Researchers at EMBL and Harvard gain new insights into hemochromatosis

Like most nutrients, iron is good for people – in the right doses. When the body has enough iron, our cells stop absorbing it from food; if there is too little, they absorb more. This system breaks down in the most common inherited disease in the Western world: hemochromatosis, which affects about one in every 250 people and is often fatal if it is not recognized and treated. Now researchers at the European Molecu

The method that Staphylococcus aureus (staph) infection uses to inactivate the body’s immune response and cause previously healthy B cells to commit suicide, is described for the first time by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine in the May 5, 2003 issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine. The paper was selected for early online publication on April 28.

Normally, B cells mount an early defense against invading bacteria. From this immunol

Insulin resistance, a condition commonly associated with the development of type 2 diabetes, is likely a major cause of heart disease in people with type 1 diabetes, according to study results published by University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH) researchers in the May 2003 issue of Diabetes Care, a journal of the American Diabetes Association.

“Heart disease is a major complication for people with diabetes, including those with type 1 diabetes, and until now t

MENOPAUSAL WOMEN WITH DAYTIME SLEEPINESS SHOULD BE EVALUATED

Evaluation for sleep-disordered breathing should be a priority for menopausal women with complaints of snoring, daytime sleepiness, or unsatisfactory sleep. Researchers studied a population-based sample of 589 women enrolled in the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study. They tested the hypothesis that menopause is an independent risk factor for sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) using in-laboratory sleep testing (polysomnography). (SDB is a

Drivers who are overweight or underweight are at greater risk of suffering an injury in a road accident than people of average size, according to a study of deaths and injuries from motor vehicle accidents in New Zealand.

The study appears in the current issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology (IJE), edited in the Department of Social Medicine at the University of Bristol.

Dr Gary Whitlock and colleagues studied people who had been seriously injured or killed betwe

A novel method for the design and manufacture of sensors to measure the temperature and relative humidity of the air, the pH of solutions or the refractive index of liquids based on optic fibre has been devised at the Public University of Navarre.

The sensors are small devices capable of capturing both physical and chemical signals from the surrounding environment and converting them into electrical signals for their subsequent processing. The information thus transformed can be easi