An EU-funded population study has shown that hypertension, an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease, is a serious problem in Europe. The results of the IMMIDIET project indicate that high blood pressure has become more common in Italy than in England or Belgium, a reversal of the commonly accepted trend.

A recent EU-funded study by a Swiss-led international team of researchers has found that a new synthetic drug, developed by researchers in the US, protects against diet-induced obesity. At the same time, it improves glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity and increases exercise endurance by enhancing fat utilisation in certain tissues.

Over 60 million U.S. adults are Health 2.0 consumers - reporting to use health blogs, online support groups, prescription rating sites, and other health-related social media applications, according to pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research's just released Cybercitizen Health™ v8.0 consumer study and strategic advisory service.

EU-funded scientists have discovered a new molecule in Streptomyces bacteria that could be exploited to make the bacteria produce hundreds of novel antibiotics. The work, which is published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was partly supported by the EU-funded ACTINOGEN (Integrating genomics-based applications to exploit actinomycetes as a resource for new antibiotics) project.

For his milestone discoveries on the development of diabetes, Prof. Markus Stoffel from the Institute of Molecular Systems Biology at the ETH Zurich was awarded the Heinrich Wieland Prize, one of the most treasured science awards in Germany. He received the distinction with EUR 50,000 prize money for his work in deciphering important mechanisms of blood sugar regulation and lipid metabolism in the body.

InforSense Ltd., the leading provider of next generation business and scientific intelligence tools, has successfully completed a pilot project at world leading pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to enable virtual drug discovery through virtual outsourcing of data analysis via secure Grid technology.

Novo Nordisk A/S, a world leader in diabetes care, Cellartis AB, a forefront stem cell biotechnology company, and Lund University Stem Cell Center today signed a collaborative research agreement for the development of insulin-producing cells from human stem cells.