Lifeboat Foundation

The more diverse species in your gut, the better it is for your health. Now an international team led by the Hudson Institute of Medical Research has found a way to determine which species are important and how they interact to create a healthy microbiome.

Understanding these relationships opens the door to a new world of medical opportunities for conditions from inflammatory bowel disease to infections, autoimmune diseases and cancers.

Associate Professor Samuel Forster and his team at Hudson Institute of Medical Research, working with collaborators from the Institute for Systems Biology in the U.S. and local collaborators at Monash University and Monash Health, have spent years studying the gut microbiome and working out which species perform which functions.

Radiotherapy (also called radiation therapy), a commonly used cancer treatment that uses high-energy radiation, can effectively eliminate or shrink various types of tumors. While radiotherapy benefits many cancer patients, the associated side effects can hinder cancer survivors’ quality of life and overall health.

When a patient receives radiation treatments, the radiation damages the DNA. If the DNA damage becomes severe enough, the cancer cell will not recover and will stop dividing and die. Unfortunately, the exact mechanisms by which radiation elicits cancer cell death can cause similar damage in nearby healthy cells, leading to significant toxicities in some cases.

Many malignancies that develop in the pelvic region, including urinary and rectal cancers, are susceptible to pelvic radiotherapy. Some patients receiving pelvic radiotherapy develop debilitating bowel symptoms, including intestinal inflammation. Doctors do not fully understand these clinical challenges despite the common occurrence of bowel symptoms following pelvic radiotherapy. A better understanding of the link between radiation and bowel damage could help doctors manage cancer treatment more optimally, enhancing survivorship.

Congress is currently debating the FAA’s long-term reauthorization, which might have an impact on the ongoing use of leaded aviation fuel at smaller airports.

Serjio74/iStock.

Since 1980, the US has had a stunning 99 percent reduction in airborne lead levels as a result of EPA regulations. However, Leaded gas is still used in the aviation industry, according to a report published by EPA on Wednesday.

Continue reading “Health crisis: 220,000 planes still use lead fuel, warns US agency” »

Influenza viruses are believed to have sparked at least 14 human pandemics in the past 500 years; the most devastating of which began in 1918. Yet, despite intense study and considerable advances in public health, virus surveillance and virology, there is no simple answer to this pressing question: when and how will the next flu pandemic arise?

NIAID scientists including Jeffery K. Taubenberger, M.D., Ph.D., consider the many potential pathways to future influenza pandemics in a new viewpoints essay in Science Translational Medicine. There are no hard and fast ‘rules’ specifying, for example, what characteristics a given avian influenza virus must possess to allow it to efficiently infect… More.

Influenza pandemics have emerged for centuries but still cannot be accurately predicted.

Breast changes are very common, and most breast changes are not cancer. Our health guide for women explains:

A breast lump may be benign or a symptom of breast cancer. Learn about follow-up after an abnormal mammogram. See pictures of breast cancer, cysts, and calcifications. Find out symptoms for benign breast conditions, precancers, and DCIS.

It’s been a month since a Maryland man became the second person to receive a transplanted heart from a pig — and hospital video released Friday shows he’s working hard to recover.

Lawrence Faucette was dying from heart failure and ineligible for a traditional heart transplant when doctors at the University of Maryland School of Medicine offered the highly experimental surgery.

In the first glimpse of Faucette provided since the Sept. 20 transplant, hospital video shows physical therapist Chris Wells urging him to push through a pedaling exercise to regain his strength.

Autonomous shopping carts that follow grocery store customers and robots that pick ripe cucumbers faster than humans may grab headlines, but the most compelling applications of AI and ML technology are behind the scenes. Increasingly, organizations are finding substantial efficiency gains by applying AI-and ML-powered tools to back-office procedures such as document processing, data entry, employee onboarding, and workflow automation.

The power of automation to augment productivity in the back office has been clear for decades, but the recent emergence of advanced AI and ML tools offers a step change in what automation can accomplish, including in highly regulated industries such as health care.

The South Florida health system is testing an AI-powered system it expects to score big wins for its providers, improving the patient experience along the way.

Researchers are attempting to uncover the basics of how fat tissue is structured and, specifically, inflammation associated with obesity, in the hopes of unlocking the connection between the accumulation of fat and poor health outcomes. Now, a new study by researchers at the University of Michigan revealed previously unrecognized immune cell types and interactions within adipose tissue using single-cell analysis of gene expression combined with spatial transcriptomics.

The findings are published in JCI Insight in an article titled, “A lipid-associated macrophage lineage rewires the spatial landscape of adipose tissue in early obesity.”

“Adipose tissue macrophage (ATM) infiltration is associated with adipose tissue dysfunction and insulin resistance in mice and humans,” wrote the researchers. “Recent single-cell data highlight increased ATM heterogeneity in obesity but do not provide a spatial context for ATM phenotype dynamics. We integrated single-cell RNA-Seq, spatial transcriptomics, and imaging of murine adipose tissue in a time course study of diet-induced obesity. Overall, proinflammatory immune cells were predominant in early obesity, whereas nonresident antiinflammatory ATMs predominated in chronic obesity.”