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Statins, the most effective treatment for lowering cholesterol, are widely used and have been demonstrated to be safe in large clinical trials. Although side effects are usually mild, more severe side effects, especially musculoskeletal complications, have been reported. Tendon impairment has been reported anecdotally but has not been included in large-scale studies. A new study found that, although rare, tendon complications are linked to the use of statins.

A protein that helps lung cancer cells thrive appears to do so by blocking healthy cells' ability to fix themselves when radiation or chemicals such as nicotine damage their DNA, according to a new article. The study explains how the protein enables cancer cells to circumvent the body's own efforts to change them back into healthy cells -- or evade treatments designed to kill them.

A new study finds that the use of stimulant drugs to treat children with ADHD has no effect on their future risk of substance abuse. The report assessed more than 100 young men 10 years after they had been diagnosed with ADHD and is the most methologically rigorous analysis of any potential relationship between stimulant treatment and drug abuse.

A chronic autoimmune disease, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is characterized by persistent inflammation of the synovial membrane and progressive joint destruction. Beyond loss of mobility, sufferers face a high risk of heart failure. A new study indicates that anti-TNF therapy does a patient's heart more good than harm, when it successfully reduces the inflammatory toll of RA.

Scientists have discovered an antibody that neutralizes two viruses classified as henipaviruses. Nipah virus (NiV) and Hendra virus (HeV) are highly infectious agents that transitioned from infecting flying foxes in the mid-1990s to causing fatal disease in humans and livestock in Australia, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, and Singapore. Recent outbreaks have resulted in encephalitis and acute respiratory distress, person-to-person transmission, and up to 70 percent fatality rates.

Cancer researchers have found that humans and dogs share more than friendship and companionship -- they also share the same genetic basis for certain types of cancer. Furthermore, the researchers say that because of the way the genomes have evolved, getting cancer may be inevitable for some humans and dogs.

Exposed skin cells weather conditions harsh enough to mutate DNA. To keep these mutations from spreading, evolution has found a way to keep these cells from proliferating. Researchers have now discovered evolution's solution: a tiny strand of RNA. But the research's implications go deeper, and may also suggest how healthy cells elsewhere in the body can turn cancerous.

Adult stem cells may provide an explanation for the cause of a Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome, a rare disease that causes premature aging in children. These findings, the first to indicate a biological basis for the clinical features of HGPS, also known as progeria, may also provide new insights into the biological mechanisms of normal aging.

A new way to develop more effective tumor vaccines by turning off the suppression function of regulatory T cells has been developed. The study identified a new molecular player called A20, an enzyme that restricts inflammatory signal transduction in dendritic cells. When it is inhibited, the dendritic cells overproduce an array of cytokines and co-stimulatory molecules that triggers unusually strong immune responses that cannot be suppressed by regulatory T cells.

Scientists who last year identified a new genetic risk factor for celiac disease, have, following continued research, discovered an additional seven gene regions implicated in causing the condition.