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Breast cancer starts in breast tissue. It arises when abnormal cells grow out of control, invade nearby tissue, and spread to other parts of the body. Although it mostly strikes women, men can also get breast cancer. In 2016, there were around 3.5 million women living with breast cancer in the United States, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Does being a morning or an evening person play a role in the risk of breast cancer? Researchers say that being a morning person can help avoid breast cancer. In the new study, the researchers carried out two types of analysis. In the first type, they ran a multivariable regression analysis on the UK Biobank data to find links between breast cancer and what each participant reported as their morning or evening preference, sleep duration, and insomnia symptoms. In the second type of analysis, they used participants' genetic profiles of chronotype, sleep duration, and insomnia to look for links between these and breast cancer. Results showed that, given that the MR analysis confirmed the first set of results, the authors conclude that the findings provide strong evidence for a causal effect of chronotype on breast cancer risk.

(Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com)

Obesity is a worldwide problem, with the World Health Organization (WHO) estimating that 650 million people across the globe were obese in 2016. Scientists have implicated specific neurons in the lateral hypothalamic area, a region involved in survival mechanisms such as food intake, in signalling to the brain when to stop eating. This mechanism is impaired in obese mice. Stuber, a professor of neurobiology and his collaborators study a specific area of the brain called the lateral hypothalamic area (LHA). "The LHA has long been known to play [a] role in promoting feeding behavior, but the exact cell types that contribute to feeding within this brain structure are not well-defined, explained Stuber. Stuber dug deeper and used a combination of techniques to visualize individual LHAVglut2 neurons when the team gave mice sucrose, a common sugar comprising glucose and fructose. The researchers found that sucrose consumption resulted in the cells' activation. However, the response was nuanced. Mice that were not very hungry showed strong activation of their LHAVglut2 neurons, whereas those that had fasted for 24 hours had an attenuated response. Stuber and his colleagues, therefore, suggest that LHAVglut2 neurons play a role in the suppression of feeding by telling our brain when to stop eating. They call this the "brake on feeding.

(Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com)