A new study analyzed data from more than 750,000 adults in the United States, Europe and Australia, and found that recommended amounts of physical activity correlated with lower risks of seven types of cancer, of the 15 researchers looked at.
Lab-grown brain organoids developed from a patient’s own glioblastoma, the most aggressive and common form of brain cancer, may hold the answers on how to best treat it. A new study in Cell from researchers at Penn Medicine showed how glioblastoma organoids could serve as effective models to rapidly test personalized treatment strategies.
Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) remains the most difficult of all brain cancers to study and treat, largely because of tumor heterogeneity. Treatment approaches, like surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, along with newer personalized cellular therapies, have proven to slow tumor growth and keep patients disease-free for some periods of time; however, a cure remains elusive.
“While we’ve made important strides in glioblastoma research, preclinical and clinical challenges persist, keeping us from getting closer to more effective treatments,” said senior author Hongjun Song, Ph.D., Perelman Professor of Neuroscience in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. “One hurdle is the ability to recapitulate the tumor to not only better understand its complex characteristics, but also to determine what therapies post-surgery can fight it in a timelier manner.”
In this age of “big data,” artificial intelligence (AI) has become a valuable ally for scientists. Machine learning algorithms, for instance, are helping biologists make sense of the dizzying number of molecular signals that control how genes function. But as new algorithms are developed to analyze even more data, they also become more complex and more difficult to interpret. Quantitative biologists Justin B. Kinney and Ammar Tareen have a strategy to design advanced machine learning algorithms that are easier for biologists to understand.
The algorithms are a type of artificial neural network (ANN). Inspired by the way neurons connect and branch in the brain, ANNs are the computational foundations for advanced machine learning. And despite their name, ANNs are not exclusively used to study brains.
Biologists, like Tareen and Kinney, use ANNs to analyze data from an experimental method called a “massively parallel reporter assay” (MPRA) which investigates DNA. Using this data, quantitative biologists can make ANNs that predict which molecules control specific genes in a process called gene regulation.
It has taken twenty years of research, but the verdict is now in and scientists are saying that negative feelings, especially those of un-forgiveness can lead to the development of cancer.
Healthy Japanese foods make it easy to create a vibrant plate that resembles a nutritional masterpiece. The residents of Okinawa, a Japanese prefecture comprising more than 150 islands in the East China Sea, enjoy the longest life expectancy in the world, according to Blue Zones. On the islands, with a population said to include the largest proportion of people over 100, women and men can expect to live 84 and 90 years, respectively.
It’s no secret that diet plays a major role in longevity. The healthy Japanese foods centenarians in Okinawa reach for each day include a variety of riches from the ocean and the earth.
Continue reading “7 healthy foods Japanese centenarians eat each day for longevity” »
How can you lose dramatic weight, ease chronic conditions, and stay healthier longer? Flip the switch on your metabolism with intermittent fasting, protein cycling, and keto!
Within each of us is an ancient mechanism that eliminates toxic materials, initiates fat burning, and protects cells from becoming dysfunctional—or turning cancerous. It’s called autophagy, and when it’s turned on, the complex operation not only can slow down the aging process, it can optimize biological function as a whole, helping to stave off all manner of diseases and affording us the healthy life spans we never thought possible. It’s the body’s ultimate switch to life.
So how can we positively activate this switch? How frequently should we fast and for how long? Which foods dial up autophagy or, conversely, turn it down? How much exercise and what types are recommended? What’s the sweet spot between intermittent fasting, protein cycling, and ketogenic eating?
In the life extension movement, longevity escape velocity (sometimes referred to as Actuarial escape velocity[1]) is a hypothetical situation in which life expectancy is extended longer than the time that is passing. For example, in a given year in which longevity escape velocity would be maintained, technological advances would increase life expectancy more than the year that just went by.
Life expectancy increases slightly every year as treatment strategies and technologies improve. At present, more than one year of research is required for each additional year of expected life. Longevity escape velocity occurs when this ratio reverses, so that life expectancy increases faster than one year per one year of research, as long as that rate of advance is sustainable.[2][3][4]
The concept was first publicly proposed by David Gobel, co-founder of the Methuselah Foundation (MF). The idea has been championed by biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey[5] (the other co-founder of the MF), and futurist Ray Kurzweil,[6] who named one of his books, Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever, after the concept. These two claim that by putting further pressure on science and medicine to focus research on increasing limits of aging, rather than continuing along at its current pace, more lives will be saved in the future, even if the benefit is not immediately apparent.[2].
What secrets have been whispered into this creepy, living copy of the most famous ear in art history?
Having a healthy gut should always be a priority when dealing with any health-related issues. It’s connected to various problems like IBS, asthma, thyroid disorders, and even diabetes. A new study, however, is giving us another reason to promote gut health—and we’re excited about it.
Using mice, an international research team has discovered a specific microorganism living in the gut that may affect the aging process.
