Category Health/Medical

Altered function of the red blood cells leads to vascular damage in type 2 diabetes. Results from a new study in cells from patients with type 2 diabetes and mice show that this effect is caused by low levels of an important molecule in the red blood cells. The study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has been published in the journal Diabetes.

It is well known that patients with type 2 diabetes have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Overtime type 2 diabetes may damage blood vessels, which could lead to life-threatening complications such as heart attack and stroke...

Neuroinflammatory diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury, have been linked to deposits of a tough protein known as fibrin, derived from the blood clotting factor fibrinogen. These mesh-like fibrin deposits occur outside blood vessels in the brain, contributing to the death of neurons that eventually leads to impaired memory.

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A new study has identified an RNA molecule that suppresses prostate tumors. The scientists found that prostate cancers develop ways to shut down this RNA molecule to allow themselves to grow...

A new gene therapy targeting the small brain region where dopamine neurons reside, the substantia nigra, substantially boosts the benefits of the drug levodopa in Parkinson’s. The therapy restored the ability of these neurons to convert levodopa to dopamine. Scientists also showed how damage to the powerplants inside dopamine-releasing neurons triggers Parkinson’s. The findings may help identify humans in the earliest stages of Parkinson’s disease, develop therapies to slow disease progression and treat late-stage disease.

In late-stage Parkinson’s disease, the drug levodopa becomes less effective in treating symptoms because of the inexorable loss of dopamine-releasing neurons...