Category Health/Medical

Scientists who analyzed the genes involved in 10 autoimmune diseases that begin in childhood have discovered 22 genome-wide signals shared by 2 or more diseases. These shared gene sites may reveal potential new targets for treating many of these diseases, in some cases with existing drugs already available for non-autoimmune disorders. Autoimmune diseases, eg Type 1 diabetes, Crohn’s disease, and juvenile idiopathic arthritis, collectively affect 7 to 10% of the Western Hemisphere.

Meta-analysis was performed, incl a case-control study of 6,035 subjects with automimmune disease and 10,700 controls, all of European ancestry. Yun (Rose) Li, M.D./Ph.D...

Red-spotted Newt (Notophthalmus viridescens)

A York team has adapted the astonishing capacity of animals such as newts to regenerate lost tissues and organs caused when they have a limb severed. Dr Paul Genever’s team developed a technique to rejuvenate cells from older people with osteoarthritis to repair worn or damaged cartilage thus reducing pain.

There is currently no treatment to prevent the progression of osteoarthritis, and people with severe disease often need total joint replacement surgery. A patient’s own bone marrow stem cells are can generate joint tissue the body will not reject when re-implanted. But, as people grow older the number of stem cells decreases and those that remain are less able to grow and repair tissue.

Cells in newts can change in response to injury ie dedif...

Here’s what the brain of an extremely selfish person looks like

They deceive people for their own benefit, they see others as weak and untrustworthy, and they ignore moral codes.

Psychologists have dubbed these people Machiavellians after the Italian political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli, whose book “The Prince” includes many examples of this sort of unsavory character. Now, a recent study published in the journal Brain and Cognition reveals what goes on in the brains of these social deviants when they’re around others who are acting fairly.

Machiavellianism — which is part of the “dark triad” of personality traits, along with narcissm and psychopathy — falls on a spectrum, from low Machs (aka normal people) to high Machs (aka jerks).

Tamas Bereczkei and his colleagues at the U...

Alpha-lipoic acid stimulates telomerase in vascular smooth muscle. Telomerase is the enzyme that lengthens chromosomes’ protective caps, with positive effects in a mouse model of atherosclerosis. The discovery highlights a potential avenue for the treatment for chronic diseases.

“Alpha-lipoic acid has an essential role in mitochondria, the energy-generating elements of the cell,” says Wayne Alexander, MD, PhD, professor of medicine at Emory University School of Medicine. “It is widely available and has been called a ‘natural antioxidant’. Yet ALA’s effects in human clinical studies have been a mixed bag.”

ALA appears to exert its effects against atherosclerosis by spurring the smooth muscle cells that surround blood vessels to make PGC1 (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gam...