A human peptide that acts as a natural antibiotic against invading microbes can also bind to the body’s own DNA and trigger an immune response in the absence of an infection, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reports in an early online publication in Nature.
To many, urine smells like urine and vanilla smells like vanilla. But androstenone, a derivative of testosterone that is a potent ingredient in male body odor, can smell like either – depending on your genes. While many people perceive a foul odor from androstenone, usually that of stale urine or strong sweat, others find the scent sweet and pleasant. Still others cannot smell it at all.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NASA have entered into an agreement that helps American scientists utilize the International Space Station to answer questions about human health and diseases.
At least 160 people have died in an outbreak of the highly lethal haemorrhagic Ebola virus in the centre of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) reported, announcing that it is rushing medical and supplies to the region to try to contain the disease.
A network meta-analysis of 38 randomized controlled trials encompassing more than 18,000 patients found that the mortality risks associated with drug-eluting stents and bare-metal stents are similarly low. This analysis, the largest of its kind to date comparing drug-eluting stents (the CYPHER® Sirolimus-eluting Coronary Stent and the Taxus Stent) to bare-metal stents, appears this week in the medical journal The Lancet.
Feelings of social isolation are linked to alterations in the activity of genes that drive inflammation, the first response of the immune system, and causing higher mortality than people who are not feeling loneliness, revealed by UCLA researchers.
A new book of pocket-charts that will help health workers to identify people at risk of heart attacks and strokes and save lives by prescribing the most appropriate treatment is published by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology (CEET) at theUniversity of Pennsylvania School of Medicine has been awarded $2.3million over the next four years to study biological indicators ofexposure to cigarette smoke. The grant is part of the NationalInstitutes of Health new Genes, Environment, and Health Initiative(GEI).
University of Iowa researchers have discovered a gene that plays a linchpin role in the ability of breast cancer cells to respond to estrogen. The finding may lead to improved therapies for hormone-responsive breast cancers, and may explain differences in the effectiveness of current treatments.
Immune system police are as good at recognizing bad guys, such as bacteria and viruses, as they are our own tissue, researchers say.