Metabolism News and Research RSS Feed - Metabolism News and Research

Metabolism is the means by which the body derives energy and synthesizes the other molecules it needs from the fats, carbohydrates and proteins we eat as food, by enzymatic reactions helped by minerals and vitamins.
New therapeutic targets for reducing heart disease in people with type 1 diabetes

New therapeutic targets for reducing heart disease in people with type 1 diabetes

Type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetes appears to increase the risk of heart disease, the leading cause of death among people with high blood sugar, partly by stimulating the production of calprotectin, a protein that sparks an inflammatory process that fuels the buildup of artery-clogging plaque. [More]
HSPH researchers discover potential target to treat type 2 diabetes and other metabolic diseases

HSPH researchers discover potential target to treat type 2 diabetes and other metabolic diseases

Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers have discovered that a particular type of protein (hormone) found in fat cells helps regulate how glucose (blood sugar) is controlled and metabolized (used for energy) in the liver. [More]
IDIBELL signs patent licensing agreement with Minoryx

IDIBELL signs patent licensing agreement with Minoryx

The Bellvittge Biomedical Research Institute has signed a licensing agreement with the Spanish biotechnology company Minoryx of a patent for the treatment of X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy, a rare serious neurodegenerative disease which has no effective treatment. [More]
Brain scan studies may provide clues about how the device improves depression

Brain scan studies may provide clues about how the device improves depression

For nearly a decade, doctors have used an implanted electronic stimulator to treat severe depression in people who don't respond to standard antidepressant therapy. [More]
Aerobic exercise can help reduce breast cancer risk

Aerobic exercise can help reduce breast cancer risk

Changes in estrogen breakdown, or metabolism, may be one of the mechanisms by which aerobic exercise lowers a woman's breast cancer risk, according to data published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. [More]
New FDA-approved method for detecting diabetic neuropathy

New FDA-approved method for detecting diabetic neuropathy

Details of a new method to detect diabetic neuropathy in patients in less than five minutes using their sweat glands was presented today at the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists 22nd Annual Scientific and Clinical Congress in Phoenix, Arizona by Aaron I. Vinik, M.D., Ph.D., F.C.P., M.A.C.P., F.A.C.E., Professor of Medicine and Director of Research and the Neuroendocrine Unit at Eastern Virginia Medical School. [More]

Case report reveals that sugar substitutes may adversely affect endocrine health

It's a known fact that drinking too many sugary drinks can lead to obesity and diabetes, but sugar substitutes may adversely affect your endocrine health, according to a case report presented at the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists 22nd Annual Scientific and Clinical Congress. [More]
Study: Gene mutations are associated with severe form of nearsightedness

Study: Gene mutations are associated with severe form of nearsightedness

People have long taken for granted that glasses and contact lenses improve vision for nearsightedness, but the genetic factors behind the common condition have remained blurry. Now researchers at Duke Medicine are closer to clearing this up. [More]
New computational method for assessing lung cancer tumors

New computational method for assessing lung cancer tumors

Moffitt Cancer Center and the University of South Florida have collaborated with researchers in China, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany to devise a new computational method for assessing lung cancer tumors using CT, PET or MRI diagnostic technologies. [More]

Discovery opens new opportunities for future medicines to treat obesity

The body's brown fat cells play a key role in the development of obesity and diabetes. Researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have now discovered that we humans have two different kinds of brown fat cells and not one kind as previously thought. [More]
Hypothalamus controls aging throughout the body, scientists report

Hypothalamus controls aging throughout the body, scientists report

While the search continues for the Fountain of Youth, researchers may have found the body's "fountain of aging": the brain region known as the hypothalamus. [More]

Study reveals link between binge drinking and risk for developing alcoholic liver disease

Long after a hangover, a night of bad decisions might take a bigger toll on the body than previously understood. Described in the current issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, a study at the University of Missouri has revealed a unique connection between binge drinking and the risk for developing alcoholic liver disease and a variety of other health problems. [More]

New hope for patients with myotonic dystrophy

There's hope for patients with myotonic dystrophy. A new small molecule developed by researchers at the University of Illinois has been shown to break up the protein-RNA clusters that cause the disease in living human cells, an important first step toward developing a pharmaceutical treatment for the as-yet untreatable disease. [More]
Lund University research opens door to diabetes treatment

Lund University research opens door to diabetes treatment

A Lund University research team has shed new light on why gastric bypass often sends diabetes into remission rapidly, opening the door to developing treatment with the same effect. [More]
New study sheds light on DEAD-box proteins

New study sheds light on DEAD-box proteins

Proteins, the workhorses of the body, can have more than one function, but they often need to be very specific in their action or they create cellular havoc, possibly leading to disease. [More]
Neuroscientists identify cellular change in the brain that accompanies obesity

Neuroscientists identify cellular change in the brain that accompanies obesity

A team of American and Italian neuroscientists has identified a cellular change in the brain that accompanies obesity. The findings could explain the body's tendency to maintain undesirable weight levels, rather than an ideal weight, and identify possible targets for pharmacological efforts to address obesity. [More]
Study may pave way for new strategies to fight cancer cells

Study may pave way for new strategies to fight cancer cells

For the first time, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have managed to obtain detailed images of the way in which the transport protein GLUT transports sugars into cells. [More]
Student researchers get new view of the dynamics of cancer cells as they metastasize

Student researchers get new view of the dynamics of cancer cells as they metastasize

A team of student researchers and their professors from 20 laboratories around the country have gotten a new view of cancer cells. The work could shed light on the transforming physical properties of these cells as they metastasize, said Jack R. Staunton, a Ph.D. candidate at Arizona State University in the lab of Prof. Robert Ros, and the lead author of a paper reporting on the topic. [More]
Intermittent fasting: A path to weight loss and improved cardiovascular risk

Intermittent fasting: A path to weight loss and improved cardiovascular risk

Intermittent fasting is all the rage, but scientific evidence showing how such regimes affect human health is not always clear cut. Now a scientific review in the British Journal of Diabetes and Vascular Disease published by SAGE, suggests that fasting diets may help those with diabetes and cardiovascular disease, alongside established weight loss claims. [More]
Researchers identify how proteasome takes care of unwanted, potentially toxic proteins

Researchers identify how proteasome takes care of unwanted, potentially toxic proteins

Proteins, unlike diamonds, aren't forever. And when they wear out, they need to be degraded in the cell back into amino acids, where they will be recycled into new proteins. [More]