Author Archives: Gabriel Piña, MD

Beetroot Juice Significantly Enhance Exercise

A new study has found that consuming dietary nitrate, the active molecule in beetroot juice, significantly increased muscle force while exercising. While it is known that dietary nitrate enhances exercise, both boosting endurance and enhancing high-intensity exercise, researchers still have much to learn about why this effect occurs, and how our bodies convert dietary nitrate […]

Sleep Medications Increase your Chances of Dementia, and may Depend of Race

Insomnia is defined as repeated difficulty with sleep initiation, maintenance, consolidation, or quality that occurs despite adequate time and opportunity for sleep and that results in some form of daytime impairment. Specific criteria vary, but common ones include taking longer than 30 minutes to fall asleep, staying asleep for less than 6 hours, waking more […]

Exosomes Improves Recovery from Heart Attacks

Science has long known that recovery from experimental heart attacks is improved by injection of a mixture of heart muscle cells, endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells, yet results have been limited by poor engraftment and retention, and researchers worry about potential tumorigenesis and heart arrhythmia. Now research in pigs shows that using the exosomes […]

Moderate and Intense Exercise Help to Have Good Sleep Pattern

Proper sleep is critical for the maintenance of good health, and vice versa a healthy lifestyle has been found to improve sleep quality. To better examine the relationship between physical activity and sleep, a team of researchers conducted a comprehensive study among middle-aged Japanese people. By outlining the factors improving sleep quality, this line of […]

New Vaccine Could Protect Against Invasive Fungal Infections

A new vaccine from the University of Georgia could be the first clinically approved immunization to protect against invasive fungal infections, a growing concern as antifungal drug resistance increases. Fungal infections cause more than 1.5 million deaths worldwide each year and cost billions. They also double hospitalization costs, double the length of hospital stays and […]

Coffee with Milk Doubles the Anti-Inflammatory Effect in Immune Cells

Whenever bacteria, viruses and other foreign substances enter the body, our immune systems react by deploying white blood cells and chemical substances to protect us. This reaction, commonly known as inflammation, also occurs whenever we overload tendons and muscles and is characteristic of diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. Antioxidants known as polyphenols are found in humans, […]

Flu shots Can Reduce the Complication and Early Death in Patients with Heart Failure

An international study led by McMaster University researchers and published in The Lancet Global Health has found that influenza vaccines greatly reduce both pneumonia and cardiovascular complications in people with heart failure. Mark Loeb is a McMaster professor of pathology and molecular medicine and a Hamilton infectious disease physician and microbiologist, and his team found  […]

Study Shows how Female and Male Hearts Respond Differently to Stress Hormone

A new study published in Science Advances shows female and male hearts respond differently to the stress hormone noradrenaline. The study in mice may have implications for human heart disorders like arrhythmias and heart failure and how different sexes respond to medications. The team built a new type of fluorescence imaging system that allows them […]

Nerve Repair with Help from Stem Cells may Help to Treat Facial Palsy

A new approach to repairing peripheral nerves marries the regenerating power of gingiva-derived mesenchymal stem cells with a biological scaffold to enable the functional recovery of nerves following a facial injury, according to a study by a cross-disciplinary team from the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine and Perelman School of Medicine. Faced with […]

Supplementation with Serine may Prevent Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy

Approximately half of people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes experience peripheral neuropathy (weakness, numbness, and pain) primarily in the hands and feet. The condition occurs when high levels of sugar circulating in the blood damage peripheral nerves. Now, working with mice, Salk Institute researchers have identified another factor contributing to diabetes-associated peripheral neuropathy: […]