Health News

Probiotic Lactobacillus acidophilus shows promise for treating inflammatory bowel disease and other conditions

Intestinal epithelial tight junctions (TJs) act as a functional and structural barrier against harmful antigens that promote intestinal inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and other inflammatory conditions of the gut. A defective intestinal TJ barrier, sometimes known as “leaky gut,” plays an important role in exacerbating and prolonging intestinal inflammation. New research reported in […]

Health News

Probiotic Lactobacillus acidophilus shows promise for treating inflammatory bowel disease and other conditions

Intestinal epithelial tight junctions (TJs) act as a functional and structural barrier against harmful antigens that promote intestinal inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and other inflammatory conditions of the gut. A defective intestinal TJ barrier, sometimes known as “leaky gut,” plays an important role in exacerbating and prolonging intestinal inflammation. New research reported in […]

Health News

Early research shows promise for therapeutics that delay type 2 diabetes

Vanderbilt researchers have discovered a unique pathway that initiates islet β cell inflammation—a hallmark of type 2 diabetes—putting them a step closer to developing targeted therapeutics for the disease that affects one in 10 Americans. The article, “RIPK3-mediated inflammation is a conserved β-cell response to ER stress” was published in the journal Science Advances on […]

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Discovery shows promise for treating Huntington’s disease

Huntington’s disease is a progressive and aggressively debilitating brain disorder that causes uncontrolled movements, psychological problems, and loss of cognition. It is caused by a mutation in the gene that encodes the protein huntingtin, causing it to build an abnormally long tail of the amino acid glutamine. This tail prevents huntingtin from folding properly and […]

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Researchers identify microRNA that shows promise for hair regrowth

Researchers from North Carolina State University have identified a microRNA (miRNA) that could promote hair regeneration. This miRNA—miR-218-5p—plays an important role in regulating the pathway involved in follicle regeneration, and could be a candidate for future drug development. Hair growth depends on the health of dermal papillae (DP) cells, which regulate the hair follicle growth […]

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Small study suggests COVID-19 antibody test shows promise

A test that can detect the presence of antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the blood of human patients is described in Nature Medicine. This assay, tested in 16 patients, may help to identify individuals whose plasma contains antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, which could potentially be used to treat other patients. Tests that detect the presence […]