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Researchers are developing a new vaccine for hayfever which could be more effective, less invasive for patients and less expensive than vaccines already available to patients within the NHS.

[Impact of a reduced re and processed meat dietary pattern on disease risks and greenhouse gas emissions in the UK: a modelling study BMJ Open 2012 doi 10.1136/bmjopen-2012-001072]

Reducing red and processed meat consumption would not only prompt a fall in chronic disease incidence of between 3 and 12 per cent in the UK, but our carbon footprint would shrink by 28 million tonnes a year, suggests research published in the online only journal BMJ Open.

[Liver abscess caused by a toothpick and treated by laprascopic left hepatic resection: case report and literature review 2012 doi 10.1136/bcr-2012-006408][Gossypiboma as an unusual cause of altered bowel habit 2012 doi 10.1136/bcr-2012-006316]

A woman developed severe blood poisoning (sepsis) and a liver abscess, after inadvertently swallowing a toothpick, which perforated her gullet and lodged in a lobe of her liver, reveals a case published in BMJ Case Reports.

Cambridge, MA – September 10, 2012 – Visterra, Inc., developer of novel therapeutics to treat major diseases, today announced the presentation of positive data from a preclinical study evaluating the efficacy of the company's lead product candidate, VIS410, a broadly protective, fully human monoclonal antibody being developed for influenza A infections. Data from preclinical studies were presented today at the 52nd Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in San Francisco.

Nearly 5 percent of pregnant women are prescribed drugs to treat high blood pressure, including some drugs that aren't considered safe for mothers or their babies, according to new research in the American Heart Association's journal Hypertension.

Use of high blood pressure drugs during pregnancy is becoming increasingly common, said Brian T. Bateman, M.D., lead author and Assistant Professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass.

CHICAGO – An observational study of nearly 1 million patients who underwent surgery suggests that preoperative hyponatremia (an electrolyte disorder in which sodium levels in the blood are low) was associated with an increased risk of complications and death within 30 days of surgery, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

CHICAGO – A study of Canadian youth suggests that vigorous physical activity was associated with reduced cardiometabolic risk factors, such as body mass index z score (BMI-z), waist circumference, systolic blood pressure and increased cardiorespiratory fitness, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The next time you call someone a drunken pig, remember this study. Rhode Island Hospital researcher Frank Sellke, M.D., chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Rhode Island and The Miriam hospitals, and his colleagues studied the effects of red wine and vodka on pigs with high cholesterol and found that the pigs with a penchant for pinot noir fared better than their vodka swilling swine counterparts. The paper is published in the September issue of the journal Circulation.

Baltimore, MD – September 10, 2012 – Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who are exploring novel ways to treat serious heart problems in children, have conducted the first direct comparison of the regenerative abilities of neonatal and adult-derived human cardiac stem cells. Among their findings: cardiac stem cells (CSCs) from newborns have a three-fold ability to restore heart function to nearly normal levels compared with adult CSCs. Further, in animal models of heart attack, hearts treated with neonatal stem cells pumped stronger than those given adult cells.

LA JOLLA, CA – September 10, 2012 – Over the last decade, metabolomics has emerged as the newest of the "omic" sciences (following genomics and proteomics) to provide comprehensive biochemical information about cellular metabolism. This new field has revealed that many of the chemicals involved in or produced through metabolism are currently unknown, but may play vital and previously unappreciated roles in human health and disease.

TORONTO, Sept. 10, 2012—Researchers at St. Michael's Hospital are one step closer to understanding why plaque bursts in coronary arteries and causes heart attacks.

The clue might be something called microRNA-145. MicroRNAs are short chains of bossy molecules that scientists are increasingly coming to realize control a wide variety of biological processes.

PHILADELPHIA — Dogs with hemangiosarcoma that were treated with a compound derived from the Coriolus versicolor mushroom had the longest survival times ever reported for dogs with the disease. These promising findings offer hope that the compound may one day offer cancer patients — human and canine alike — a viable alternative or complementary treatment to traditional chemotherapies.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – A 10-week program that fits easily into the high school curriculum could give students a lifetime of less anger and lower blood pressure, researchers report.

Health and physical education teachers taught anger and stress management to 86 ninth graders in Augusta, Ga., and found their ability to control anger increased, their anxiety decreased and their blood pressures were generally lower over the course of a day compared to 73 of their peers who received no intervention, according to a study published in the journal Translational Behavioral Medicine.

Bacteria that cause disease in humans have a 'reversible switching mechanism' that allows them to adapt to environments lacking oxygen, scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have found.

Published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, the findings provide a new insight into how bacteria sense and adapt to oxygenated atmospheres, and uncover a new 'antioxidant' pathway by which certain types of damaged proteins can be repaired.

The invasion of cancer cells into the lymph vessels that connect the breast to surrounding lymph nodes is the first step leading to the metastasis, or spread, of cancer throughout the body. Metastasis is the primary cause of breast cancer deaths. Surprisingly little is known about the control of this process and how it might be interrupted to prolong the lives of women with breast cancer. In a study to be reported Sept.