Public Health

A component of egg whites, already a popular whole egg substitute among cholesterol-conscious consumers concerned, may have another beneficial effect - reducing blood pressure, according to a study presented earlier this week at the American Chemical Society (ACS) meeting.  The researchers used a peptide called RVPSL. Scientists previously discovered that the substance, like the family of medications that includes Captopril, Vasotec and Monopril, was an angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE) inhibitor. It has the ability to inhibit or block the action of ACE, a substance produced in the…

Animal and dairy scientists  presenting at the Lactation Biology Symposium in Phoenix, Arizona have discovered that drinking milk at an early age can help mammals throughout their lives. The presentations focused on epigenetics, or how gene expression changes based on factors like environment or diet. Epigenetic changes modify when or how certain traits are expressed.  But understanding exactly how milk affects the body is a complicated story of hormones, antibodies and proteins, as well as other cells and compounds researchers have not yet identified. The first presenter, Dr.…

Food so cheap that poor people can be fat is a miracle only dreamed about by philosophers ad economists throughout history. It was previously believed that the labor force needed to produce enough food would outstrip the food they could produce, something like how trying to exceed the speed of light adds too much mass. Yet it has happened, at least in food. Outracing the speed of light still only happens in arXiv papers once a week but in the last 30 years, despite two decades of pundits like President Obama's Science Czar Dr. John Holdren predicting we would need forced abortion and…

The number of Americans diagnosed with asthma is up to 26 million and a new paper says a majority, nearly two-thirds or more of all asthmatics, also have an allergy.  Asthma is frequently associated with children but 3 percent or more of adults 60 years and older also have it. The number may be higher, because older people did not grow up in a diagnosis culture, so asthma could be under-diagnosed in older adults.  The paper says that an astonishing 75 percent of asthmatic adults aged 20- to 40-years-old, and 65 percent of asthmatic adults aged 55 years and older, have at least one…

A new study led by Ria Chhabra, a student at Clark High School in Plano, Texas, set out to see if organic food is healthier than conventional food - and it was. In fruit flies. With some conditions. Chhabra sought to conduct the experiments after hearing her parents discuss whether it's worth it to buy organic foods. Southern Methodist University biologist Johannes H. Bauer, principal investigator for the study, mentored Chhabra by helping guide and design her research experiments. The research focus of Bauer's fruit fly lab is nutrition and its relationship to longevity, health and…

Most people drink alcoholic beverages without actually knowing what happens to it as it enters into their body. "A hangover" is a common thing alcohol drinkers know, or maybe they have heard that it is the culprit of many car accidents, some liver problems, and a bulging stomach. What really happens to the alcohol in your alcoholic beverages as you suck and empty its bottle? Yes! A Hangover A hangover is not what alcohol drinkers want when they drink alcohol. What most people want is to enjoy, to socialize, or to be satisfied. How about a hangover? Is it the satisfaction we get from…

The handling of "incidental findings" in clinical genome and exome sequencing has been addressed by the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG).  Incidental findings are health-related interpretations of a patient's genetic code that are unrelated to the primary reason for ordering the genetic testing. For example, if a clinician orders exome or genome sequencing to analyze genes related to a patient's cardiac condition, the laboratory will already have information about all the other genes in hand and could examine genes for something like cancer predisposition with…

The administration of therapeutic antibodies via injection is becoming an increasingly popular treatment method for a growing number diseases and indications having broad implications for patient health and well-being.  The inherent instability of protein drugs has led to a number of challenges as the developers of injectable antibodies attempt to deal with packaging, handling, reconstitution and drug administration issues. These challenges are being compounded by the trend to patient self-medication, as population demographics and efforts by managed care providers to control healthcare…

Enriching crops by adding a naturally-occurring soil mineral to fertilizers in Malawi could potentially help to reduce disease and premature death caused by a dietary deficiency of the mineral selenium — which plays a vital role in keeping the immune system healthy and fighting illness.  An international study has shown that dietary deficiency of selenium is likely to be endemic among the Malawi population and that most Malawi soils cannot supply enough selenium for adequate human nutrition. They call for further investigation into the benefits and costs of using selenium-enriched…

An analysis of data from the Framingham Offspring Study, which follows children of participants in the original Framingham Heart Study, may have answered a question that has been asked by doctors and smokers alike; do the health effects of any weight gained after quitting outweigh the known cardiovascular benefits of smoking cessation?   No study had previously investigated whether smoking-cessation-associated weight gain increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. One did look at the effects on risk factors such as blood pressure and lipid levels, but none have analyzed the actual…