Health & Medicine
- Health & Medicine
Enzyme needed to degrade acetaldehyde
A shortage of the enzyme ALDH-2, which is needed to break down alcohol in the body, causes a buildup of the cancer-linked chemical acetaldehyde, perhaps explaining why alcoholics lacking ALDH-2 have high rates of mouth and throat cancers.
- Health & Medicine
Scarce-Banana Scare—But don’t kiss that banana good-bye yet
Headlines have been blaring that the banana will be extinct within 10 years but crop specialists say that’s not likely. The furor has called attention, however, to a problem of worldwide banana supply and to the possibility that we’ll be peeling things a little different in 2013. The fuss started with the Jan. 18 New […]
- Health & Medicine
Blood sugar processing tied to brain problems
Elderly people with slightly elevated blood sugar are more likely to have short-term memory problems than those with normal blood sugar.
- Health & Medicine
Ulcer Clue? Molecule could be key to stomach ailment
A protein called Ptprz binds with a bacterial toxin to produce ulcers in mice, possibly revealing a mechanism for the disorder.
- Health & Medicine
Light could be therapy against blindness
Beaming red light at rats soon after they've drunk methanol partially protects their eyes against that chemical's blinding effects.
- Health & Medicine
Miscarriages foretell heart trouble
Women who spontaneously lose one or more fetuses during early pregnancy are about 50 percent more likely than other women to later suffer ischemic heart disease.
- Health & Medicine
Pregnancy Woe Uncovered: Protein may underlie preeclampsia
New evidence links a placental protein to preeclampsia symptoms and may lead to new ways of detecting and treating the disease.
- Health & Medicine
Portrait of a cancer drug at work
Newly revealed protein structures show how a breast cancer drug functions.
- Health & Medicine
Why beer may deter blood clots
Downing a beer a day alters the structure of fibrinogen, a blood protein active in clotting.
- Health & Medicine
When Drinking Helps
Sometimes a nip of alcohol can indeed prove therapeutic, though usually not until middle age.
- Health & Medicine
Edible vaccine spawns antibodies to virus
Genetically engineered potatoes can deliver an edible vaccine against Norwalk virus, a common diarrhea-causing pathogen.
- Health & Medicine
Bacteria-Stocked Beverage Clears Pathogens from Nose
Dangerous bacteria often take refuge deep inside peoples noses, where they can remain dormant until they find an opportunity to invade other parts of the body. Perhaps the most important of these stowaway nasal microbes is Staphylococcus aureus, which can spread to wounds and surgical incisions and cause life-threatening blood infections. As many as a […]
