In just a few decades, the number of overweight and obese adults and children in the world has reached alarming levels, not least in low-income countries. This year, Uppsala Health Summit is taking place in conjunction with World Obesity Day: 11-12 October 2016. International experts on child obesity will gather to discuss countermeasures with industry, policy makers and society.
Brain tumours in dogs are strikingly similar to their human tumour counterparts. In a recent study in the journal PLOS Genetics, researchers at Uppsala University and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences have used genetic analyses in different dog breeds to identify genes that could have a role in the development of brain tumours in both dogs and human.
Researchers and doctors at Uppsala University, along with Swedish and international collaboration partners, have found gene variants that predict the risk of a serious adverse reaction to drugs used for the treatment of hyperthyroidism. The results are published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.
Atrial fibrillation increases the risk of stroke. Treatment with oral anticoagulation reduces this risk but instead increases the risk of bleeding. Today, a new blood test based tool enabling better and more individualized stroke prevention treatment is presented at a congress in Chicago, and simultaneously published in the top-ranked medical journal The Lancet.
Cancer therapy is often hampered by the accumulation of fluids in and around the tumour, which is caused by leakage from the blood vessels in the tumour. Researchers at Uppsala University now show how leakage from blood vessels is regulated. They have identified a novel mechanism whereby leakage can be suppressed to improve the result of chemotherapy and reduce the spread of tumours in mice.
For the first time, researchers have succeeded in passing an antibody through the blood-brain barrier to act as a tracer for PET imaging of the brain. This resulted in more precise information being obtained than with regular radioactive tracers. The study provides hope for more effective diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s disease and improvements in monitoring the effects of medication.
Individuals subjected to chronic low-dose exposure to organochlorine pesticides show and increased risk to obtain a future diagnosis of cognitive impairment. This is shown in a international study now published in Environmental International.
The human desire to master light has taken us from controlling fire to building global optical networks. But several questions still remain to be answered. At this year's Celsius-Linné lectures on February 18, top international researchers Professor Eli Yablonovitch and Professor Lene Vestergaard Hau will present pioneering ways to manage and manipulate light for use in countless areas.
A new study shows that a novel imaging-based method for defining appropriateness of breast cancer treatment is as accurate as the current standard-of-care and could reduce the need for invasive tissue sampling. The results suggest that the method might lead to more optimal treatment of individual patients.
Now a simple blood test can reveal your biological age—how old your body really is. The new research from Uppsala University is published in the Open Access journal Scientific Report@Nature today. ‘With this knowledge, it may be easier to motivate medical treatments or get a patient to change lifestyle and monitor the effect,’ says one of the authors, Professor Ulf Gyllensten.
A team of Swedish scientists have used national registries encompassing more than one million Swedish children to study the association between early life contact with dogs and subsequent development of asthma. The new study found that children who grew up with dogs had about 15 percent lower risk of asthma than children without dogs.
By detecting cancer at an early stage, or even predicting who has an increased risk of being affected, the possibilities to treat the disease can be radically improved. In an international study led from Uppsala University the researchers have discovered that apparently healthy breast cells contain genetic aberrations that can be associated with an increased risk for non-familial breast cancer.
Researchers from Uppsala University, Sweden, and the Broad Institute, USA, have identified both similarities and differences between a single tumour type in multiple dogs breeds; a finding they believe parallels the situation in the cancer of human patients.
After the genocide in the mid-1990s, Rwanda initiated major social and health reforms to improve the survival of all children. In his dissertation, Aimable Musafili from Uppsala University and the University of Rwanda reports an impressive decline in child mortality in Rwanda and disappearing social divides in child survival.
Clinical trials are an important part of cancer research. Future patients depend on the severely ill to test drugs to improve treatment. But in her dissertation from Uppsala University, Tove Godskesen shows that some of these patients have a limited understanding of the purpose of the studies they enroll in.
IgA deficiency is one of the most common genetic immunodeficiency disorders in humans and is associated with an insufficiency or complete absence of the antibody IgA. Researchers from Uppsala University and Karolinska Institutet have now performed the first comparative genetic study of IgA deficiency by using the dog as genetic disease model. The results are published in PLOS ONE.
New research from Uppsala University shows promising progress in the use of anti-inflammatory cytokine for treatment of type 1 diabetes. The study, published in the open access journal Scientific Reports, reveals that administration of interleukin-35 to mice with type 1 diabetes, reverses or cures the disease by maintaining a normal blood glucose level and the immune tolerance.
It is known that sleep facilitates the formation of long-term memory in humans. In a new study, researchers from Uppsala University now show that sleep does not only help form long-term memory but also ensures access to it during times of cognitive stress.
Previous studies have led researchers to believe that individuals with social anxiety disorder/ social phobia have too low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. A new study from Uppsala University, however, shows that the situation is exactly the opposite. Individuals with social phobia make too much serotonin. The more serotonin they produce, the more anxious they are in social situations.
A new technique to study proteins, which does not require advanced equipment, specialized labs or expensive reagents, has been developed at Uppsala University, Sweden. The technique could be further developed to be used in point of care devices, for instance for diagnostic purposes.