Free Republic

The liver has a unique ability, regeneration. However, the liver stops regenerating in cases of diseases that involve chronic liver damage. Research has discovered in animal models a previously unknown mechanism of liver regeneration. It is a process that is triggered very quickly, just a few minutes after acute liver damage occurs. The authors write that nutritional glutamate supplementation can effectively promote liver regeneration and benefit patients with severe and chronic liver damage. The results show that liver and bone marrow are interconnected by glutamate. After acute liver damage, liver cells, called hepatocytes, produce glutamate and send it into the...

...The trial results were a major breakthrough in neuroscience, says Dr. Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. For 50 years, all medicines for the disease had worked the same way — until Dr. Schoepp and other scientists took a different path. “This drug really looks like it’s quite a different animal,” Dr. Insel says. “This is actually pretty innovative.” Dr. Schoepp and other scientists had focused their attention on the way that glutamate, a powerful neurotransmitter, tied together the brain’s most complex circuits. Every other schizophrenia drug now on the market aims at a different...