health system 15

Brain tumors are the most common cause of cancer-related deaths in children, and are the second most common type of cancers in children. Over the past few years, advances in cancer therapy have resulted in an increasing number of children who survive their diagnosis of brain tumors. However, this improved survival is offset by their high risk of several comorbid conditions and early death. More recently, there is evidence that these survivors areA new study, published in  Scientific Reports , shows that increased body fat in children who have survived childhood brain tumours, compared to healthy children who have not had brain cancer, may contribute to such poor outcomes. The risk factors for these outcomes have not been thoroughly investigated. A new study, published in  Scientific Reports , shows that increased body fat in children who have survived childhood brain tumours , compared to healthy children who have not had brain cancer, may contribute to such poor outcome...

During this study researchers from the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Surrey in collaboration with the University of Sao Paulo examined the impact of a low protein diet on the liver. Monitoring groups of mice, one group receiving normal levels of protein in the diet and the other group nourished with low levels of protein for five weeks, researchers were able to uncover the damaging effect a reduction of protein can cause to the structure of this vital organ. Using a novel method -- design-based stereology -- which enabled researchers to estimate the volume of the liver and the total numbers and sizes of its cells in 3D, it was found that the liver of mice on a low protein diet had decreased by 65%. It also found a 46% reduction in the volume of hepatocytes (liver cells) and a 90% increase in the total number of binucleate hepatocytes (liver cells with two nuclei), causing a decrease of the functionality of the organ. The research also discovered that a low prot...

Previous reviews on obesity have reported 20 to 30 syndromes, but in the first systematic review on obesity syndromes, investigators from McMaster and the University of British Columbia have catalogued 79 syndromes with obesity that have been described in the literature. The research was published in  Obesity Reviews  and led by David Meyre, an associate professor of the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact with the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine. "Rare genetic forms of obesity with many additional clinical features, such as intellectual disability, facial and organ-specific abnormalities, do exist," said Meyre, the senior author of the paper who holds the Canada Research Chair in Genetics of Obesity. "These syndromes, although individually rare, are much more numerous and diverse than anticipated," added Yuvreet Kaur, the study's first author and a recent graduate of the McMaster Bachelor of Sciences Honours Biology Program....

A new study, carried out at Leeds Beckett University, highlights the differences in pain response between different groups of people. The results could reinforce the argument for weight loss programmes being part of pain management plans for obese people suffering from chronic pain. The team investigated 74 volunteers, categorised as obese, overweight or normal according to their body mass index (BMI) -- a standard way of measuring if a person is at a healthy weight for their height. Volunteers in each group had pressure, cold and heat applied to two different areas of the body. The first experiment tested the hand, at the base of the thumb, an area that has little body fat. The second measured responses near the waist, in an area where extra fat is stored. Volunteers were asked to report at what point the pressure, cold or heat first felt painful. Each volunteer was also asked to report their experience of cold pain by putting their hands into icy water. Again, they were ask...

Monash College researchers, Dr. Eliana Mariño and Professor Charles Mackay. Credit score: Monash College Monash College's Biomedicine Discovery Institute researchers have led a global examine that discovered -- for the primary time -- food regimen yielding excessive quantities of the short-chain fatty acids acetate and butyrate supplied a useful impact on the immune system and guarded in opposition to kind 1 or juvenile diabetes . Autoimmune kind 1 diabetes happens when immune cells referred to as autoreactive T cells assault and destroy the cells that produce insulin -- the hormone that regulates our blood sugar ranges. The specialised food regimen developed by CSIRO and Monash College researchers makes use of starches -- discovered in lots of meals together with fruit and greens -- that resist digestion and move by means of to the colon or massive bowel the place they're damaged down by microbiota (intestine micro organ...

Fat is the primary long-term energy storage molecule in animals, and the control of fat levels is critical for survival. In mammals, the hormone leptin induces eating in response to fat loss, but so far, no corresponding signal has been identified, either in mammals or any other animal, that inhibits eating in response to fat gain. Because fruit flies replicate many of the feeding-related regulatory mechanisms and genes known to operate in humans, they make a good model for the search for such an inhibitory signal. To conduct their search, the authors focused on short non-coding RNAs or microRNAs , which are well-known inhibitors of gene expression. They first searched for microRNAs that, when overexpressed in fat tissue, affected feeding behavior, and second for the gene targets of those microRNAs. They identified a microRNA called miR-iab-4, which increased feeding by more than 27%, and a target gene called purple, which was expressed in fat bodies. Reducing purple expression ...