A study led by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center has shown that extremely low doses of estrogen had no ill effects on the cognitive abilities or general health of older women over the course of two years.

A new study by University of Georgia researchers shows that the common practice of killing wild animals to control disease outbreaks can actually make matters worse in some cases.

For smokers with asthma, quitting smoking can improve lung function test scores by more than 15 percent in less than two months.

Two recent studies offer new evidence suggesting an alternative form of natural vitamin E can be taken by mouth and will reach the blood in humans at levels determined to protect against stroke and other diseases.

Johns Hopkins scientists have found that a method they developed to screen body fluids for certain kinds of cells and some of their genetic blueprint is twice as accurate at spotting breast cancer cells as a pathologist's view with a microscope.

Van Morrison sang about it, Peter Fonda starred in a movie about it, and people from all over the world will pay top dollar just to get some of it.

Like the fictional wizard Harry Potter, some cancerous tumors seem capable of wrapping themselves in an invisibility cloak. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that pancreatic tumors hide from the body's immune surveillance by surrounding themselves with cells that make it hard for the immune system to detect them.

Ageing, and the processes of deterioration that go with it, are largely attributable to cells that die off in a controlled manner. Therefore, gaining better understanding of this controlled cell death is very important in the fight against deterioration diseases like dementia.

The secret weapon of bacteria -- the way they get a foothold in plants to launch an invasion -- is less of a secret, according to research published this week by Michigan State University scientists.