After the Indian government recently lifted a patent license, Indian pharma major, Cipla, has announced a massive reduction of up to 76 per cent in its cancer drug prices.

Following the move, the price of Cipla's generic kidney cancer drug, Sorafenib, will be available at Rs 6,840 a month from the earlier Rs 27,950.

The lung cancer drug Gestinib price has been cut down by 60 per cent to just over Rs 4000, instead of earlier Rs 10,200.

Temozolamide, a very effective brain tumour treatment drug has come down to Rs 5000 from the original Rs 20,250.

"It is a wonderful move, because lots of patients were not able to buy these drugs, but now they will be able to afford," said Dr Sanjay Sharma, Onco Surgeon, SL Raheja Hospital, Mumbai.

For 58-year-old Mumbai resident Popat Yadav, an advance stage liver cancer patient and factory worker, cancer care has meant a whopping burden of Rs 50,000 a month in treatment.

"It is good that medicine prices have come down, but they should come down further. Middle Class people still can't afford so much," said his daughter Jyoti Yadav.

Meanwhile, Cipla has said "This initiative of price reduction is a humanitarian approach by Cipla to support cancer patients".

However, experts see this as a competitive pricing issue, as in March, the government lifted the patenting license and allowed domestic drug maker Natco Pharma to manufacture and sell the generic version of Bayer's patent-protected cancer medicine, Nexavar.

"It's a ripple effect - there can be further deduction in terms of prices if the demand is high," said Pharma expert Vikas Dandekar.

Notably, according to the World Health Organisation, more than 2.5 million Indians are diagnosed with some form of cancer every year.

Researchers have offered a long-sought explanation for the beneficial fat-fighting effects of black pepper.

The research pinpoints piperine - the pungent-tasting substance that gives black pepper its characteristic taste, concluding that piperine also can block the formation of new fat cells.

Soo-Jong Um, Ji-Cheon Jeong and colleagues describe previous studies indicating that piperine reduces fat levels in the bloodstream and has other beneficial health effects.

Black pepper and the black pepper plant, they noted, have been used for centuries in traditional Eastern medicine to treat gastrointestinal distress, pain, inflammation and other disorders.

Despite that long medicinal history, scientists know little about how piperine works on the innermost molecular level. The scientists set out to get that information about piperine's anti-fat effects.

Their laboratory studies and computer models found that piperine interferes with the activity of genes that control the formation of new fat cells.

In doing so, piperine may also set off a metabolic chain reaction that helps keep fat in check in other ways.

The group suggests that the finding may lead to wider use of piperine or black-pepper extracts in fighting obesity and related diseases.

Teenagers' love of energy drinks is taking a terrible toll on their teeth, scientists have warned.

A study published in the Academy of General Dentistry charted an alarming increase in the consumption of both energy and sports drinks among young adults in the U.S. who use them to help get through the day.

But they said the habit is causing irreversible damage to teeth as the high acidity levels in the drinks erode tooth enamel, the glossy outer layer of the tooth

In some cases it can take as little as five days for the eroding effect to begin.

'Young adults consume these drinks assuming that they will improve their sports performance and energy levels and that they are 'better' for them than soda,' said lead author Dr Poonam Jain, from Southern Illinois University.

'Most of these patients are shocked to learn that these drinks are essentially bathing their teeth with acid.'

Researchers examined the acidity levels in 13 sports drinks and nine energy drinks. They found that the acidity levels can vary between brands of beverages and flavors of the same brand.

To test the effect of the acidity levels, the researchers immersed samples of human tooth enamel in each beverage for 15 minutes, followed by immersion in artificial saliva for two hours. This cycle was repeated four times a day for five days, and the samples were stored in fresh artificial saliva at all other times.

'This type of testing simulates the same exposure that a large proportion of American teens and young adults are subjecting their teeth to on a regular basis when they drink one of these beverages every few hours,' said Dr Jain.

The researchers found that damage to enamel was evident after only five days of exposure to sports or energy drinks, although energy drinks showed a significantly greater potential to damage teeth than sports drinks.

In fact, the authors found that energy drinks caused twice as much damage to teeth as sports drinks.

With a reported 30 to 50 per cent of U.S. teens consuming energy drinks, and as many as 62 per cent drinking at least one sports drink per day, it is important to educate parents and young adults about the downside of these drinks.

Damage caused to tooth enamel is irreversible, and without the protection of enamel, teeth become overly sensitive, prone to cavities, and more likely to decay.

'Teens regularly come into my office with these types of symptoms, but they don't know why,' said Academy of General Dentistry spokesman Jennifer Bone.

'We review their diet and snacking habits and then we discuss their consumption of these beverages. They don't realize that something as seemingly harmless as a sports or energy drink can do a lot of damage to their teeth.'

Dr Bone recommends that her patients minimise their intake of sports and energy drinks. She also advises them to chew sugar-free gum or rinse the mouth with water following consumption of the drinks.

'Both tactics increase saliva flow, which naturally helps to return the acidity levels in the mouth to normal,' she says.

Also, patients should wait at least an hour to brush their teeth after consuming sports and energy drinks. Otherwise, says Dr Bone, they will be spreading acid onto the tooth surfaces, increasing the erosive action.

Lifting less weight more times is just as good at building muscle as doing it with heavy weights, says a new finding.

"We found that loads that were quite heavy and comparatively light were equally effective at inducing muscle growth and promoting strength," says Cam Mitchell, the study's co-author and a doctoral candidate in kinesiology at McMaster's University in Ontario, Canada.

The research suggests that the key to muscle gain is working to the point of fatigue and challenges the widely held belief that training with heavy weights is best for muscle growth, the Journal of Applied Physiology reports.

"Many older adults can have joint problems which would prevent them training with heavy loads," says Mitchell. "This study shows that they have the option of training with lighter and less intimidating loads and can still receive the benefits."

For the study, a series of experiments were conducted on healthy and young male volunteers to measure how their leg muscles reacted to different forms of resistance training over a period of 10 weeks, according to a McMaster's statement.

The researchers first determined the maximum weight each subject could lift one time in a knee extension. Each subject was assigned to a different training program for each leg.

In all, three different programmes were used in combinations that required the volunteers to complete sets of as many repetitions as possible with their assigned loads -- typically eight to 12 times per set at the heaviest weights and 25-30 times at the lowest weights.

Any HIV infected person should be given immediate treatment to reduce the risk of transmission of the virus to his/her partner, suggests World Health Organization.

The recommendation is part of a global crackdown on the spread of HIV.

Last year, a clinical trial found that giving antiretroviral drugs to an infected partner earlier reduces the risk of transmission by 96%.

The new strategy is part of a drive to stop HIV spreading, even if it means treating people whose immune systems are not yet depleted to the levels that usually require therapy.

"This is the first time people would get treatment not necessarily for their own benefit, but to protect their partners," New Scientist quoted Bernhard Schwartlander, director of evidence, innovation and policy at UNAIDS in Geneva, Switzerland, as saying.

Andrew Ball of the WHO's HIV/AIDS department added. "The big question is to what extent reducing the viral load in a community impacts the HIV epidemic overall."