For how we live.
A network meta-analysis of 54 trials put behavioural and cognitive therapies ahead of the drugs on OCD symptoms. But most therapy trials also allowed antidepressants, hinting the two work best together.
A Cochrane network meta-analysis compared eight talking therapies for panic disorder. Cognitive behavioural therapy came out ahead most often — but the effects were small and the evidence graded low throughout.
A network meta-analysis of 118 trials and 31,195 men found every oral PDE5 inhibitor beat placebo, with tadalafil ranked most effective. Guidelines make the tablets, after a health check, the first-line choice.
The largest network meta-analysis of social anxiety disorder ranked 41 options against each other. Individual CBT came out on top, and it was one of only two treatments to clearly beat a placebo.
In the trial that pitted them against each other, aerobic exercise matched sertraline on remission. But both sat only a little above a strikingly strong placebo, which is the part the headlines skip.
In the largest trial, combining fluoxetine with talking therapy helped most, and both worked better than placebo. A later network analysis found only fluoxetine, alone or with therapy, clearly beat placebo.
A 2023 network meta-analysis of 270 trials ranked isometric exercise first for lowering resting blood pressure. Two 2026 analyses, using ambulatory monitoring and a larger trial set, rank it among the weakest.
The IARC calls night shift work probably carcinogenic. A 2026 meta-analysis of nurses shows why 'probably' is careful: the breast cancer signal appears only after decades, and shrinks to nothing once bias is corrected.
A network meta-analysis of 24 randomised trials ranks oral dutasteride first on 24-week hair density. The adverse-effect literature behind these drugs is separately, and seriously, contested.
Two Cochrane reviews back scopolamine and first-generation antihistamines for preventing motion sickness. Both found the same gap: not a single randomised trial has looked at relieving symptoms already under way.
A Cochrane review of 64 trials found acetazolamide cut the risk of acute mountain sickness by about half. It is a genuine drug effect, not a folk remedy — and it is a prescription decision, not a supplement.
A network meta-analysis found six treatments clearing the clinically important threshold in the short term. It also graded 98.6% of the evidence very low certainty, and found nothing that held up past a year.
Canker sores clear on their own, and nothing reliably cures or prevents them. A Cochrane review found systemic drugs unproven; some topical options may ease pain, but the trials behind them are small and weak.
Tirzepatide topped weight loss at 14.9%. But only subcutaneous semaglutide showed a mortality benefit — and no drug moved the needle on quality of life or kidney failure.
Pooling 2,906 participants, researchers ranked how antidiabetic drugs affect fat versus lean body mass. Exercise blunted liraglutide's muscle loss; metformin, insulin, and DPP4 inhibitors barely moved either measure.
A network meta-analysis of 41,084 surgical patients over 60 ranked 52 drug interventions. Dexmedetomidine held up after high-risk trials were excluded; almost nothing changed length of stay or mortality.
Mindfulness, yoga, exercise and positive psychology landed within a narrow band of each other. Only combining exercise with a psychological approach pulled clear, and nature-based programmes did not beat controls.
Pooling 151 studies and 58,534 participants across 30 drugs, researchers ranked antidepressants by physiological side effects rather than efficacy. Some drugs raised cholesterol while reducing body weight.
A BMJ network meta-analysis of 6,582 adults finds alternate day fasting the only intermittent method that beat continuous calorie restriction — by 1.29 kg, mostly in short trials.