Category Biology/Biotechnology

Highlights •Galectin-3 blood levels are elevated in human and rodent obesity •Galectin-3 directly impairs insulin action in myocytes, adipocytes, and hepatocytes •Galectin-3 treatment causes systemic insulin resistance in vivo •Galectin-3 loss of function improves insulin sensitivity in obesity

By removing the protein galectin-3 (Gal3), a team of investigators led by University of California School of Medicine researchers were able to reverse diabetic insulin resistance and glucose intolerance in mouse models of obesity and diabetes. By binding to insulin receptors on cells, Gal3 prevents insulin from attaching to the receptors resulting in cellular insulin resistance...

Genetic damage caused by smoking measured in different organs of the body

Genetic damage caused by smoking measured in different organs of the body. Scientists have measured the catastrophic genetic damage caused by smoking in different organs of the body and identified several different mechanisms by which tobacco smoking causes mutations in DNA. Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, the Los Alamos National Laboratory and their collaborators found smokers accumulated an average of 150 extra mutations in every lung cell for each year of smoking one packet of cigarettes a day. The study provides a direct link between the number of cigarettes smoked in a lifetime and the number of mutations in the tumour DNA...

The yellow and red sections of this brain image shows the unique brain region — the mid frontal gyrus — which Northwestern scientists discovered is responsible for placebo response in pain relief. Credit: Marwan Baliki

Scientists have identified for the first time the region in the brain responsible for the “placebo effect” in pain relief, when a fake treatment actually results in substantial reduction of pain, according to new research from Northwestern Medicine and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC).

Pinpointing the sweet spot of the pain killing placebo effect could result in the design of more personalized medicine for the 100 million Americans with chronic pain...