Medicine

Propionates, salts of a short-chain fatty acid called propionic acid, are widely used in baked goods, animal feeds and artificial flavorings. Although generally recognized as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the metabolic effects of propionate consumption in humans were unclear until now. According to new research that …

A team of researchers in the Netherlands has found that higher levels of body fat are associated with differences in the form and structure of the brain, including smaller volumes of gray matter. Overview of observed standardized regression coefficients (b values) for the associations between total body fat and fractional …

  As the AI hype-cycle has built, we’ve been treated to a plethora of claims about what sorts of improvements and breakthroughs the technology can deliver. One of the most fundamental — and potentially important — has been the idea that we can use AI to find new medicines and …

The fabella (Latin for ‘little bean’), a small bone in a tendon behind the knee, was once rare in humans. Now, a team of researchers from the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London, UK, has found that fabellae are becoming more common. Their results, published in the Journal of …

  As the AI hype-cycle has built, we’ve been treated to a plethora of claims about what sorts of improvements and breakthroughs the technology can deliver. One of the most fundamental — and potentially important — has been the idea that we can use AI to find new medicines and …

A team of scientists at Tel Aviv University, Israel, has 3D-printed the first vascularized engineered heart using a human patient’s own cells and biological materials. Concept schematic: an omentum tissue is extracted from the patient and while the cells are separated from the matrix, the latter is processed into a …

Vitamin D — which exists in two forms: D2 (ergocalciferol) and D3 (cholecalciferol) — helps regulate the amount of calcium and phosphate in the body. Vitamin D toxicity is rare, but patients and clinicians must be aware of the risks of vitamin D use to limit complications related to hypercalcemia, …

A common food additive called tert-butylhydroquinone (E319) suppresses the immune response the body mounts when fighting the flu; it also reduces the effectiveness of the flu vaccine through its effects on T cells, according to new research in mice by Michigan State University scientists. tBHQ, at a dose relevant to …

Frequently drinking sugar-sweetened beverages (carbonated and noncarbonated soft drinks, fruit drinks, energy drinks, and sports drinks) was associated with an increased risk of mortality from cardiovascular diseases and, to a lesser extent, cancers, according to a new study. Substituting one sugary drink a day with an artificially sweetened drink was …

Sleeping in a few extra hours on the weekends might not be enough to combat the self-incurred damage from weekday sleep deprivation. According to a study from the University of Colorado Boulder, sleep restriction for just a 5-days dysregulated the internal circadian clock and increased late-night caloric intake, leading to …