Category archives: Health

gender gap Sleep experts recommend that adults sleep 7-9 h per night (7-8 h for older adults). However, about 30-35% of adults sleep less than 7 h and prevalence rates of short or insufficient sleep are increasing. Insufficient sleep is not in itself a diagnosable disorder; however, its high prevalence highlights a key target for […]

Recent research has demonstrated that obesity impairs the mechanisms that allow our brains to realize when our stomachs are full and that these changes are maintained despite dieting, giving insights into why it is difficult for obese people to avoid excessive eating and why there is often a yo-yo effect after dieting. It has been […]

Intermittent fasting, that is, eating only over a certain time period during the day, can have positive mental health effects, at least according to a recent study . Intermittent fasting for 16 hours a day, that is a 16:8 fasting paradigm, for five days a week during three months improved quality of life while decreasing […]

By now, we’re all experts in the common symptoms of the oh so omnipresent COVID-19 – say, for example, dry coughing, fever, and loss of smell ( Sauer, 2021 ). While we’re all hyper-vigilant about th ese symptoms, a new factor behind the spread of this virus may be on the rise: language. That’s right: […]

A number of technologies and tools got a chance to prove themselves for the first time in the context of COVID-19. Three researchers working in gene-based vaccines, wearable diagnostics and drug discovery explain how their work rose to the challenge of the pandemic, and their hopes that each technology is now poised to continue making […]

In March 2020, a multidisciplinary task force (so-called Basque Modelling Task Force, BMTF) was created to assist the Basque health managers and Government during the COVID-19 responses. BMTF works creating a model based on different approaches: stochastic processes, statistical methods and artificial intelligence. The efforts and challenges to develop a flexible modelling framework able to […]

A reported case study in a Colombian woman , member of a family carriers of a mutation in the presinilin 1 gene which leads to early onset Alzheimer’s, has shown that a certain mutation in the gene APOE3 can protect from the cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer’s disease. This woman was already aged 70 but […]

Believe it to not, little worms (C.elegans) are an useful tool for researchers studying aging. Specially, the genetics of aging. A recently released article in Cell Reports shows that gene modification in two specific cellular pathways drives 500% life extension in worms. Why worms? Worms are the ideal research subject for aging and genetics because […]

Families with members with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are easy prey for scam artists who offer them magical solutions and therapies not backed by science. Many of these pseudotherapies are included in the so-called alternative medicine, a misnomer because they are not medical treatments and do not meet the same criteria required of a medicine: […]

One of the hardest things when dealing with psychiatric illness is to come up with a clear diagnosis, but it seems that now it might be possible to diagnose schizophrenia just by analysing a certain biomarker in people’s hair. In an article recently published in the EMBO Journal of Molecular Medicine , a Japanese group […]