The link between influenza and pneumococcal pneumonia is clearly shown in our study. In short, our analysis revealed a transient but significant - about 100 times - increase the risk of pneumococcal pneumonia following influenza infection, "- said the study's lead author Pezhman Rohani of the University of Michigan.
Previously, the relationship between influenza and pneumonia could be established only in animals. Rohani and his colleagues created a computer model of the spread of bacterial pneumonia in humans and tested various hypotheses that describe the role of influenza in the process. The scientists assessed the compliance of each hypothesis, epidemiological reports for 20 years, from 1989 to 2009, in which the weekly recorded cases of hospitalization for influenza and pneumonia in Illinois.
These observations confirm the hypothesis that the increased susceptibility of patients with influenza to the agents of pneumonia lasts for 5-7 days after infection. The scientists also found that at the peak of the epidemic season flu was the cause of 40% of the cases of pneumonia, but the average for the year, this value does not exceed 10%. Perhaps that is why earlier researchers failed to show the relationship between the two diseases.

High-calorie diet can contribute to the development of cancer

Scientists in Japan have found that high-calorie diet alters the intestinal microflora, which may cause cancer of the liver and gastrointestinal tract.

Naoko Ohtani of the Cancer Institute in Tokyo (Japan) and her colleagues found that microorganisms can indirectly contribute to the development of cancer, watching her work in the intestine of mice during the transition to high-calorie diet. In these experiments, doctors noticed that rodents, overweight, suffer more from cancer than their cousins in the control group.
Scientists intrigued by this fact, and they decided to find the cause of this by analyzing the differences in the microflora and the genomes of mice from these groups. For example, some bacteria in the intestines of rodents with overweight behaved extremely unusual - they synthesized molecules of deoxycholic acid. It belongs to bile acids required for some absorption of nutrients, including vitamins A, D and E. Typically, they are not destroyed in the gut together with the blood and the liver.
Deoxycholic acid is a carcinogen that can cause damage and mutations in the DNA. This happened with the mice - when scientists destroyed the "bad" bacteria, the incidence of tumors in the liver and intestine decreased significantly, almost reaching the values characteristic of the control group. This fact shows that the high-calorie diet can actually contribute to the development of cancer, doctors conclude.

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