Blood test might someday diagnose early MS
An early marker of multiple sclerosis could help doctors figure out who will eventually fall prey to the degenerative nerve disease, a new study says.
Apr 27, 2024
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An early marker of multiple sclerosis could help doctors figure out who will eventually fall prey to the degenerative nerve disease, a new study says.
Apr 27, 2024
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A blood test successfully predicted knee osteoarthritis at least eight years before tell-tale signs of the disease appeared on X-rays, Duke Health researchers report.
Apr 26, 2024
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Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have discovered in a preclinical model that cytokines, proteins that control immune response, circulating in maternal blood during pregnancy may mitigate an offspring's risk for psychiatric ...
Apr 26, 2024
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There has been a breakthrough in the research on the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Scientists at UmeƄ University report that the disease progression in a patient with a particularly aggressive form of ALS ...
Apr 26, 2024
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In a new analysis of genetic susceptibility to kidney cancer, an international team of researchers has identified 50 new areas across the genome that are associated with the risk of developing kidney cancer. These insights ...
Apr 26, 2024
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A new study highlights possible cardiovascular health advantages in individuals with a rare condition known as growth hormone receptor deficiency (GHRD), also called Laron syndrome.
Apr 26, 2024
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A team of Northwestern Medicine investigators has discovered novel DNA methylation patterns in the blood of patients with Parkinson's disease, according to findings published in Annals of Neurology.
Apr 26, 2024
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Compared with computers, the brain can perform computations with a very low net energy supply. Yet our understanding surrounding how the biological brain manages energy is still incomplete. What is known, however, is that ...
Apr 26, 2024
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An international group of noise experts from the Copenhagen Cancer Institute (Denmark), the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Philadelphia (U.S.) ...
Apr 25, 2024
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Patricia Creque describes herself as "one of those people who has music in my head and am always ready to dance."
Apr 25, 2024
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Blood is a specialized bodily fluid that delivers necessary substances to the body's cells — such as nutrients and oxygen — and transports waste products away from those same cells.
In vertebrates, it is composed of blood cells suspended in a liquid called blood plasma. Plasma, which comprises 55% of blood fluid, is mostly water (90% by volume), and contains dissolved proteins, glucose, mineral ions, hormones, carbon dioxide (plasma being the main medium for excretory product transportation), platelets and blood cells themselves. The blood cells present in blood are mainly red blood cells (also called RBCs or erythrocytes) and white blood cells, including leukocytes and platelets. The most abundant cells in vertebrate blood are red blood cells. These contain hemoglobin, an iron-containing protein, which facilitates transportation of oxygen by reversibly binding to this respiratory gas and greatly increasing its solubility in blood. In contrast, carbon dioxide is almost entirely transported extracellularly dissolved in plasma as bicarbonate ion.
Vertebrate blood is bright-red when its hemoglobin is oxygenated. Some animals, such as crustaceans and mollusks, use hemocyanin to carry oxygen, instead of hemoglobin. Insects and some molluscs use a fluid called hemolymph instead of blood, the difference being that hemolymph is not contained in a closed circulatory system. In most insects, this "blood" does not contain oxygen-carrying molecules such as hemoglobin because their bodies are small enough for their tracheal system to suffice for supplying oxygen.
Jawed vertebrates have an adaptive immune system, based largely on white blood cells. White blood cells help to resist infections and parasites. Platelets are important in the clotting of blood. Arthropods, using hemolymph, have hemocytes as part of their immune system.
Blood is circulated around the body through blood vessels by the pumping action of the heart. In animals having lungs, arterial blood carries oxygen from inhaled air to the tissues of the body, and venous blood carries carbon dioxide, a waste product of metabolism produced by cells, from the tissues to the lungs to be exhaled.
Medical terms related to blood often begin with hemo- or hemato- (also spelled haemo- and haemato-) from the Ancient Greek word αἶμα (haima) for "blood". In terms of anatomy and histology, blood is considered a specialized form of connective tissue, given its origin in the bones and the presence of potential molecular fibers in the form of fibrinogen.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA