Researchers at the Salk Institute in San Diego have found two drugs that did wonders for the athletic endurance of “couch potato” mice. One drug, known as Aicar, increased the mice’s endurance on a treadmill by 44 percent after just four weeks of treatment. A second drug, GW1516, increased endurance by 75 percent, but had to be combined with exercise to have any effect.

The chemicals involved are already available, and athletes are already asking about whether they work on humans.

Dr. Richard N. Bergman, an expert on obesity and diabetes at the University of Southern California, worried that the drugs might prove to have serious side effects. However, he acknowledged that if they are safe, they could become widely used.

The drugs activate at least one of the chemical pathways triggered by resveratrol, a substance that also resulted in increased endurance in mice. Large doses of resveratrol can allow mice to run twice as far as usual on a treadmill before collapsing.

A migraine is more than just a headache; it is intensely painful and has distinct phases. The disorder used to be considered vascular, but recent research has revealed it to be neurological in origin, related to a wave of nerve cell activity that sweeps across the brain.

The root of migraine may reside in brain stem malfunctioning. Debate still swirls about the precise cause of migraine, but new discoveries are already permitting the development of new treatments

At the moment, only a few drugs can prevent migraine, all of them developed for other diseases such as hypertension, depression and epilepsy. But they work in only 50 percent of patients, and even then, only 50 percent of the time, and can also induce a range of potentially serious side effects.

New techniques are now being tested, such as drugs that work by preventing gap junctions, a form of ion channel, from opening, thereby halting the flow of calcium between brain cells.

Doctors in England and Wales are being told not to prescribe antibiotics for common coughs and colds. The over-prescription of antibiotics has been linked to the development of “superbugs” that resist treatment.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical says the drugs do little to help cure coughs and colds. Many are caused by viruses, which do not respond to antibiotics.

Guidelines published by the Institute state that doctors should defer prescribing antibiotics immediately for ear infections, sore throats, sinus trouble and coughs and colds in children and adults.

Questions have emerged over whether long-term use of bone-building drugs for osteoporosis may actually lead to weaker bones in some people.

The concern rises from a series of case reports showing a rare type of leg fracture that shears straight across the upper thighbone, often after little or no trauma. People who have used bone-building drugs called bisphosphonates for five years or more have reported that after weeks or months of unexplained aching, their thighbones simply snapped while they were walking or standing.

A recent study reported on 20 patients with the fracture. Nineteen had been using the bone drug Fosamax for an average of 6.9 years. Last year, another report tracked 13 women with low-trauma fractures, including 9 who had been on long-term Fosamax therapy.

Even though medical marijuana is still illegal in most places, pharmaceutical companies are busily applying for — and in many case, have already received — multiple patents for medical marijuana drugs.

These include patents for synthetic derivatives (such as the oral THC pill Marinol), cannabinoid agonists (synthetic agents that bind to the brain’s endocannabinoid receptors, such as HU-210) and cannabis antagonists (such as Rimonabant.)

At the same time that the American Medical Association is proclaiming that marijuana has no medical value, Big Pharma is in a frenzy to bring dozens of new, cannabis-based medicines to market.