Category Health/Medical

Skin patch health monitor.

A new type of acoustic sensor that resembles a small Band-Aid on the skin can monitor your heartbeat and other health measures. The sensor may one day offer a way to painlessly and wirelessly track an individual’s health. The patch, which weighs <1/100 of an ounce, can help doctors monitor heart health, stomach condition, vocal cord activity, lung performance and potentially many other bodily functions. “We’ve developed a soft, skin-like device that can listen to internal sounds created by function of internal organs,” explained John Rogers.

“Think of the device as a wearable, skin-mounted stethoscope. But with capabilities for continuous listening and recording of not only sounds, but also low-frequency vibrations,” Rogers said.
The research team behind this lat...

Tau aggregation in disease

A relationship between inflammation, a toxic protein and the onset of the disease has been found. The study also identified a way that doctors can detect early signs of Alzheimer’s by looking at the back of patients’ eyes. “Early detection of Alzheimer’s warning signs would allow for early intervention and prevention of neurodegeneration before major brain cell loss and cognitive decline occurs,” said Ashley Nilson, a neuroscience graduate student. “Using the retina for detecting AD and other neurodegenerative diseases would be non-invasive, inexpensive and could become a part of a normal screening done at patient checkups.”

UTMB researchers have previously found evidence that a toxic form of tau protein may underlie the early stages of Alzheimer’s...

When mice were raised germ-free, then given a transplant of human gut microbes, the impact of fiber on their colons could be seen. Mice fed a high-fiber diet maintained a thick mucus layer along the lining of their colons, while those that received a fiber-free diet saw the mucus layer grow thinner as bacteria capable of digesting mucus proliferated. The thin layer allowed a pathogen bacteria access to the cells of the colon wall. Credit: University of Michigan

It sounds like the plot of a 1950s sci-fi movie: normal, helpful bacteria that begin to eat their host from within, because they don’t get what they want. But new research shows that’s exactly what happens when microbes inside the digestive system don’t get the natural fiber that they rely on for food...

Blood cell analysis identifies 1000s of disease-related genes. Using a pioneering technique developed at the Babraham Institute, results are beginning to make biological sense of the mountains of genetic data linking very small changes in our DNA sequence to our risk of disease. Discovering these missing links will inform the design of new drugs and future treatments for a range of diseases.

Comparing the genome sequences of 100s of 1000s of patients and healthy volunteers has revealed single-letter changes found more frequently in the DNA sequences of individuals with specific diseases. In most cases, the disease-linked changes occur in the large swaths of DNA located between genes, ie junk DNA...