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A new Australian study reveals that women who smoke are at greater risk of developing major depressive disorder.

In the first study to directly examine the effects of beta-blockers on surgical patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), researchers have found that, contrary to previous thought, beta-blockers significantly reduce mortality in COPD patients.

Steroid use has been suspected in sports where building muscle strength, rather than endurance, is paramount. Power lifting is such a sport. Researchers have examined the impact of anabolic steroid use in power lifters years after the athletes ceased taking the drugs. They have found that while physical traces of the drug no longer remained, changes in the shoulder and quadriceps still gave lifters an edge.

Infants who experience viral respiratory illnesses with wheezing are known to be at increased risk for developing asthma later during childhood. Using new molecular techniques to identify different viruses, researchers now believe they have pinpointed the biggest culprit: rhinovirus.

An overload of calories throws critical portions of the brain out of whack, reveals a new study. That response in the brain's hypothalamus -- the "headquarters" for maintaining energy balance -- can happen even in the absence of any weight gain, according to the new studies in mice.

Women with a history of dieting or other restricted eating practices are at risk of gaining an inappropriate amount of weight during pregnancy. Researchers report that restrained eating behaviors prior to pregnancy were associated with weight gains above IOM recommendations for normal, overweight and obese women, and weight gains below recommendations for underweight women.

Scientists have found 295 host cell factors that are involved in human immunodeficiency virus infection. Their research could lead to the development of a new class of HIV therapeutics aimed at disrupting the human-HIV interactions that lead to viral infection.

Exposure to Bisphenol A, phthalates and flame retardants are strongly associated with adverse health effects on humans and laboratory animals. A special section in the October 2008 issue of Environmental Research -- "A Plastic World" -- provides critical new research on environmental contaminants and adverse reproductive and behavioral effects.

After improving the sensitivity of nuclear magnetic resonance, researchers actually watched the HIV-1 protease mature from an inactive form into an active infection. This process has never been directly visualized before.

Researchers have analysed the degree of preservation in the skeletal muscles of paraplegic rats treated with a transplant of Olfactory bulb glial cells (OBG). Pioneering research established that while nerve cells from the peripheral nervous system (PNS) have the capacity to repair themselves, the same does not apply to adult brain cells and spinal cord cells from the central nervous system (CNS). In spite of the global effect of OBG transplants, only 3 of the 9 treated animals (and none of the untreated) showed near normal muscle characteristics.