Add another typical component of the Italian way of life to the long list of foods characterizing one of the most healthy populations in the world. This time it's coffee, prepared the Italian way. A research by the Department of Epidemiology and Prevention - I.R.C.C.S. Neuromed, Italy, in collaboration with the Italian National Institute of Health and the I.R.C.C.S. Istituto Dermopatico dell'Immacolata of Rome, shows that three or more cups a day can lower prostate cancer risk.

A new study has made a major new discovery towards finding the cause of multiple sclerosis (MS), potentially paving the way for research to investigate new treatments. Ahead of MS Awareness Week, which starts today, an international team involving the University of Exeter Medical School and the University of Alberta has discovered a new cellular mechanism - an underlying defect in brain cells - that may cause the disease, and a potential hallmark that may be a target for future treatment of the autoimmune disorder.

A high-fat diet and obesity turn "hero" virus-fighting liver immune cells "rogue", leading to insulin resistance, a condition that often results in type 2 diabetes, according to research published today in Science Immunology. Using cells from mice and human livers, Toronto General Hospital Research Institute researchers demonstrated for the first time how under specific conditions, such as obesity, liver CD8+ T cells, white blood cells which play an important role in the control of viral infections, become highly activated and inflammatory, reprogramming themselves into disease-driving cells.

Fungi are a potential goldmine for the production of pharmaceuticals. This is shown by researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, who have developed a method for finding new antibiotics from nature's own resources. The findings - which could prove very useful in the battle against antibiotic resistance - were recently published in the journal, Nature Microbiology.

One of the most common combined oral contraceptive pills has a negative impact on women's quality of life but does not increase depressive symptoms. This is shown by a major randomised, placebo-controlled study conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden in collaboration with the Stockholm School of Economics. The results have been published in the scientific journal Fertility and Sterility.

Scientists at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC) have discovered a new mechanism of action of metoprolol, a drug that can reduce the damage produced during a heart attack if administered early. The team led by Dr. Borja Ibáñez, Clinical Research Director at the CNIC and cardiologist at the Fundación Jiménez Díaz University Hospital Health Research Institute (IIS-FJD), has identified the mechanism that explains why this drug is so beneficial: rapid administration of metoprolol during a heart attack directly inhibits the inflammatory action of neutrophils, a type of blood cell.

The most complex organ in humans is the brain. Due to its complexity and, of course, for ethical reasons, it is extremely difficult to do scientific experiments on it - ones that could help us to understand neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's, for example. Scientists at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) of the University of Luxembourg have now succeeded in turning human stem cells derived from skin samples into tiny, three-dimensional, brain-like cultures that behave very similarly to cells in the human midbrain.