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Category: biotech/medical – Page 1,828

Researchers Warn: Preservative Used in Hundreds of Popular Foods May Harm the Immune System

The FDA does not use modern updated science to retest chemicals in food. This study showed that a common food preservative can increase food allergies and damage the immune system.

New science suggests the FDA should test all food chemicals for safety.

A food preservative used to prolong the shelf life of Pop-Tarts, Rice Krispies Treats, Cheez-Its and almost 1250 other popular processed foods may harm the immune system, according to a new peer-reviewed study by Environmental Working Group.

For the study, published this week in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, EWG researchers used data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxicity Forecaster, or ToxCast, to assess the health hazards of the most common chemicals added to food, as well as the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, which can migrate to food from packaging.

‘Superbugs’ kill more than 35K people in the US each year. Doctors may be partially to blame, study suggests

In the agency’s study, researchers looked at 1566 patients who received antibiotics and found that 55.9% shouldn’t have received them based on practice guidelines.

Studies have shown patients with antibiotic-resistant infections are at an increased risk of worse clinical outcomes, such as severe disease and death, compared with patients with infections that can be treated with antibiotics.

This may be due to significantly longer hospital stays, high risk of treatment failure and increased risk of undergoing surgery, Goff said. According to the CDC, more than 35000 people die from antibiotic-resistant infections in the U.S. each year.

They’re not only deadly, but costly. According to a January report by the CDC and the University of Utah, six multi-drug resistant pathogens are estimated to cost the U.S. more than $4.6 billion annually.

‘Zombie’ genes? Research shows some genes come to life in the brain after death

Studies on postmortem tissue may need to adjust for postmortem cell activity.

In the hours after we die, certain cells in the human brain are still active. Some cells even increase their activity and grow to gargantuan proportions, according to new research from the University of Illinois Chicago.

In a newly published study in the journal Scientific Reports, the UIC researchers analyzed gene expression in fresh brain tissue — which was collected during routine brain surgery — at multiple times after removal to simulate the post-mortem interval and death. They found that gene expression in some cells actually increased after death.

These ‘zombie genes’ — those that increased expression after the post-mortem interval — were specific to one type of cell: inflammatory cells called glial cells. The researchers observed that glial cells grow and sprout long arm-like appendages for many hours after death.

DNA damage “hot spots” discovered within neurons

Furthermore, it implies that defects in the repair process, not the DNA damage itself, can potentially lead to developmental or neurodegenerative diseases.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have discovered specific regions within the DNA of neurons that accumulate a certain type of damage (called single-strand breaks or SSBs). This accumulation of SSBs appears to be unique to neurons, and it challenges what is generally understood about the cause of DNA damage and its potential implications in neurodegenerative diseases.

Because neurons require considerable amounts of oxygen to function properly, they are exposed to high levels of free radicals—toxic compounds that can damage DNA within cells. Normally, this damage occurs randomly. However, in this study, damage within neurons was often found within specific regions of DNA called “enhancers” that control the activity of nearby genes.

Fully mature cells like neurons do not need all of their genes to be active at any one time. One way that cells can control gene activity involves the presence or absence of a chemical tag called a methyl group on a specific building block of DNA. Closer inspection of the neurons revealed that a significant number of SSBs occurred when methyl groups were removed, which typically makes that gene available to be activated.

Fat and Healthy? What the Science Says About Longevity and Weight

Given the rate of overweight and obese people in the Western world, there are inevitably lots of fat people interested in life extension. Assuming that weight-loss trends continue with a high failure rate, the majority of fat spanners will not be able to lose and maintain their weight loss through diet and exercise.

This article explores effective life-extension interventions that do not include weight loss for people with an excess of adipose tissue.

Is it possible to be fat and healthy? Is obesity a death sentence? Learn about what the science says about life extension when fat.

Former prisoners struggle to re-enter society. What happens when society moves online?

When Renaldo Hudson left the Danville Correctional Center on Sept. 2, he was beaming. As the sun shone down on a hot day in Eastern Illinois, Hudson took his first free steps in 37 years.

Later that day, he arrived at the Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation, a restorative justice nonprofit that helps former prisoners get on their feet. There, he saw friends for the first time in years and hugged his attorney, Jennifer Soble.

He was also handed a Samsung smartphone, a piece of technology that wouldn’t have been imaginable to an American in 1983.

First known gene transfer from plant to insect identified

“The results were surprising, but convincing, says Yannick Pauchet, a molecular entomologist also at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology. ” According to the data they provide, horizontal gene transfer is the most parsimonious explanation,” he says.

But how the whitefly managed to swipe a plant gene is unclear. One possibility, says Turlings, is that a virus served as an intermediate, shuttling genetic material from a plant into the whitefly genome.

As researchers s… See More.

Discovery that a whitefly uses a stolen plant gene to elude its host’s defences may offer a route to new pest-control strategies.

COVID-19 Is Different Now

COVID-21 is the product of all these changes in aggregate. It’s the disease as it will be experienced in the months and years to come: with new variants of the virus, new public policies and health behaviors, various degrees of immune memory, and—most important—a cavalcade of new vaccines.

One-quarter of all Americans have now received at least one shot, and that number is racing up. This month, New Yorkers lined up outside Yankee Stadium throughout the night at a makeshift 24/7 vaccination site, until the supply ran out. “If we open 3000 appointments, they will immediately fill,” says Ramon Tallaj, a physician who oversees clinical care in underserved communities across New York City. Demand seems to be growing. If there were sufficient supply, Tallaj told me, his team could be giving out 40000 doses every day. And this should happen soon; the White House says that shortages will end in the coming weeks.

The vaccination effort is sure to change the nature of COVID in unexpected ways. The habitat for the virus is changing: It may still stick in the nasal passages of an immunized person, but it shouldn’t continue on its way into the lungs, much less the toes. The key question is just how long this protection will last, especially against a rapidly mutating virus. Clinical trials have shown the vaccines to be fantastic at preventing serious illness so far, but haven’t yet been able to observe how protection might dissipate over long periods.

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