There is no good evidence supporting a harmful effect of exercise on joints in the setting of normal joints and regular exercise, according to a review of studies published in this month's issue of the Journal of Anatomy.

Popularized by the 2005 movie "March of the Penguins," emperor penguins could be headed toward extinction in at least part of their range before the end of the century, according to a paper by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) researchers published January 26, 2009, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Many studies have shown that breastfeeding appears to reduce the chance of children developing asthma. But a newly published study led by a University of Alberta professor has found that eating fast food more than once or twice a week negated the beneficial effects that breastfeeding has in protecting children from the respiratory disease.

A paper co-authored by Beatrice Golomb, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and director of UC San Diego's Statin Study group cites nearly 900 studies on the adverse effects of HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors (statins), a class of drugs widely used to treat high cholesterol.

People who buy fake internet drugs could be risking their lives and supporting terrorism, according to an editorial in the February issue of IJCP, the International Journal of Clinical Practice.

Old technologies, bone cement and a well known antibiotic, may effectively fight an emerging infection in soldiers with compound bone fractures, according to a study published online today in the Journal of Orthopedic Research. An urgent search for solutions is underway as 20,000 additional American soldiers head for Afghanistan, and as evidence emerges that the infection studied may set the stage for more dangerous infections that can lead to amputation.

Helicobacter pylori, a Gram-negative, flagellated, microaerophilic bacterium, can selectively colonize in the human stomach. Its infection is widespread throughout the world, and is present in about 50% of the global human population with 80% in developing countries and 20-50% in industrialized countries. Infection of the stomach with H. pylori induces a local immune response with infiltration of the mucosa by macrophages, neutrophils and lymphocytes. Although the innate and adaptive immune responses are activated, the bacterium is rarely eliminated and infections can last for decades if left untreated. Most infections are asymptomatic, but overt diseases can occur in 10-20 % of infected individuals. The disease spectrum ranges from gastritis to peptic ulceration disease. A long-term chronic infection will increase the risk to gastric adenocarcinoma and mucosa-associated lymphoid-tissue lymphoma. It has been classified as a class I carcinogen by the WHO. Despite intensive studies, and the award of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology for the discovery of the bacterium H. pylori by Robin Warren and Barry Marshall, our understanding of H. pylori-infection-caused disease is still limited. H. pylori has evolved several mechanisms to increase its adherence and persistence in the host. In addition, it must also evade immune clearance. Elimination of H. pylori by phagocytes is inefficient because H. pylori exhibits several virulence factors to evade opsonization, retard phagocytosis, and disrupt membrane trafficking and phagosome maturation after internalization of the microorganism.

Three billion years ago, a "new" amino acid was added to the alphabet of 20 that commonly make up proteins in organisms today. Now researchers at Yale and the University of Tokyo have demonstrated how this rare amino acid — and, by example, other amino acids — made its way into the menu for protein synthesis. The study appeared in the December 31 advance online publication of the journal Nature.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have likely found one reason why the Ebola virus is such a powerful, deadly, and effective virus. Using a cell culture model for Ebola virus infection, they have discovered that the virus disables a cellular protein called tetherin that normally can block the spread of virus from cell to cell.

A component of DNA that can both stimulate and suppress the immune system, depending on the dosage, may hold hope for treating cancer and infection, Medical College of Georgia researchers say.