High prescription drug prices are attributable to several causes, including the approach the U.S. has taken to granting government-protected monopolies to drug manufacturers, and the restriction of price negotiation at a level not observed in other industrialized nations, according to a study appearing in the August 23/30 issue of JAMA.

Supplementing with soluble corn fiber at two critical times in a woman's life - adolescence and post-menopause - can help build and retain calcium in bone, according to new research from Purdue University. The post-menopause findings are published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and the adolescent findings are published in Journal of Nutrition.

Obesity and Type 2 diabetes are associated with vascular stiffening and the development of cardiovascular disease. Obese and diabetic premenopausal women are most at risk - even more than men of the same age who have similar health issues. A study by University of Missouri School of Medicine researchers found that a diabetes

Scientists at Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute found that a deep-water marine sponge collected off of Fort Lauderdale's coast contains leiodermatolide, a natural product that has the ability to inhibit the growth of cancer cells as well as block cancer cells from dividing using extremely low concentrations of the compound.

An international team of researchers - led by scientists at UC San Francisco, Stanford University, the University of North Carolina (UNC), and the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany - has developed a new opioid drug candidate that blocks pain without triggering the dangerous side effects of current prescription painkillers. Their secret?

Intestinal flora has multiple influences on human health, but researchers have revealed that it is also likely to have an effect on the body's response to drugs. Recent research from Kumamoto University in Japan strongly suggests that changes in the intestinal flora, caused by antibacterial and antibiotic drugs or individual differences between people, may have an effect on a person's response to drugs including side effects.

Researchers from Polytechnique Montréal, Université de Montréal and McGill University have just achieved a spectacular breakthrough in cancer research. They have developed new nanorobotic agents capable of navigating through the bloodstream to administer a drug with precision by specifically targeting the active cancerous cells of tumours.