For the first time in the world, researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have demonstrated that probiotics, dietary supplements with health-promoting bacteria, can be used to affect the human skeleton. Among older women who received probiotics, bone loss was halved compared to women who received only a placebo. The research opens the door to a new way to prevent fractures among the elderly.

Obesity is an increasing global health problem associated with several comorbidities and a high risk of mortality. A wide spectrum of interventions has been proposed for weight management in clinical settings, but most are effective only in the short term, since it is common for patients with obesity to gradually regain the weight lost. This unfavourable outcome continues to stimulate researchers to search for an effective long-lasting treatment for obesity.

It's called the 'kiss of death'. Triple negative breast cancer has no targeted drug therapy and, as such, the only hope for these patients is chemotherapy. Triple negative breast cancer is aggressive and deadly. Patients are currently treated by chemotherapy but there is no guarantee of success - and unfortunately, for those that chemotherapy does not work, the survival rate remains only 12 months.

For at least 20 years, research has shown that for many people, moderate consumption of alcohol can protect the heart, but the reason for this is poorly understood. A study conducted at the University of São Paulo's Biomedical Science Institute (ICB-USP) in Brazil suggests that this cardioprotective mechanism may be associated with activation of ALDH2 (aldehyde dehydrogenase-2),

Research at Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) has found that information available online can provide unreliable information based on old, 'weak' scientific studies. The study 'Fake news or weak science?' is published in open-access journal Frontiers in Immunology.

A team of researchers says it has linked sensitivity to an allergen in red meat to the buildup of plaque in the arteries of the heart. While high saturated fat levels in red meat have long been known to contribute to heart disease for people in general, the new finding suggests that a subgroup of the population may be at heightened risk for a different reason - a food allergen.

Biology is swaddled in lipids: fats, oils, and even waxes envelop cells and their organelles, mediate the flow of vast biological information networks, protect fragile tissues, and store essential energy across multiple organisms. But despite their importance, lipids have traditionally been among the hardest biomolecules to study because of the diversity of their molecular structures, which are not determined by the well-defined building blocks and simple rules that govern DNA, RNA, and proteins.