Double-blind clinical trials for new drugs are considered the "gold standard" of medical research because they're designed to determine the efficacy of a treatment free from doctor and participant bias. But one effect these trials fail to measure is how a medication's performance can vary based on patients' lifestyle choices, especially if patients change their habits because they are anticipating treatment, according to a new study published in PLOS ONE.

A single dose of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Cervarix appears to be as effective in preventing certain HPV infections as three doses, the currently recommended course of vaccination. That is the conclusion of a study published today in The Lancet Oncology and co-authored by Diane Harper, M.D., Ph.D., the Rowntree Endowed Chair and professor in the Department of Family and Geriatric Medicine at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.

A new study by National Institutes of Health researchers has turned traditional genomics research on its head. Instead of trying to find a mutation in the genomic sequence of a person with a genetic disease, they sequenced the genomes of healthy participants, then analyzed the data to find "putative," or presumed, mutations that would almost certainly lead to a genetic condition.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide, responsible for some 1.59 million deaths a year. That figure is due, in part, to the fact that the cancer often returns after what, at first, seems to be successful treatment. And the recurring cancer is often resistant to the chemotherapy and other drugs that originally drove it into remission.

Bacteria and viruses have an obvious role in causing infectious diseases, but microbes have also been identified as the surprising cause of other illnesses, including cervical cancer (Human papilloma virus) and stomach ulcers (H. pylori bacteria). A new study by University of Iowa microbiologists now suggests that bacteria may even be a cause of one of the most prevalent diseases of our time - Type 2 diabetes.

Women who eat a Mediterranean diet could cut their risk of womb cancer by more than half (57 per cent), according to a study published today in the British Journal of Cancer. The Italian researchers looked at the diets of over 5,000 Italian women to see how closely they stuck to a Mediterranean diet and whether they went on to develop womb cancer.

A drug that could halt the progression of multiple sclerosis may soon be developed thanks to a discovery by a team at the CHUM Research Centre and the University of Montreal. The researchers have identified a molecule called MCAM, and they have shown that blocking this molecule could delay the onset of the disease and significantly slow its progression.