Category: Health

Growth hormone acts to prevent weight loss

Tom Patriot

Researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil have discovered that growth hormone (GH), which stimulates skeletal maturation and linear bone growth, as well as helping maintain tissue and organs throughout life, also acts directly on the brain to conserve energy when the body loses weight. A paper on the discovery has just been published in the journal Nature Communications. “Growth hormone has been known for decades, but our discovery shows it does a lot more than was thought,” said José Donato Junior, a professor at the University of…

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How to look after your skin during a cold snap, according to experts

Tom Patriot

Icy cold temperatures have affected many parts of the UK in recent weeks, while the US has suffered at the hands of a polar vortex with temperatures reaching minus 40F (-40C). A significant cold snap such as this comes with a sundry of complications, from school closures to ongoing travel disruptions, but for the beauty obsessed among us, the most concerning of them all is the emergence of dry, scaly skin and itchiness. In these wintry conditions, your skin’s well being might not be top of the priority list but neglecting to take…

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Behavioral disorders in kids with autism linked to reduced brain connectivity

Tom Patriot

More than a quarter of children with autism spectrum disorder are also diagnosed with disruptive behavior disorders. For the first time, Yale researchers have identified a possible biological cause: a key mechanism that regulates emotion functions differently in the brains of the children who exhibit disruptive behavior. The study appears in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging. “Disruptive behaviors such as aggression, irritability, and noncompliance are common in children with autism, and are among the main reasons for psychiatric treatment and even hospitalization,” said Denis Sukhodolsky, senior author and associate professor…

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New guidelines to athletes on protein intake

Tom Patriot

A review led by a sports scientist at the University of Stirling has set out new international guidelines for protein intake in track and field athletes. The findings of the paper form part of the updated International Association of Athletics Federations’ (IAAF) consensus statement on Sports Nutrition for Track and Field Athletes. Dr Oliver Witard, from Stirling’s Faculty of Health Sciences and Sport, led the protein theme of the statement alongside experts at the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sport, and McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. Explaining…

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Discovery may help explain why women get autoimmune diseases far more often than men

Tom Patriot

It’s one of the great mysteries of medicine, and one that affects the lives of millions of people: Why do women’s immune systems gang up on them far more than men’s do, causing nine times more women to develop autoimmune diseases such as lupus? Part of the answer, it turns out, may lie in the skin. New evidence points to a key role for a molecular switch called VGLL3. Three years ago, a team of University of Michigan researchers showed that women have more VGLL3 in their skin cells than…

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