Smoking up your genome

Dads who smoke have male children who are more prone to “addiction-like behaviors, cognitive deficits, and anxiety-like behaviors.”

Welcome to epigenetics*, where the chemicals in cigarettes are enough to affect dad’s germ cells or seminal fluid to the point of genetic changes. Those changes are then passed on to his “nicotine-sired male offspring.”

University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing researchers found that the cigarettes affected the SATB2 gene — when it expresses less, leading to the kids’ problems. (In severe cases, it could potentially lead to “SATB2-associated syndrome.”)

* A/k/a, “Lamarck was right.”

Convention zooms along

Some exhibit booths were particularly popular:

White folks’ turn

For the first chunk of the pandemic, Black and Latino Americans were hit hardest, but now the tide has turned. Over the past year, “Covid has killed a smaller percentage of Black, Latino, or Asian Americans over the past year than white Americans.”

Over the past year, the Covid death rate for white Americans has been 14 percent higher than the rate for Black Americans and 72 percent higher than the Latino rate, according to the latest C.D.C. data.

Why the change? Vaccination campaigns. Over the last year, the message has gotten through to Black and Latino communities; the media they listen to is far less anti-vaccine, and more more likely to urge precautions (and to give accurate information). Thus today they have a higher vaccination rate than white Americans.

Aspirin stops cancer’s evolution

The fact that aspirin can help prevent colon cancer isn’t new, but now — thanks to UC Irvine researchers — we may know how.

Aspirin actually interferes with the cancer cells’ evolution. By slowing the cells’ division (and reducing the birth rate), it actually prevents the cells from evolving the mutations needed to grow unchecked.

Dietary advice

Got cancer?

Here’s a surprise: Men who eat/drink more dairy foods, especially milk, have a greater risk of prostate cancer. And no (say the researchers at Loma Linda University who discovered this), it has nothing to do with calcium. They don’t know what the cause is.

[M]en who consumed about 430 grams of dairy per day (1 ¾ cups of milk) faced a 25% increased risk of prostate cancer compared to men who consumed only 20.2 grams of dairy per day (1/2 cup of milk per week).

To add to the mystery, there was little difference between full-fat and skim milk, while cheese and yogurt were safe.

Their speculation: It might be the sex hormone content of dairy milk. “Up to 75% of lactating dairy cows are pregnant, and prostate cancer is a hormone-responsive cancer.”

Do you want melanoma? Because this is how you get melanoma

By eating two or more portions of fish per week, apparently. A study of almost 500,000 people (out of Brown University) found …

… that people whose typical daily intake of fish was 42.8g (equivalent to about 300g per week) had a 22% higher risk of malignant melanoma than those whose typical daily fish intake was just 3.2g. Those eating more fish also had a 28% increased risk of developing abnormal cells in the outer layer of the skin only — known as stage 0 melanoma.

The obvious question: Why?

“We speculate that our findings could possibly be attributed to contaminants in fish, such as polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxins, arsenic and mercury.”

You have to decide if it’s worth it

If you have coronary heart disease, drinking a glass of beetroot juice every day could reduce the chance of persistent inflammation by increasing your levels of nitric oxide.

British researchers found that…

The high nitrate juice also appeared to restore the function of the endothelium, the cells that line the inside of all blood vessels. The endothelium is crucial to keep blood vessels functioning normally, but this is lost in inflammation.

Next up: Seeing whether beetroot juice can prevent heart attacks in healthy people.

Captain Obvious enjoys breakfast in bed

“Women feel less stressed on weekends”

The latest smart bandage

This one comes out of Brown University, where engineers there call it “a bacteria-triggered, smart drug-delivery system.” It’s a hydrogel that’s sensitive to the enzymes released by bacteria. Those β-lactamases cause the polymer to degrade, releasing “therapeutic nanoparticles.” (There had to be nanoparticles — this is 2022 after all.)

Bonus points for giving some comeuppance:

“β-lactamases are actually a major cause of antibiotic resistance as they destroy β-lactam antibiotic […] But we’ve taken this bacterial defense mechanism and used it against the bacteria.”