WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY PULLMAN, Wash. – A healthy diet and a little exercise appear to be good for arthritis, even on the cellular level. A team led by Washington State University researchers used gallic acid, an antioxidant found in gallnuts, green tea, and other plants, and applied a stretching mechanism to human cartilage cells taken...
Month: <span>December 2021</span>
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Mayo Clinic research finds immune system responds to mRNA treatment for cancer
MAYO CLINIC ROCHESTER, Minn. ― Adding messenger RNA, or mRNA therapy improves the response to cancer immunotherapy in patients who weren’t responding to the treatment, Mayo Clinic research shows. Immunotherapy uses the body’s immune system to prevent, control, and eliminate cancer. The study is published in Cancer Immunology Research, a journal of the American Association...
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Researchers uncover more than 1300 genes linked to congenital heart disease
by Monash University Credit: CC0 Public Domain One in every 100 babies is born with a congenital heart disease (CHD), and CHD is the major cause of death in newborns—however the genetic cause of these developmental disorders is not fully understood, hindering the development of accurate pre-natal genetic testing. Now researchers from Monash University in...
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Higher genetic risk for multiple sclerosis means earlier onset of the disease
by Todd Hollingshead, Brigham Young University Professor Mary Davis and student Will Brugger looked at data for 3,495 multiple sclerosis patients to find the connection between genetic risk and early onset. Credit: Jaren Wilkey/BYU Photo Anyone who has multiple sclerosis—or has a close friend with the disease—knows an MS diagnosis is the beginning of a...
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Moderna COVID-19 vaccine effective against virus variants: study
by Kaiser Permanente Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Kaiser Permanente research published on December 15, 2021 in The British Medical Journal showed 2 doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine were highly effective against all SARS-CoV-2 variants; however, vaccine effectiveness against the delta variant moderately declined with increasing time after vaccination. “We conducted a previous study that showed...
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Study finds long- and short-term memory vie for brain space
by University of California, Irvine UCI sleep researcher and cognitive scientist Sara Mednick led a team that found that long-term and working memory processing during sleep compete with one another. To optimize both, she recommends getting to bed early to maximize the amount of time spent in slow-wave sleep, the period in which memory is...
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Impact of immune-suppressing treatments on COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness
by Cardiff University Violin plot illustrating anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody response following complete COVID-19 vaccine course, according to DMT. The plot shows distribution of results according to tertiles, using the “no DMT” group as a reference. Circle indicates median, bold line indicates interquartile range. (A) All samples (B) seropositive samples only. COVID-19 = coronavirus disease 2019; DMT...
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Protein test could lead to earlier and better diagnosis of Parkinson’s
by University of Oxford Oxford University researchers release cheap, quick COVID-19 antibody test. Credit: Shutterstock Scientists at the Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre (OPDC) have been able to use a highly-sensitive method called α-synuclein real-time quaking-induced conversion (αSyn-RT-QuIC) to observe the clumping of alpha-synuclein in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) taken from people with Parkinson’s. The findings...
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Blood test detects immune and inflammatory activity in tissues, without painful biopsies and expensive imaging
by Hebrew University of Jerusalem Identification of specific immune cell DNA methylation markers. (A) Methylation atlas, based on Illumina 450K arrays, composed of 32 tissues and sorted cells (columns). For each immune cell type we chose the top 10 CpGs that are hypomethylated (yellow) in the specific immune cell type and hypermethylated (blue) in other...
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What are the early signs of multiple sclerosis (MS)?
Multiple sclerosis is a progressive disease of the central nervous system. It occurs when the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the healthy nerves of the brain and spinal cord. According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (NMSS), the disease affects nearly 1 million adults in the United States. Most people with MS experience their first symptoms in their 20s...