If you’ve ever struggled to breathe, you’ve had a moment of hypoxia. Experiencing hypoxia is a known trigger for developing and worsening lung conditions such as severe asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and fibrosis. To treat and prevent these diseases, researchers need to understand why a lack of oxygen would affect the immune system. […]
Scar formation happens in adult mammals because skin regeneration does not fully occur. In a newly published article, a team of researchers investigated the use of the adult newt, Cynops pyrrhogaster, as a model system for studying scarless wound healing for technology development in surgical and cosmetic medicine. After an injury occurs, the epidermis can […]
An epigenetics drug currently being used for the treatment of blood cancers and rare sarcomas can stop the growth of bladder cancer by activating the immune system, reports a new study done in mice. “We’ve discovered for the first time that the drug actually works by activating the immune system, not just by inhibiting the […]
Physical activity at the right time of the day seems able to increase fat metabolism, at least in mice. Physical activity at different times of the day can affect the body in different ways since the biological processes depend on the circadian rhythms of the cells. To ascertain how, researchers studied the adipose tissue of […]
The sweet taste of sugar is very popular worldwide. However, little is known about the molecular (taste) mechanisms of sugar that influence dietary intake, independently of its caloric load. “We therefore investigated the role of sweet taste receptor activation in the regulation of satiety,” says Veronika Somoza, deputy head of the Department of Physiological Chemistry […]
Researchers recently found that gut microbes can exacerbate the effects of cognitive impairment because of how they affect the hippocampus, the region of the brain that is critical for memory and learning. They found that the concentration of one group of bacteria called Bilophila increased dramatically in the gut microbiota of mice that were fed […]
Keeping track of everything you eat and drink in a day is a tedious task that is tough to keep up with over time. Unfortunately, dutiful tracking is a vital component for successful weight loss, however, a new study in Obesity finds that perfect tracking is not needed to achieve significant weight loss. Researchers tracked […]
Researchers have discovered that a bacterial species called Selenomonas sputigena can have a major role in causing tooth decay. Scientists have long considered another bacterial species, the plaque-forming, acid-making Streptococcus mutans, as the principal cause of tooth decay. However, in the study, S. sputigena, previously associated only with gum disease, can work as a key […]
Researchers at the Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, have now contributed to solving this problem for a specific gene called GCK. Rasmus Hartmann-Petersen, Professor at the Department of Biology, explains:– “The GCK gene, which codes for the enzyme glucokinase, regulates the secretion of insulin in the pancreas. GCK gene variants can therefore cause a […]
Although ultra-processed foods are convenient, low cost, quick to prepare or ready-to-eat, these industrial formulations of processed food substances contain little or no whole food. They result from extensive ‘physical, biological, and chemical processes’ that create food products that are deficient in original and natural food. Researchers explored a nationally representative sample of the United […]