A type of sugar found naturally in some women's breast milk may protect new born babies from infection with a potentially life threatening bacterium called Group B streptococcus, according to a new study from Imperial College London. These bacteria are a common cause of meningitis in new borns and the leading cause of infection in the first three months of life in the UK and globally.

Diabetes heightens the risk of vascular damage to heart and limbs, and impairs the ability to repair damage with new growth of blood vessels, called angiogenesis. There are no established drugs to improve angiogenesis in diabetes. However, researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center now have identified a gene called CITED2 in a molecular pathway that may offer targets for drugs that treat these conditions by strengthening angiogenesis.

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?