A new study from Joslin Diabetes Center may shed light on why some people can eat excessive amounts of food and not gain weight or develop type 2 diabetes, while others are more likely to develop obesity and this most common form of diabetes on any diet. The study, which used two strains of mice with differing tendencies to gain weight and develop diabetes on a high-fat diet, identified genetic and cellular mechanisms that may prevent certain mice on a calorie-dense diet from gaining weight and developing metabolic syndrome.
"Although this study was done with mice, it points out new mechanisms that may underlie the ability of genetically different mice -- and perhaps genetically different people -- to not gain much weight on high caloric diets," said lead investigator C. Ronald Kahn, M.D., an internationally recognized researcher who is Head of Joslin's Section on Obesity and Hormone Action and the Mary K. Iacocca Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Is coffee really the pick-me-up it's made out to be?
Not according to researchers from Bristol University in the UK.
They have found that having a caffeinated drink does not make you more alert than non-coffee drinkers, reported The Daily Mail.
And if you're a regular drinker, it won't make you more alert than you usually are.
It merely relieves withdrawal symptoms, they said.
Meital Yasur-Beit Or
YnetThu, 08 Mar 2007 04:15 UTC
A deadly bacterium known as Klebsiella pneumoniae is believed to have killed some 120-200 patients in hospitals across the country.
"Between 400 to 500 people have been infected by the bug, and 30 to 40 percent of them have already died. However, it is important to note that most of them were in a serious condition, and some were suffering from prior medical conditions," said Prof. Yehuda Carmeli, the head of the epidemiology unit at the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv.
According to Carmeli, most of those infected have been hospitalized for over 25 days, and their average age stood at 74-75.
The virulent stain of bacteria is resistant to all kinds of antibiotics, and has already spread in many hospitals across Israel.
Geoff Brumfiel
NatureThu, 08 Mar 2007 04:13 UTC
Physicists have developed a simple breath test that may be capable of detecting Type I diabetes.
The results, presented on 5 March at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Denver, Colorado, could lead to non-invasive ways to check for the disease, and possibly even a cheap new tool for monitoring daily glucose levels without drawing blood.
Type I diabetes, often called juvenile diabetes, is a condition in which the body fails to produce insulin, a chemical that breaks down glucose. The resulting elevated blood-sugar levels can send patients into shock, and over the long term can lead to blindness, kidney damage and heart disease. It can also cause a fruity smell on the breath.
In work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a research team led by a Brown University neuroscientist describes groundbreaking recordings of activity in two brain regions during deep sleep.
The "dialogue" they captured occurred between the hippocampus and the neocortex, areas of the brain where scientists believe memories are made and stored. The findings were startling.
A new study casts doubt on the potential of lung cancer screenings to save lives.
Patients screened with spiral CT scans are three times more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer. But they're no less likely to die from the disease than if they were never tested, according to an analysis in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Julie Steenhuysen
ReutersTue, 06 Mar 2007 18:23 UTC
Chicago - Bausch & Lomb said on Tuesday it has started a limited recall of its ReNu MultiPlus contact lens solution, just 10 months after its global recall of another popular contact lens solution linked to a serious eye infection.
Bausch said the MultiPlus solution contained traces of iron, which could discolor the solution and shorten its shelf life. It has not had any reports of health problems associated with use of the solution.
The number of U.S. children having obesity surgery has tripled in recent years, surging at a pace that could mean more than 1,000 such operations this year, new research suggests. While the procedure is still far more common in adults, it appears to be slightly less risky in teens, according to an analysis of data on 12- to 19-year-olds who had obesity surgery from 1996 through 2003.
NBCTue, 06 Mar 2007 08:21 UTC
Tipping the scale at 360 pounds, Kayla Hilton is seriously obese and has major health issues, but the Oklahoma woman's long-term prognosis is encouraging now that doctors have removed the 93-pound ovarian cyst that grew undetected inside her for years.
"I feel lighter and happy to heal, to get better and be able to get around," Hilton, 32, said during an appearance Monday on TODAY.
Hilton, who lives in a Tulsa suburb, has been overweight since childhood. But when she was about 16, she began gaining weight at a faster rate.
A test recently used by the UK government's Independent Depleted Uranium Oversight Board to detect exposure to UK troops by depleted uranium (DU) during the 1991 Gulf Conflict was developed by a team led by a University of Leicester geologist.
Randall Parrish, Professor of Isotope Geology, developed the test with Postdoctoral Fellow Dr Axel Gerdes, who now works at the University of Frankfurt, Germany, and his colleague Matt Horstwood at the British Geological Survey, using advanced mass spectrometry.
Prof Parrish's team has tested more than 350 individuals as part of the programme, with the result that none so far tested had any demonstrable DU exposure resulting from their participation in the 1991 Gulf Conflict, though the extent of actual initial exposure of tested individuals to DU is unknown.