How does the nose distinguish different smells ?

Scientists from Bochum found how the smelling receptor in the human nose acts. Molecules of the flavour must fit to the receptor in 3 dimensions and it must be able to couple to it. To produce a longer nerve signal, the receptor uses a very sophisticated technique. For this reason the molecule of the flavour leaves the receptor for short time and binds to it again in multiple reproducible cycles. Researchers compared this kind of action with tango, a dance when people come together and divide in a reproducible sequence.

Source: Gelis, L., et al (2012), Prediction of a Ligand-Binding Niche within a Human Olfactory Receptor by Combining Site-Directed Mutagenesis with Dynamic Homology Modeling. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 51: 1274–1278. doi: 10.1002/anie.201103980
Found for you by Dr. Maria Peterson

Wound healing by a light activated medical glue

Not only in plastic and in aesthetic surgery any scars should be invisible. For this reason surgeons developed several, sometimes high sophisticated suturing methods and glue technology. Current  medical glues acted immediately like super glue and were accordingly difficult to handle. Recently, doctors from Boston reported about promising results of a test with a new tissue glue. This glue hardens only after it is activated using a light stream, similarly to the hardening of plastic tooth fillings by dentists. Scientists tested the new method on 31 persons. Such a mode of handling of wound closure is very innovative and improves the quality of the scar clearly.
See also our article about Laser Welding instead of stitching a wound.
Source: S. Tsao et al, Light Activated Tissue Bonding for Excisional Wound Closure: A Split-Lesion Clinical Trial, Brit j dermatol, 2011 Oct 27, (e-pub ahead of print),
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2133.2011.10710.x
Found for you by Dr. Maria Peterson

Botox as new treatment for chronic runny nose

Botox as new treatment for chronic runny nose Idiopathic rhinitis is a chronic nose inflammation. The reason for this disease as well as sufficient therapy are not known. Recently, Brown and colleagues, doctors from Munich, Germany reported about significant improvement at patients treated with Botox in intranasal wall (nasal septum). 

Source: Braun T. et al., Am J Otolaryngol. 2012 Jan;33(1):64-7. Epub 2011 Mar 17, Found for you by Dr. Maria Peterson

Conversion from fat to sugar possible

It is widely known that surplus eaten sugar is converted by the body to fat. A conversion from fat to sugar should also be theoretically possible. Until now this changing of direction (from fat to sugar) is not known in the human body and is chemically more difficult. Recently scientists from Jena, Germany found, that the other way round is possible too. They discovered this using biochemical, gen-sequence analytic and bioinformatic methods. This theory must be still experimentally approved in a living cell. When approved this may be an important progress in nutritional science. Then strategies and medicaments may be developed, which degrade fat from the human body.

Source: Kaleta C. et al. (2011) PloS Comput Biol 7:e1002116
Found for you by Dr. Maria Peterson

Better hair growth with stress blocker

Scientists from Los Angeles, USA found that rats had more hairs when stress blocker Astressin-B was applied, comparing to those whom stress blocker was not applied.  Researchers reported this in known online scientific journal PloS ONE. Can we expect the new lifestyle medicine as a result of  this discovery ?

Quelle: Wang L. et.al. (2011), CRF Receptor Antagonist Astressin-B Reverses and Prevents Alopecia in CRF Over-Expressing Mice. PloS ONE 6:e16377,
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0016377
Source: Found for you by Dr. Maria Peterson

Artificial skin made with spider silk fibers

Spider silk fibers can be a frame for the cultivation of artificial skin. This documented the group of scientists under leadership of Hanna Wendt. She published results of their work in the renowned online journal PLoS ONE. Silk fibers from the african spider category Nephila were produced with a special technique. These fibers are very strong, stretchable and are well accepted by human body. On this frame two kinds of cells were cultivated, in two overlying layers. The result is very similar  to natural human skin. This live artificial skin substitute can be used for treatment of combustion wounds and for treatment of difficult healing wounds.
Source: Wend H. et al.(2011), Artificial Skin – Culturing of Different Skin Cell Lines for Generating an Artificial Skin Substitute on Cross-Weaved Spider Silk Fibres. PLoS ONE 6(7): e21833. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0021833
Found for you by Dr. Maria Peterson

5th Anniversary of Beauty Review

5 Years of Beauty Review


We are glad to serve you already for 5 years with our contributions.

The sixth taste receptor is for fat

It is widely known for a long time that the human tongue notices four kinds of taste: acidic, salty, sweet and bitter. Since 2000 there is also a fifth flavor known: the taste which detects glutamic acid, called umami. In nature glutamic acid is found predominantly in meat. Recently scientists have found a sixth taste receptor on the tongue. It detects fat in food. The researchers from Munich and Berlin reported this finding in scientific journal Chemical Senses. Up to this discovery it was assumed that fat is perceived by humans indirectly. This new fact explains why many fatty foods are so in demand. 

 

Source: Gallindo MM. et al., Chemical Senses, published online 25. Aug 2011, DOI 10.1093/chemse/BJR069, and Chaudhari N. et al., (2000). "A metabotropic glutamate receptor variant functions as a taste receptor". Nature Neuroscience 3 (2): 113–119, doi:10.1038/72053
Found for you by Dr. Maria Peterson

Sleep makes beautiful

The phrase: „Sleep makes beautiful“ is right. Test persons have slept one night through and one night they were awake. Straight after each night they were photographed. These photos were evaluated from independent observers. They found persons who slept in as more attractive and healthier. The study was done from swedish scientists from Stockholm.
Source: J Axelsson et al., Beauty sleep: experimental study on the perceived health and attractiveness of sleep deprived people, BMJ 2010; 341:c6614 
doi: 10.1136/bmj.c6614
Found for you by Dr. Maria Peterson

Stem cells in Cosmetic Surgery

Fat Stem cells release several growth factors. This was found by Korean scientists from Seoul. Growth factors stimulate the growth of cells. Authors suggest that this can promise an application in cosmetic dermatology, especially in the treatment of skin aging. Stem cells seem to gain an important role in aesthetic medicine in the future.
Source: Byung-Soon Park et al. (2008) Dermatologic Surgery 34, 10:1323 , DOI: 10.1111/j1524-4725.2008.3483.x
Found for you by Dr. Maria Peterson

Fat Stem cells help after heart attack

Human fat from liposuction contains many stem cells. Doctors liposuctioned heart patients and isolated 20 millions stem cells from the fat. They injected these stem cells back through a heart catheter within 10 minutes. Six months later the blood flow in treated hearts was 3,5 fold better and pumping ability was 5,7% better than in patients without this treatment. These results were presented on the American Heart Association Scientific Session 2010. Comments for these effects released Dr. Douglas Losordo from Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago and Dr. Erick Duckers from Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Source: WebMD Health News, www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20101116/belly-fat-stem-cells-may-help-heart Found by: Dr. Maria Peterson

Apples help to reduce weight

People who ate daily a specific portion of apples, reduced their weight after one year on the average by 1,5 kilograms. These results were presented by scientists from Florida State University.

Source: Bild der Wissenschaft vom 13.04.2011 about the conference of the American Society for Nutrition „Experimental Biology 2011“ (Bahram Arjmandi et al.)  Found for you by Dr. Maria Peterson

New tool to calculate the Body Mass Index BMI

Recently our Body Mass Index BMI calculator is available for our readers. With this tool you can evaluate your body height in relation to your weight.
Here the link to the tool.
By Dr. Maria Peterson

German paper about breast augmentation with autologous fat transfer

Colleagues Überreiter, von Finckenstein and others published a paper about breast augmentation with autologous fat transfer. The authors report about 85 patients which were successfully treated with this method in Germany. Three years ago we indicated American and Japanese papers about the same topic.
Source: K. Ueberreiter et al., 2010 Handchir Mikrochir Plast Chir ; 42: 379–385, Found for you by Dr. Maria Peterson