Health

The team of the reMYND lab is part of the EU-funded AgedBrainSYSBIO project that studies the ageing brain. The hope is to contribute to slowing the progression of Alzheimer's disease. © Koen De Witte

31 May 2013

Decoding the cause of Alzheimer's disease

With Europe’s population living longer, the quest for new Alzheimer’s disease (AD) therapies has never been more urgent. Researchers hope that figuring out which genes and environmental factors trigger the illness will deliver drugs that prevent serious memory loss.

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science. © European Union, 2013

opinion | health

22 March 2013

How to tackle the ticking bomb of diabetes

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, urges global collaboration to stop the epidemic. Diabetes currently affects more than 350 million people around the world.

Type-1 diabetes sufferers monitor their blood glucose levels several times a day. © Shutterstock

health

18 March 2013

Diabetes – the preventable epidemic

Eat well and exercise. That is the simple message that could help reverse the spread of one of Europe’s most troubling epidemics – Type 2 diabetes.

health

18 March 2013

Research to shed light on diabetes risk to migrant populations

Africans and Asians who migrate to Europe have a higher risk of diabetes than indigenous people as they adjust to a different diet and lifestyle. By looking at the development of diabetes in these groups, researchers hope to find out more about the disease and how to combat it both in Europe and worldwide.

Professor John B. Gurdon was the joint winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine © Gurdon Institute

interview | health

18 March 2013

Nobel Prize winner who nearly flunked science advises perseverance

‘You will never become a scientist!’ For his teachers, a science career for John Gurdon, was no more than hypothetical. But the British professor who won the 2012 Nobel Prize for Medicine has only one piece of advice for aspiring researchers: ‘Don’t give up!’

health

18 March 2013

Diabetes: Patients tell their stories

Diabetes is on the rise all around the world. In the EU alone, there are 33 million people diagnosed with diabetes. They include people of all ages and from all walks of life. The two main forms are insulin-dependent Type-1 diabetes and non-insulin-dependent Type-2 diabetes. Type-1 diabetes, which develops mainly in children and adolescents, is more aggressive. However the disease is not a tragedy, as three ‘Type-1’ patients explain.

In the lab of the Department of Experimental Medicine based at the University of Leuven, Belgium, directed by Professor Chantal Mathieu, coordinator of the Naimit project. © Lut Overbergh

health

18 March 2013

Tablet treatment could end child diabetes, says researcher

An experimental tablet treatment for child diabetes, where youngsters have traditionally had to inject themselves with sugar controlling insulin, could end up eradicating the disease altogether, according to the scientist leading the European NAIMIT project.

John Bowis founded the EU Diabetes Working Group when he was a Member of the European Parliament © European Union 2007PE-EP

health

18 March 2013

Diabetes – check your feet

Doctors should routinely test people’s feet to check for diabetes, that’s according to a former UK Health Minister and MEP who has become a campaigner for the disease after being diagnosed with it himself.

Professor Frances Ashcroft is a physiologist at the University of Oxford © Robert Taylor/www.taylor-photo.co.uk

interview | health | women in science

13 March 2013

From wild orchids to injection-free diabetes treatment

It all started with the chance discovery of a country lane full of wild orchids by an inquisitive young girl in rural England. That young girl, Frances Ashcroft, would go on to become one of Europe’s leading diabetes researchers.

Health

Decoding the cause of Alzheimer's disease