Did you know that... the Sun helps us to have strong bones? Vitamin D, the "sunshine vitamin".

We do not want to finish the summer without you to had our little contribution and so in this post the Sun will be the protagonist, whose function is not only to tan us but, among other things, help us to synthesize a small key molecule in our life: vitamin D. We are going to talk very briefly the main features of the sunlight, how it affect us and what precautions we have to take against it to, finally, explain how our star helps us producing vitamin D and why it is so important to do so.

We hope you enjoy and that it entertain you during a hot summer minutes.

Guest blogging: inhibitor of apoptosis proteins (IAPs) as key players of tumoral progression and resistance.

This time we are going to do a guest blogging with our partners of the ELISaassays (www.elisaassays.com) and Molecutools (www.molecutools.com) companies, who will talk about inhibitor of apoptosis protein sor IAPs as a fundamental components involved in tumoral growth and development, as well as in chemotherapy resistance. In the same way, they have published in the ELISAassays blog our post about migraines. This kind of online colaboration is a great way to spread and divulge knowledge in some respects.

We hope to be the first of many collaborations!

Now you speak: What do people know about food additives?

As we announced in the previous post, this new entry will be much more practical and interactive. This time it is going to be you who tell us what do you know about food additives. We have taken to the streets to conduct a survey to people of all ages in relation to these compounds and their use. We are going to analyze the answers and draw conclusions about them. Moreover, we are also going to teach you how to analyze food additives that food contains and how to find them using real examples of nutrition labels. Finally we are going to talk about an app in which entering the E number or the full name of a particular additive gives us back instantly a descriptive sheet of it, including what kind of compound is, its origin and whether their use has reported any adverse effects ever, among others.

Do not miss it!

Did you know that ... 20% of food is lost by microbial spoilage? All you need to know about food additives.

In this new post we will try one of the topics that generates more controversy related to food. Let's talk about a family of compounds that has been both criticized and praised over the years: food additives. We will describe what they are, how they are classified and what they are used for, how their use is regulated and by whom, and finally we will discuss about adverse effects, denying some false rumors and emphasizing those that show greater truthfulness. Existing information about food additives is practically endless, so we had to select very carefully the information that we show. This issue has generated so much debate so many of the scientific references contradict each other and find a consensus among all those opinions is not easy.

Did you know that ... migraines affect more than 10% of the world population?

In this post we discuss a topic that everyone would have heard before. Let's talk about migraines, a disorder that involves a huge physiological and molecular background, and it has an alarmingly high impact worldwide. We are going to talk about the etiology of the disease, the molecular and supramolecular processes that trigger it and we will end talking about traditional therapies, the most novel therapies and, of course, prophylaxis or prevention of migraines. This post is not intended to be a review, but a somewhat more scientific explanation that what is generally known about migraines, explained so that everyone can understand and enjoy its content.

Did you know that... cannabis could be used to treat epilepsy?

In this third post we want to speak you about the relationship between epilepsy and cannabis, a current issue still in the process of providing a final conclusion which has fascinated us from start to finish. We are going to try to briefly introduce the set of processes that define epilepsy, analyzing their incidence and etiology. Later, we are going to see how the compound called cannabidiol, a non-psychoactive cannabis compound, can influence the course of the disease and the results obtained to date. Finally we are going to discuss some conclusions and future perspectives.

We hope you like it!