Study finds genes drive caffeine cravings
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 8 (UPI) — Genetics may explain why some people consume large amounts of caffeine in beverages such as coffee, tea, and soda and food such as chocolate, a U.S. study says.
Researchers say they’ve discovered two gene variations that influence the metabolism of caffeine in the body and are associated with how much caffeine people consume, WebMD reported Thursday.
Both genes are possessed by all people, but a study of more than 47,000 middle-aged Americans of European descent found people with the highest-consumption variant for either gene consumed about 40 milligrams more caffeine — about the equivalent of half a cup of coffee or one can of soda — per day than people with the lowest-consumption gene varieties.
“There are hundreds of genes known for specific medical conditions — for dietary consumption we know very little,” study co-author Dr. Neil Caporaso of the National Cancer Institute told the BBC.
“Now, for the first time, we know specific genes that influence the amount of caffeine that individuals consume,” he said.
This genetic knowledge could be used “to advance caffeine research and potentially identify subgroups, defined by genotype, of the population most susceptible to the effects of caffeine,” said study co-author Dr. Marilyn C. Cornelis of the Harvard School of Public Health.
“More research on the precise function of these variants is needed, however, and there are likely more ‘caffeine genes’ to be identified.”
Discoverer of hepatitis B virus dies at 85
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif., April 8 (UPI) — Dr. Baruch S. Blumberg, who identified the hepatitis B virus and helped develop a vaccine to fight it, saving millions of lives, has died, his family said.
Blumberg, who was 85, died of an apparent heart attack in Moffett Field, Calif., shortly after giving a keynote speech at a NASA conference at the Ames Research Center Tuesday, the New York Times reported.
Blumberg won a Nobel Prize for his virology and epidemiology work that began in the 1960s at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.
His work led to the discovery of the hepatitis B virus in 1967 and the development in 1969, with research colleague Dr. Irving Millman, of the hepatitis B vaccine.
Blumberg shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1976 with D. Carleton Gajdusek for work on the origins and spread of infectious viral diseases.
In 1999 in what he called his second career, Blumberg became the founding director of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute and its effort to search for micro-organisms in space.
Blumberg, who lived in Philadelphia, is survived by his wife, Jean, two sons, two daughters and nine grandchildren.
Young people suffer gadget ‘withdrawal’
COLLEGE PARK, Md., April 8 (UPI) — Young people deprived of gadgets and technology report feeling withdrawal symptoms similar to those felt by addicts, a U.S. study says.
A University of Maryland survey of college students at campuses worldwide found four in five students admitted to significant mental and physical distress when forced to spend an entire day without modern technology such as mobile phones, laptops and television as well as social networking activities such as Facebook and Twitter.
The researchers said a “clear majority” of almost 1,000 university students interviewed in 10 countries including Britain, America and China were unable to voluntarily do without their gadgets for 24 hours, the Daily Telegraph reported Friday.
Research leader Susan Moeller said technology has changed students’ relationships.
“Technology provides the social network for young people today and they have spent their entire lives being ‘plugged in,’” she said.
Students reported doing without was like going “cold turkey,” she said.
“Students talked about how scary it was, how addicted they were,” Moeller said.
Study: Empathy may be hard-wired in apes
ATLANTA, April 8 (UPI) — a notable lack of aggression in a species of apes may be due to hard-wired brain structure that makes them mellower than other primates, a U.S. study says.
The discovery was made in bonobos, sometimes called pygmy chimpanzees, which are closely related to chimps but are strikingly less aggressive, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
“They are the only ape in our family that does not kill,” said Brian Hare, an assistant professor who studies chimpanzees and bonobos at Duke University but was not involved in the study.
In contrast, male chimpanzees have been witnessed killing infants sired by other males and will often also stalk and kill outsider chimps.
Bonobos react to stress in a much more laid-back manner, Hare said, by sharing, playing and engaging in lots of sex.
“It’s not like they never have antagonistic interactions,” Hare said. “But it’s a joke compared to what you see in chimpanzees.”
James Rilling of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, part of Emory University in Atlanta, studied detailed brain images of chimps and bonobos.
Bonobo brains, in comparison to chimp brains, displayed bigger, more developed regions thought to be vital for feeling empathy, perceiving distress in others and feeling anxiety, Rilling said.
One of those regions, the right anterior insula, is involved in generating empathy. People who have suffered damage to this region notably lack the ability to perceive how others are feeling, Rilling said.