A reformulation of OxyContin made it harder to abuse and that has curtailed the drug's illicit use but some 25 percent of drug abusers entering rehab still find a way - or at least said they still abused the prescription painkiller on surveys despite package labeling that emphasizes its abuse-deterrent properties.

Scholars surveying almost 11,000 drug users at 150 drug-treatment facilities in 48 states found that an abuse-deterrent formulation of the prescription drug OxyContin was successful in getting abusers and addicts to stop using the drug, but only to a point - and then others switched to something else anyway.

New research with mice undercuts widely held belief that ubiquinone protects cells against damage from free radicals.

The popular dietary supplement ubiquinone, also known as Coenzyme Q₁₀, is widely believed to function as an antioxidant, protecting cells against damage from free radicals. But a new study by scientists at McGill University finds that ubiquinone is not a crucial antioxidant -- and that consuming it is unlikely to provide any benefit.

A new study looked at the pattern of variation of the South Asian monsoon over time and compared it with the evolution of African mole rats and bamboo rats by evolutionary distribution in space and through time and found that weakening and strengthening monsoon rains played a key role in the evolution of these species.

Over a period of 24 million years, the changes observed in the teeth and head shape of the rodents examined, matched the varying strength of the monsoon.

Of the 38 species studied, six still exist today and the changing rains seem to have driven several species into extinction.

Nature is out to kill us, as always.

Obesity guidelines recommend an initial weight loss goal of 5 to 10% of start weight to improve health. A recent study found that patients who received liraglutide 3.0 mg, combined with fewer calories and more physical activity, were more than twice as likely to achieve at least that level of weight loss, compared to patients on placebo who made similar lifestyle changes. Patients who achieved that weight loss showed improvements on a number of health markers, compared to those who lost less, and the patients on liraglutide showed greater improvement on measures of blood sugar control and blood pressure. The results will be presented Saturday, March 7, at ENDO 2015, the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society in San Diego.

Exposure to low doses of hormone-disrupting chemicals early in life can alter gene expression in the liver as well as liver function, increasing the susceptibility to obesity and other metabolic diseases in adulthood, a new study finds. Results of the animal study will be presented Friday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego.

Brief exposure in infancy to several industrial chemicals that are common in the human environment, particularly bisphenol A (BPA), caused fatty liver disease in adulthood, the researchers found in rats.

A letrozole pill once a week restored fertility in obese, infertile men and led to their partners giving birth to two full-term, healthy babies, according to a new study from Canada. The results will be presented Thursday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego.

"To our knowledge, this is the first report of successful pregnancies with the use of letrozole at this low dose in men," said the study's lead investigator, Lena Salgado, MD, an endocrinology fellow at the Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM).

Letrozole is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment of estrogen receptor positive breast cancer in postmenopausal women and is used "off-label" in infertile women to induce ovulation.