Tag Archives: biomedical

Sofrito contains substances that reduce risk of cardiovascular disease

The study, PREvention with a MEDiterranean Diet (PREDIMED) has recently shown the link between the Mediterranean diet and low levels of cardiovascular disease. The questionnaire used as a reference asked consumers how often they ate vegetables, pasta, rice and other dishes made with sofrito, but the beneficial compounds of this product had never been analysed. Now researchers from the University of Barcelona (UB) and the Biomedical Research Centres Network — Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition (CIBERobn) of the Carlos III Health Institute, have for the first time identified polyphenols and carotenoids -healthy antioxidant substances- in sofrito, by using a high resolution mass spectrometry technique. The results have been published in the ‘Food Chemistry’ magazine and they show the presence of at least 40 types of polyphenols. …

Imaging breast cancer with light

If effective, the new device, called a photoacoustic mammoscope, would represent an entirely new way of imaging the breast and detecting cancer. Instead of X-rays, which are used in traditional mammography, the photoacoustic breast mammoscope uses a combination of infrared light and ultrasound to create a 3-D map of the breast…

Breast cancer surgery linked to swollen arm syndrome

The findings in a new paper Incidence of unilateral arm lymphoedema after breast cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis published in the journal The Lancet Oncology, reveal the invasiveness of surgery to treat breast cancer increases the risk of developing arm lymphoedema. Lead author of the study Tracey DiSipio, from QUT’s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, said women who had undergone an axillary lymph node dissection — an invasive surgery to remove lymph nodes under the arm — were four times more likely to suffer swollen or disfigured arms. …

Sugar makes cancer light-up in MRI scanners

The new technique, called ‘glucose chemical exchange saturation transfer’ (glucoCEST), is based on the fact that tumours consume much more glucose (a type of sugar) than normal, healthy tissues in order to sustain their growth. The researchers found that sensitising an MRI scanner to glucose uptake caused tumours to appear as bright images on MRI scans of mice. Lead researcher Dr Simon Walker-Samuel, from the UCL Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging (CABI) said: "GlucoCEST uses radio waves to magnetically label glucose in the body. This can then be detected in tumours using conventional MRI techniques…

Noninvasive detection, diagnosis of oral cancer

The imaging technique, which is detailed in the Journal of Biomedical Optics, is being developed by Kristen Maitland, assistant professor in the university’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. It combines two separate technologies — confocal microscopy and fluorescence lifetime imaging — to noninvasively evaluate both the structural changes of tissue as well as molecular changes that take place on a cellular and tissue level…