Widely-used fish oil supplements modestly increase amounts of a hormone that is associated with lower risk of diabetes and heart disease, according to a study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

Researchers have developed a new drug delivery system that allows inhalation of chemotherapeutic drugs to help treat lung cancer, and in laboratory and animal tests it appears to reduce the systemic damage done to other organs while significantly improving the treatment of lung tumors.

Transparent information on the evidence supporting global recommendations on paediatric medicines should be easily accessible in order to help policy makers decides on what drugs to include in their national drug lists, according to international experts from Ghana and the UK writing in this week's PLOS Medicine.

A new report suggests that improved health care and significant reductions in drug costs might be attained by breaking up the age-old relationship between physicians and drug company representatives who promote the newest, more costly and often unnecessary prescription drugs.

Injectable nanoparticles developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) may someday eliminate the need for patients with Type 1 diabetes to constantly monitor their blood-sugar levels and inject themselves with insulin. The nanoparticles were designed to sense glucose levels in the body and respond by secreting the appropriate amount of insulin, thereby replacing the function of pancreatic islet cells, which are destroyed in patients with Type 1 diabetes.

A clinical trial has shown that patients, and their physicians, are eager to jump into next-era cancer care - analysis of an individual's tumor to find and target genetic mutations that drive the cancer. Results of the study, CUSTOM, are being presented at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology years before investigators thought they would be ready.

In a landmark cancer study published online in Nature, researchers at NYU School of Medicine have unraveled a longstanding mystery about how pancreatic tumor cells feed themselves, opening up new therapeutic possibilities for a notoriously lethal disease with few treatment options. Pancreatic cancer kills nearly 38,000 Americans annually, making it a leading cause of cancer death. The life expectancy for most people diagnosed with it is less than a year.