IRX3 Made Me This Way
Week of August 2
A holy grail of obesity research is to find the genes and their products behind it. For a while it looked like mutations in a gene called FTO was responsible. But a new study reveals the FTO mutation is actually affecting another gene that does make someone more apt to be obese.
It’s called IRX3 and is quite a distance from the FTO gene. What’s also interesting is how the two interact. Genes have an area that control gene expression and segments that don’t code called introns. Researchers saw that the mutated FTO intron wasn’t affecting the FTO gene expression. Rather, it enhanced the expression of the distant IRX3 gene... More »
With all the research that’s been done on Alzheimer’s research, what’s always been elusive is a reliable early test for it. In a few years, it’s possible we’ll have one. The test is given to someone in their early seventies to determine if they will develop Alzheimer’s disease, or AD, with ninety percent accuracy. That’s remarkable given there’s no single test for it, let alone one that’s predictive. This test looks at ten lipids or fats in the blood. If they’re low, you’re likely to develop Alzheimer’s... 
