A multidecade study of young adults living in the united kingdom has found higher rates of mental illness symptoms among those exposed to higher levels of traffic-related air pollutants, particularly nitrogen oxides, during childhood and adolescence.
Damaged mitochondria activate autoimmunity suggests genome study
Appeared in BioNews 1095
Accumulation of defective mitochondria in cells may contribute to autoimmune conditions, such as Sjögren s syndrome, according to a recent study.
Researchers showed that mice lacking the IRGM1gene showed similar autoimmune symptoms to patients with Sjögren s syndrome because they were not able to properly recycle their mitochondria. This left damaged parts of mitochondria in the cells, triggering an immune response against them.
Many autoimmune diseases exhibit increased type 1 interferon, said Dr Michael Fessler, senior author and head of the immunity, inflammation, and disease laboratory at the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in North Carolina. Our studies show how mitochondrial DNA that is not removed activates the immune system in mice and how it may happen in humans.
A multidecade study of young adults living in the United Kingdom has found higher rates of mental illness symptoms among those exposed to higher levels of traffic-related air pollutants, particularly nitrogen oxides, during childhood and adolescence.
Previous studies have identified a link between air pollution and the risk of specific mental disorders, including depression and anxiety, but this study looked at changes in mental health that span all forms of disorder and psychological distress associated with exposure to traffic-related air pollutants.
The findings reveal that the greater an individual’s exposure to nitrogen oxides across childhood and adolescence, the more likely they are to show any signs of mental illness at the transition to adulthood, at age 18, when most symptoms of mental illness have emerged or begin to emerge.
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A study of 44,541 women has found that there appears to be no association between type 2 diabetes and developing breast cancer overall. This may be because most women in the study with type 2 diabetes were taking metformin, a medication widely used to treat type 2 diabetes, whose actions may help to reduce the risk of developing oestrogen positive (ER-positive) breast cancer.
ER-positive breast cancer (cancer that has receptors on cell surfaces for the hormone oestrogen) accounts for about 80% of breast cancer diagnosed in the USA. Associations uncovered in the study suggested that the link between type 2 diabetes and breast cancer varied by breast cancer subtype and was affected by the use of metformin to treat diabetes. The study is published in the leading cancer journal
By Rebecca Trager2021-01-12T14:30:00+00:00
Toxicologists are expressing concern that exposure to per- or poly-fluorinated substances (PFASs) can increase a person’s likelihood of developing severe Covid-19. There are also warning that PFASs could also diminish the effectiveness of a vaccine against the novel coronavirus.
A number of studies in the scientific literature have now linked elevated PFAS levels with immune system suppression, as well as decreased response to vaccines. Philippe Grandjean, an adjunct environmental health professor at Harvard University, and colleagues have found that higher levels of the PFAS perfluorobutanoic acid (PFBA) in the blood are associated with increased severity of Covid-19 infections.