systems is increasingly appreciated, and this technology aims to capitalize on this to create a new treatment for inflammatory disease.
The neuromodulation device is intended to be implanted on the left cervical vagus nerve in an outpatient procedure. It stimulates the nerve with electrical pulses. The idea is that this can act to calm inflammatory processes that contribute to rheumatoid arthritis, without the drawbacks of immunosuppres...
Source: Medgadget - February 28, 2023 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Exclusive Medicine Neurology autoimmune immunology SetPointMed Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 27th 2023
This study tested the hypothesis that ischemic vascular repair in aging by Ang-(1-7) involves attenuation of myelopoietic potential in the bone marrow and decreased mobilization of inflammatory cells.
Young or Old male mice of age 3-4 and 22-24 months, respectively, received Ang-(1-7) for four weeks. Myelopoiesis was evaluated in the bone marrow (BM) cells by carrying out the colony forming unit (CFU-GM) assay followed by flow cytometry of monocyte-macrophages. Expression of pro-myelopoietic factors and alarmins in the hematopoietic progenitor-enriched BM cells was evaluated. Hindlimb ischemia (HLI) was induced by ...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 26, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Greater Thymic Atrophy Correlates with More Rapid Progression of Chronic Kidney Disease
In this study, we explored the impact of T cell senescence on the renal prognosis and mortality of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). We found that decreased recent thymic emigrant (RTE) T cells, which corresponds to decreased thymic output, was associated with CKD progression and high mortality, and an increase in highly differentiated CD28-CD4+ T cells, which increases with age, tended to be associated with CKD progression. Thymic atrophy is a characteristic of an aging immune system and has been implicated in age-related diseases such as infection, malignancy, atherosclerosis, and CKD. However, epidemiologic da...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 24, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Propelling Rare Disease Research for More Than 50 Years
Vials of samples from the NIGMS HGCR. Credit: Coriell Institute for Medical Research.
The year 2022 marked 50 years since the creation of the NIGMS Human Genetic Cell Repository (HGCR) at the Coriell Institute for Medical Research in Camden, New Jersey. The NIGMS HGCR consists of cell lines and DNA samples with a focus on those from people with rare, heritable diseases. “Many rare diseases now have treatments because of the samples in the NIGMS HGCR,” says Nahid Turan, Ph.D., Coriell’s chief biobanking officer and co-principal investigator of the NIGMS HGCR. She gives the example of a rare disease advocacy group wh...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - February 22, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Cells Genes Injury and Illness Diseases Genomics Scientific Process Source Type: blogs
Lessons From a Ransomware Attack: The Importance of Partnership & Collaboration
The following is a guest article by John Gaede, Director of Information Systems at Sky Lakes Medical Center.
Imagine a rural business is the victim of a cyberattack. A nefarious person or group convinces an unsuspecting employee to open an email promising a bonus. Within 12 hours, every piece of technology connected to that network, and every process needed to conduct daily operations, is paralyzed.
Now imagine that business is a hospital. It serves 80,000 people and it’s the only one within 10,000 square miles. Add to the scenario a global pandemic that is steadily ravaging the nation’s healthcare system. On October...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - February 21, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System IT Infrastructure and Dev Ops Security and Privacy 3M 3M Health Information Systems 3M HIS Abbadox Cohesity Cyberattacks Cybersecurity Electromek Diagnostic System FBI’s Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 20th 2023
In this study, researchers stimulate the ghrelin receptor using a suitable small molecule for much of the lifespan of mice, and observe the results. The overall extension of life span is a quarter of that produced by calorie restriction, and so we might draw some conclusions from that as to the relative importance of hunger in the benefits resulting from the practice of calorie restriction or fasting. Interestingly, the short term weight gains observed in mice given this ghrelin receptor agonist in the past don't appear in this long term study, in which the controls are the heaver animals. This is possibly because the rese...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 19, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
