Experiences of disability after 50: Poll looks at self-identity and help with health care visits

Today's GPS smartwatches and other wearable devices give millions of runners reams of data about their pace, location, heart rate and more. But one thing your Garmin can't measure is plain old physics: How much force is being generated when your foot hits the ground and takes off again.

Whether we are writing an email, rushing for a bus, or humming a tune, every thought, feeling, and action relies on communication between our roughly 100 billion nerve cells. This exchange of information happens at synapses, where messenger substances are passed from one cell to another.

Scientists have made significant progress in developing cancer therapies that help patients across cancer types. However, they face limitations in determining the results of drug effectiveness, as well as ensuring even distribution among all cancer cells because of the highly compact nature of tumors. Researchers are working to change that by giving chemotherapy drugs a kind of chemical "signal" that allows them to be tracked inside of cells.

A new study co-led by investigators at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has found that women with early-stage cervical cancer who received radiation plus chemotherapy reported a greater short-term decline in quality of life than those who received radiation alone.

Neuroblastoma is a type of cancer that affects the sympathetic nervous system in young children and is often difficult to treat, especially when the tumor cells carry multiple copies of the MYCN gene.

Decision making ability, memory, response times and dexterity all saw a significant drop in cold temperatures, according to University of Chichester research on firefighter search and rescue performance.

A prospective study conducted at Avicenna University Hospital (Cadi Ayyad University) suggests that the plethysmographic perfusion index (PPI), a noninvasive parameter derived from pulse oximetry, can help identify fluid responsiveness in critically ill patients with acute circulatory failure. The research is published in the Journal of Intensive Medicine.

Colorectal cancer is one of the most common tumors among people over the age of 50. Although it is known to develop from small lesions or polyps, its exact causes are unknown—only a few risk factors are known—and it is usually treated with surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, or biological therapies. Now, a study by the University of Barcelona reveals that the combination of palbociclib and telaglenastat, two drugs with complementary actions, could help improve the clinical treatment of this type of cancer, the third most common worldwide.

Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine have developed a battery-free wearable patch that could help detect skin cancer earlier and more accurately, potentially saving lives by making screening more accessible and less invasive. The study was recently published in npj Biomedical Innovations.

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have found that hunger can make virgin female mice aggressive towards pups, but only in certain hormonal states. These mice would usually ignore other females' pups or show parent-like caring behavior.

A genomic test co-developed by Mayo Clinic and SkylineDx can identify whether people with melanoma are at low or high risk for cancer in their lymph nodes—a finding that could guide treatment decisions and help many people avoid lymph node biopsy surgery. The study results are published in JAMA Surgery.

Researchers have identified factors associated with survival for patients initially diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer who were seen at UT Southwestern Medical Center and its affiliated sites. Their findings, published in Communications Medicine, list certain demographic and clinical characteristics to consider among the regional population when formulating treatment plans for individual patients.

The price tag of health insurance from employers keeps getting bigger across the U.S., and the increases this year are fueling concerns over medical spending across all health insurance markets.

Cellular changes that appear during melanoma and lead to treatment resistance can be reversed with drugs—potentially opening the door to new or more effective treatments for the deadly disease, according to new Cornell research.

With ads everywhere for pro- or pre-biotic foods and supplements, most people are familiar with the gut microbiome—the trillions of bacteria, fungi, and viruses that colonize our digestive tract—and the idea that keeping our gut microbiome healthy improves our overall health. But other areas of our bodies harbor their own unique microbiomes as well, and researchers are now starting to explore the role these microbial ecosystems play in health and disease.

A comprehensive meta-analysis in depression and mortality, led by the Department of Psychiatry at the School of Clinical Medicine, LKS Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed), has found that people with depression have twice the risk of death than those without depression, and a nearly 10-fold increased risk of suicide. However, timely and effective treatment can significantly reduce these risks and improve survival rates.

The number of people receiving treatment for cancer has risen dramatically in the last decade in many African countries. For example, 10 years ago in Ethiopia and Kenya, cancer care was available to only a few thousand patients per year in a few hospitals. Today, over 75,000 people receive cancer treatment each year in each of these countries.

Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is the most common form of lung cancer, accounting for nearly half of cases. Many patients are diagnosed at advanced stages, and five-year survival remains below 20%.