Health and Medicine

A team from the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences has again reached the finals of a major student competition.

Iron is the workhorse of trace minerals. An essential component of red blood cells, disruption of iron levels in the body will result in a myriad of serious conditions, and life cannot be sustained without it. In novel research, investigators at the University at Buffalo's School of Public Health and Health Professions, have learned that iron is only one half of an all-important duo of trace minerals -- the other being copper -- that work in tandem to maintain proper iron balance, or homeostasis.

Orange juice, despite its high caloric load of sugars, appears to be a healthy food for diabetics due to its mother lode of flavonoids, a study by endocrinologists at the University at Buffalo has shown.

Selenium, an antioxidant included in multivitamin tablets thought to have a possible protective effect against the development of type 2 diabetes, may actually increase the risk of developing the disease, an analysis by researchers at the University at Buffalo has shown.

Blood vessels that have been tissue-engineered from bone marrow adult stem cells may in the future serve as a patient's own source of new blood vessels following a coronary bypass or other procedures that require vessel replacement, according to new research from the University at Buffalo Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.

A blood component called cystatin C, used to test for early-stage kidney impairment, also may be a very early marker for those at risk of developing a condition known as pre-diabetes, a study conducted by researchers at the University at Buffalo has shown.

Did God make scientists? Most of them don't think so. The first systematic analysis in decades to examine the religious beliefs and practices of elite academics in the sciences supports the notion that science professors at top universities are less religious than the general population, but attributes this to a number of variables that have little to do with their study of science.

Out-buzzing and out-smarting teams from the University at Pennsylvania and Wayne State University, a three-person team from the University at Buffalo's psychiatry residency program won the first "Jeopardy"-inspired "MindGames" at the 2007 annual meeting of the American Psychiatry Association held in San Diego in May.

Bloody murder has been a quintessentially American preoccupation since John Newcomen sailed in on the Mayflower and was whacked by a fellow colonist. What followed in America from the 17th century to the present, says cultural analyst and author David F. Schmid, Ph.D., is a form of "entertainment by murder," a ghastly enthrallment that conflates some of Americans' favorite preoccupations: consumerism, titillation by celebrity gossip and violence.

A four-year study on iron metabolism within cells, an essential process that impacts both iron deficiency and iron toxicity, conditions responsible for a multitude of human diseases, is underway at the University at Buffalo funded by a $1.16 million grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).