The brain may have its own way of easing social pain, according to a recent paper, and it involves the brain's natural painkiller system. 

Combining brain scans with questionnaire results, they determined that people who score high on a personality trait called resilience – the ability to adjust to environmental change – had the highest amount of natural painkiller activation. 

The team focused on the mu-opioid receptor system in the brain – the same system that the team has studied for years in relation to response to physical pain. Over more than a decade, U-M work has shown that when a person feels physical pain, their brains release chemicals called opioids into the space between neurons, dampening pain signals.

Researchers have isolated and characterized the progenitor cells that eventually give rise to malignant hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tumors – the most common form of liver cancer. The researchers found ways to identify and isolate the HCC progenitor cells (HcPC) long before actual tumors were apparent.

Principal investigator Michael Karin, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology and Pathology at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, and colleagues report that HcPC take form within dysplastic or abnormal lesions often found in damaged or cirrhotic livers. The liver damage can be due to viral infections like hepatitis or from chronic alcohol abuse. 

Nothing says weight loss like botulism.

Obesity is a growing problem across the globe. Being overweight can lead to severe diseases and conditions, like diabetes and heart problems. The World Health Organization estimates that obesity is responsible for 2 to 8 percent of health care costs and 10 to 13 percent of deaths in various parts of Europe. 

A new paper suggests that lifestyle advice for people with diabetes should be no different from that for the general public - but diabetes may benefit more from that same advice. 

In the study, the researchers investigated whether the associations between lifestyle factors and mortality risk differ between individuals with and without diabetes.

Polymers are found in countless commercial, medical, and industrial products and the porous kind are known as foam polymers.

Foam polymers are useful because they combine light weight with rigid mechanical properties and a group has developed a process to grow highly customizable coatings of foam-like polymers.  Foam polymers are used in a variety of ways, including the delivery of drugs in the body, as a framework for body tissues and implants, and as layers in laser targets for fusion research.

'Natural' health products are all the rage among the segment of the population that doesn't trust science or medicine. But applying the ethical standards of the medical community to people operating outside the medical community can be a big mistake - the majority of herbal products on the market contain ingredients not listed on the label, with most companies substituting cheaper alternatives and using fillers, according to new research.

One product labeled as St. John's wort contained Senna alexandrina, a plant with laxative properties. It's not intended for prolonged use, as it can cause chronic diarrhea and liver damage and negatively interacts with immune cells in the colon.