A recent study from the University of Eastern Finland shows that among users of antidementia drugs, persons using memantine have the highest risk of pneumonia. The use of rivastigmine patches is associated with an increased risk as well. The study found that persons using donepezil or galantamine had the lowest risk of pneumonia.

The use of benzodiazepines and related drugs increases the risk of hip fracture by 43% in persons with Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study from the University of Eastern Finland. The hip fracture risk was investigated in community-dwelling Finnish persons with Alzheimer's disease. The results of the study were published in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association.

A groundbreaking study of the virosphere of the most populous animals - those without backbones such as insects, spiders and worms and that live around our houses - has uncovered 1445 viruses, revealing people have only scratched the surface of the world of viruses - but it is likely that only a few cause disease.

In a review of published studies addressing patients' perceptions and factors influencing their reporting of adverse drug reactions, most patients were not aware of reporting systems and others were confused about reporting. For those patients who did report their experiences with adverse drug reactions, the main motivation was to prevent similar suffering in other patients.

No one can deny that men and women have different genes, biology and anatomical features. However, only a minority of medical studies take this into account when analyzing and reporting research results. Time to hold researchers accountable, argue two leading experts on sex and gender, not just for the sake of equity, but mainly for the sake of health.

Most antibiotics in use today are based on natural molecules produced by bacteria - and given the rise of antibiotic resistance, there's an urgent need to find more of them. Yet coaxing bacteria to produce new antibiotics is a tricky proposition. Most bacteria won't grow in the lab. And even when they do, most of the genes that cause them to churn out molecules with antibiotic properties never get switched on.

Knowing the likely course of cancer can influence treatment decisions. Now a new prediction model published today in Lancet Oncology offers a more accurate prognosis for a patient's metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. The approach was as novel as the result - while researchers commonly work in small groups, intentionally isolating their data, the current study embraces the call in Joe Biden's "Cancer Moonshot" to open their question and their data, collecting previously published clinical trial data and calling for worldwide collaboration to evaluate its predictive power.