Urban Tanzanians have a more activated immune system compared to their rural counterparts. The difference in diet appears to explain this difference: in the cities, people eat a more western style diet, while in rural areas a traditional diet is more common. A team of researchers believe that this increased activity of the immune system contributes to the rapid increase in non-communicable diseases in urban areas in Africa.
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Two thirds of children use more than one screen at the same time after school, in the evenings and at weekends as part of increasingly sedentary lifestyles, according to new research at the University of Leicester.
An NIHR study of more than 800 adolescent girls between the ages of 11 and 14 identified worrying trends between screen use and lower physical activity - including higher BMI - as well as less sleep.
The use of concurrent screens (termed screen stacking ) grew over the course of the week - with 59% of adolescents using two or more screens after school, 65% in the evenings, and 68% at weekends.
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Managing single risk factors like blood pressure rather than looking at overall risk may be wasting scarce resources in countries where cardiovascular disease (CVD) is on the rise, according to a new study.
Researchers looked at country-specific levels of cardiovascular risk, associations with socio-demographic factors and whether WHO guidelines on the use of blood pressure medication were being followed across 45 low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs).
They found a higher risk of CVD in lower educated and non-employed people, an overuse of medicines in people at lower levels of CVD risk and an underuse of medicines in people at higher risk across all countries.
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Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine show that analysis of the proteomics, or all the protein data, from aggressive human cancers is a useful approach to identify potential novel therapeutic targets. They report in the journal
Oncogene, the identification of proteomic signatures that are associated with clinical measures of aggressive disease for each of the seven cancer types studied. Some signatures were shared between different types of cancer and included cellular pathways of altered metabolism. Importantly, experimental results provided proof-of-concept that their proteomics analysis approach is a valuable strategy to identify potential therapeutic targets. There are two notable aspects of this study. One is that we explored the proteomic landscape of cancer looking for proteins that were expressed in association with aggressive forms of cancer, said co-corresponding author Dr. Chad Creighton, professor of medicine and co-director of Cancer Bioinformatics
Observational studies have shown that the consumption of low glycaemic index (GI) foods is associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), significantly less insulin resistance and a lower prevalence of the metabolic syndrome. However, most published GI values focus on Western foods with minimal inclusion of other foods from non-Western countries, hence their application is of limited global use.
The team s comprehensive study provides the GI values for a variety of foods that are consumed in non-Western countries, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, India, China, Japan, South Korea, Middle East and more. The review extends and expands on the current GI tables to widen its application globally. The GI data compiled consists of both single and mixed meals. This is a major advance to many GI tables that have focused on single foods. Mixed meals in Asia are complex in relation to ingredients used and taste. Given the complexity, the inclusion of the GI of mixed mea