A recent review investigates the surprising links between the sense of smell and obesity risk. The findings have implications for future treatments.
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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,330
Thousands of people got a particularly crummy gift this Christmas: A warning that they could have been exposed to dangerous bloodborne diseases like HIV and viral hepatitis while receiving care at the hospital.
On Tuesday, NBC News reported that the HealthPlus Surgery Center in Saddle Brook, New Jersey sent letters to more than 3,700 patients who had visited it between January 1st to September 7th. According to the letter, obtained by NBC News, an investigation by the New Jersey Department found that HealthPlus staff often failed to properly sterilize surgical tools between uses or otherwise neglected infection control procedures, raising the risk that patients could have gotten bloodborne infections.
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An Israeli company says it has developed a targeted radiation treatment that it claims can cure cancerous tumors.
“This is the first time in the world that you can treat solid tumors with alpha radiation,” Alpha Tau Medical’s CEO Uzi Sofer told the Times of Israel.
The technology called Diffusing Alpha-emitters Radiation Therapy, or DaRT, uses a needle to inject tumors with a radioactive seed that releases a high-energy dose of alpha radiation that destroys the tumor. The healthy tissue surrounding the tumors is left unharmed.
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Ghrelin, the hormone that makes you hungry, also makes food, and food smells, irresistibly appealing. Karen Hopkin reports.
‘Tis the season…for overeating! But it’s not just your lack of willpower or the omnipresent holiday treats. No, you can lay some of the blame on ghrelin. Because a new study shows that ghrelin, the hormone that makes you hungry, also makes food…and food smells…irresistibly appealing. The finding appears in the journal Cell Reports. [Jung Eun Han et al, Ghrelin Enhances Food Odor Conditioning in Healthy Humans: An fMRI Study].
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The Genetic Revolution
Posted in bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics
Merry Christmas
Is the Fountain of Youth still just a dream, or does hope spring eternal when it comes to beating the curse of aging? Having haunted us for centuries, is a solution finally within our grasp? We spoke to Dr Aubrey de Grey, anti-aging pioneer, chief science officer, and co-founder of SENS Research Foundation.
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Sophie Shevardnadze: Dr. Aubrey de Grey, anti-aging pioneer, chief science officer and co-founder of SENS Research Foundation, welcome to the show, great to have you with us. So what you propose in order to reverse aging is cleaning the organism of all the junk that accumulates there on the cellular level. Tell me the gist of it – why will that stop the wearing of time on my organs?
Companies use different algorithms based on different sets of data. Most of that data comes from people of recent European ancestry.
The problem, obviously, is that a lot of people don’t have grandparents or great-great-great-grandparents from England or Italy or Denmark. Most people on Earth, actually! That means if you’re from, say, Asia or Africa, you might not get as detailed a profile as you’d like.
My mother, who was born in the Philippines, actually got an update from 23andMe with new information about her heritage. Her history didn’t change. But as the company gets more DNA kits from people of Asian descent, the algorithm churns out modified results. Which is great … but that does mean right now, if you’re not white, you might have to wait a bit longer for more accurate results.
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