Category Health/Medical

Experimental drug candidate slows cancer progression in mouse model. A new study suggests that high-fat diets fuel colorectal cancer growth by upsetting the balance of bile acids in the intestine and triggering a hormonal signal that lets potentially cancerous cells thrive. The findings could explain why colorectal cancer, which can take decades to develop, is being seen in younger people growing up at a time when higher-fat diets are common.

As cancer death rates drop overall, doctors have noted a frightening anomaly: deaths fro...

Researchers have developed a test that objectively measures pain biomarkers in blood. The test could help physicians better treat patients with precision medicine, and help stem the tide of the opioid crisis.

“We have developed a prototype for a blood test that can objectively tell doctors if the patient is in pain, and how severe that pain is. It’s very important to have an objective measure of pain, as pain is a subjective sensation. Until now we have had to rely on patients self-reporting or the clinical impression the doctor has,” said Niculescu, who worked with other Department of Psychiatry researchers on the study. “When we started this work it was a farfetched idea...

Autophagy is an important biological recycling mechanism that is used to maintain homeostasis (balance or equilibrium) within all types of animal tissue. Many studies have attempted to understand the relationship between the reduction of autophagy and progression of aging in animals; however, none have provided a clear explanation, until now.

In 2009, a research team led by Tamotsu Yoshimori at Osaka University identified Rubicon as a protein factor that suppresses autophagy by controlling a specific step in this pathway...

Fast magnetic reconnection, the rapid convergence, separation and explosive snapping together of magnetic field lines, gives rise to northern lights, solar flares and geomagnetic storms that can disrupt cell phone service and electric power grids. The phenomenon takes place in plasma, the state of matter composed of free electrons and atomic nuclei, or ions, that makes up 99 percent of the visible universe. But whether fast reconnection can occur in partially ionized plasma – plasma that includes atoms as well as free electrons and ions – is not well understood.

Researchers at the U.S...