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Why teen mums are at risk of having low birthweight babies

The UK has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Western Europe. In Scotland, one in ten babies are born to a teenage mother.

24 Sep 2007

Promoting safety of medicines for children

The lack of thorough and reliable clinical data on the way medicines affect children requires strengthened safety monitoring and vigilance of medicinal products.

24 Sep 2007

Past clinical trials of vitamin E fatally flawed

Generations of studies on vitamin E may be largely meaningless, scientists say, because new research has demonstrated that the levels of this micronutrient necessary to reduce oxidative stress are far higher than those that have been commonly used in clinical trials.

24 Sep 2007

Scientists discover technique to help 'friendly bacteria'

There is currently a great deal of interest in the health-associated properties of probiotics, also known as 'beneficial' or 'friendly' bacteria, and prebiotics, the food needed for the growth of probiotic when inside our bodies.

24 Sep 2007

Discovery of 350 genes related to female fertility

These discoveries might lead the way to eventually allowing clinicians to test whether an infertile woman has problems with a specific gene, allowing for improved diagnostic tests and tailored therapy in the future, said Dr. Castrillon, a specialist in the diagnosis of infertility and other diseases of women.

24 Sep 2007

New synthetic version of the drug heparin

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have patented a synthetic version of the drug heparin, called Recomparin, that is less complex chemically and should be easier to produce than previous forms.

24 Sep 2007

UK failing to eat five daily portions of fruit and vegetables

Nearly two thirds of people across the UK are failing to eat the recommended five daily portions of fruit and vegetables - according to research released today.

24 Sep 2007

Genetic risk for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder identified

New research in primates suggests that infants and children who carry a certain gene variant may be more vulnerable to the ill effects of fetal alcohol exposure.

24 Sep 2007

Insecticide-treated bednet coverage reduces child mortality by 44%

The use of insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs) leads to a 44% reduction in child mortality.

24 Sep 2007

Stress and cardiovascular health

The importance of a healthy lifestyle to reduce stress in order to manage risk factors associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes is emphasised in a Review in this week's edition of The Lancet.

24 Sep 2007

Researchers pinpoint when a cell is ready to reproduce

For more than 100 years, scientists have tried to figure out the cell size problem: How does a cell know when it is big enough to divide, In research conducted in budding yeast ( Saccharomyces cerevisiae ), scientists at Rockefeller University have now identified the cellular event that marks the moment when a cell knows it is big enough to commit to cell division and spawn genetic replicas of itself.

24 Sep 2007

Research to shed new light on how statins benefit heart patients

A scientist at Leeds whose research is challenging conventional thinking on how the cholesterol-reducing drugs statins benefit cardiac patients, has secured funding to further investigate her findings.

24 Sep 2007

Acute loss of intestinal CD4+ T cells is not predictive of SIV virulence

A sudden loss of T cells -- white blood cells crucial to the immune system -- is not the trigger for the onset of AIDS, according to a study published in the September 2007 issue of the Journal of Immunology by a team of researchers at Tulane National Primate Research Center.

24 Sep 2007