Scientists in Sweden claim that a single protein in the blood could predict the onset of Type 2 diabetes nearly 20 years in advance. The breakthrough potentially affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
Diabetes is the world’s ninth-leading cause of death, and affects nearly half a billion people worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). The vast majority of diabetes patients suffer from Type 2 diabetes, a condition that can lead to blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, strokes, and lower limb amputation. Cases of diabetes quadrupled worldwide between 1980 and 2014, with unhealthy diets and lack of exercise blamed for the rise.
However, researchers at Lund University in Malmo, Sweden claim that elevated levels of a certain protein – follistatin – in the blood can predict the onset of Type 2 diabetes regardless of a person’s age, weight, diet or activity level. In a study published last week, the scientists wrote that high levels of follistatin can predict the condition up to 19 years before symptoms appear.
To discover the link between follistatin and diabetes, the researchers tracked 5,300 people from Sweden, Italy, and the UK for between four and 19 years. Follistatin helps break down body fat, while simultaneously leading to an increase in fat in the liver. This buildup can cause fatty liver disease and Type 2 diabetes.
“This study shows that follistatin has the potential to become an important biomarker to predict future Type 2 diabetes, and it also brings us one step closer to the understanding of the mechanisms behind the disease,” Dr. Yang De Marinis, associate professor at Lund University and lead author of the study, told a university newsletter. De Marinis added that the next step for her team would be to help develop an AI-based diagnostic tool that could analyze a patient’s blood sample and use their follistatin levels – and other biomarkers – to calculate their “risk score” for Type 2 diabetes.
As follistatin levels rise in response to food intake and activity levels, the same advice for prevention of diabetes still applies. “Balanced meals, eat[ing] healthy and regular exercise are important to decrease the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes,” De Marinis told StudyFinds.
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Hundreds of major websites returned ‘404: not found’ errors after an apparent problem with Google Cloud. Alphabet said the problem was “partially resolved” after about ten minutes, but it will take time for everything to update.
The site Downdetector began showing a spike in reports of outages starting at 12:40pm Eastern time on Tuesday, affecting Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Spotify, and TikTok, as well as e-commerce sites Target, Etsy, Shopify, and Home Depot, among others.
Amazon, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Cloudflare were also affected.
Google’s Status Dashboard reported an unspecified “issue” with the Cloud service starting at 10:10 Pacific, which was causing users to encounter errors when accessing websites.
“We believe the issue with Cloud Networking is partially resolved,” the company said by 10:17 PST, but it added that “Customers will be unable to apply changes to their load balancers until the issue is fully resolved,” and they did not have an estimate as to when that might be.
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Clinics in the Austrian region of Salzburg have set up a special assessment team tasked with identifying Covid patients who have a higher chance of survival; the rest may soon have to take a back seat.
Amid a dramatic spike in Covid cases, medical personnel warn they may soon have to make the heart-wrenching choice of which patients get life-saving treatment and which ones will have to wait, Austrian media report. Intensive care units in the Salzburg region are packed, with the number of patients treated there setting a new grim record on Tuesday, reaching 33. The region ranks amid Austria’s hardest-hit, logging more than 1,500 new infections per 100,000 residents in a week. In an emotional plea for help to the local government, the head of Salzburg’s hospitals warned that soon clinics would likely not be able to guarantee the existing level of standards in terms of medical treatment. A representative for the city clinics likened the situation to “running into a wall.”
The region’s governor, Wilfried Haslauer, announced on Tuesday that some of the Covid patients whose condition was no longer life-threatening would be transferred from hospitals to rehabilitation centers to make room for more serious cases.
In neighboring Upper Austria, the situation is no better, with the number of deaths in intensive care units surpassing figures seen in all the previous Covid waves. Speaking to Austria’s Der Standard paper on condition of anonymity, healthcare workers there said they had free beds “because the infected are dying.”
For the time being, the creation of a so-called ‘triage team’ in Salzburg hospitals is being described as a “precautionary measure.” The panel is made up of six people: one legal expert and five providers from various medical disciplines. If push comes to shove, they will be deciding which patients stand a chance and which treatments have little prospect of success.
Protesters thronged the streets of Australian cities on Saturday, demanding an end to what they called the “tyranny” and “oppression” of lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and the proposed expansion of the government’s pandemic powers.
In Melbourne, Sky News reporter Sophie Elsworth described “tens of thousands of people streaming through the streets.” The march came after a week of smaller protests aimed at Victoria Premier Dan Andrews’ controversial pandemic bill, which if approved by the state’s legislature would allow Andrews and Health Minister Martin Foley to declare an indefinite state of emergency and issue public health orders by decree – including “any order… that the minister believes is reasonably necessary to protect public health.”
Tens of thousands of people keep streaming through the streets. Many I’ve spoken to are concerned about the state govt, Premier, vaccine mandates, the pandemic bill & what future holds for their kids. #melbourneprotestpic.twitter.com/smexulQ4ts
Should the bill pass, it would allow Andrews to target certain classes of people with these orders, categorizing them by age, occupation, or vaccination status. Fines for noncompliance would range from up to AU$21,800 for people and AU$109,000 for businesses.
Alternative media sources claimed that more than 100,000 people showed up to protest. However, the demonstration remained free of the violent clashes seen at protests in Melbourne in recent months.
“Australia has been willing to send troops to all parts of the world to help people become free,” one military veteran told a crowd of listeners during the protest. “To now be fighting oppression here in our own country, it’s saddening.”
Melbourne Australia 🇦🇺
An Aussie veteran is calling former servicemen and cops who have sworn an oath to Australia to stand up against the tyranny 👊 pic.twitter.com/4RsoRMjoJE
Huge numbers of protesters also turned out in Sydney, and although more than 600 police officers were deployed to watch over the gathering, no arrests were made, 9News reported.
Holding signs decrying state “tyranny,” the demonstrators chanted “freedom” and called for the firing of state politicians who have implemented a two-tier system where the unvaccinated are denied many of the privileges extended to the fully jabbed.
Similarly massive gatherings took place in Adelaide, Brisbane, and Perth, with no notable incidents of violence or police action. Further afield, protests are taking place in more than 120 cities around the world this weekend, in a loosely coordinated event dubbed the ‘Worldwide Rally For Freedom’ by activists.
Thousands of people have descended across Rundle Park today as part of an Adelaide freedom rally. Some of those in the crowd say they have lost their job as a result of mandated vaccinations in their sector. @9NewsAdelpic.twitter.com/YdzvxYJhqF
One of our favorite very specific image genres of funny pictures is cat moms that look completely unprepared for the realities of parenthood. Scroll down to see the best examples!
A pack of wild boars were rounded up and euthanized after one of the animals attacked a police officer in the streets of Hong Kong – the opening shot in a pitched battle between the feral hogs and the city’s law enforcement.
A group of veterinarians took seven wild boars into custody, euthanizing the beasts after knocking them out with dart guns in an area near the financial center of the city, according to a statement from Hong Kong’s Agriculture, Fisheries, and Conservation Department on Thursday.
The pigs were captured after one attacked a police officer last week, an act which reflects the city’s new policy toward the animals: stop them before they attack again.
The aggressive boar knocked down a police officer by biting his leg last week as the two faced off in a residential car park, the pig only losing the battle after falling off the building to its death. The wild boars are apparently “accustomed” to wandering back and forth along the roadway, begging for food from pedestrians and vehicles alike. Previously, the city had handled the population by capturing and sedating the animals, then relocating them to “remote areas,” according to the the department.
Hong Kong CEO Carrie Lam vowed to increase penalties for those citizens found feeding the boars, which have reportedly been responsible for some 30 attacks in recent years. While residents are warned not to feed the boars so as not to encourage population growth or disease outbreaks, the animals are a favorite among some visitors. Still, Lam insisted “we can’t simply sit on our hands while things deteriorate.”
Animal rights groups have responded with a protest letter against a policy of euthanasia, pointing out that most visitors do not feed the boars and arguing resources should be directed toward stopping the human activity rather than blaming all the boars. Allowing the boars to be captured and killed “ignores their right to live and considers their existence in urban areas as a capital offense,” the letter read.
With about 2.3 million people already suffering with serious water, food and pasture shortages in Somalia, a rapidly worsening drought could lead to an “extreme situation” by April next year.
KARACHI, Nov 19 (IPS) – Balance is the absolute key, if you ask Alia Chughtai, a journalist who started a catering service with filmmaker Akhlaque Mahesar, by the name of Aur Chaawal (And Rice), two years ago.
Kids say the strangest and funniest things. We’ve always loved the frank, honest and unadulterated way that little humans choose to express themselves. They see things from a different perspective to us grownups whose thoughts have been shaped and molded by the world around us. NYC school teacher Alyssa Cowit was so fascinated by the questions and comments from her Kindergarteners that she decided to start an Instagram account, called Live From Snack Time, to chronicle them. Scroll down for some of the best ones!
The city council in Austria’s second-largest city, Graz, has elected a new mayor. Communist Party member Elke Kahr has become the first Communist leader of a major city in the country.
The 60-year-old politician, who has been working in the municipal government for more than 15 years and previously served as vice mayor of Graz, was elected as the new city leader on Wednesday. A member of the Austrian Communist Party (KPÖ, Kommunistische Partei Österreichs) for almost 30 years, she won the election with 28 of 46 votes. Kahr succeeded the previous long-standing mayor Siegfried Nagl of the center-right, liberal-conservative People’s Party.
“Who would have thought that the daughter of a locksmith, a Communist, would become mayor,” she said in her first speech following the vote.
Having acknowledged a number of issues to deal with in the city, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, the new mayor highlighted a housing policy, pledging to put a stop to profit-driven construction in Ganz.
The Communists have also already formed a coalition with the Greens and the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), and another precedent in European city governance was made – two women serving as mayor and deputy. Green leader Judith Schwentner was chosen as Graz’s vice mayor, with the new governing coalition saying they would support not only social, but also environmental changes, aiming to improve living standards especially for low-income groups. Providing a bicycle for every child in the city from the municipality is in their program.
However, not everyone in the local government is happy with the new Communist rule. A member of the right-wing Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), Alexis Pascuttini, described the choice as “unpleasant,” having accused the Graz Communists of empty catchphrases in their program and refusing to participate in what he described as “left-wing nonsense.” Kahr herself has been exposed to strong pressure to justify her party, being repeatedly asked about her position on “the crimes of communist parties around the world since 1917,” according to Austrian media.
