A period of intense debate about statins, covered widely in the mainstream media, was followed by a substantial rise in the proportion of people in the UK stopping taking the drug, according to a new study by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and funded by the British Heart Foundation, the study by Anthony Matthews and colleagues is the first to attempt to quantify how the controversy questioning the risk-benefit balance for statins, reflected by the UK media, may have affected the use of the drug in primary care.

Philadelphia, June 28, 2016 - A new national survey by Health Union of more than 1,000 individuals with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) reveals that the condition is difficult to diagnose and often even more difficult to treat. Respondents often found healthcare providers and the public in general lacking in empathy and understanding of the full impact of the disease. Self-treatment often becomes the norm and controlling symptoms difficult.

In a study appearing in the June 28 issue of JAMA, Christiane E. Angermann, M.D., of University Hospital Wurzburg, Germany, and colleagues examined whether 24 months of treatment with the antidepressant escitalopram would improve mortality, illness, and mood in patients with chronic heart failure and depression.

In a study appearing in the June 28 issue of JAMA, Peter E. Morris, M.D., of the University of Kentucky, Lexington, and colleagues compared outcomes for standardized rehabilitation therapy to usual intensive care unit (ICU) care for acute respiratory failure.

La Jolla, Calif., June XX, 2016 (embargoed until 11:00 A.M. EST) -- A new study led by scientists at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) describes a technology that could lead to new therapeutics for traumatic brain injuries. The discovery, published today in Nature Communications, provides a means of homing drugs or nanoparticles to injured areas of the brain.

"We have found a peptide sequence of four amino acids, cysteine, alanine, glutamine, and lysine (CAQK), that recognizes injured brain tissue," said Erkki Ruoslahti, M.D., Ph.D., distinguished professor in SBP's NCI-Designated Cancer Center and senior author of the study. "This peptide could be used to deliver treatments that limit the extent of damage."

MADISON, Wis. -- University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers studying monkeys have shown that one infection with Zika virus protects against future infection, though pregnancy may drastically prolong the time the virus stays in the body.

The researchers, led by UW-Madison pathology Professor David O'Connor, published a study today (June 28, 2016) in the journal Nature Communications describing their work establishing rhesus macaque monkeys at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center as a model for studying the way Zika virus infections may progress in people.