News by Subject Medicine & Health

Reliable information on prices and availability of medicines is the main foundation for improving access to medicines through development of public policy and evidence-based programs.

Attaching a removable lock to an arthritis drug can make it safer and more effective, according to a new study publishing June 13 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology led by Wen-Wei Lin of Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan. The findings suggest a new way to improve the efficacy of a drug taken by millions of patients throughout the world.

A unique adjuvant, a substance that enhances the body's immune response to toxins and foreign matter, can prevent vaccine-enhanced respiratory disease, a sickness that has posed a major hurdle in vaccine development for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), according to a study led by the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University.

For some people, medication is an effective part of treatment for depression. However, when considering whether to prescribe antidepressant medication for older adults, healthcare providers must weigh the safety risks these medications pose against the often modest benefits they can provide compared to other options.

Researchers followed their intuition that a drug initially intended for heart failure could be effective in treating cancer.

Microorganisms often assemble natural products similar to product assembly lines. Certain enzymes, non-ribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPS), play a key role in this process. Biotechnologists at Goethe University have now succeeded in changing these enzymes so that entirely new natural products, or even libraries of natural products, can be produced by microorganisms.

Cardiovascular health and physical activity levels of prostate cancer patients improve following successful interventions by community pharmacies, new research in the British Medical Journal reports.

Alternatives to opioids for treating pain are sorely needed. A study in rats suggests that tetrodotoxin, properly packaged, offers a safe pain block.