Molecules that help cells communicate with each other – called cytokines – might be the key to repairing diabetic nerve damage. Diabetes devastates nerve cells, which can lead to poor circulation, muscle weakness, blindness, and other painful side effects. The new study showed diabetic mice can’t repair nerve cells after damage due to low levels of specific cytokines.
Strategies to improve our appetites as we age include reducing portion size, increasing meal frequency, and using flavor enhancers. Until recently, however, these options have not proven to improve food intake or quality of life for older people. That’s part of the reason why a team of researchers designed a study to examine the differences in food intake among older adults with varied appetite levels.
Humans are considered uniquely susceptible to Alzheimer’s disease, potentially due to genetic differences, changes in brain structure and function during evolution, and an increased lifespan. However, a new study provides the most extensive evidence of Alzheimer’s disease brain pathology in a primate species to date. Researchers found that the brains of aged chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, show pathology similar to the human Alzheimer’s disease brain.
What determines how kids decide to spend their cash on snacks? In a study with Boston-area children, researchers show that their experience with money and their liking of brands influenced decisions – and that for some children, higher prices for unhealthy snacks might motivate healthier choices.
Accurately determining the time since death is an important aspect of forensic sciences and casework.
Although most people don’t broadcast in advance their intention to engage in criminal activity, scientists have discovered that the use of Twitter can help predict crime.
Researchers revealed that, in pancreatic cancer, the microRNAs miR-509-5p and miR-1243 can promote E-cadherin expression and thereby reduce the likelihood of cells undergoing epithelial-mesenchymal transition, or indeed reverse this transition. This ability to stop cells from adopting a phenotype linked to high migration and invasiveness was also shown to synergistically increase the cancer cell-killing efficacy of gemcitabine, which is promising for developing more effective combinatorial treatments for pancreatic cancer.
