Uncategorized Blood pressure doesn’t drop during a sauna

Blood pressure doesn’t drop during a sauna

Contrary to the previous assumption, blood pressure does not drop during a sauna session – it rises. And this increase is even comparable to the increase caused by a short, moderate workout. This is one of the conclusions of a recent study carried out by sports scientists at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) in …

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Uncategorized Human brains: tuned for musical pitch

Human brains: tuned for musical pitch

“We found that a certain region of our brains has a stronger preference for sounds with pitch than macaque monkey brains,” said Bevil Conway, Ph.D., investigator in the NIH’s Intramural Research Program and a senior author of the study published in Nature Neuroscience. “The results raise the possibility that these sounds, which are embedded in …

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Uncategorized Danger avoidance can be genetically encoded 

Danger avoidance can be genetically encoded 

An organism’s phenotype can change during its lifetime due to epigenetic mechanisms. For example, in the microscopic roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, starvation or heat stress prompts animals to adapt to these conditions by varying the expression of multiple genes. At the level of the genome, these changes can be made durable by altering how tightly the …

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Uncategorized Economic downturns linked to children’s mental health

Economic downturns linked to children’s mental health

Research linking economic conditions and health often does not consider children’s mental health problems. In a new Health Economics study, investigators found that U.S. children’s mental health worsened as the economy weakened. The use of special education services for emotional problems also rose when economic conditions worsened. The study, which drew on data from the …

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Uncategorized Gut microbiome the secret to healthier older age?

Gut microbiome the secret to healthier older age?

> Faecal transplants from young to aged mice can stimulate the gut microbiome and revive the gut immune system, a study by immunologists at the Babraham Institute, Cambridge, has shown. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications today. The gut is one of the organs that is most severely affected by ageing and …

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Uncategorized Understanding epigenetic causes of disease

Understanding epigenetic causes of disease

Epigenetics is a system for molecular marking of DNA – it tells the different cells in the body which genes to turn on or off in that cell type. But the cell-specific nature of epigenetics makes it challenging to study. Whereas a blood sample can be used to ‘genotype’ an individual, most epigenetic marks in …

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