Kefir may be a beneficial post-exercise beverage for cancer survivors. It means that cancer survivors can enjoy the nutritional support that milk provides without the potential for significant stomach upset, report researchers in the Journal of Dairy Science®. Regular exercise plays an important role in improving cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength, and feelings of fatigue in cancer survivors during and after treatment.

At least 28 million prescriptions for blood thinners are filled by pharmacists yearly for the irregular heartbeat of atrial fibrillation, deep vein thrombosis, and other indications, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. However, on rare occasions, anticoagulants can present risks of accidental bleeding and hemorrhage or can delay emergency surgery. A newly completed phase III clinical study demonstrates the safety and efficacy of idarucizumab, a novel therapy that acts as an antidote to the blood thinner dabigatran.

Doctors can't predict who will develop Type 1 diabetes, a chronic autoimmune disease in which one's own immune system destroys the cells needed to control blood-sugar levels, requiring daily insulin injections and continual monitoring. Now, a new study led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found that viruses in the intestines may affect a person's chance of developing the disease.

Poor diet is associated with 80% of colorectal cancer cases, but the exact pathways by which diet leads to cancer are not known. In a newly published study, Cleveland Clinic researchers have identified a specific molecular pathway that plays a key role in the link between a high-fat diet and tumor growth in the colon. In the July 6 issue of Stem Cell Reports, the team showed in pre-clinical models that cancer stem cell growth in the colon was enhanced by a high-fat, Western diet.

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and The Cleveland Clinic designed a way to screen brain tumor cells and identify potential drug targets missed by other methods. The team successfully used their technique to find a glioblastoma cancer gene that, when blocked, extends mouse survival rates. In a study published in Nature, the team implanted patient-derived glioblastoma cells in mice and measured gene activity in the growing brain tumors.

Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease are not the same. They affect different regions of the brain and have distinct genetic and environmental risk factors. But at the biochemical level, these two neurodegenerative diseases start to look similar. That's how Emory scientists led by Keqiang Ye, PhD, landed on a potential drug target for Parkinson's.

Cancer scientists overestimate the extent to which high-profile preclinical studies can be successfully replicated, new research from McGill University suggests. Thes findings, published in PLOS Biology by Jonathan Kimmelman and colleagues from McGill, are based on a survey in which both experts and novices were asked to predict whether mouse experiments in six prominent preclinical cancer studies conducted by the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology (RP:CB) would reproduce the effects observed in original studies.