The official MedZine Blog

The common practise of giving patients with an acute intracerebral haemorrhage a platelet transfusion is not effective and might even be dangerous. That is the conclusion of a paper by an international group of researchers that was published in The Lancet. They specifically studied patients that were on antiplatelet drugs prior to having the bleeding. Continue reading

Traumatic childhood events leave an epigenetic trail in the DNA. Primarily, the methylation of the KITLG gene is relevant for stress response programming in the brain. That is written by researchers of Utrecht University and the Max Planck Institute in Nature Communications. Continue reading

In Scientific Reports, scientists of the University Medical Centre Utrecht, The Netherlands, and the university hospital of Southampton, United Kingdom, describe a genetic expression profile of the endometrium with which they can predict the success of an IVF (in vitro fertilisation) treatment. Ultimately, this may lead to the development of a clinical test. Continue reading

Sleeping longer could reverse the effect of sleep restriction on glucose homeostasis. That is written by American researchers in Diabetes Care. According to the authors, to restore insulin sensitivity and lower the risk of diabetes type 2, it is sufficient to recover from four short nights by sleeping for ten hours twice. Continue reading

Mental health conditions, such as depressions and eating disorders, are common among patients suffering from obesity who are planning to undergo bariatric surgery. That is written by American researchers of the David Geffen School of Medicine in JAMA. Continue reading

The leading biomedical scientific journal PLOS Biology recently introduced a new section that focuses on meta-research. According to the editors of this section, more attention for this type of studies is necessary because biomedical research too often lacks transparency in terms of data and protocol availability, and funding. Continue reading

Scientists of the Imperial College London developed a method to prevent the spreading of malaria. They did this by adapting the genetic material of Anopheles gambiae, one of the malaria-spreading mosquito species. The researchers published their findings in Nature Biotechnology. Continue reading

Antibiotic use during the third trimester of pregnancy leads to an increased risk of childhood wheeze, according to an article published in the European Respiratory Journal. Antibiotic use in pregnancy and the risk of wheeze is a widely debated topic and a new study has evaluated whether confounding factors could explain this suggested association. But an excess risk of wheezing after antibiotic exposure during the third trimester of pregnancy remained after adjustment for confounding factors. Continue reading

Finnish researchers discovered a genetic mutation causing reckless and impulsive behaviour in carriers under the influence of alcohol. This behaviour is more extreme for what may be expected based on the alcohol use. According to the researchers, these behavioural changes are caused by a mutation in the serotonine 2B receptor gene. The results of their research is published in Translational Psychiatry. Continue reading

There is a large variation in the amount of legally required information pharmaceutical companies supply in clinical drug research. That is the conclusion of research conducted by the New York University Langone Medical Center, written in BMJ Open. Continue reading