Previous studies have linked benzodiazepines - a medication class that may be used in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) to treat symptoms of insomnia, depression, anxiety and shortness of breath - with adverse outcomes, but until now there has been little information on how frequently it's prescribed or who is using it.

Vitamin C seems to be particularly beneficial for people under heavy physical stress. In five randomized trials of participants with heavy short-term physical stress, vitamin C halved the incidence of the common cold. Three of the trials studied marathon runners, one studied Swiss school children in a skiing camp and one studied Canadian soldiers during a winter exercise.

A study in this week's PLOS Medicine finds that the painkiller diclofenac (a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) in the same class as aspirin) is the most commonly used NSAID in the 15 countries studied and is included in the essential medicines lists of 74 low-, middle- and high-income countries, despite its known tendency to cause heart attacks and strokes in vulnerable patients.

Discovering what they call the "Achilles' heel" for lymphoid leukemia, an international research team has tested a possible alternative treatment that eradicated the disease in mouse models. Reporting their results in the journal Cancer Cell, the scientists said the targeted molecular therapy described in their study could have direct implications for current treatment of Acute Lymphoid Leukemia (ALL) in people.

A compound that stimulates the production of a tumor-fighting protein may improve the usefulness of the protein in cancer therapy, according to a team of researchers. TRAIL is a natural anti-tumor protein that suppresses tumor development during immune surveillance - the immune system's process of patrolling the body for cancer cells.

Ottawa scientists have discovered a trigger that turns muscle stem cells into brown fat, a form of good fat that could play a critical role in the fight against obesity. The findings from Dr. Michael Rudnicki's lab, based at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, were published in the prestigious journal Cell Metabolism.

Having adequate levels of vitamin D during young adulthood may reduce the risk of adult-onset type 1 diabetes by as much as 50%, according to researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). The findings, if confirmed in future studies, could lead to a role for vitamin D supplementation in preventing this serious autoimmune disease in adults.