Calcium, the most abundant mineral in the body, is found in some foods, added to others, available as a dietary supplement, and present in some medicines (such as antacids). Calcium is required for muscle contraction, blood vessel expansion and contraction, secretion of hormones and enzymes, and transmitting impulses throughout the nervous system. The body strives to maintain constant concentrations of calcium in blood, muscle, and intercellular fluids, though less than <1% of total body calcium is needed to support these functions.
The remaining 99% of the body's calcium supply is stored in the bones and teeth where it supports their structure. Bone itself undergoes continuous remodeling, with constant resorption and deposition of calcium into new bone. The balance between bone resorption and deposition changes with age. Bone formation exceeds resorption in growing children, whereas in early and middle adulthood both processes are relatively equal. In aging adults, particularly among postmenopausal women, bone breakdown exceeds formation, resulting in bone loss that increases the risk of osteoporosis over time.
New research has shown some of our least favourite vegetables could be the most beneficial when it comes to preventing advanced blood vessel disease.
The development of chemotherapeutic agents with selective anti-cancer activities is increasingly unattractive due to the emergence of resistance, poor targeting of cancer tissues, and subsequent metastasis.
According to a study performed by IRB Barcelona, the system that controls calcium levels in cells duplicated, giving rise to a pair of non-equivalent systems.
Optogenetics denotes the manipulation of cellular processes by light-based biological techniques. An international research team led by the Würzburg plant scientists Rainer Hedrich, Georg Nagel and Dirk Becker has succeeded in applying this method to higher plants: Light impulses can now be used to trigger electrical excitation in plants.
With more ethanol in production and a greater ability to upcycle co-products into animal feed ingredients, companies are creating custom products and partnering with University of Illinois researchers to test for quality and digestibility.
The ability of the human brain to process and store information is determined to a large extent by the connectivity between nerve cells. Chemical synapses are very important in this context as they constitute the interface for the transmission of information between individual nerve cells.
Yale pharmacology professor Barbara Ehrlich and her team have uncovered a mechanism driving a rare, lethal disease called Wolfram Syndrome and also a potential treatment.
A mobile platform for lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography (CT) can be developed with limited financial risk and take powerful screening tests directly to patients, including underserved rural areas where rates of new lung cancer cases tend to be higher, according to study published today in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.
Ion channels are essentially passageways through membranes that transport signals to a cell’s environment and enable it to respond.
Many corals are sensitive to bright light, so capturing their dynamics with traditional microscopes is a challenge.
Cellular waste disposal, where autophagy and lysosomes interact, performs elementary functions, such as degrading damaged protein molecules, which impair cellular function, and reintroducing the resulting building blocks such as amino acids into the metabolic system.
When neurons fire an electrical impulse, they also experience a surge of calcium ions.
Scientists have completed large-scale tests on a new type of five-minute urine test that measures the health of a person's diet, and produces an individual's unique urine 'fingerprint'.
As many cancer patients will confirm, the chemotherapy prescribed to kill the disease is often more debilitating than the cancer itself, with a range of horrendous side effects.
An international research team has used new X-ray techniques to describe how the architecture of healthy human bones is built up. The team has uncovered a hitherto unknown structure in healthy bones.
Korea Brain Research Institute (KBRI headed by Suh Pann-ghill) announced on the 2nd that the joint research team of KBRI (team led by Dr. Mun Ji-young), Seoul National University, and Pohang University of Science and Technology discovered the proteins that engage in the formation of MAM, which is the cellular signaling hub.
For the first time, a research team led by Martin Fussenegger, a professor at ETH Zurich, has successfully used electric current to directly manipulate gene expression.
Patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, lose muscle control as nerve cells or neurons in the brain and spinal cord degenerate and can no longer send signals to muscles.
An international research team has for the first time obtained the structure of the light-sensitive sodium-pumping KR2 protein in its active state.
Retina is the only part of the central nervous system that can be visualized noninvasively with optical imaging approaches.
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