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Regular chocolate consumption may be linked to a lower risk of developing the heart rhythm irregularity atrial fibrillation, also known as heart flutter

Inflammation is the process by which the body responds to injury or infection but when this process becomes out of control it can cause disease. Researchers have shed light on a key aspect of the process. Their findings may help guide the development of new treatments of inflammatory diseases such as atherosclerosis, which can lead to heart attack or stroke, and type 2 diabetes.

Scientists from the Gothenburg and Girona universities found that the treatment of type 2 diabetes with metformin is changing the composition and characteristics of the intestinal microbiome. This has a significant auxiliary effect in therapy, establishing a system of regulation of the level of sugar and glycosylated hemoglobin in the blood.

The nutritional value of a food should be evaluated on the basis of the foodstuff as a whole, and not as an effect of the individual nutrients. This is the conclusion of an international expert panel of epidemiologists, physicians, food and nutrition scientists and brought together by the University of Copenhagen and University of Reading. Their conclusion reshapes our understanding of the importance of nutrients and their interaction.

FOR $150, YOU can buy a Crispr kit online and use it to engineer heartier gut bacteria in your kitchen. That’s thrilling, but the technology is giving Jennifer Doudna, an inventor of the gene-­editing method, nightmares. Easy genetic modification could mean cures for cancer (yay!), kitty-sized pigs (squee!), and, yes, designer babies (ack).

Long-term fasting is hard. Is it also dangerous?

Researchers at Ben-Gurion University (BGU) and the Sheba Medical Center have developed a new therapy to treat atherosclerosis and prevent heart failure with a new biomedical polymer that reduces arterial plaque and inflammation in the cardiovascular system.

A study carried out in mice may help explain why dieting can be an inefficient way to lose weight: key brain cells act as a trigger to prevent us burning calories when food is scarce.

With the new FISH-Flow protocol, researchers are able to evaluate multitudes of cells at once for telltale mRNA species and proteins. The blended procedure provides a chance to see how multiple kinds of immune cells are responding to a foreign substance, making it possible to detect the presence of disease faster and earlier.

Doxycycline, an antibiotic used for over half a century against bacterial infections, can be prescribed at lower doses for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, say researchers.