A drug approved in Europe to treat osteoporosis has now been shown to stop the growth of breast cancer cells, even in cancers that have become resistant to current targeted therapies, according to a Duke Cancer Institute study. The findings, presented June at the annual Endocrine Society meeting in San Francisco, indicate that the drug bazedoxifene packs a powerful one-two punch that not only prevents estrogen from fueling breast cancer cell growth, but also flags the estrogen receptor for destruction.

Aspirin is known to lower risk for some cancers, and a new study led by a UC San Francisco scientist points to a possible explanation, with the discovery that aspirin slows the accumulation of DNA mutations in abnormal cells in at least one pre-cancerous condition.

Advanced metastatic melanoma is a disease that has proven difficult to eradicate. Despite the success of melanoma-targeting drugs, tumors inevitably become drug resistant and return, more aggressive than before. In the current issue of the journal Cancer Cell, however, researchers at The Wistar Institute describe how they increase the effectiveness of anti-melanoma drugs by combining anticancer therapies with diabetes drugs.

A phase 1 clinical trial for the first treatment to reset the immune system of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients showed the therapy was safe and dramatically reduced patients' immune systems' reactivity to myelin by 50 to 75 percent, according to new Northwestern Medicine research. In MS, the immune system attacks and destroys myelin, the insulating layer that forms around nerves in the spinal cord, brain and optic nerve.

Using cholesterol-lowering statins may be associated with musculoskeletal conditions, arthropathies (joint diseases) and injuries, according to a report published Online First by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. While statins effectively lower cardiovascular illnesses and death, the full spectrum of statin musculoskeletal adverse events (AEs) is unknown.

MyHealthAvatar project aims to proof the concept of the digital representation of your health status. Your health status will be designed as a lifetime companion (Avatar). Your Health Avatar will facilitate the collection of, and access to, long-term health-status information. This will be extremely valuable for healthcare decisions and offer a promising approach to support health research.

Giving double doses of the antiviral drug oseltamivir, or Tamiflu, offers no clinical or virological advantages over a standard dose for patients admitted to hospital with severe influenza infection, according to a randomised trial published and funded by the Wellcome Trust, US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Singapore National Medical Research Council.