Bushfire smoke and COVID-19: Study reveals lessons from Canadian wildfires

A new study by the Centenary Institute and the Sydney Local Health District has found that a specialized blood test can detect alcohol use in people with liver disease far more accurately than commonly used biomarker tests or patient self-reports. The breakthrough could help clinicians make better treatment decisions and guide eligibility for liver transplants.

The West Nile virus threat continues to increase in San Diego County, with routine monitoring picking up the presence of the pathogen in San Diego's City Heights and Skyline neighborhoods. The latest detection comes a little more than one month after workers sprayed about 4,000 parcels in the Rolando neighborhood just south and east of San Diego State University and parts of La Mesa in East County.

Modern imaging is contributing significantly to giving us a better understanding of how our brains work. In the long term, this will also help us to treat learning disorders in a more targeted way and develop new learning methods. Techniques for doing this are being developed at UZH.

While debate rumbles about how generative artificial intelligence will change jobs, AI is already altering health care. AI systems are being used for everything from drug discovery to diagnostic tasks in radiology and clinical note-taking. A recent survey of 2,206 clinicians found that most are optimistic about AI's potential to make health care more efficient and accurate, and nearly half of respondents have used AI tools for work.

Back-to-school is an exciting time for kids and parents, but it also marks the beginning of fall allergies as well as the cold and flu season.

Chicago's average life expectancy bounced back to 78.7 years in 2023, nearly hitting its prepandemic peak—though large gaps remain between races and neighborhoods, according to the city health department.

The first ever trial of microsurgical suture repair vs. nerve alignment for digital nerve injuries suggests suture repair does not improve outcomes.

Patients begin lining up before dawn at Operation Border Health, an annual five-day health clinic in Texas' Rio Grande Valley. Many residents in this predominantly Latino and Hispanic region spanning the Mexican border lack insurance, making the health fair a major source of free medical care in South Texas for more than 25 years.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration released draft guidance to advance safe and effective nonopioid treatment options and reduce risks tied to prescription opioid misuse.

Psychedelics, a class of psychoactive drugs that typically induce peculiar mental states and hallucinations, are still prohibited for recreational use in most countries worldwide. In recent years, some neuroscientists and medical researchers have been exploring the potential therapeutic effects of these drugs, focusing on the treatment of depression, anxiety and various substance use disorders.

Duke-NUS Medical School, working with an international team of experts, has contributed to a new evidence-based plan to tackle anemia—a condition affecting nearly two billion people worldwide and a persistent obstacle to achieving global health goals.

Multisystemic smooth muscle dysfunction syndrome (MSMDS) is a rare condition associated with stroke, aortic dissection (tearing) and death in childhood. Currently, there is no effective treatment or cure for MSMDS.

Although Latinos and Hispanics are at elevated risk for Alzheimer's disease and account for almost half of Los Angeles County's population, a recent UCLA Health study finds that accessible digital resources for these communities remain in short supply since the COVID-19 pandemic.

West Nile virus infections are intense so far this year, with case counts running 40% higher than normal, health officials say.

The latest survey from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the fourth of its kind, confirms that Candidozyma auris (formerly Candida auris) continues to spread quickly across European hospitals, posing a serious threat to patients and health care systems.

Implementing artificial intelligence (AI) into NHS hospitals is far harder than initially anticipated, with complications around governance, contracts, data collection, harmonization with old IT systems, finding the right AI tools and staff training, finds a major new UK study led by UCL researchers.

Research led by Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Program shows that over half of hospital patients with breathlessness had died within a year of admission (51%), as opposed to just 26% of those without the symptom.

Spinal cord injuries caused by external trauma, such as traffic accidents or falls, often lead to the permanent loss of motor and sensory functions. This is because the spinal cord—the central pathway connecting the brain and the rest of the body—harbors a "brake" mechanism that halts repair. For the first time, the molecular mechanism behind this braking system has been revealed.