Antioxidants Might Relieve Autoimmune Diseases (Hypothesis)

If indeed NK cells play a role in autoimmune diseases as was suggested and NK cells are differentiated from progenitor cells with ROS signaling taking antioxidants might relieve autoimmune diseases. There are testimonies that antioxidants might relive atopic dermatitis for instance, the mechanism might be a decrease in NK cells levels. I know it's a lot of "maybes" on top of the other but this is possible.
Actually, it doesn't have to b e mediated through NK cells. If antioxidants indeed reduce the power of the immune system they can cure or at least relieve autoimmune diseases.

ROS are Used to Signal the Immune System

While Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), ion and molecules that can damage DNA and cells are considered bad, researchers from the UCLA found that the fruit fly uses them for signaling in its immune system. The research, published in Nature, puts in question the benefits of antioxidants, consumed by a lot of people.
The researchers found that elevated levels of ROS signal blood stem-cells to differentiate into immune bolstering cells. After the cells differentiate, the ROS level returns to normal.
While the researchers don't know if this is true for humans as well, surprisingly, there are mammalian blood progenitor cells called common myeloid progenitors in which the ROS level is high and these cells differentiate into macrophages, a component of the immune system.
If this observation is true for humans as well, antioxidants can weaken the immune system. A question left to be answered is whether or not antioxidants actually reduce the levels of ROS in the blood and in the blood stem-cells or just make the body generate ROS in high levels.
The full review is in UCLA's news page.

Gene Mastering Differentiation Into NK Cells Discovered

NK cells are a major part of the innate immune system, capable of killing other infected cells and cancer cells. A group of scientists from GB have discovered the master gene controlling the differentiation of blood stem-cells into NK cells. The discovery can help fight cancer and aid in the research of autoimmune diseases.
Natural killer (NK) cells, a type of white blood cells, are the front line of the body's immune system. The scientists discovered that the expression of a gene called E4bp4 leads to the differentiation of a blood stem-cell into a NK cell. They have also engineered a transgenic mouse lacking NK cells by knownking out this gene. Some believe that NK cells play a role in autoimmune diseases such as diabetes and MS, the transgenic mouse will help in studying their effect of such diseases.
Since NK cells fight cancerous cells, induction of self NK cells by uplifting the expression of E4bp4 could help fight cancer. Today, NK cells are taken from donors and transplanted into the patients but self NK cells will have a better effect.
This research is another milestone in understanding the factors affecting the differentiation of stem cells into specific cells. While differentiating cells in vitro is beneficial for generating artificial organs, the insights can help understand the opposite direction and will aid in generating pluripotent cells from differentiated cells.

Milk Consumption and Prostate Cancer Risk

Research links high levels of circulating insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) with increased risk of prostate cancer. Cows' milk contains this hormone and its consumption might elevate the hormone's levels in the blood. A paper just published reviews all relevant experiments done so far and finds out that there is a link between milk consumption and circulating IGF-I levels.
The review includes 15 cross-sectional studies and 8 randomized controlled trials. Taking all researches into consideration the authors found that circulating IGF-I levels was higher in milk consuming subjects. The conclusion of this meta-analysis is that there might be a relation between milk consumption and risk of prostate cancer and maybe some other cancers.

Epigenetics and Heredity

Epigenetics are all the factors that control gene expression. It looks like epigenetic mechnisms such as DNA methylation and histone modification has a lot of power in heredity and functionality. It is recently mentioned in relevance to Lamarckian evolution.
This introduction to epigenetics shows a bit of its relatance to heredity and cancer.

Epigenetics Influence on Prostate Cancer

Epigenetic changes such as DNA methylation and histone modification play a role in carcinogenesis. In a recent research the overall level of histone modifications were compared between malignant and normal prostate epithelial cells.
Methylation of H3K9 and acetylation of H3 and H4 were found do be significantly reduced in the malignant cells. It was found out that two specific modifications can distinguish normal from cancer cells with high sensitivity and specificity.
this paper supports the formerly established concept that epigenetics plays a major role in cancer. Cancer is considered to be a genetic disease but there are cases in which the epigenetic code is changed while the genetic code is not altered.
The research was headed by Jörg Ellinger from the University of Bonn, Germany and was published in the Prostate on Sep-2009.

Green Tea Meal Formula Proved Working

In a 12 weeks long experiment people had a "green tea meal replacement formula" lost weight more than a control group given normal diet. The query group seemed to loose more weight, had less cholesterol and reduced body fat mass.
I don't know what this formula is (I don't have access to the full article) but I have a feeling that eating formulas is not a big fun. The experiment wasn't blind and this should be taken into consideration too. Does green tea help to reduce weight? maybe, and perhaps this research supports it.

Canfite Reports Positive Results for Psoriasis Phase II Clinical Trials

the Israeli firm Canfite reports that the goals for phase II clinical trials were reached. After 12 weeks of treatment with CF101 83% of the patients reported improvement and 35% of the patients had a remarkable improvement in symptoms. The results were significant compared to placebo group.
Psoriasis affects 2-3% of the population and its market share is estimated to be 3.5B$. The orally administrated drug suppresses the inflammatory mediator TNF-alpha to relief the symptoms of Psoriasis. The drug was found to be safe for use as well.

Fresh Garlic Protects from Heart Attack

In an experiment done on rats' hearts it was found that garlic protects the heart from heart attack and freshly crushed garlic is preferred over processed one. The hearts of the rats went through a "synthetic" heart attack and the garlic consuming rats had a more protected heart than the non-garlic-consumer rats where the fresh garlic consumers showed a stronger effect.
This evidence proves that garlic is good for cardioprotection and fresh one outperforms processed one (like these pills) perhaps because of the H2S it contains. (although the pills solve the smell issue...)

First Signs of Regenerating a Kidney

Researchers from Gainesville, FL showed that kidney pluripotent cells were differentiated when introduced to the Extra Cellular Matrix of a rat's kidney. This is an important step towards regenerating malfunctioning organs.
The advantage of pioneering this process with kidney is the fact that a kidney can be taken out of a patient for "rearrangements" and returned several days after in a better shape.
It is interesting to know if this can be done to the kidney while in the body like using nanomagnets to direct the stem cells to the kidney.

Breastfeeding, Obesity, CVD and Accelerated Growth

During the last couple of weeks I ran into new papers/reviews that interlink weight as infant and obesity. What the articles showed is that accelerated growth as an infant in as early as the first days of life can change something, either hormonal signaling, epigenetic switching or manners in a way that in childhood or even adulthood there are more chances of being overweight or obese.
The first paper links breastfeeding to decreased risk of obesity. The researchers used data from siblings to avoid biases so this result looks reliable.
The other review gave several proofs that accelerated growth as an infant can cause future CVD risk, again by engaging some unknown mechanism. The review also offered some practical advices to avoid this unwanted result. One of the major tips is to exclusively breastfeed until it's time to introduce solid food, linking breastfeeding with decreased chances of obesity and its complications.
Something I've spotted while reading the articles is that WHO published growth charts based on mostly breastfed babies. The charts used today are based on the entire population which is mostly formula-fed and hence fatter. I was very satisfied with those chart because our son (1.7 years now) who was exclusively breastfed and basically was never bottle-fed, didn't gain weight according to the common charts. As I saw the new charts I took his measurements and they fitted just in. This is a good example of why parents shouldn't be uptight if their child is not growing "properly" (I'm only speaking about normally developing child, not one that something is obviously not ok with).