A regimen of low-dose aspirin potentially may reduce plaques in the brain, which will reduce Alzheimer's disease pathology and protect memory, according to neurological researchers at Rush University Medical Center, who published the results of their study today in the July issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

Bolstering the notion that RNA should be considered an important drug-discovery target, scientists at Scripps Research have found that several existing, FDA-approved anti-cancer drugs may work, in part, by binding tightly to RNA, the regulators of the basic activities of life within cells. The research offers another approach for tackling diseases that have been considered "undruggable," including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis and certain cancers.

A genetically modified poliovirus therapy developed at Duke Cancer Institute shows significantly improved long-term survival for patients with recurrent glioblastoma, with a three-year survival rate of 21 percent in a phase 1 clinical trial. Comparatively, just 4 percent of patients at Duke with the same type of recurring brain tumors were alive at three years when undergoing the previously available standard treatment.

Given the choice of taking a pill or injecting oneself with a needle, most of us would opt to regulate a chronic health condition by swallowing a pill. But for millions of people living with type 1 diabetes, a painful needle prick once or twice daily is the only option for delivering the insulin that their bodies cannot produce on their own.

Alzheimer's disease could be better treated, thanks to a breakthrough discovery of the properties of the metals in the brain involved in the progression of the neurodegenerative condition, by an international research collaboration including the University of Warwick. Dr Joanna Collingwood, from Warwick's School of Engineering, was part of a research team which characterised iron species associated with the formation of amyloid protein plaques in the human brain - abnormal clusters of proteins in the brain.

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.