Knowledge Update

​New York, Oct 5 (IANS) Does working out feels like more of pain to you? Take heart. Exercise releases a hormone that can help your body shed fat and keep it from forming again, which may also act as potential target to fight obesity, diabetes and other health issues, a study has found.

The results showed that hormone irisin helps convert calorie-storing white fat cells into brown fat cells that burn energy and may be an attractive target for fighting obesity and diabetes.

"Exercise produces more irisin, which has many beneficial effects including fat reduction, stronger bones and better cardiovascular health," said Li-Jun Yang, Professor at the University of Florida. 

The hormone works by boosting the activity of genes and UCP1 -- a protein crucial to turning white fat cells into brown cells. 

Further, irisin, which surges when the heart and other muscles are exerted, also inhibits the formation of fatty tissue.

For the study, researchers collected fat cells donated by 28 patients who had breast reduction surgery. 

After exposing the samples to irisin, they found a nearly five-fold increase in cells with protein UCP1 -- crucial to fat "burning".

"We used human fat tissue cultures to prove that irisin has a positive effect by turning white fat into brown fat and that it increases the body's fat-burning ability," Yang said.

Moreover, among the tested fat-tissue samples, the team found that irisin also reduced the number of mature fat cells by 20 to 60 per cent compared with those of a control group. 

That suggests irisin reduces fat storage in the body by hindering the process that turns undifferentiated stem cells into fat cells while also promoting the stem cells' differentiation into bone-forming cells, the researchers said.

The findings about irisin's role in regulating fat cells sheds more light on how working out helps people stay slender, Yang said.

The study was published recently in the American Journal of Physiology -- Endocrinology and Metabolism.

San Francisco, Oct 4 (IANS) Instant mobile messaging app WhatsApp on Tuesday introduced new ways to customise and enhance the photos and videos you share with friends and family around the world.

New York, Oct 4 (IANS) Facebook has launched Messenger Lite, a stand-alone version of Messenger for Android that offers core features of Messenger for markets with slower than average internet speeds.

​New York, Oct 3 (IANS) Companies that do invest in building their innovative capacity are rewarded over the long run by higher stock market returns and profits, say researchers including one of Indian-origin.

​London, Oct 3 (IANS) The pound sterling was the worst performer among major currencies on Monday, after British Prime Minister Theresa May said Britain would kick off the process of separating from the European Union (EU) by the end of March 2017.

​New York, Oct 4 (IANS) US tech giant Microsoft is discontinuing its wearable fitness tracker called "Band" and the company has no plans to release "Band 3". "The Band 2 has been wiped completely from Microsoft's online store and is no longer available from Best Buy either," technology website The Verge reported on Tuesday. Consumers can still buy it from Amazon through its remaining inventory. The team behind the "Band" was recently dissolved and the company has also removed the device's software development kit that allows apps to be created for the device from its site. Micrsoft, however, will still support existing "Band 2" owners. The device was criticised for its uncomfortable design. Microsoft introduced a second-generation model with added features last year but it also carried forward many of the original's flaws, the report added.

Toronto, Oct 3 (IANS) The world's tallest wood building at 18 storeys -- about 174 feet -- is set to be completed four months ahead of schedule, showcasing the advantages of building with wood, officials in Canada said.

"This remarkable building, the first of its kind in the world, is another shining example of Canadian ingenuity and innovation, an apt demonstration of how Canada's forest industry is finding new opportunities through technology and innovation -- opening up a world of possibilities for our forest and construction industries," said Jim Carr, Canada's Minister of Natural Resources.

The mass wood structure and facade is for the University of British Columbia's Brock Commons student residence.

The structure was completed less than 70 days after the prefabricated components were first delivered to the site. Construction will now focus on interior elements, with completion expected in early May 2017 -- 18 per cent (or four months) faster than a typical project, a university statement said.

Brock Commons is the first mass wood, steel and concrete hybrid project taller than 14 storeys in the world. The building is expected to welcome more than 400 students in September 2017, the statement added.

The building has a concrete podium and two concrete cores, with 17 storeys of cross-laminated-timber floors supported on glue-laminated wood columns. 

The cladding for the facade is made with 70 per cent wood fibre.

"Brock Commons is living proof that advanced wood products are a terrific material to build with and support efficient assembly," Steve Thomson, Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, said.

​London, Oct 2 (IANS) Holidays are not just for relaxing but can also help to improve your health and should be prescribed for sick people, says a study.

According to the study, being in an environment that stimulates curiosity could turbo-charge the immune system, quoted the Daily Mail.

For the study, the researchers took mice which were given a two-week stay in a large cage packed with toys and the exciting environment appeared to boost their white blood cells, which fight off infections.

"This effect is remarkable because we haven't given them any drugs, all we've done is change their housing conditions," said Fulvio D'Acquisto, Professor at Queen Mary University, London.

"You could say that we've just put them in their equivalent of a holiday resort for two weeks and let them enjoy their new surroundings," D'Acquisto added.

White blood cells are key to auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.

The researcher suggested that prescribing a holiday could help the sick recover more quickly -- and even give worn-out office workers a new lease of life.

"We could boost the effects of standard drug treatments that deal with the mechanics of infection, by also offering something environmental that improves a patient's more general well-being. That might be a promising approach for treating chronic diseases," D'Acquisto said.

The study is published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology.

New York, Oct 2 (IANS) Just as persistent negative thinking is a common trait that characterises most emotional disorders, researchers have found that underlying brain abnormalities in such disorders also have a lot to share.

"This study provides important insights into mechanisms shared across multiple emotional disorders, and could provide us with biomarkers that can be used to more rapidly diagnose these disorders," said study senior author Scott Langenecker, Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the US.

Those disorders, he said, can sometimes take many years to be diagnosed accurately.

The most common difference in white matter structure that Langenecker's group found -- present in every emotional disorder they looked at -- was disruption in a region of the brain that connects different parts of the "default-mode network", which is responsible for passive thoughts not focused on a particular task.

That area is the left superior longitudinal fasciculus or SLF, which also connects the default-mode network and the cognitive control network, which is important in task-based thinking and planning and tends to work in alternation with the default-mode network.

The constant negative thoughts or ruminations associated with most emotional disorders appear to be due to a hyperactive default-mode network, Langenecker said.

"If the part of the brain that helps rein in the default-mode network isn't as well-connected through the SLF, this could explain why people with emotional disorders have such a hard time modulating or gaining control of their negative thoughts," he said.

The findings were published in the journal NeuroImage: Clinical.

​London, Oct 3 (IANS) For people with Type 2 diabetes, heart failure is a common condition. According to a new study, individuals with Type 2 diabetes who had undergone coronary artery surgery prior to their heart failure diagnosis have better chances of survival in the long term.

Over 90 per cent of the patients with Type 2 diabetes have one or more other precursors of heart failure, such as high blood pressure, COPD or atrial fibrillation, diseases to which effective treatments are available that improve the chances of long-term survival, the study said.

Heart failure in people with Type 2 diabetes is often attributable to atherosclerotic coronary artery disease (CAD) -- damage or disease in the heart's major blood vessels, and such people are given either a bypass operation or catheter balloon dilation. 

"Our study indicates that revasculising coronary artery surgery can do much to improve the prognosis," said Isabelle Johansson, doctoral student at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

The risk of death within eight years of heart-failure onset was much higher if the patient also had Type 2 diabetes, with those who also had CAD showing the worst prognosis. 

However, the prognosis for long-term survival was better for the patients who had undergone coronary artery surgery before developing heart failure, an observation that held even when controlling for factors such as old age or other diseases, which might have affected the decision to perform revasculising surgery, the researchers explained.

"A decision must be taken as to whether this is possible should be made without delay for all patients with combined Type 2 diabetes and heart failure," Johansson added.

For the study, published in the Journal of American College of Cardiology, the team studied data of over 35,000 heart failure patients, over a quarter of whom had Type 2 diabetes.