Category Health/Medical

A molecule found in the venomous toadfish Thalassophryne nattereri has proven capable of controlling lung inflammation and could be the basis for a more effective asthma drug. The research was conducted by scientists at Butantan Institute in São Paulo, Brazil. An article describing the results is published in the journal Cells.

A welter of fish species live in freshwater, seawater, and a mixture of the two, and some of them are venomous. They have spines or stingers connected to venom glands, which are a kind of pouch full of molecules, large and small, that are toxins...

Have you ever wondered how drugs reach their targets and achieve their function within our bodies? If a drug molecule or a ligand is a message, an inbox is typically a receptor in the cell membrane. One such receptor involved in relaying molecular signals is a G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR). About one-third of existing drugs work by controlling the activation of this protein. Japanese researchers now reveal a new way of activating GPCR by triggering shape changes in the intracellular region of the receptor. This new process can help researchers design drugs with fewer or no side effects.

If the cell membrane is like an Oreo cookie sandwich, GPCR is like a snake with seven segments traversing in and out of the...

Increased levels of lipoprotein(a), a variant of “bad cholesterol” in the bloodstream, are a risk factor for recurrent coronary heart disease (CHD) in people aged 60 or over, according to the results of a new study which tracked the issue over the course of 16 years.

The results, published today in Current Medical Research & Opinion, suggest that current cholesterol-lowering medications may not be effective at reducing the risk of recurrent CHD—such as a heart attack—due to elevated Lp(a).

“This finding adds to growing evidence of a relationship between increased Lp(a) and the risk of recurrent CHD,” says lead author Associate Professor Leon Simons, from the School of Clinical Medicine, at the Universi...

Alcohol consumption increases the risks of over 60 diseases in Chinese men, including many diseases not previously linked to alcohol, according to a new study by researchers from Oxford Population Health and Peking University, published in Nature Medicine.

Alcohol consumption is estimated to be responsible for about 3 million deaths worldwide each year, and it is increasing in many low- and middle-income countries such as China. The harmful effects of heavy drinking for certain diseases (such as liver cirrhosis, stroke and several types of cancer) are well known, but very few studies have systematically assessed the impact of alcohol use on an extensive range of diseases within the same population.

T...