The Top 10 Everything of 2009 part 3

9. New Alzheimer's Genes
By Alice Park Tuesday, Dec. 08, 2009

Sebastien Bozon / AFP

When it comes to understanding a disease as complex as Alzheimer's, the more the better — genes, that is. In September, 15 years since the last discovery of its kind, scientists finally identified a new set of genes that may contribute to the memory-robbing disorder. Two groups of researchers, working separately, homed in on three genes linked to the late-onset form of the disease, the type that hits people in their 60s or later and accounts for 90% of Alzheimer's cases in the U.S. Two of the genes are known to interact with the amyloid-protein plaques that build up in the brain of Alzheimer's patients and eventually cause nerve-cell death and cognitive problems. The third affects the junction of nerve cells, where various neurochemicals work to relay signals from one nerve cell to another. It's not clear yet exactly how the genes increase Alzheimer's risk — in fact, most healthy people have some version of the three genes — but researchers hope that the growing pool of genetic factors will eventually help them develop more effective and better-targeted treatments for the diseas

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10. Brown Fat in Adults
By Alice Park Tuesday, Dec. 08,

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Dr. Gladden Willis / Visuals Unlimited,

When you're struggling to button your pants around your ever expanding waistline, it probably doesn't occur to you to wonder whether your body fat is brown or white. But perhaps you should. Researchers have long known that brown fat, so called because it is packed with dark-hued mitochondria (the engines that feed cells with energy), actively breaks down sugar into heat and consumes a lot more energy than white fat does. In other words, brown fat burns energy instead of storing it. However, researchers also known that while brown fat is abundant in rodents and newborns, who need it to keep warm right out of the womb, those brown-fat stores shrink and white fat emerges as people age. But now it seems that adults retain more brown fat than previously thought, in deposits in the front and back of the neck, according to a study by Swedish researchers, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in April. Two other studies published in the same journal found that lean people tend to have more of these deposits than obese folks and that brown-fat cells are more active in the cold. Could a fat-based fat fighter be far behind?
??????????The Top 10 Everything of 2009 part 3Originally from: http://www.nursinglink.monster.com/news/articles/12797-the-top-10-everything-of-2009-part-3

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