Methylene blue can prevent skin aging

Researchers reveal how a compound called methylene blue reduced signs of aging in human skin cells, it could be added to cosmetic products to combat skin aging.

Methylene blue is effective for reducing cell division, which is considered a key player in aging.

Methylene blue reduced markers of senescence in skin cells. The skin fibroblasts were derived from healthy middle-aged and older adults, as well as from individuals with progeria.

After treating the fibroblasts with methylene blue for 4 weeks, the researchers identified a decrease in reactive oxygen species, which are known to cause skin cell damage.

Treatment with methylene blue led to a reduction in markers of cellular senescence; the compound increased cell division and reduced cell death.

Researchers found that 4 weeks of treatment with methylene blue led to numerous improvements.

 These included a reduction in the expression of the genes beta-galactosidase and p16, which are markers of cellular aging.

The team found that the skin model not only retained more water when treated with methylene blue, but it also increased in thickness.

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Impacts of proteins on immune system

Different genetic make-up can impact on the activity of the immune system and our ability to fight cancer.

Proteins are made up of thousands of smaller units called amino acids, which are attached to one another in long chains.

Proteins do most of the work in cells and are required for the structure, function, and regulation of the body's tissues and organs.

 A protein called ULBP6 leads to the removal of damaged cells. There are two types of this protein found in different people.

The ULBP6 protein is found on the surface of damaged cells, including several types of cancer cells, and acts as a signal to white cells in our immune system that the damaged cell should be killed.

There are two major types of protein in the population and people who inherit a certain subtype have been shown to have a poor outcome after stem cell transplantation, a procedure used to treat leukemia, which is commonly referred to as bone marrow treatment.

The two types of ULBP6 differ only by two amino acids out of a total of around 180 and it has important influence on patient outcomes. One form of ULBP6
 forms a very strong bond indeed with its receptor NKG2D on the immune system.

This shows why transplants work less well in some people, which is an important step on the path to developing better transplant therapy for more people living with blood cancer.

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Amazing facts about tobacco

•According to the World Health Organisation, tobacco is the world's
largest cause of preventable death.

•The total tax revenue from tobacco in the UK in 2015-16 was £12billion.

•Estimates of the direct annual cost to the NHS of tobacco-related diseases range from £3-6bn.

•King James IV in 1604 described smoking as a “custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs.

•The average adult in China smokes 4,124 cigarettes a year, the world’s highest figure.

•There are about a billion smokers in the world of whom 80 per cent are male.

•The word tabacco in Spanish was originally used for the pipe or tube through which native Americans inhaled tobacco smoke.

•Tobago took its name from tobacco, possible because of its cigar or pipe-like shape.

•The word tobacco was first seen in English in 1577. Tobacconist, in 1600, meant a heavy smoker.

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Hot bath versus cold bath

 Scientists are finding more and more health benefits to having a quick blast of cold water, including boosting your immune system and easing low mood.

Experts say the best results come not from a cold shower or bath but alternating between hot and cold water.

This technique, known as contrast water therapy, involves showering for about 20 minutes, using hotter water for three to four minutes before suddenly switching to cold for one minute and then back again.

Standing under, or sitting in, hot water for several minutes opens up blood vessels in the skin and muscles, improving the flow of oxygen-rich blood.

 Switching to cold water for one minute makes the same blood vessels instantly constrict, reducing the flow of blood.
Over a 20-minute period this creates a ‘pumping’ mechanism, where more oxygen-rich blood flows into the muscles and tissues near the skin, while more deoxygenated blood (blood which has deposited its oxygen cargo into those muscles and tissues) is then pulled back through the veins to the lungs, to collect more oxygen.

This has been found to have numerous benefits, including, for example, helping to reduce muscle ache after exercise. During strenuous exercise oxygen-rich blood cannot reach the muscles to match the rate at which oxygen is used. In response, muscles release a substance called lactic acid which causes a painful burning sensation and can delay recovery after exercise.

However, contrast water therapy is thought to help rid the muscles of lactic acid and speed recovery.

The researchers studied 3,000 men and women aged 18 to 65 who were told to turn the shower to cold for up to 90 seconds at a time in the morning.

 The British Association of Dermatologists insists there is no research to confirm that contrast water therapy prevents skin ageing.

Hot and cold showers improve circulation and skin ageing is mostly a problem of poor circulation.

Also, the high level of cold receptors in the skin means a blast of cold water can trigger electrical impulses to the brain, which may have an antidepressant effect.

A study of 14 men at the University of Loughborough found those who had an hour-long soak in a 40C bath burned 140 calories on average equivalent to a half-hour walk and had improved control of blood sugar levels.

Researchers said hot baths raise levels of proteins that help regulate blood sugar and said ‘passive heating’ was a potential therapy for metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes.

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Strategies for kidney transplantation

More than 90% of transplanted kidneys function well for at least one year and the average lifespan of a transplanted organ is between 10 and 15 years.

 Performing a transplant before dialysis starts can extend life expectancy after
transplant. Refrigeration of the donor kidney also offers significant improvements and is easy to do when kidneys are being donated by people who have died.

It was shown that refrigerated kidneys "start up" 40% better than unrefrigerated ones. A similar effect is also to be observed in the case of donor kidneys that have been perfused externally prior to being transplanted.

In the future, xenografts could also be an interesting alternative, that is to say tissue cells from two different species -- currently the scientific community is conducting studies with porcine islet cells.

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How stress affect foetus through amniotic fluid

Stress during pregnancy for a longer period of time can lead to concentration of stress hormones in amniotic fluid.

If an expectant mother is strongly stressed over a longer period of time, the risk of the unborn child developing a mental or physical illness later in life -- such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or cardiovascular disease increases.

Physical stress to the mother can change the metabolism in the placenta and influence the growth of the unborn child.

 The research team tested 34 healthy pregnant women, who took part in amniocentesis within the scope of prenatal diagnostics.

Such a test constitutes a stress situation for the expectant mother as her body secretes cortisol in the short term. To determine whether the placenta also releases stress hormones, the researchers compared the cortisol level in the mother's saliva with the CRH level in the amniotic fluid -- and determined that there was no connection.

The baby obviously remains protected against negative effects in case of acute, short-term stress to the mother,

The situation of the results regarding prolonged stress is completely different, as was determined using questionnaires for diagnosing chronic social overload: "If the mother is stressed for a longer period of time, the CRH level in the amniotic fluid increases

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How to identify obesity

Obesity is largely calculated using body mass index (BMI). However, new research may have discovered a better way to measure it.

BMI is based on the healthy weight for a person’s height, but experts have long pointed out its limitations.

Researchers said calculating a person’s waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) is more accurate and efficient.

It could be used, in particular, to identify whether someone is obese, and therefore at risk of several other health problems.

This new method examines whole-body fat percentage and visceral adipose tissue mass - the fat stored around the abdominal region where most of the internal organs are.

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Facts about surgical menopause

Menopause occurs when a woman has not had her period for 12 months or more. This occurs when the ovaries stop producing or produce reduced amounts of female hormone, this is common in 40s or 50s.

The ovaries are small organs situated either side of the uterus. They produce hormones, such as estrogen and
progesterone, that control a woman's menstrual cycle.

Without ovaries to release hormones, a woman will go through menopause at an earlier time. This can have both short- and long-term effects on women that they should prepare for and be aware of.

Surgical menopause, which is also known as a bilateral oophorectomy, is a procedure in which a woman's ovaries are removed.

In most cases, the procedure involve a small cut in the lower abdomen to access and remove the ovaries.
Sometimes, a doctor will perform an oophorectomy along with other gynecological surgeries, including:
hysterectomy, which is the removal of the uterus

Salpingectomy, which is the removal of the fallopian tubes that are near the
ovaries, salpingo-oophorectomy, which is the removal of both the ovaries and the fallopian tubes.

There are several reasons why a doctor may perform an oophorectomy, which induces menopause. These include:
endometriosis, non-cancerous ovarian tumors or cysts.

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Stress can cause liver disease

 Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress may cause non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, independent of other factors.

When there is nutritional excess, the protein load exceeds the ER folding capacity and a collection of conserved signaling pathways, termed the unfolded protein response (UPR), are activated to preserve ER function.

Research team demonstrated that UPR activation in the forebrain, is linked to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

 Brain ER stress can cause the disease independent of changes in
body weight, food intake, and other factors.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease impairs normal liver function and is linked to other diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

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How to lose weight

Weight loss can take time, you can lose weight fast without having to exercise or cut out entire food groups.

But exercise takes time to show results,
one of the simplest things to do is to drink water instead of anything else.

Energy drinks, fruit smoothies and low-calorie alcohol all contain at least 100 calories each.

But they are considered ‘empty’ calories by professionals as they don’t fill you up like 100 calories of food does, so you are better off drinking water and ingesting calories from food.

 Cut out white grain foods such as white rice, spaghetti and bread.
This is because simple carbohydrates cause bloating, particularly around the stomach.

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Taking vitamin D in pregnancy protect babies from asthma

Taking vitamin D supplements in pregnancy strengthens babies' immune systems, which may lower their risk of developing asthma, new research reveals.

The unborn babies of expectant mothers who take more than the recommended daily vitamin D dose for pregnant women respond better when exposed to simulated pathogens.

Researchers from King's College London analysed the impact of taking a 4,400 IU vitamin D supplement every day during a woman's second and third trimester versus the recommended daily intake of 400 IU.

Study participants were randomised at 10 to 18 weeks of pregnancy to receive either high or low dose vitamin D.

The researchers then took umbilical cord blood samples from 51 pregnant women to assess the responsiveness of newborns' immune systems when exposed to simulated pathogens.

Results show that blood samples of babies born to mothers taking the higher vitamin D dose, had a greater immune response.





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Diesel pollution can damage your heart

Diesel fumes alter the structure of the heart and increases risk of cardiovascular diseases.

They found those who lived in areas of high diesel air pollution were more likely to have an enlarged chamber on the left side of their heart.

If this left ventricle becomes too big the heart loses pressure and power.
This means it cannot pump as much blood, raising the risk of heart attack, heart failure and death.

Experts are aware of the impact of diesel fumes on human health, including the risk of asthma, dementia and cancer.

How your brain eat itself

Your brain starts to eat itself if it hasn't had enough sleep, according to a new study. Researchers studied lab mice
and discovered that 'clean-up' cells were more active in their brains when they were sleep-deprived.

The cells act like mini Hoovers in the brain, sweeping up cells as the brain's connections become weak and break apart.

Sleeping for  less than six hours per night is associated with a higher risk of death in people with metabolic syndrome – a combination of diabetes, high blood pressure.

Researchers said the effect was particularly strong in those with elevated blood pressure or poor glucose metabolism.

People with a common cluster of risk factors for heart disease and diabetes were around twice as likely to die of heart disease or stroke as people without the same set of risk factors if they failed to get more than six hours of sleep, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

The researchers randomly selected 1,344 adults with an average age of 49 who agreed to spend one night in a sleep laboratory.

Based on their test results, 39.2 per cent of the participants were found to have at least three of the risk factors, that when clustered together are known as the metabolic syndrome.

Diet rich in sugar multiply cancer in the body

A sugar rich diet may be fuelling various forms of cancer, tumours thrive off sugar, using it as energy to mutate and spread across the body.

Now scientists have shown one type of cancer - which can be found in the lungs, head and neck, oesophagus and cervix - has more of a sweet tooth than others.

Squamous cell carcinoma (SqCC) was more dependent on sugar to grow,
This form of the disease used higher levels of a protein that carries glucose to cells to enable them to multiply.

Excessive sugar consumption can leads to diabetes and cancer, because some cancers dependent on sugar to grow.
Without a sufficient supply of the sugar, cells in the body can not function properly.

Cancer Research UK make clear that cancerous cells aren't just dependent on sugar for their growth, as they rely on amino acids and fats also.

The new findings came after researchers looked into the differences between two major subtypes of non-small cell lung cancer - adenocarcinoma (ADC) and SqCC.

About one quarter of all lung cancers are SqCC, which has been difficult to treat with targeted therapies.
The study first tapped into The Cancer Genome Atlas, which maps information about 33 types of cancer gathered from more than 11,000 patients.

Based on that data, it found a protein responsible for transporting glucose into cells was present in significantly higher levels in lung SqCC than in lung ADC.

The protein, called glucose transporter 1, or GLUT1, takes up glucose into cells, where the sugar provides a fundamental energy source and fuels cell metabolism.
GLUT1 is also necessary for normal cell function.

Sedentary lifestyle increases the risk of kidney and bladder cancer

A team of researchers at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY, set out to examine the link between a sedentary lifestyle and the risk of developing kidney or bladder cancer.

Researchers analyzed 160 people with renal (kidney) cancer, 208 bladder cancer patients, and 766 healthy
controls. Participants were asked to report on their levels of physical activity - whether they took part in any regular activity or not.

 Those who said that they had never done so were classified as "physically inactive." Researchers used
unconditional multivariable logistic regression methods to calculate the odds of developing renal and bladder cancer.

Inactivity increases kidney and bladder cancer risks by up to 77 percent
Specifically, they found that those who were physically inactive were 77 percent more likely to develop renal cancer and 73 percent more likely to develop cancer of the bladder.

A similar risk was found among people
with obesity and people with a normal body weight. This suggests that sedentary lifestyle is an independent factor that influences bladder and renal cancer risk.

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Keeping secrets may damage your health

Keeping secrets may be damaging to health because the internal torment drives up stress, causing sleeping problems, wrinkles and sickness.

According to scientists, 95 percent of people keep an average of 13 secrets at a time. The experts at Columbia University in New York said the amount of time thinking about the secret is more harmful to health than the secret.

Researchers said one of the most frequently kept secrets were sexual fantasies about a non-partner or having sexual relations with a non-partner.

Other commonly held secrets were sexual orientation, poor self-image, finances, poor job performance, health challenges and addiction.

These undisclosed thoughts can cause stress hormones, such as cortisol, to go wild. High cortisol can lead to high blood pressure and weak immune system.

Secrets may also impact the way we relate to others, people who have
secrets tend to change their language and behavior when communicating with their friends.

Secret-keepers are socially active and very vigilant than usual, they respond quickly to those they were keeping in dark.

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How to hinder cancer cells growth

Cancer is the abnormal and uncontrollable growth of cells. Researchers from the University of Rochester's Center for RNA Biology have identified a new way to potentially slow the fast-growing cells that cause  different cancer.

Cancer grows when cell cycle gone wrong, all cells undergo  "cell cycle," a series of events that culminate in orderly cell growth and division. When cancer grow, cells divide without stopping and destroy tissues.

Researchers identified a protein called Tudor-SN that is important in the "preparatory" phase of the cell cycle -- the period when the cell gets ready to divide. When scientists eliminated this protein from cells, using the gene editing technology CRISPR-Cas9, cells took longer to gear up for division.

 The loss of Tudor-SN slowed the cell cycle. Tudor-SN is plenty in cancer cells than healthy cells, and our study suggests that targeting this protein could hinder fast-growing cancer cells.
The cell now moves more slowly from the preparatory phase to the cell division phase.

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Defective immune cells can cause hair loss

Scientists have discovered how immune cells could be used to cure hair loss.
The regulatory T-cells, known as 'Tregs', are all over human body, they control inflammation in the body.

Scientists from the University of California at San Francisco showed how Tregs in the skin send out signals that stimulate hair follicles to regenerate in mice.

 Hair follicles are recycling always, Tregs are important for this process, if this immune system is weak or dead, hair will not grow.

 A protein called KROX20 that is associated with nerve development, turned on in skin cells that become the hair shaft. The hair cells then produced a protein known as stem cell factor SCF
which is essential for hair pigmentation.

When scientists removed the SCF gene in the hair progenitor cells in mice, their hair turned white. When they removed the KROX20-producing cells, no hair grew and the mice became bald.

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Zika virus causes more diseases in children

Zika could be more dangerous to unborn babies because test on pregnant monkeys infected with the virus found that every single fetus had picked up some trace of Zika.

 The research team infected four pregnant rhesus macaque monkeys at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center with a Zika virus and
discovered that the virus was present in each monkey's fetus.

The research group also found damage from Zika in every part of the interface between mother and fetus - the placenta, amniotic fluid in the womb and the lining of uterus.

Three of the baby monkeys were born with small heads, but not as small as it would need to be to meet the human standard for diagnosing microcephaly.

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How your brain detects diseases in others

Human sense of vision and smell can detect a disease before it breaks out, and make us avoid sick people.

Researchers injected harmless bacteria on participants and activated the immune response in another participants, who developed the classic symptoms of disease.

Symptoms like tiredness, pain and fever for a few hours, they were photographed and filmed. The injected substance and symptoms then disappeared from their bodies.

Another group of participants were exposed to the images and asked to rate how much they liked the people, while their brain activities were measured in an MR scanner.

They were  asked to look at the photographs and identify sick and healthy participants.

The result shows that brain is good at picking weak signals from multiple senses relating to a person's state of health. Avoidance does not apply if
you have close relationship with the sick person.

Sleeping hours and your health

According to the National Sleep Foundation, newborns under three months old need between 14 and 17 hours of sleep a day.

Toddlers need 11-14 hours a day,
pre-school age need 10-13 hours.
Teenagers and students in high school need 8-10 hours of sleep on average.
It's better to sleep earlier than study late into the evening for students.

The ages of 26-60 should be getting around 7-9 hours of sleep a night, 60 and above need 7-8 hours of sleep. If
you don't get enough sleep you will have poor performance during the day.

Poor sleep can leads to weight gain, depression and risk of sudden death from cardiovascular diseases.





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How poor sleep affect learning ability

Researchers look at the brain's ability to change and adapt in response to the stimuli that it receives from the environment, or neuroplasticity, in the motor cortex and how it is affected by deep sleep.

The motor cortex in the brain is responsible for developing and controlling motor skills, and the deep sleep boosts memory formation and processing.

This study involved six women and seven men who were asked to perform motoric tasks during the day after a night of unperturbed sleep, and after a night during which their deep sleep had been disturbed.

The tasks involved learning a series of finger movements, and the researchers were able to locate precisely the brain area responsible for learning movement.

Using an electroencephalogram, the researchers monitored the brain activity of the participants while they were sleeping.

On the first day of the experiment, the participants were able to sleep without disturbance.
On the second night, however, the researchers manipulated the participants' sleep quality. They were able to focus on the motor cortex and disrupt their deep sleep.

The participants did not know that their deep sleep phase had been tampered with. To them, the quality of their sleep was roughly the same on both occasions.

Poor sleep keeps synapses excited, blocks the brain's ability to learn. Researchers evaluated the participants' ability to learn new movements. In the morning, the subjects' learning performance was at its highest, as expected.

However, as the day progressed, they continued to make more and more mistakes because of poor sleep.





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Dangers of pot belly

Pot belly is a sign that you are at the risk of having cancer. Some cancers are not linked to fat and weight, but the researchers found the size of the waist was significantly tied to some cancers.

These are bowel, lower oesophagus, upper stomach, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, womb, ovaries, kidneys and postmenopausal breasts.

The highest risk was found for bowel cancer, for which adding just 8 cm (3.1 inches) to the hips was linked to an increased risk of 15 per cent.

Body fat can change the levels of sex hormones, such as oestrogen and testosterone. It can also cause levels of
 insulin to rise, and lead to inflammation that increases cancer.

Being overweight or obese can increase the risk of developing some cancers,
It’s important to maintain healthy weight to reduce risk of cancer.



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Sepsis sieve can save your life

Sepsis occurs  when an infection like blood poisoning sparks a violent immune response in which the body attacks its own organs.

Antibiotics can control the infection if it is discovered early to avoid spreading to different parts of the body. A machine that 'sieves' the blood could save people sepsis infections.

The device has been created by a British scientist, it works like a dialysis, the
blood is removed – but in this case it is cleaned of dangerous microbes using magnets.

The machine is to undergo the first human clinical trials next year and is also being tested for use against blood-borne diseases such as malaria and leukaemia.

Designed to be used by intensive care units, blood is removed from veins in the patient's arm and enters the machine, where magnetic particles are added.

These are designed to seek out and bind to the dangerous bacteria that cause sepsis as well as little floating scraps of endotoxins that causes septic cascade.
Once bonded together, they are caught by a powerful magnet and the 'cleaned' blood is then returned to the body.

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Cure for type 2 diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is currently controlled by insulin injections, healthy diet, regular exercise and monitoring blood glucose levels.

Two studies by the University of Adelaide have demonstrated for the first time how potential new anti-diabetic drugs could target the body at the molecular level to treat the condition.

Currently the most commonly prescribed anti-diabetic drug is Metformin, which acts on the liver to reduce glucose production.

However, these new drugs work completely differently by targeting a protein receptor known as PPARgamma found in fat tissue throughout the body, and then either fully or partially activating it to lower blood sugar.

It does this by increasing insulin and changing the metabolism of fat and sugar. This make it efficient at reducing blood sugar.

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Air pollution can damage children's DNA

Children exposed to high levels of traffic-related air pollution have evidence of a specific type of DNA damage called telomere shortening.

Young people with asthma also have evidence of telomere shortening, according to the preliminary research by John R. Balmes, MD, of University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues.

The results suggest that telomere length may have potential for use as a biomarker of DNA damage due to environmental exposures and chronic inflammation.

The study included 14 children and adolescents living in Fresno, California -- the second-most polluted city in the United States. The researchers assessed the relationship between polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a "ubiquitous" air pollutant caused by motor vehicle exhaust; and shortening of telomeres, a type of DNA damage typically associated with aging.

As the exposure to PAHs increased, telomere length decreased, children with asthma were exposed to higher PAH levels than those without asthma.
The relationship between PAH level and telomere shortening remained significant after adjustment for asthma and other factors.

 Research suggested that children may have different telomere shortening regulation than adults, which might make them more vulnerable to the damaging effects of air pollution.

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Long journey can cause depression

Researchers examined the impact of commuting and flexible on health and productivity. People who endure long
commutes are more likely to be stressed and depressed.

A study of more than 34,000 working British adults found journeys upwards of half-an-hour are damaging the nation's health and productivity.
They were 33 per cent more likely to suffer from depression.

Shaun Subel, director of strategy at VitalityHealth, said: 'The result demonstrates the significance of the daily work routine in influencing individuals' health and productivity.

Employers should be looking at
flexible working arrangements as a more prominent part of their workplace wellness.

Allowing employees the flexibility to avoid the rush-hour commute where possible, or fit their routine around other commitments can help reduce stress and promote healthier lifestyle.




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Exercise aids healing process

Exercise has a positive effect on more than 85 per cent of physical and functional capacity indicators in patients suffering from more than 20 diseases.

It boosts patients' strength, balance, and ability to walk and complete everyday tasks. Being active prevents many diseases and aids healing process.

Researchers from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, conducted a review of the effects of exercise therapy on 22 of the most common chronic diseases, including arthritis, heart failure, Alzheimer's disease and certain cancers.

This was then compared against patients doing no exercise or receiving standard care. Exercise has a positive effect on 86 per cent of physical performance and functional capacity indicators.

Exercise is a safe way to improve functional capacity and reduce disability in patients with chronic diseases.

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Human red blood cell receptor prevents malaria

Researchers have discovered that protection from the most severe form of malaria is linked with natural variation in human red blood cell genes.

A study from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics and their collaborators has identified a genetic rearrangement of red blood cell glycophorin receptors that confers a 40 percent reduced risk from malaria.

The most widespread malarial parasite in Africa is Plasmodium falciparum.
Plasmodium parasites infect human red blood cells and gain entry through receptors on the cell surface.

Researchers investigated the glycophorin area of the genome in more detail than before using new whole-genome sequence data from 765 volunteers in the Gambia, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and Tanzania.

Using this new information they then undertook a study across the Gambia, Kenya, and Malawi that included 5310 individuals from the normal population and 4579 people who were hospitalised from severe malaria.

They discovered that people who have a particular rearrangement of the glycophorin genes had a 40 percent reduced risk of severe malaria. This  shows that that people with complex rearrangement of GYPA and GYPB genes, forming a hybrid glycophori may not develop severe complications malaria.

The hybrid GYPB-A gene is found in a particular rare blood group - part of the MNS blood group system - where it is known as Dantu. The study found that the GYPB-A Dantu hybrid was present in some people from East Africa, in Kenya, Tanzania, and Malawi, but that it was not present in volunteers from West African populations.

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Antibody against cancer cell

 An antibody that can target regulatory T cells which in turn unleashes the immune system to kill cancer cells has been discovered.

The antibody decreased tumor growth in models of melanoma, glioblastoma and colorectal carcinoma, making it effective for cancer immunotherapy.

Tregs can be targeted by using an antibody that locks in on a molecular complex that's uniquely expressed on the cell surface of Tregs.

 anti-LAP antibodies is used to investigate the development of multiple sclerosis, but realized that it has implications on cancer.

Previous studies have shown that LAP+ cells are increased in human cancer and predict a poor prognosis. Being able to target these cells could offer a new way to treat the disease.

In the current study, the team used preclinical models to investigate how well anti-LAP antibodies could work in blocking the essential mechanisms of Tregs and restoring the immune system's ability to fight cancer.

They found that anti-LAP acts on multiple cell populations to promote the immune system's ability to fight cancer, including increasing the activity of certain types of T cells and enhancing immune memory.

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