If you’re 18, getting a bit more sleep could matter more than you think. New research from the University of Copenhagen and COPSAC shows that even in healthy young people, longer nights of sleep are linked to more stable blood sugar levels the next day. What’s more, the relationship appears to go both ways. The findings suggest that sleep may play an important role in our metabolism long before conditions such as diabetes develop.

Dobutamine is a well-known drug given intravenously to patients in acute heart failure, where it stimulates the heart to pump more effectively. Over the past decade, however, a growing body of research has reported something surprising: the drug also suppresses the growth of cancer cells in bone tumours (osteosarcoma), stomach cancer, and multiple myeloma. No one could fully explain why. A research team led by Dr. Safa Daoud, from the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Applied Science Private University, Amman, Jordan, and co-led by Dr. Mutasem O. Taha from the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, The University of Jordan, noticed a telling pattern in the scientific literature: all the cancers where dobutamine shows activity also tend to produce unusually high levels of a protein called ROCK2 — a molecular switch that, when left unchecked, pushes tumour cells to grow, spread, and resist treatment. The team's central question was whether dobutamine's anticancer effects could be explained, at least in part, by its ability to block ROCK2 directly.