Social support and memory in postmenopausal women: a careful null
A secondary analysis of the ELITE hormone-therapy trial found hints that social ties tracked with cognition, but none survived correction for multiple testing.
Editor
Mac Giles
Mac Giles is the editor of Health Newspapers and holds editorial responsibility for everything published here. His interests run across world news, health and wellness, and sport — the beats this paper spends most of its time on.
Latest
1,093 articles published to date. The 30 most recent are below.
An Israeli HMO biobank sequenced 1,038 patients to hunt for deafness genes
Linking exome data to electronic medical records solved 15% of unexplained hearing-loss cases and flagged new candidate genes — while showing what the records could not supply.
Tuning daytime and evening light did not improve older adults' sleep
In a 12-person crossover trial, blue-enriched daytime light with reduced evening blue did not cut time spent awake at night, though it nudged a brainwave marker of sleep.
HHS declares grounds for emergency use of pain drugs for military casualties
A section 564 declaration, prompted by a July determination from the Secretary of War, opens the door to authorising unapproved drugs for acute pain in combat and CBRN casualties.
Postpartum depressive symptoms linked to higher infant mortality
In 415,000 New Jersey births, infants of mothers who screened positive for depression died before age one at more than three times the rate, an association steady across race, income and preterm birth.
Bhutan becomes first South-East Asia country validated free of dog-borne rabies
WHO validated Bhutan's elimination of dog-transmitted human rabies, a disease almost always fatal once symptoms appear. The country has recorded zero such deaths since June 2023.
EPA finds 1,2-dichloropropane, a known carcinogen, an unreasonable health risk
In a draft TSCA evaluation open for comment until 3 November, EPA preliminarily found the industrial solvent poses unreasonable risk to health. IARC classifies it as a Group 1 human carcinogen.
Among GLP-1 users, oxycodone carried the highest short-term gut risk
A 411,000-patient claims study found adults on GLP-1 drugs who started oxycodone had more severe constipation and bowel obstruction at 30 days than those starting hydrocodone or tramadol.
A first-trimester blood protein flags preeclampsia risk months early
Screening 2,904 proteins in early pregnancy, researchers found low maternal isthmin-2 was the strongest signal for later preeclampsia or fetal growth restriction, validated in two cohorts.
A smartphone app pairing exercise with therapy cut chronic knee pain in a trial
In 216 patients with chronic patellofemoral pain across 10 Korean hospitals, an 8-week digital therapeutic beat education and exercise instruction on pain — by 12.5 mm on a 100 mm scale.
A computer that grades each colonoscopy raised how often endoscopists found adenomas
A Danish stepped-wedge trial gave endoscopists automated feedback on their technique after every procedure. Adenoma detection rose from 43.4% to 48.6% — a different tool from real-time polyp AI.
A worrying ECG pattern was rare in screened high-schoolers — but not meaningless
Across 16,893 high school athletes screened over 15 years, 0.36% had T-wave inversions. Four were later found to have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a leading cause of sudden cardiac death in the young.
One pre-workout caffeine dose kept working across 3.5 hours of repeated sprints
A small double-blind trial found a single 5.5 mg/kg dose lifted sprint power for hours, alongside higher noradrenaline and lower perceived effort — but it was 12 people, mostly men.
Graft choice did not predict re-tear risk in a national cohort of footballers
A Swedish study of 10,693 ACL reconstructions in registered football players found no link between graft type and revision surgery. Age and playing level mattered far more.
Light alone barely moved young adults' clocks; a combined package did
Two small pilot studies in 18-to-25-year-olds found morning bright light on its own shifted circadian timing little, while adding a timed schedule and evening blue-blockers advanced it about 35 minutes.
Large US study finds no link between prenatal water fluoride and child behaviour
In 5,520 children across 34 states, prenatal exposure to regulated public-water fluoride showed no association with emotional or behavioural problems overall — with one caveat in a secondary model.
A gentler drug pair beat intensive chemo on one measure in fit leukaemia patients
In the 172-patient PARADIGM trial, azacitidine plus venetoclax more than doubled median event-free survival versus induction chemotherapy — but it was a phase 2 study not powered for overall survival.
In a small trial, an oral drug modestly slowed retinal damage in Stargardt disease
Stargardt disease, the most common inherited macular dystrophy, has no approved treatment. In the 50-patient TEASE-1 trial, gildeuretinol slowed atrophic lesion growth by a fraction of a millimetre a year.
An oral RAS inhibitor shrank tumours in about a third of RAS-mutant lung cancers
In an early-phase trial of 136 previously treated patients, daraxonrasib produced responses in 31–37% depending on dose — but 54% had a serious side effect, and this is a phase 1–2 study.
A JAMA perspective describes an outside effort to shore up US vaccine advice
The Vaccine Integrity Project, formed in 2025 amid disruptions to the CDC's immunisation advisory committee, sets out its process for reviewing 2026–2027 respiratory-season vaccines.
NIH moves to license a government-owned mifepristone dosing method to a French firm
The patented method uses mifepristone for hypercortisolism-related insulin resistance, with dosing capped to avoid over-activating the stress-hormone axis. The public can object before the deal closes.
Ketamine beat midazolam in treatment-resistant bipolar depression
In the Ket-BD trial, four IV ketamine infusions over two weeks lowered depression scores more than an active placebo, with no manic switches observed in 63 analysed patients.
Timor-Leste clears trachoma, ending the disease as a problem across South-East Asia
WHO validated Timor-Leste's elimination of trachoma, the last suspected focus in its South-East Asia Region. A 2025 survey of 4,949 young children found no transmission requiring intervention.
Michigan reports 6,065 cyclosporiasis cases in an unusually large summer outbreak
An interim report in NEJM Evidence links the parasitic outbreak to iceberg lettuce and one restaurant chain, with cases spread across most of the state.
Heat in pregnancy was linked to subtly altered kidney markers in young children
A Chinese birth cohort of 1,278 pairs found higher prenatal temperatures and heatwaves — especially in the second trimester — tracked with higher creatinine and urea in early childhood.
Living near new oil and gas wells was linked to higher Valley fever risk in California
A case-crossover study in Kern County found the odds of coccidioidomycosis were about 12.5% higher in the 90 days after a new well was developed within 5 km of home.
China's cleaner air since 2013 tracked with a slower rise in heart-disease risk
A prospective, quasi-experimental study links the air-quality gains after China's 2013 Clean Air Act to an average 6.6-percentage-point reduction in predicted cardiovascular risk.
A review flags acute kidney injury as an under-counted toll of Yemen's cholera crisis
Severe dehydration from diarrhoeal disease and sepsis can shut down the kidneys. In a health system with little dialysis, a review argues this is a preventable driver of death that surveillance is missing.
Which muscles hold their strength through weight loss? A gene hunt
A transcriptomic sub-study of the CALERIE calorie-restriction trial links 151 genes to preserved leg strength during weight loss, independent of how much body mass was lost.
Two obesity-diagnosis systems agree on advanced disease, split early
Applied to 411,000 UK Biobank adults, the Edmonton staging system and the Lancet Commission's clinical-obesity model classified severe disease alike but diverged on who counts as early-stage.