Tag Archives: mitochondria

Being overweight causes hazardous inflammations

“We believe that there is a connection between metabolism, inflammation, heart attack and stroke,” says Bente Halvorsen, professor at the Research Institute for Internal Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway. Together with the research group’s leader, Pål Aukrust, who last year received the university’s research award for his work on inflammatory diseases, and researcher Arne Yndestad, she has looked deeply into the molecular explanation of why overweight is harmful. …

Dysfunctional mitochondria may underlie resistance to radiation therapy

Maxim Frolov, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and colleagues investigated the effects of a mutation in a gene called E2F, which controls other genes responsible for initiating programmed cell death, a normal function in most cells. Cells undergo programmed cell death — or apoptosis — when they are no longer needed, as a normal part of aging, or in response to environmental factors like radiation that damage cellular DNA. …