Category Biology/Biotechnology

Poor sleep is associated with a significantly increased risk of life-threatening flare-ups in people withchronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, according to a new study supported by the National Institutes of Health. The risk for these flare-ups – sudden bouts of worsening breathing – was 25% to 95% higher in people who experienced poor sleep than in people who had good quality sleep. The findings suggest that poor sleep may be a better predictor of flare-ups than even a person’s history of smoking.

The observational study, one of the largest to look at the links between sleep quality and COPD flare-ups, was largely funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the NIH. Its findings appear online on June 6 in the journal SLEEP.

COPD, a progres...

Researchers have found that some people with schizophrenia have autoantibodies — which are made by the immune system and recognize the body’s own proteins, rather than outside threats such as viruses or bacteria — against NCAM1, a protein that’s importa.nt for communication between brain cells. The patients’ autoantibodies also caused schizophrenia-related behaviors in mice. These findings may improve the diagnosis and treatment of a subset of patients with schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a disorder that affects how people act, think, and perceive reality...

The Age-Related Eye Disease Studies (AREDS and AREDS2) established that dietary supplements can slow progression of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of blindness in older Americans. In a new report, scientists analyzed 10 years of AREDS2 data. They show that the AREDS2 formula, which substituted antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin for betacarotene, not only reduces risk of lung cancer due to beta-carotene, but is also more effective at reducing risk of AMD progression, compared to the original formula. A report on the study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, published in JAMA Ophthalmology.

“Because beta-carotene increased the risk of lung cancer for current smokers in two NIH-supported studies, our goal with AREDS2 was to create an equally ef...

Scientists have shed new light on the effects that high-intensity interval training (HIIT) has on human skeletal muscle, according to a study in men published today in eLife.

The findings suggest that HIIT boosts the amount of proteins in skeletal muscle that are essential for energy metabolism and muscle contraction, and chemically alters key metabolic proteins. These results may explain the beneficial effects of HIIT on metabolism and pave the way for additional studies exploring how exercise impacts these processes.

“Exercising has many beneficial effects that can help prevent and treat metabolic diseases, and this is likely the result of changes in energy use by skeletal muscles...