by Mike Stobbe Iodized salt is displayed for a photograph in Philadelphia on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. Credit: AP Photo/Jonathan Poet The 13-year-old boy came to the clinic with a rapidly ballooning neck. Doctors were puzzled. Testing ruled out their first suspicion. But further tests pinpointed what they—and the boy—had been missing: iodine. A century...
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Genetically altered fat cells in mice show promise for obesity treatment
by UT Southwestern Medical Center Credit: Cell Metabolism (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2024.11.003 Obese mice whose fat cells were genetically altered to produce an increased amount of the glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide receptor (GIPR) lost more than a third of their body weight through a mechanism that burns energy, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report in a new study. Published in Cell Metabolism, the...
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Genetic discovery offers hope for personalized epilepsy treatments
by Laura Frnka-Davis, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston In silico sequence- and structure-based analysis of variants in candidate genes. Credit: Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54911-w Recent research led by UTHealth Houston scientists has uncovered two genes associated with variants linked to epilepsy, which showed specific traits that make them promising diagnostic biomarkers. The study is published in Nature...
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Cells all over the body store ‘memories’: What does this mean for health?
Share on PinterestDo all our cells have a type of memory, and if so, how might this influence health? We investigate. Design by MNT; Photography by Grant Faint/Getty Images & Ed Reschke/Getty Images. Memory is one of the most crucial aspects of our health and human identity. Through memory, we create our individuality, our specific relationships...
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What to know about a controversial new fluoride study
Last fall, STAT’s Anil Oza wrote about the science on water fluoridation in response to criticisms of the practice from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Trump’s pick to head HHS. Now Anil reports on a new study that found a slight decrease in children’s IQ scores as their levels of fluoride exposure increased. You read that right....
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Why don’t new memories overwrite old ones? Sleep science holds clues
Research in mice points towards a mechanism that avoids ‘catastrophic forgetting’. Artificially coloured nerve fibres in a mouse’s hippocampus, the brain region where new memories are encoded.Credit: Mark & Mary Stevens Neuroimaging & Informatics Institute/Science Photo Library New clues have emerged in the mystery of how the brain avoids ‘catastrophic forgetting’ — the distortion and...
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New GFR formula offers better diagnosis of hyperfiltration in elderly patients
Reviewed Osaka Metropolitan UniversityJan 6 2025 Annual health checkups regularly include urine tests that serve several purposes, including checking for symptoms of kidney disease. The presence of albumin in the urine is one indicator as is glomerular filtration rate. In diabetic nephropathy, albuminuria first appears, leading to excessive filtration and eventually a decrease in GFR....
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ELECTRONIC TATTOO DECODES BRAINWAVES
JANUARY 3RD, 2025POSTED BY UT AUSTIN (Credit: UT Austin) SHARE THIS ARTICLE You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license. TAGS UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN A new conductive ink can be printed directly on the surface of a patient’s head and measure their brainwaves. Since the emergence of temporary, skin-attached...
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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY NEWS
Uncovering why some seizures cause loss of consciousness Posted Yesterday In temporal lobe epilepsy — a common and debilitating form of the disorder — seizures often cause those affected to lose consciousness. But why that happens has been unclear. Brain stimulation – artistic interpretation. In a new study, Yale researchers show that levels of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that plays...
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There is no safe level’ of alcohol to drink, doctor says—not even one glass of red wine per day
Published Sat, Jan 4 20259:15 AM EST Renée Onque ShareShare Article via FacebookShare Article via TwitterShare Article via LinkedInShare Article via Email D3sign | Moment | Getty Images Having a glass of wine a day has been often touted as a healthy choice for your heart. While there are warnings against using other substances like...