The seizures typically begin in the first months of life. It often takes years, however, before those suffering from the rare glucose transporter type 1 (Glut1) deficiency syndrome obtain a correct diagnosis. If the disorder goes untreated, affected children experience developmental delay and frequently have neurological problems. Various defects in one gene underlie the syndrome. […]
New urine dipstick test detects cause of disease that blinds millions
Scientists at Scripps Research have developed a urine diagnostic to detect the parasitic worms that cause river blindness, also called onchocerciasis, a tropical disease that afflicts 18 to 120 million people worldwide. Described in the journal ACS Infectious Diseases, the new, non-invasive test may provide an inexpensive method of determining in real time whether a […]
Microvascular dysfunction—a common cause of heart failure with preserved pumping capacity
Microvascular dysfunction, or small vessel disease, can be an important cause of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (preserved pumping capacity), according to an international team including researchers from Karolinska Institutet and AstraZeneca. Their study is published in The European Heart Journal. The results could play a crucial role in identifying people at risk for […]
Diets ‘devoid of vegetable matter’ may cause colon cancer
Researchers from the Francis Crick Institute in London, United Kingdom, found that keeping mice on a diet rich in a compound known as indole-3-carbinol (I3C) — which comes from such vegetables — prevented the animals’ intestines from becoming inflamed and developing colon cancer. They report the study in a paper now published in the journal […]
Young drinkers beware: Binge drinking may cause stroke, heart risks
You might want to think before you go out drinking again tonight. Research by Mariann Piano, senior associate dean of research at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, has found that young adults who frequently binge drink were more likely to have specific cardiovascular risk factors such as higher blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar at […]
Doxorubicin disrupts the immune system to cause heart toxicity
Doxorubicin is a chemotherapy drug widely used in ovarian, bladder, lung, thyroid and stomach cancers, but it carries a harmful side effect. The drug causes a dose-dependent heart toxicity that can lead to congestive heart failure. University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers now describe an important contributor to that heart pathology—disruption of the metabolism that […]