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IMAGE: Senior author Laura Vandenberg is an associate professor in the UMass Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences. view more
Credit: UMass Amherst
Low doses of propylparaben - a chemical preservative found in food, drugs and cosmetics - can alter pregnancy-related changes in the breast in ways that may lessen the protection against breast cancer that pregnancy hormones normally convey, according to University of Massachusetts Amherst research.
The findings, published March 16 in the journal
Endocrinology, suggest that propylparaben is an endocrine-disrupting chemical that interferes with the actions of hormones, says environmental health scientist Laura Vandenberg, the study s senior author. Endocrine disruptors can affect organs sensitive to hormones, including the mammary gland in the breast that produces milk.
Credit: Liu et al
With a small snout, a short and curled tail, and a big, round stomach, mini pigs are the epitome of cute and sometimes, they snore. Now, researchers think these snoring pigs can be used to study obstructive sleep apnea. A study appearing January 19 in the journal
Heliyon found that obese Yucatan mini pigs do have naturally occurring sleep apnea and that MRI scans taken while they re in sedated sleep can be used to gain new insights into what happens in the airways during sleep apnea episodes via computational flow dynamic (CFD) analysis. These are very fat pigs, says first author Zi-Jun Liu, a research professor and principal investigator in the Department of Orthodontics at the University of Washington.