Category Health/Medical

Kiwi fruit, among others, contains a powerful antioxidant shown to halt or prevent fatty liver disease in young mice.

As obesity continues to rise in the U.S., non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become a major public health issue, increasingly leading to cancer and liver transplants. But new research from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus has discovered that a powerful anti-oxidant found in kiwi fruit, parsley, celery and papaya known as pyrroloquinoline quinone, or PQQ, can halt or prevent the progression of fatty liver disease in the offspring of mice fed a high-fat Western-style diet.

Growing evidence suggests that childhood obesity and fatty liver disease is influenced by maternal diet and the infant’s microbiome...

Turmeric powder and roots. Turmeric contains curcumin, which has been shown to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Credit: © pinkomelet / Fotolia

Twice-daily supplements boosted cognitive power over 18 months. Daily consumption of a certain form of curcumin improved memory and mood in people with mild, age-related memory loss, according to the results of a study conducted by UCLA researchers. The research, published online Jan. 19 in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, examined the effects of an easily absorbed curcumin supplement on memory performance in people without dementia, as well as curcumin’s potential impact on the microscopic plaques and tangles in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Found in turmeric, curcumin has previously been shown to ha...

Rutgers researchers identified a small set of simple protein building blocks (left) that likely existed at the earliest stages of life’s history. Over billions of years, these “Legos of life” were assembled and repurposed by evolution into complex proteins (right) that are at the core of modern metabolism. Credit: Vikas Nanda/Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

Rutgers scientists have found the “Legos of life” – 4 core chemical structures that can be stacked together to build the myriad proteins inside every organism – after smashing and dissecting nearly 10,000 proteins to understand their component parts...

Two images of EVIR-engineered dendritic cells (green) capturing tumor antigens in exosomes (gold/red). Cell nuclei are colored blue. Credit: C. Cianciaruso/M. De Palma/EPFL

Researchers at EPFL have created artificial molecules that can help the immune system to recognize and attack cancer tumors. Immunotherapies are breakthrough treatments that stimulate the patient’s immune cells to attack the tumor through the recognition of tumor antigens. They can be very effective, but currently can only cure a minority of patients with solid tumors. Researchers and physicians are now looking into ways of increasing the precision and strength of the immune attack on the tumor.

One approach is the “dendritic cell vaccine...