A research team with the participation of the Institute for Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio) of the University of Valencia, together with FISABIO and CIBERESP, has carried out the first metatranscriptomic study of the gut microbiota of babies, which has allowed to unveil the metabolism of the intestinal bacterial community during the first year of life, with a level of detail unknown until now.
This work has also involved researchers from the Joint Unit in Genomics and Health of the Foundation for the Promotion of Health and Biomedical Research of the Valencian Community (FISABIO) and the Biomedical Research Consortium in Epidemiology and Public Health Network (CIBERESP), dependent on the Carlos III Health Institute.
The environment is very important in the first years of life, both for the baby and for the bacteria of its gut microbiota. Bacteria and humans coexist in a harmonious symbiosis: people share with them the food they eat, which helps them to metabolise (10% of the energy obtained from food is as a consequence of bacterial action). In addition, bacteria influence the development of the immune and nervous systems.
According to the World Health Organisation, up to a half-million people around the world suffer a spinal cord injury each year. Often caused by road traffic crashes, accidents or violence, the loss of motor control or paralysis significantly impacts quality of life and requires years of treatment and care. Spinal cord injury is also associated with lower rates of school enrollment and economic participation, and carries substantial individual and societal costs.
Current methods for spinal cord injury treatment involve cumbersome brain-machine interfaces, with many cables linking the patient and a computer to restore limited motor functions. Other methods to map brain activity, such as magnetoencephalography, require very large machinery and particularly low-temperature working conditions.
To improve the quality of life of those suffering a spinal cord injury, ByAxon is bringing together a consortium of researchers from across Europe (Spain, Italy, France and Germany) to devise a new generation of spinal cord treatments. The four-year project started in January 2017 and is seeking to create implants that restore sensory functions.
A new wearable patch can monitor your health through your sweat.
Fitness and health trackers are everywhere, but most of them are limited to collecting data on your heartbeat, how much your moving and information you manually input to their paired apps.
That’s helpful if you’re trying to get in shape, but for people suffering from chronic conditions and diseases — like kidney disease or cystic fibrosis — more exact and frequent analyses could alert them to life-endangering changes.
| Local | http://idahostatejournal.com/ Cutting calories (dieting) and increasing caloric expenditure (exercise) cause your brain to activate neurons that will not allow you to utilize fat or lose weight.
Recently, and at a most appropriate time, another study published in the journal eLife has given explanation as to why your current New Year’s Resolution diet will not work.
Cutting calories (dieting) and increasing caloric expenditure (exercise) cause your brain to activate neurons that will not allow you to utilize fat or lose weight.
Evolutionarily, when our ancestors living in what we now call Pocatello were hard pressed to find food, their brains stopped energy expenditure (using energy to move, be active, play, etc.) to slow them down to keep them alive.
More effective treatments for Multiple Sclerosis on the horizon?
Dr. Metcalfe and her company are already looking to take down other severe diseases as well.
“Psoriasis is high up on our list, and diabetes is another. Downstream there are all the dementias because a LIF is a major health factor for the brain. So if we can get it into the brain we can start protecting against dementia.”
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Microbes are often seen as pathogens that cause disease and antibiotics have been used successfully to combat these foreign invaders. In reality, the picture is more complex. Most of the time we live in harmony with our commensal gut microbiota, which is the collection of microorganisms colonizing the healthy gut. Commensal bacteria regulate host biological functions, including skeletal health. Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) studying osteoimmunology, the interface of the skeletal and immune systems, have examined the impact of disrupting the healthy gut microbiome with antibiotics on post-pubertal skeletal development. Their results, published online on the January 16, 2019 in the American Journal of Pathology, showed that antibiotic disruption of the gut microbiota induced a pro-inflammatory response that led to increased activity of osteoclasts.
“This report introduces antibiotics as a critical exogenous modulator of gut microbiota osteoimmune response during post-pubertal skeletal development,” says Chad M. Novince, D.D.S., Ph.D., assistant professor in both the Colleges of Medicine and Dental Medicine who studies the impact of the microbiome on osteoimmunology and skeletal development. “People have shown that antibiotics perturb the microbiota, but this is the first known study evaluating how that has downstream effects on immune cells that regulate bone cells and the overall skeletal phenotype. This work brings the whole story together.”
The post-pubertal phase of development is a critical window of plasticity that supports the accrual of approximately 40 percent of our peak bone-mass. Recent work by the Novince lab and others has shown that the gut microbiota contributes to skeletal health. To determine the impact of antibiotic perturbation of the gut microbiota in post-pubertal skeletal development, Novince worked with team members at MUSC and treated mice with a cocktail of three antibiotics. In collaboration with microbiome scientist Alexander V. Alekseyenko, Ph.D., associate professor in the Biomedical Informatics Center and founding director of the MUSC Program for Human Microbiome Research, they were able to show that antibiotic treatment led to major alterations in the gut microbiota, resulting in specific changes to large groups of bacteria.
Wouldn’t it be great to power your home without having enormous costs to starting a journey on the alternative road? Now, you can achieve that and also take care of your figure! The founder of the Free Electric hybrid bike, Manoj Bhargava, says that his invention uses mechanical energy in the most basic way in order to transform an hour of exercise into supplying rural household with energy for 24 hours. The mechanism is simple: when you pedals, a flywheel is put in action, which turns the generator and thus charging a battery. What better motivation to work out from now on than to power your own home without any costs whatsoever? Watch the video featured to see the bike in action.
