Immune System

Throughout the interior spaces of humans and other warm-blooded creatures is a special type of tissue known as brown fat, which may hold the secret to diets and weight-loss programs of the future.

For roughly two thousand years, Chinese herbalists have treated Malaria using a root extract, commonly known as Chang Shan, from a type of hydrangea that grows in Tibet and Nepal. More recent studies suggest that halofuginone, a compound derived from this extract's bioactive ingredient, could be used to treat many autoimmune disorders as well.

Severe sleep loss jolts the immune system into action, reflecting the same type of immediate response shown during exposure to stress, a new study reports. Researchers in the Netherlands and United Kingdom compared the white blood cell counts of 15 healthy young men under normal and severely sleep-deprived conditions. The greatest changes were seen in the white blood cells known as granulocytes, which showed a loss of day-night rhythmicity, along with increased numbers, particularly at night.

Rice University researchers have settled a long-standing controversy over the mechanism by which silver nanoparticles, the most widely used nanomaterial in the world, kill bacteria. Their work comes with a Nietzsche-esque warning: Use enough. If you don't kill them, you make them stronger.

Scientists are trying to unravel a medical mystery involving a new type of coronavirus, which come from that same large family of viruses that...

Exposure to school-age children raises the odds that a person with lung disease who catches a cold will actually suffer symptoms like a runny...

Leptin -- commonly dubbed the "fat hormone" -- does more than tell the brain when to eat. A new study by researchers at The University of Akron and Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) shows that leptin may play a role in hearing and vision loss. This discovery, made in zebrafish treated to produce low leptin, could ultimately help doctors better understand sensory loss in humans.

Researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have identified a molecule in the immune system that could affect hunger and satiety. The researchers hope that new treatments for obesity will benefit from this finding.

Bacteria can talk to each other via molecules they themselves produce. The phenomenon is called quorum sensing, and is important when an infection propagates. Now, researchers at Linköping University in Sweden are showing how bacteria control processes in human cells the same way.

By Jim English In a study published in the Nov. 2008 Journal of Immunology, researchers shed light on the anti-viral and anti-aging benefits of Astragalus, a primary active...

By John Steinke, L.Ac. Increased thickening of blood – or elevated blood viscosity – is a common age-related condition that contributes to a number of...

Beneficial Effects on Energy, Atherosclerosis and Aging By Ward Dean, MD and Jim English Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCTs) are a unique form of dietary fat that...