Low-calorie sweeteners (LCSs) are often used in place of added sugars such as sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup in food and beverage products. While these artificial sweeteners offer less calories, their effects on weight management and long-term health are still under investigation. A new study in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics reports that 41% of adults and 25% of children currently consume at least one LCS item on a regular basis.

Deregulation and inhibition of the immune system contributes to cancer development. Many therapeutic strategies aim to re-stimulate the immune system to recognize cancer cells and target them for destruction. Researchers from Moffitt Cancer Center report that a dendritic cell vaccine that targets the HER2 protein on breast cancer cells is safe and effectively stimulates the immune system leading to regression of early-stage breast cancer.

It's an exciting time to be an elderly mouse. Researchers believe that by removing senescent cells (cells with a persistent damage response), which naturally accumulate with age, senior rodents can regrow hair, run faster, and improve organ function. This strategy may bring us one step closer to the "fountain of youth," but it's important to be cautious and not hype, says researcher of aging Peter de Keizer of the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands.

A combination of two FDA-approved drugs - a topical chemotherapy and an immune-system-activating compound - was able to rapidly clear actinic keratosis lesions from patients participating in a clinical trial. Standard treatment for this common skin condition, which can lead to the development of squamous cell carcinoma, takes up to a month and can elicit several unpleasant side effects.

Just 20 conditions make up more than half of all spending on health care in the United States, according to a new comprehensive financial analysis that examines spending by diseases and injuries. The most expensive condition, diabetes, totaled $101 billion in diagnoses and treatments, growing 36 times faster than the cost of ischemic heart disease, the number-one cause of death, over the past 18 years.

Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have created a computational tool that can rapidly predict which genes are implicated in an individual's cancer and recommend treatments. It is among the most comprehensive tools of its kind, and the first that incorporates a user-friendly web interface that requires little knowledge of bioinformatics.

Anticholinergic medications, a class of drugs very commonly used by older adults, are linked to an increased rate of emergency department and hospital utilization in the United States, according to an Indiana University Center for Aging Research, Indiana University Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science, and Regenstrief Institute study of community-dwelling Americans age 65 and older.