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Lovastatin, a drug used to lower cholesterol and help prevent cardiovascular disease, has been shown to improve bone healing in an animal model of neurofibromatosis type 1. The research, reported today in the open access journal BMC Medicine, will be of great interest to NF1 patients and their physicians.

Researchers have pinpointed a mechanism in the brains of mice that could explain why some human mothers become depressed following childbirth. The discovery could lead to improved treatment for postpartum depression. After giving birth, female mice bred to be deficient in a suspect protein showed depression-like behaviors and neglected their newborn pups. Giving a drug that restored the protein's function improved maternal behavior and reduced pup mortality.

Bioengineers have identified a previously unknown mechanism that allows yeast to shut down the metabolism of another sugar, galactose, when they sense glucose in the environment.

Those who drink in excess of the US Dietary Guidelines (i.e., men who usually drink more than two drinks per day or women who usually drink more than one drink per day) or those who binge drink are at increased risk for the metabolic syndrome, according to a new study accepted for publication in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

When it comes to risk for a heart attack, having excess fat around the heart may be worse than having a high body mass index or a thick waist, according to researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and colleagues reporting in the August issue of the journal Obesity.

People with schizophrenia bear an "increased burden" of rare deletions and duplications of genetic material, genome-wide, say researchers. Although many of us have these changes in our genetic material, they are about 15 percent more frequent in people with schizophrenia. The researchers also discovered two large areas of chromosomal deletions that confer a great deal of risk for the disorder and confirmed involvement of a third previously reported area.

New research links overeating and obesity with the brain system implicated in pleasure and addictive behaviors strengthening the argument that obesity could be approached as an addictive disorder. This is the first study to demonstrate that obesity predisposition is associated with impairments in all mid-brain dopamine systems that are in place early in postnatal life.

Scientists have now described the specifics of how brain cells process antidepressant drugs, cocaine and amphetamines. These novel findings could prove useful in the development of more targeted medication therapies for a host of psychiatric diseases, most notably in the area of addiction.

Gastroenterologists are using a new method to freeze damaged cells in the esophagus, preventing them from turning cancerous.

A Canadian scientist studying cystic fibrosis has successfully corrected the defect which causes the overproduction of intestinal mucous in mice. The discovery has clear implications to understanding and treating this facet of the disease in humans. CF is a fatal, genetic disease characterized by an overproduction of mucous in the lungs and digestive system.