Medicine, Health, and Nursing

People suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome experience debilitating exhaustion that lasts for large periods of time. Now new research findings explain the primary drivers of the disease.   

Finnish researchers have been working for decades to develop a prototype vaccine for Type 1 diabetes and on July 19, 2017, it was announced that human trials would begin in 2018. The study has been funded by the EU Exalt program with 6 million euros.

Don’t you marvel at the strength of that thin stream of light that creeps in through the blinds early in the morning? According to new research, the waking effect of light and the sleep-inducing effect of darkness are greatly influenced and determined by a neural protein. Read on to find out more about this protein and how it affects our circadian rhythm. 

Many people use Internet or app-based symptom checkers to make self-diagnosis. To understand whether physicians are better at making diagnoses than symptom checkers, researchers at Harvard Medical School conducted a study that included 234 internal medicine physicians. Read more about their research here.

Sucralose is the choice of no-calorie sweetener for those who wish to keep their weight in check. However, many people have raised questions about how safe it is to consume sucralose and whether it is carcinogenic. To understand the impact of sucralose on the human body, researchers at the University of London reviewed existing studies that assessed sucralose carcinogenicity potential. Read more about their study here. 

Researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) found that there is an exponential increase in the sale of infant and baby formula, which is concerning because of the impact it can have on the health of babies. Read more about their research here.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who have been studying the Chinese horseshoe bats have discovered that the bats are carriers of a SARS-like virus, which has the potential of infecting humans with ease. The virus identified by the researchers is called WIV1-CoV and is capable of binding to the same receptors as SARS-CoV. Read more about their research here.

The world is at the brink of polio eradication. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) is concerned about the use of vaccine strains that are currently in use. There have been cases where the virus has been able to survive in the guts of people with a compromised immune system and has been shed by them through feces. Hence, the WHO plans to stop using it post the eradication of the disease in favor of vaccines that use inactivated virus. However, researchers from the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control in Potters Bar, UK, have developed an attenuated strain which according to them is safer than an inactivated strain. Read more about their research here.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Zika virus as a global health emergency on 1 Feb. Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the WHO, stated that the Zika virus was given the designation of emergency in order to ensure that people are alerted to the problem, and governments and non-profit organizations mobilize funds to take prompt action to stop the outbreak. Many research teams across the world are attempting to create a vaccine that would prevent and cure person who has come in contact with the virus. Read more about this here.

A group of researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology studied the reasons behind the loss of bone mineral density experienced by astronauts in a spaceflight. They reared Medaka fish aboard the International Space Station for 56 days and examined their jawbones and teeth to observe any effects of microgravity. Read more about their research here.