Author: sh ytlk

Contraceptive pill: Interrupted supply is a bigger problem than it might appear

Hormonal contraceptives are in short supply in the UK. This has affected injectable and oral contraceptives and follows on from a reported shortage of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) earlier in the year. Shortages of contraceptives may seem less urgent that shortages of, say, diabetes or cancer drugs, but they can lead to unplanned and unwanted pregnancies.
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Long-distance skiers may have ‘motor reserve’ that can delay onset of Parkinson’s disease

To better understand the relationship between physical activity and Parkinson’s Disease (PD) investigators in Sweden analyzed medical records of nearly 200,000 long-distance skiers who took part in the Vasaloppet cross-country ski race. They established that a physically active lifestyle is associated with close to a 30% reduced risk for PD, which might be explained by a motor reserve among the physically active, however, this dissipates as individuals age. Their results are published in the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease (JPD).
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Facebook postings by breast cancer patients initially surge, then decline over time

Transitions in breast cancer care are associated with significant increases in stress and anxiety, and this stress can negatively impact the mental and physical health of patients. Increasingly, patients are seeking support from friends and family through social media, including Facebook. A new study from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health examined the posting behavior of breast cancer patients on Facebook and offers details on how—and possibly why—it changed over time.
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Children detect a speaker’s politeness both through intonation and facial expression

Gesture and prosody (stress, rhythm and intonation) play an important role in the development of children’s communication skills. Studies have traditionally focused rather on the role played by these elements in the early acquisition of lexical and morphosyntactic elements and less at older ages, when children use prosody and gesture to express pragmatic meanings such as politeness.
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DNA misfolding in white blood cells increases risk for type 1 diabetes

It’s known that genetics, or an inherited genome, is a major determinant of one’s risk for autoimmune diseases, like Type 1 diabetes. In human cells, a person’s genome—about six feet of DNA—is compressed into the micrometer space of the nucleus via a three-dimensional folding process. Specialized proteins decode the genetic information, reading instruction from our genome in a sequence-specific manner. But what happens when a sequence variation leads to the misinterpretation of instruction, causing pathogenic misfolding of DNA inside the nucleus? Can the different folding patterns make us more susceptible to autoimmune diseases?
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