Dr. Sydney Burwell, Dean of Harvard Medical School 1956

My students are dismayed when I say to them "Half of what you are taught as medical students will in 10 years have been shown to be wrong.
And the trouble is, none of your teachers know which half."



Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Research

Exercise, surgically removing belly fat improves cognition in obese, diabetic mice
Studies in humans and animals indicate that obesity and diabetes – which often go hand in hand – essentially triple the risk of mild cognitive impairment as well as Alzheimer's. Stranahan focused on the effect of fat- and diabetes-associated inflammation in the brain's hippocampus, the center of learning and memory.

"These obese diabetic mice have very high levels of inflammatory cytokines and I think it's because their bodies are reacting to the invasion of fat into tissues where it does not belong," said Stranahan, corresponding author of the study in The Journal of Neuroscience. "It's almost as if the fat were an external pathogen." Eurekalert!

Mini-livers show promise to reduce animal use in science
Research that has for the first time successfully grown "mini-livers" from adult mouse stem cells has won the UK's international prize for the scientific and technological advance with the most potential to replace, reduce or refine the use of animals in science (the 3Rs). MedicalXpress

New pregnancy hormone identified in horses
Identification of a new pregnancy-supporting hormone in horses has resolved a reproductive mystery that has puzzled scientists for decades, and it may have important implications for sustaining human pregnancies, reports a team of researchers, led by a UC Davis veterinary scientist.
Characterization of the hormone, dihydroprogesterone, or DHP, may lead the way to better hormone therapies for preventing pre-term labor in pregnant women. The findings are reported online in the Feb. 18 Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences at: http://bit.ly/1fp35n7MedicalXpress

Caffeine-based gold compounds are potential tools in the fight against cancer
The side effects of ingesting too much caffeine — restlessness, increased heart rate, having trouble sleeping — are well known, but recent research has shown that the stimulant also has a good side. It can kill cancer cells. Now, researchers report in the ACS journal Inorganic Chemistry that combining a caffeine-based compound with a small amount of gold could someday be used as an anticancer agent. Eurekalert!

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