Publisher Health

Working out isn’t known for being fun. But new active video and virtual reality games may help change that.
Exergaming, or active video gaming, may be the perfect introduction to helping people be more active, according to new research from the University of Georgia.
Just about anyone can find an exergame to match their interests. Dance Dance Revolution, EA Sports Active and Beat Saber are some of the more popular exergames. Active gaming options exist for most gaming consoles, like Xbox and Nintendo. And previous research has shown that exergaming can have physical benefits, particularly when it takes the place of traditional sedentary video gaming.
This study showed that exergamers felt high levels of satisfaction and a sense of autonomy over their exercise regimen.
“When an individual feels autonomous, they’re more likely to exercise or exergame on their own,” said Sami Yli-Piipari, co-author of the study and an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology in the Mary Frances Early College of Education. “They feel ownership over what they are doing, and they’re doing it for themselves, so it’s more likely they will keep up the activity.”
Traditional exercise, such as weightlifting or running, doesn’t appeal to some people. But they might be open to active video gaming because it doesn’t seem like exercise. It’s just fun.

Scientists from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have identified variants in two genes that are associated with accelerated aging in childhood cancer survivors. Their research looked at the difference between their biological age and chronological age. The study, published today in Genome Medicine, is the first to identify genetic risk factors for accelerated aging in pediatric cancer survivors.
Today a majority of children with cancer in the U.S. survive. However, some survivors develop diseases that typically occur in older adults. It is not totally clear why some patients are more susceptible to developing age-related conditions than others.
“This is one of a series of studies my lab has undertaken to investigate aging biomarkers in childhood cancer survivors,” said corresponding author Zhaoming Wang, Ph.D., of the Departments of Epidemiology and Cancer Control and Computational Biology. “We previously evaluated non-genetic risk factors including cancer treatments, health behaviors, and chronic health conditions that contribute to age acceleration. This study focuses on the underlying genetic factors among these patients.”
St. Jude follows over 6,000 childhood cancer survivors enrolled in the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort Study (SJLIFE). As part of SJLIFE, scientists have characterized genetic variations by conducting whole-genome sequencing (WGS) of survivors’ DNA. Wang’s group analyzed the link between common genetic variants derived from the WGS data with epigenetic age acceleration (EAA) in SJLIFE participants. EAA is a measure of the difference between “biological” and chronological age for each survivor, and it strongly correlates with the development of age-related diseases.
Finding the Premature Aging Needle in a Genetic Haystack
Wang’s group found variants in two genomic regions associated with the development of accelerated aging. One variant was in the SELP gene and the other in the HLA region. These genes are both involved in age-related diseases. For example, SELP is upregulated in Alzheimer’s disease.
The scientists found the variants by employing an agnostic Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) approach. In this technique, the researchers compare the DNA variants present in survivors and community controls with different levels of biological aging (i.e., EAA). In the 3 billion base pair DNA genome, over 8 million variants were tested, and there were two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that appeared significantly different between individuals with different levels of biological aging. These SNPs in combination with other non-genetic risk factors may allow physicians in the future to identify the survivors at higher risk of accelerated aging before they develop premature aging symptoms.
“Our work can help determine subgroups at the highest risk for accelerated aging among childhood cancer survivors,” Wang said. “The findings can also identify potential drug targets for future invention studies. For example, the protein produced by the SELP gene, p-selectin, already has an inhibitor used in other diseases.”
All data analyzed in the paper is publicly available for other researchers in the St. Jude Cloud, which provides data and analysis resources to the global research community.
The study’s co-first authors are Qian Dong and Nan Song, both of St. Jude. The study’s other authors are Cheng Chen, of Shanghai Jiaotong University; Zhenghong Li, Xiaojun Sun, John Easton, Heather Mulder, Emily Plyler, Geoffrey Neale, Emily Walker, Qian Li, Xiaotu Ma, Xiang Chen, I-Chan Huang, Yutaka Yasui, Kirsten K. Ness, Jinghui Zhang, Melissa M. Hudson, and Leslie L. Robison of St. Jude. The study was funded by grants (CA021765 and CA195547) from the National Institutes of Health, the V Foundation and ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization of St. Jude.

One of the ultimate goals of medical science is to develop personalized disease diagnostics and therapeutics. With a patient’s genetic information, doctors could tailor treatments to individuals, leading to safer and more effective care.
Recent work from a team of Northwestern Engineering researchers has moved the field closer to realizing this future.
Led by Professor Horacio Espinosa, the research team developed a new version of its Nanofountain Probe Electroporation (NFP-E), a tool used to deliver molecules into single-cells using electricity. The enhanced method leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to execute cell engineering tasks such as cell nuclei localization and probe detection. Other processes such as probe motion, probe-to-cell contact detection, and electroporation-mediated delivery of foreign cargo into single cells are also automated, minimizing user intervention.
“NFP-E can handle small starting samples without any significant cell loss in the entire protocol,” said Espinosa, James N. and Nancy J. Farley Professor in Manufacturing and Entrepreneurship at the McCormick School of Engineering and the study’s corresponding author. “This is an advantage over other cell engineering methods such as bulk electroporation, which require millions of cells and lead to significant cell losses. The automated NFP-E, combined with its ability to selectively target and manipulate single cells in micro-arrays, can be useful in fundamental research, such as deciphering intracellular dynamics and cell-to-cell communication studies as well as biological applications such as cell line generation.”
Espinosa and graduate students Prithvijit Mukherjee, Cesar A. Patino, and Nibir Pathak reported their work in the paper “Deep Learning Assisted Automated Single Cell Electroporation Platform for Effective Genetic Manipulation of Hard-to-Transfect Cells” published March 21 in Small.
“Genetic manipulation of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) by introducing exogenous cargo has a wide range of applications in disease diagnostics, therapeutic discovery, and regenerative medicine,” said Mukherjee, a PhD student in the Espinosa group who is joining the microfluidics group at Illumina.

Salt marshes cover much of the state of Georgia’s coast and perform key “ecosystem services” for people. They clean the water, protect coastlines against storm surges, and provide a habitat for fish and shellfish. A new study from a team of Georgia Tech School of Biological Sciences researchers finds that a species of grass that dominates those marshes has bacteria in its roots and surrounding soil that affects productivity by providing nutrients, highlighting the importance of soil microorganisms in the entire ecosystem.
The study, “The core root microbiome of Spartina alterniflora is predominated by sulfur-oxidizing and sulfate-reducing bacteria in Georgia saltmarshes, USA” is published in Microbiome. The research team includes Georgia Tech Ph.D. students Jose Rolando (the study’s lead author) and Tianze Song; Max Kolton, a former postdoctoral researcher, now senior lecturer and principal investigator with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer Sheva, Israel; and corresponding author Joel Kostka, professor and associate chair for Research in the School of Biological Sciences with a joint appointment in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, who is also a member of Georgia Tech’s Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection.
The study shows that diverse and abundant microbes associated with spartina cordgrass help mineralize sediment organic matter and release bioavailable nutrients to the plant, suggesting that the microbes help support plant productivity.
The work could assist efforts to restore salt marshes that will help to strengthen the coastline to be more resilient in the face of sea level rise and climate change.
Kostka says about 40% of salt marshes have disappeared in the U.S. over the past 100 years. “So coastal ecosystem restoration has become a huge field, with an important goal to manage or restore marshes so that they continue to provide critical ecosystem services to people,” he explains.
Kostka adds that certain bacteria benefit plants not only by removing potentially toxic sulfide from the root zone, but also by giving the plant nutrients and potentially carbon. “In other words, this is an example of how we think the classic lines might be blurred by what we generally think of as autotrophs (plants that grow via photosynthesis) and heterotrophs (microbes) in ecosystems.”
Sulfur in the roots

While scientists have broadly agreed that a fraction of the alcohol people consume is broken down before it reaches the bloodstream in a process called first-pass metabolism, they have been uncertain whether this process occurs in the stomach or the liver.
Published online in the journal JAMA Network Open, a new study of alcohol metabolism in women who underwent sleeve gastrectomy and peers who had not had weight loss surgery indicates that this process occurs in the stomach.
In addition to clarifying where FPM occurs, the findings also explain why some patients’ sensitivity to alcohol increases dramatically after bariatric surgery, significantly heightening their risks of alcohol-related disorders.
A team of researchers led by food science and human nutrition professor M. Yanina Pepino at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign compared alcohol metabolism in 12 sleeve gastrectomy patients with that of nine women of similar ages, body mass indices and drinking habits who had not undergone weight loss surgery.
Once absorbed, most of the alcohol a person ingests is broken down in the liver by an enzymatic process that is saturable.
The challenge in identifying the site of FPM was that the stomach could play dual roles, both serving as the site where alcohol was broken down before being released to the liver and affecting a saturable FPM in the liver by modulating the speed at which the dose of alcohol was being delivered, if the liver were the site where FPM was occurring instead, Pepino said.

In typical breads, yeast produces bubbles via a biochemical process, causing dough to rise and develop into light, airy, and tasty treats. Without that yeast, it is difficult to make morsels with the same characteristic taste and texture. The perfect, yeast-free pizza, as such a food, presents an important challenge for bakers and yeast-intolerant crust enthusiasts across the globe.
In Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the University of Naples Federico II developed a method to leaven pizza dough without yeast.
The team, which included its very own professional pizza-maker/graduate student, prepared the dough by mixing water, flour, and salt and placing it in a hot autoclave, an industrial device designed to raise temperature and pressure.
From there, the process is like the one used to produce carbonation in soda. Gas is dissolved into the dough at high pressure, and bubbles form in the dough as pressure is released during baking. In comparison to other scientific experiments, the pressures involved were mild. They can be obtained by a typical at-home coffee maker.
However, the scientists-turned-bakers had to be cautious with the pressure release. Compared to soda, pizza dough does not respond as nicely to an abrupt change in pressure.
“The key to the process is to design the pressure release rate not to stress the dough, which likes to expand gently,” said author Ernesto Di Maio.
The authors evaluated their dough with rheology, which measures the flow and deformation of a material. Fine-tuning the pressure release through rheological analysis made it possible to gently inflate bubbles to the desired extent.
“We mainly studied how dough behaves with and without yeast. How the softness changes with leavening, and how the dough responds to a temperature program during baking,” said author Rossana Pasquino. “This was fundamental to designing the pressure protocol for the dough without yeast.”
After many unofficial taste tests, the researchers are purchasing a larger, food-grade autoclave that will make full-sized pizzas in future experiments. They hope to see their idea used in pizza shops.
“We had a lot of fun applying things we know well to delicious polymers, instead of our typical and sometimes boring smelly plastics,” said Pasquino. “The idea of approaching food samples with the same technologies and knowledge used for thermoplastic polymers was surprisingly successful!”
As a person with a yeast allergy, Di Maio is also excited about applications for other leavened products like bread, cakes, and snacks.
“This new technology can drive the development of new products, new dough formulations, and specific recipes for food intolerance, hopefully helping people enjoy healthy and tasty food,” he said.
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Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have identified a protein that protects against breast tumour growth and that can be linked to a better prognosis in breast cancer patients. The results, which are published in the journal Nature Communications, may contribute to the development of new therapies for difficult-to-treat forms of breast cancer.
Breast cancer affects about 10 per cent of women during their lifetime and is a major medical and societal burden. Fewer treatment options are available for ER-negative breast cancers, which lack oestrogen receptors (ER) and thus do not respond to hormone therapy. Particularly difficult to treat are so-called triple-negative breast cancers, which lack not only ER but also the progesterone receptor and HER2 receptor.
“Identification of new molecular mechanisms that regulate the growth of ER-negative breast cancer is warranted, as these mechanisms may represent novel therapeutic targets,” says Per Uhlén, professor at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Karolinska Institutet.
Professor Uhlén and colleagues have identified a novel mechanism by which the ubiquitous protein GIT1 regulates so-called Notch signalling, affecting the initiation and growth of ER-negative breast cancer.
Associated with better prognosis
Studies of tumour cells from breast cancer patients showed that high levels of GIT1 inhibited Notch signalling and protected against tumour growth, while low levels of GIT1 enhanced tumour growth. ER-negative breast tumours from patients had lower levels of GIT1 than ER-positive breast tumours. The results also showed that ER-negative breast cancer patients with high levels of GIT1 have a better prognosis than those with low levels.
Notch signalling is an evolutionarily conserved cell-cell communication mechanism that has been shown to regulate cell fate decisions in most organs of the body and at different steps during cell development. Overactive Notch signalling in breast cancer patients has previously been linked to a worse prognosis.
“Our results provide important information about a mechanism that controls the initiation and growth of breast tumours,” says Professor Uhlén. “We hope that these findings will inform the development of new therapies for patients with difficult-to-treat breast cancer.”
Collaboration with the clinic
His research group is actively collaborating with clinicians treating patients with cancer to focus on research topics that are crucial for the treatment of patients.
“We want to conduct research that can benefit patients with severe diseases,” says Professor Uhlén. “At Karolinska Institutet, we have state-of-the-art tools and equipment that can push the development of new therapies.”
The research was carried out at Karolinska Institutet with funding from, among others, the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Cancer Society and the Wallenberg Academy Fellow grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. The authors declare no competing interests.
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Researchers studying epileptic seizures of the temporal lobe — the most common type of epilepsy — discovered a compound that reduces seizures in the hippocampus, a brain region where many such seizures originate. The compound, known as TC-2153, lessened the severity of seizures in mice.
The scientists report their findings in the journal Epilepsia.
“We found that TC-2153 ultimately reduces seizure severity in mice by decreasing the activity of hippocampal neurons,” said University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign doctoral candidate Jennifer Walters, who led the research with U. of I. molecular and integrative physiology professor Hee Jung Chung.
“In most temporal lobe epilepsy, the seizures start in the medial temporal lobe, which includes the hippocampus,” Chung said. “And 60% or more of patients who have medial temporal lobe epilepsy develop drug-resistant seizures, which correlate with the extent of neuronal death and inflammation in the hippocampus.”
The hippocampus plays a central role in learning and memory, so anything that damages it can have devastating consequences for the individual, she said.
The strength of synaptic communication between neurons and the excitability of individual neurons can affect the likelihood that seizures occur, Chung said.

A new clinical trial found daily consumption of cranberries for one month improved cardiovascular function in healthy men.
The new study, published today in Food & Function, included 45 healthy men who consumed whole cranberry powder equivalent to 100g of fresh cranberries per day (9 g powder) or a placebo for one month. Those consuming cranberry had a significant improvement in flow-mediated dilation (FMD), which signals improvement of heart and blood vessel function. FMD is considered a sensitive biomarker of cardiovascular disease risk and measures how blood vessels widen when blood flow increases.
Dr. Ana Rodriguez-Mateos, Senior Lecturer in Nutrition at the Department of Nutritional Sciences at King’s College London and senior author of the study, said: “The increases in polyphenols and metabolites in the bloodstream and the related improvements in flow-mediated dilation after cranberry consumption emphasise the important role cranberries may play in cardiovascular disease prevention. The fact that these improvements in cardiovascular health were seen with an amount of cranberries that can be reasonably consumed daily makes cranberry an important fruit in the prevention of cardiovascular disease for the general public.”
Low consumption of fruits and vegetables is one of the top modifiable risk factors associated with a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease worldwide. Growing evidence continues to link the polyphenols from berries with heart health benefits. Cranberries are rich in unique proanthocyanidins that have distinct properties compared to polyphenols found in other fruits.
This study explored whole cranberry freeze-dried powder, equivalent to 100g of fresh cranberries, and its impact on cardiovascular health. The results demonstrated that consumption of cranberries as part of a healthy diet can help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by improving blood vessel function.
An initial pilot study was completed with five healthy young men to confirm the biological activity of the whole cranberry freeze-dried powder. The pilot concluded that cranberry consumption increased FMD and confirmed dosing. The main study was a gold standard study design examining 45 healthy men each consuming two packets of whole cranberry freeze-dried powder equivalent to 100g of fresh cranberries, or a placebo, daily for one month. The study found significant improvements in FMD two hours after first consumption and after one month of daily consumption showing both immediate and chronic benefit. In addition, metabolites were also identified and predicted the positive effects seen in FMD. These results conclude that cranberries can play an important role in supporting cardiovascular health and good blood vessel function.
Dr. Christian Heiss, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Surrey and co-author of the study said: “Our findings provide solid evidence that cranberries can significantly affect vascular health even in people with low cardiovascular risk. This study further indicates that specific metabolites present in blood after cranberry consumption are related to the beneficial effects.”
The study was supported by The Cranberry Institute, the Research Committee of the Medical Faculty of Heinrich-Heine University Dusseldorf and a Susanne Bunnenberg Heart Foundation grant to Dusseldorf Heart Centre.
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Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) is rare in children and known to cause inflammation and recurring, potentially fatal, blood clots. Researchers found that two-thirds of children with the autoimmune disease experienced additional symptoms not formally associated with APS, including low platelet counts, hemolytic anemia and livedo reticularis, a rash indicating abnormal blood flow to the skin. Investigators say the findings underscore the importance of creating pediatric-specific criteria for the diagnosis of APS.
Each year, around two of every 100,000 American adults receive a new diagnosis of antiphospholipid syndrome, or APS, an autoimmune disease known to cause inflammation and recurring, potentially fatal, blood clots. The number of children with APS is likely much smaller but unknown — and for kids with the disease, it’s often not identified until destructive clotting has already occurred.
To find common features of pediatric APS, researchers at University of Michigan Health, Michigan Medicine, reviewed hundreds of potential cases from the last 20 years, which only amounted to 21 children with a definite diagnosis.
They found that two-thirds of the children experienced additional symptoms not formally associated with antiphospholipid syndrome in adults, including low platelet counts, hemolytic anemia and livedo reticularis, a rash indicating abnormal blood flow to the skin. The results are published in Pediatric Rheumatology.
“Beyond clots, there is not one definitive feature of this rare disease in children; rather, there is a constellation of symptoms we found among these patients,” said Jacqueline Madison, M.D., lead author of the paper and a rheumatologist at University of Michigan Health. “If we can prove these symptoms are related to the condition, then physicians should be able to test for APS sooner and diagnose the disease earlier to prevent potentially catastrophic clots.”
Nearly half of the children suffered recurrent blood clots, many of them not taking full-dose anti-coagulants. Researchers believe this may have occurred because the patients were either not adhering to treatment or were only prescribed smaller, preventative doses.
“We found that some children with APS develop significant damage to their bodies from the disease over time, too, and it will be important to try to prevent that damage going forward,” Madison said.
Almost half of the patients were first diagnosed with lupus, another autoimmune disease where the body attacks its own immune system, before receiving an APS diagnosis. Lupus is a lot more common among children than APS, Madison says, and rheumatologists need to be educated to test for antiphospholipid syndrome after making a lupus diagnosis.
“These findings underscore the importance of creating pediatric-specific criteria for the diagnosis of APS,” said Madison, who is also an assistant professor of rheumatology at University of Michigan Medical School. “We have already started a prospective study of this young patient population to better understand how the disease presents in the earliest stages and to try to find even better diagnostic markers in the blood. These are major steps towards limiting blood clots and potential hospitalizations or deaths due to APS in kids.”
Additional authors include Kelsey Gockman, B.S., Claire Hoy, B.S., Ajay Tambralli, M.D., Yu Zuo, M.D., MSCS, Jason Knight, M.D., Ph.D.