Category Health/Medical

Improved Secretory Production of the Sweet-Tasting Protein, Brazzein, in Kluyveromyces lactis.

High-fructose corn syrup and sugar are on the outs with calorie-wary consumers. As a result, low- and no-calorie alternatives have become popular, and soon, there could be another option that tastes more sugar-like than other substitutes. Scientists report in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry a step toward commercial production of a fruit protein called brazzein that is far sweeter than sugar – and has fewer calories. Brazzein has high stability over a wide range of pH values and temperatures, due to its four disulfide bridges.

Brazzein first attracted attention as a potential sugar substitute years ago. Making it in large amounts, however, has been challenging...

Sustained release of stromal cell derived factor-1 from an antioxidant thermoresponsive hydrogel enhances dermal wound healing in diabetes

Antioxidant bandage delivers healing protein. At some point in their lives, 15% of people with diabetes will develop a painful and hard-to-treat foot ulcer. 24% percent of those affected will require a lower-leg amputation because of it. And, in some instances, what seems like a harmless sore might even lead to death. A Northwestern University team has developed a new treatment. Called a “regenerative bandage,” the novel material heals diabetic wounds 4X faster than a standard bandage and has the added benefit of promoting healing without side effects.

“Foot ulcers cause many serious problems for diabetic patients,” said Prof. Guillermo Ameer...

Coeliac disease incidence rate by month of birth in children aged 0–14.9 years during the period from 1991 to 2009 for the three nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS 1) regions in Sweden.

Circulating viral infections may help explain the temporal and geographical patterns associated with the risk of developing childhood celiac disease, conclude Swedish researchers in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. But the role of vitamin D during pregnancy may also have a part to play, they suggest. They base their findings on a long term study of almost 2 million children up to the age of 15 who had been born in Sweden between 1991 and 2009.

In all, 6569 of these children from 47 hospitals across the country were diagnosed with celiac disease before the age of 15...

The fMRI activity of a person with Parkinson’s disease is shown at baseline and one year later. The areas of high activity (orange) become areas of low activity (blue) in the second scan, showing progressive deterioration. Credit: Courtesy of David Vaillancourt

A new, non-invasive way to track the progression of Parkinson’s disease could help evaluate experimental treatments to slow or stop the disease’s progression. University of Florida researchers used fMRI to reveal areas where Parkinson’s disease and related conditions cause progressive decline in brain activity. While current treatments focus on controlling symptoms, biomarkers provide a quantifiable way to measure how medications address not just symptoms, but the neurological changes behind them.

Previous studies have used imagin...