Category Health/Medical

The Clostridium botulinum bacterium (shown here in colonies) can cause foodborne illnesses and potentially deadly effects due to the neurotoxin it produces. Credit: CDC

Botulinum neurotoxin is probably best known to Americans as BOTOX rather than as a cause of potentially dangerous foodborne illnesses. Lesser known is that Clostridium botulinum, the bacterium that causes the neurointoxication, produces one of the most potent toxins on earth and is classified as a potential bioterrorism threat. While no cure exists a serendipitous discovery by TSRI scientists may provide a new therapy that can stop the neurotoxin even in its more severe, advanced stages of action.

Kim Janda, the Ely R. Callaway, Jr...

UT Southwestern researchers have developed a DNA vaccine that helps the body protect against toxic proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease. These images show amyloid plaque in the mouse brain using plasma containing anti-amyloid antibody from large mammals immunized with the vaccine. Credit: UT Southwestern

A new DNA vaccine when delivered to the skin prompts an immune response that produces antibodies to protect against toxic proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease – without triggering severe brain swelling that earlier antibody treatments caused in some patients. Two studies from the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute demonstrate in animals how a vaccine containing DNA of the toxic beta-amyloid protein elicits a different immune response that may be safe for humans...

A study carried out in mice may help explain why dieting can be an inefficient way to lose weight: key brain cells act as a trigger to prevent us burning calories when food is scarce.

A study carried out in mice may help explain why dieting can be an inefficient way to lose weight: key brain cells act as a trigger to prevent us burning calories when food is scarce. “Weight loss strategies are often inefficient because the body works like a thermostat and couples the amount of calories we burn to the amount of calories we eat,” says Dr Clémence Blouet from the Metabolic Research Laboratories at University of Cambridge. “When we eat less, our body compensates and burns fewer calories, which makes losing weight harder...

This study adds to previous evidence that air pollution causes oxidative stress, which can damage lipids, proteins, and DNA. Credit: © Pink Badger / Fotolia

Children and teens exposed to high levels of traffic-related air pollution have evidence of telomere shortening, reports a study in the May Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Young people with asthma also have evidence of telomere shortening, according to the preliminary research by John R. Balmes, MD, of University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues. “Our results suggest that telomere length may have potential for use as a biomarker of DNA damage due to environmental exposures and/or chronic inflammation.”

The study included 14 children and adolescents living in Fresno, Calif...