Medicine

A new pilot study, published in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology, raises the possibility that humanity’s increasing use of titanium dioxide — the most common white pigment in everyday products — accounts for part of the global increase in the incidence of type 2 diabetes. Inhaled and ingested titanium …

Caffeine consumption has been associated with lower risks for multiple diseases, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, but the mechanism underlying these protective effects has been unclear. A new study, published in the journal PLoS Biology, shows that a caffeine concentration equivalent to four cups of coffee promotes …

An international group of researchers has developed a biodegradable patch using special polymers which are able to stick to moist surfaces. The new patch, described in the journal Biomaterials, is a breakthrough therapy for the treatment of oral lichen planus and recurrent aphthous stomatitis, chronic inflammatory conditions often characterized by …

A new study, for the first time, has compared the relationship between sodium (a component of table salt) intake and mortality, based on various methods to assess usual sodium consumption; the average measured sodium showed a direct linear relationship with mortality. He et al suggest that an inaccurate way of …

A new study published in the journal Nutrition and Healthy Aging is the first to examine the effect of the 16:8 diet — named for its 16 hours of fasting and its 8 hours of feasting — on weight loss in obese adults. The 8-h time restricted feeding produces mild …

Herpesviruses 6A and 7 (HHV-6A and HHV-7) — two of the nine known members of the Herpesviridae family that infect humans — are found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease at levels up to twice as high as in those without Alzheimer’s, according to a new study appearing …

A new study from the University of Guelph shows that replacing half of the available carbohydrates from potatoes or rice with cooked lentils can lower blood glucose levels by more than 20% in healthy adults. The study appears in the Journal of Nutrition. Lentils significantly reduce blood glucose. Image credit: …

According to a study published in the journal Cardiovascular Research, people with high blood pressure are at a higher risk of developing dementia; and conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be used to detect early signatures of neurological damage in hypertensive patients, before any symptoms of dementia occur. Hypertension is …

Doctors often need to compare two MRI images to track changes in the body over time, but the process of lining up the images to make accurate measurements is extremely time-consuming. It can take hours for a computer to match all the locations in a 3D map, but researchers from …

Many of us have had chance encounters with medical professionals who aren’t yet adept at drawing blood. After just one of these unpleasant experiences, you’ll understand the appeal of the new venipuncture robot from Rutgers University. Not only can this robot find a vein on the first try, but it …