Researchers at the UW Medicine, Veteran's Administration Puget Sound and Saint Louis University have made a promising discovery that insulin delivered high up in the nasal cavity goes to affected areas of brain with lasting results in improving memory.

The findings were published online July 30 in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

"Before this study, there was very little evidence of how insulin gets into the brain and where it goes," said William Banks, UW professor of internal medicine and geriatrics, VA Puget Sound physician and the principal investigator of the study. "We showed that insulin goes to areas where we hoped it would go."

If you are watching what you eat, working out, and still not seeing improvements in your cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, etc., here's some hope. A new report suggests that inflammation induced by deficiencies in vitamins and minerals might be the culprit.

The researchers show that - in some people - improvement results in many of the major markers of health when nutritional deficiencies are corrected. Some even lost weight without a change in their diet or levels of activity.

Follicular helper Tcells (TFH cells), a rare type of immune cell that is essential for inducing a strong and lasting antibody response to viruses and other microbes, have garnered intense interest in recent years but the molecular signals that drive their differentiation had remained unclear.

Now, a team of researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology has identified a pair of master regulators that control the fate of TFH cells.

Cancer cells in neuroblastoma contain a molecule that breaks down a key energy source for the body's immune cells, leaving them too physically drained to fight the disease, according to new research.

Scientists have discovered that the cells in neuroblastoma - a rare type of childhood cancer that affects nerve cells - produce a molecule that breaks down arginine, one of the building blocks of proteins and an essential energy source for immune cells. 
Around 90 cases of neuroblastoma are diagnosed each year in the UK, mostly in children under five years old.

In patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), atherosclerosis is exceedingly common and contributes to the development of heart disease, which is the leading cause of death in this group. New research suggests that an organic byproduct generated by intestinal bacteria may be responsible for the formation of cholesterol plaques in the arteries of individuals with decreased kidney function. The findings suggest that targeting this byproduct may be a novel strategy for safeguarding the heart health of patients with CKD. 

Following the British Medical Association's plan for a 20% sugar tax to subsidize the cost of fruit and vegetables - which some pundits must believe contain no carbohydrates - another group have added their voices to such scientization of politics in BMJ.