A daily dose of vitamin D can be used in the battle against Type 2 diabetes, experts have revealed.

Researchers are carrying out a major clinical trial to confirm whether taking vitamin D can prevent or delay the condition, the Daily Express reported.

They believe that the "sunshine vitamin" may reduce diabetes risk by 25 per cent.

The study led by Professor Philip Raskin, from UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, is a four-year trial across America which will track 2,500 people age 30 or older who have pre-diabetes.

They will be given daily doses of vitamin D about five times higher than usually recommended.

A new research has identified a substance present in breast milk that neutralizes HIV and may protect babies from acquiring HIV from their infected mothers.

Researchers at Duke Medicine have for the first time identified the protein, called Tenascin-C or TNC, which had previously been recognized as playing a role in wound healing, but had not been known to have antimicrobial properties.

The researchers describe how the TNC protein in breast milk binds to and neutralizes the HIV virus, potentially protecting exposed infants who might otherwise become infected from repeated exposures to the virus.

"Even though we have antiretroviral drugs that can work to prevent mother-to-child transmission, not every pregnant woman is being tested for HIV, and less than 60 percent are receiving the prevention drugs, particularly in countries with few resources. So there is still a need for alternative strategies to prevent mother-to-child transmission, which is why this work is important," senior author Sallie Permar, assistant professor of pediatrics, immunology and molecular genetics and microbiology at Duke said.

Permar and colleagues focused on breast milk, which has long been recognized as having some protective quality that inhibits mother-to-child transmission despite multiple daily exposures over months and even years of nursing.

The Duke team screened mature milk samples from uninfected women for neutralizing activity against a panel of HIV strains, confirming that all of the detectable HIV-neutralization activity was contained in the high molecular weight portion. Using a multi-step protein separation process, the researchers narrowed the detectable HIV-neutralization activity to a single protein, and identified it as TNC.

Permar said that TNC is a component of the extracellular matrix that is integral to how tissues hold themselves together. This is a protein involved during wound healing, playing a role in tissue repair. It is also known to be important in fetal development, but its reason for being a component of breast milk or its antiviral properties had never been described.

Permar said TNC would also appear to be inherently safe, since it is a naturally occurring component of breast milk, and it may avoid the problem of HIV resistance to antiretroviral regimens that complicate maternal/infant applications.

The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Women watching their weight and closely following a Mediterranean-style diet that is high in vegetables, vegetable oils, fish and beans may boost their chance of becoming pregnant, according to dietitians.

Brooke Schantz, MS, RD, CSSD, LDN, LUHS, said that establishing a healthy eating pattern and weight is a good first step for women who are looking to conceive.

She said that not only will a healthy diet and lifestyle potentially help with fertility, but it also may influence foetal well-being and reduce the risk of complications during pregnancy.

Schantz said that reduced intake of foods with trans and saturated fats while increasing intake of monounsaturated fats, like avocados and olive oil could help women who are looking to conceive.

Another tip was lower intake of animal protein and adding more vegetable protein and fibre to their diet.

She also said that incorporating more vegetarian sources of iron like legumes, tofu, nuts, seeds and whole grains may help women in their endeavour.

Researchers have claimed that a process involving the phenotypes - the outward, physical appearance based on genetic coding - of tumour cells could change appearance of melanoma tumours by altering the number and type of protein receptors dotting the surface of the individual melanoma cells within the tumour.

Identifying the phenotype patients exhibit may help determine which patients are more likely to benefit from existing medications while also providing an opportunity to create new targeted therapies.

Senior corresponding author Ashani Weeraratna, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Tumour Microenvironment and Metastasis Program of Wistar's NCI-designated Cancer Center, and her team focus on Wnt5A, a Wnt signalling molecule that has been found in increased levels in metastatic melanomas.

In order for Wnt5A to promote the phenotype switch from early in the tumor's formation to the time it becomes metastatic, the tyrosine kinase receptor ROR2 is required. When ROR2 is not present, Wnt5A is unable to promote tutor metastasis.

The only other member of the family that has been identified is ROR1, and this research was done to determine what role ROR1 might play in the progression of melanoma.

The researchers were able to determine that ROR1 inhibited the invasion of melanoma cells, and this receptor was targeted for degradation by Wnt5A and ROR2.

When ROR1 was silenced, the researchers observed that there was an increased rate of invasion of melanoma cells both in vitro and in vivo. The researchers also found that hypoxia - areas of low oxygen supply in the tumor - is able to induce a switch from ROR1 to ROR2 and results in an increase in levels of Wnt5A, suggesting the switch from a non-invasive ROR1-positive phenotype to an invasive ROR2-positive phenotype occurs when the tumor is exposed to hypoxic conditions.

The researchers also found that a protein HIF1a is required to increase the Wnt5A expressed. When HIF1a was removed, ROR2 was decreased, indicating that the upregulation of ROR2 via HIF1a requires Wnt5A.

The findings have been published online in the journal Cancer Discovery.

Women who walk with flat feet are 50 percent more likely than those with normal or high arches to have low back pain, a new study suggests.

"The key takeaway from the study is that if women have low back pain, it may not be just the back," said senior author Marian Hannan of the Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston.

"It turns out that feet are important for the back."

Past research has hinted that low back pain, which affects roughly one in five people worldwide, could be related to the shape of the foot's arch in the standing position.

This study, published in Rheumatology, focused on the arch while a person walked.

Among 1,930 men and women recruited from Framingham, Massachusetts, pronated feet - which tend to roll inward as a person walks - were linked to lower back pain in women only.

"There has been only weak correlation between pronated feet and low back pain so I was happy to see some evidence of this in the study," said Christopher Kevin Wong.

He is an associate professor of rehabilitation and regenerative medicine at Columbia University in New York City and was not involved with the current study.

For their study, Hannan and her colleagues measured each person's arch in the standing position. Then participants walked across a mat with embedded sensors to measure pressure from the heel to the tip of the foot while walking.

"It's a method that shows promise, and will need to be validated against other measures of motion analysis," Wong told Reuters Health.

For example, another method includes marking a person's leg with ink at the joints in order to detect under- or over-pronation movements.

Women in the study were in their 60s, on average. About 38 percent overall reported having low back pain.

Dr. Stephen Pinney, an orthopedic surgeon at St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco, called the size of the study "impressive."

He told Reuters Health future studies should follow participants with different arches forward in time to confirm these findings. Research should also determine what effect, if any, interventions such as orthotics might have on who develops back pain.

"We've known that putting a patient in a foot cast after surgery, for example, can lead to lower back pain because this creates asymmetric forces on the back," said Pinney, who didn't participate in the new research.

Hannan said the body may use other muscles to help make up for flat feet when a person walks, which could explain the link to back pain.

Standing and walking use the foot in different ways. Both a flat foot in standing position and a pronated foot walking could be something to consider during a doctor's visit, Hannan said.

She and her team suggested reasons why women could be more affected by flat feet while walking than men.

For example, women's pelvic bones are wider and not as flexible as men's. In general, women rotate their hips more than men while walking. Women also move their upper bodies more than men when they walk.

"Women probably don't know if their foot function contributes to low back pain, but they can find out about it," Hannan told Reuters Health.

She suggested people with low back pain visit a doctor or physical therapist.

One simple trick to strengthen muscles in the feet is to lay a towel on a flat surface and then scrunch the toes together in order to pick up the towel and lower it back down. Foot orthotics are another option.

"Once you have back pain, you'll want to do core muscle exercises and perhaps take anti-inflammatory medication, but anything that is contributing to asymmetry - you will also want to address that," Pinney said.

"There are a bunch of different reasons for getting low back pain, and this adds another category for people to consider," he said.