Rice and rice products are typical first foods for infants in some countries and a new study found that infants who ate rice and rice products had higher urinary arsenic concentrations than those who did not consume any type of rice.

There have been increases in prevalence of food allergies over the past several decades but a debate over why; some fundraising groups and websites claim it is due to science changing food while some say it is simply better diagnosis and others say it could be a changing relationship between the presence of food-specific immunoglobulin E (IgE) -- a blood marker associated with food allergy -- in children's blood between the 1980s and the 2000s.

A new study using 5,000 stored blood samples in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology found no increase in the presence of IgE.

With a cure rate approaching 90 percent, acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common type of childhood cancer, is one of the big "success stories" of modern cancer treatment.

Yet up to 20 percent of patients with a high risk of relapse are not cured, which could change with the results from a clinical trial showing that high doses of the commonly-used chemotherapy drug methotrexate increases the survival rate for these patients. 

After menopause, a decline in estrogen levels is linked to increases in inflammation that can cause osteoporosis. Intestinal bacteria have been shown to influence inflammation by modulating immune responses, and a new study suggests that differences in gut microbial populations may determine the extent of post-menopausal bone loss. In this month's issue of the JCI, a research team led by Roberto Pacifici at Emory University demonstrates a link between gut bacteria and the bone loss induced by estrogen deficiency. Mice lacking gut bacteria were protected against the estrogen deficiency-induced inflammation, gut permeability, and bone loss that occurred in mice with normal gut bacteria.

NEW YORK, NY (April 25, 2016)--Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) have found evidence in mice that, for some types of autism, gastrointestinal difficulties may originate from the same genetic changes that lead to the behavioral and social characteristics of the condition. The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Children with autism spectrum disorder are four times more likely to suffer from gastrointestinal problems than other children. These GI troubles are often blamed on the tendency of kids with autism to limit their diets to a few favored food items.

Coral reefs, the world's most productive and diverse marine ecosystems, rely on a recycling program to stay healthy: The corals and algae that form the base of the reef's food web release a variety of nutrients that support a complex and efficient food chain.

But when this system gets out of whack, the cycle breaks down and endangers the coral reef's health, and a new paper in Nature Microbiology explores how a process known as "microbialization" destroys links in this delicate food chain.