A new study has revealed that Omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D may control the brain serotonin.

In a new Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) study, serotonin is explained as the possible missing link tying together why vitamin D and marine omega-3 fatty acids might ameliorate the symptoms associated with a broad array of brain disorders.

Here they discuss the relevance of these micronutrients for neuropsychiatric illness. Serotonin affects a wide-range of cognitive functions and behaviors including mood, decision-making, social behavior, impulsive behavior, and even plays a role in social decision-making by keeping in check aggressive social responses or impulsive behavior.

Many clinical disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and depression share as a unifying attribute low brain serotonin.

Rhonda Patrick said that they explained how serotonin is a critical modulator of executive function, impulse control, sensory gating, and pro-social behavior and linked serotonin production and function to vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids, suggesting one way these important micronutrients help the brain function and affect the way people behave.

Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) increases serotonin release from presynaptic neurons by reducing inflammatory signaling molecules in the brain known as E2 series prostaglandins, which inhibit serotonin release and suggests how inflammation may negatively impact serotonin in the brain.

Their paper illuminates the mechanistic links that explain why low vitamin D and marine omega-3 deficiencies interacts with genetic pathways, such as the serotonin pathway, that are important for brain development, social cognition, and decision-making, and how these gene-micronutrient interactions may influence neuropsychiatric outcomes.

Bruce Ames added that vitamin D, which is converted to a steroid hormone that controls about 1,000 genes, many in the brain, is a major deficiency in the US and omega-3 fatty acid deficiencies are very common because people don't eat enough fish.

The study is published in FASEB Journal.

Japanese researchers have found that a substance in black tea may be effective for treating osteoporosis, a disease that causes bones to become weak and brittle.

The team, including Keizo Nishikawa, assistant professor at Osaka University, found that theaflavin-3, or TF-3, a substance in black tea, blocks an enzyme - DNA methyltransferase - that increases osteoclasts, cells that destroy bone tissues.

In a study published in the journal Nature Medicine, researchers said that after TF-3 was administered to mice suffering from osteoporosis, their bone volume recovered to levels similar to those of normal mice.

If the experimental conditions are applied to humans, however, a person weighing 60 kg would need to drink 60 cups of black tea every three days, 'The Japan Times' reported.

The discovery may pave the way for development of teas or supplement foods containing a large amount of TF-3.

However, Nishikawa said that products using TF-3 may have very bitter taste because it is a type of catechin, a bittering agent.

A new drug that works by blocking molecules responsible for cancer cell growth has been found to be effective for advanced breast cancer patients.

The drug called palbociclib, an investigational oral medication, has been found to be well tolerated and extends progression-free survival (PFS) in newly diagnosed cancer.

The palbociclib was recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for metastatic breast cancer patients just beginning to undergo endocrine therapy.

"The FDA approval has expanded treatments options for many metastatic breast cancer patients, but these new results are showing how effective the drug can also be for breast cancer patients who have already tried endocrine therapies and may be running out of options," said Angela DeMichele from Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania.

The drug was developed by researchers at Penn Medicine.

Patients enrolled in the trial had previously undergone several prior chemotherapy and hormonal regimen for metastatic disease.

"The drug was extremely well-tolerated in this trial, and the absence of symptoms commonly associated with cancer treatment, such as nausea, diarrhoea, or pain was remarkable," said professor Peter O'Dwyer at Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania.

"The palbociclib drug may be effective in other types of cancer that operate by a similar mechanism. These trials are currently ongoing," said Amy Clark, from Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania.

The results appeared in Clinical Cancer Research.

India faces the imminent threat of malaria parasites that are resistant to the drug artemisinin, the frontline treatment against malaria, spreading from Myanmar into its territory, putting thousands of lives at risk, researchers have warned.

The research team confirmed resistant parasites in Homalin, Sagaing Region located only 25 kms from the Indian border.

If drug resistance spreads from Asia to the African sub-continent, or emerges in Africa independently, millions of lives will be at risk, the researchers added.

"We are facing the imminent threat of resistance spreading into India, with thousands of lives at risk," explained professor Mike Turner, head of infection & immunobiology at Britain-based Wellcome Trust.

The researchers examined whether parasite samples collected at 55 malaria treatment centres across Myanmar carried mutations in specific regions of the parasite's kelch gene (K13) - a known genetic marker of artemisinin drug resistance.

The team obtained the DNA sequences of 940 samples of malaria infections (known as Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasites) from across Myanmar and neighbouring border regions in Thailand and Bangladesh between 2013 and 2014. Of those 940 samples, 371 (39 percent) carried a resistance-conferring K13 mutation.

Using this information, the researchers developed maps to display the predicted extent of artemisinin resistance determined by the prevalence of K13 mutations.

The maps suggest that the overall prevalence of K13 mutations was greater than ten percent in large areas of the East and North of Myanmar, including areas close to the border with India.

The collection of samples from across Myanmar and its border regions was led by Kyaw Myo Tun of Defence Services Medical Research Centre, Napyitaw, Myanmar and coordinated by the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU) in Bangkok, Thailand.

"Drug resistant malaria parasites in the 1960s originated in Southeast Asia and from there spread through Myanmar to India, and then to the rest of the world where it killed millions of people," Turner noted.

"The new research shows that history is repeating itself with parasites resistant to artemisinin drugs, the mainstay of modern malaria treatment, now widespread in Myanmar," Turner explained.

The study appeared online in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Even though healthy eating habits have increased over the past two decades, consumption of unhealthy food had outpaced it in most world regions.

According to the first study to assess diet quality in 187 countries covering almost 4.5 billion adults, the diet patterns vary widely by national income, with high-income countries generally having better diets based on healthy foods (average score difference +2.5 points), but substantially poorer diets due to a higher intake of unhealthy foods compared with low-income countries (average score difference -33.0 points). On average, older people and women seem to consume better diets.

The highest scores for healthy foods were noted in several low-income countries (eg, Chad and Mali) and Mediterranean nations (eg, Turkey and Greece), possibly reflecting favourable aspects of the Mediterranean diet. In contrast, low scores for healthy foods were shown for some central European countries and republics of the former Soviet Union (eg, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan).

Of particular interest was that the large national differences in diet quality were not seen, or were far less apparent, when overall diet quality (including both healthy and unhealthy foods) was examined as previous studies have done.

Dr Imamura said that as per the projections, by 2020, non-communicable diseases would account for 75 percent of all deaths. Improving diet has a crucial role to play in reducing this burden. Policy actions in multiple domains are essential to help people achieve optimal diets to control the obesity epidemic and reduce non-communicable diseases in all regions of the world.

According to Dr Mozaffarian, there was an urgent need to focus on improving diet quality among poorer populations, as under-nutrition would be rapidly eclipsed by obesity and non-communicable diseases, as is already being seen in India, China, and other middle-income countries.

Carlo La Vecchia from the University of Milan in Italy and Lluis Serra-Majem from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain said that the main focus of the paper remains the need to understand the agricultural, trade, and food industry, and health policy determinants to improve dietary patterns and nutrition in various areas, taking into account the traditional characteristics of diets worldwide.

The study is published in The Lancet Global Health journal.