Category Health/Medical

Beetroot juice enhances performance

Resesarch adds further weight to the case for beetroot juice as a superfood for elite and amateur sports players and athletes. Previously, the team at Exeter has regular beetroot juice drinks can help people to exercise for 16% longer. Drinking high nitrate beetroot juice improves both sprint performance and decision-making during prolonged intermittent exercise such as rugby and football. In the latest study,16 male team sport players received 140ml of Beet It Sport, high nitrate beetroot juice for seven days.

On day 7, the sportsmen, who were all members of rugby, hockey or football teams, completed an intermittent sprint test which consisted of two 40 minute sessions of repeated 2 minute blocks...

While it is not immediately clear why the communication between the brain and muscle was different as a result of different types of exercise, it offers leads for new means of research into neuromechanical differences in muscle function, muscle performance, muscle stiffness and other areas.

A University of Kansas study shows that the communication between the brain and quadriceps muscles of people who take part in endurance training, such as running long distances, is different than those who regularly took part in resistance training and those who were sedentary. The findings may offer clues to the type of physical activity humans are most naturally suited to.

Assistant Prof Trent Herda and Postdoc student Michael Trevino conducted studies in which they measured muscle responses of 5 peo...

A human donor Alzheimer’s disease brain tissue stained with an agent called ‘congo-red’, which allows for the visualization of amyloid-beta plaques (red) in the brain and surrounding blood vessels. Blue stains show the nuclei of the cells in the brain. Credit: Dr Matthew Campbell, 2015

Researchers believe that periodic clearance of a specific protein across the blood brain barrier could hold tremendous potential for new therapies. Scientists at Trinity College Dublin have shed light on a fundamental mechanism underlying the development of Alzheimer’s disease, which could lead to new forms of therapy for those living with the condition.

Alzheimer’s disease is characterized, in part, by the build-up of a small protein (‘amyloid-beta’) in the brains of patients...

The stem cells asymmetrically segregate damaged proteins (red) between the mother and the daughter cells (on the left: DNA grey). Responsible for this is a diffusion barrier. The strength of the barrier weakens with advancing age. This leads to reduced asymmetry of damaged protein segregation (on the right). Credit: UZH

Neural stem cells generate new neurons throughout life in the mammalian brain. However, with advancing age the potential for regeneration in the brain dramatically declines. Scientists of the University of Zurich now identified a novel mechanism of how neural stem cells stay relatively free of aging-induced damage. A diffusion barrier regulates the sorting of damaged proteins during cell division.

Dividing neural stem cells (outlined with a white line) establish a diffusion...