How a faulty transport protein in the brain can trigger severe epilepsy

France on Sunday banned smoking in parks and on beaches, part of efforts to protect the public from passive smoke and create the country's first non-smoking generation.

Gene therapy for sickle cell disease may help improve a major contributing factor to stroke risk in patients, reports a new study from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Many people with sickle cell disease experience increased brain ischemia, where oxygen is not delivered properly to brain tissues, potentially leading to strokes. A part of the risk for these events comes from increased blood flow speed in the brain. Findings from three patients in a gene therapy clinical trial showed that gene therapy treatment significantly improved blood flow in the brain. These results demonstrate that people with these risk factors may benefit from gene therapy and should be considered for future clinical trials of gene therapy. The findings were published in the American Journal of Hematology.

Mayo Clinic researchers have developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool that helps clinicians identify brain activity patterns linked to nine types of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, using a single, widely available scan—a transformative advance in early, accurate diagnosis.

It's quite unsettling to discover something so central to our cultural rituals—the "slop" in the Aussie mantra of "Slip! Slop! Slap!"—can no longer be trusted.

Efforts in the early 20th century to improve the quality of medical education in the United States led to a steep decline in the number of medical schools and medical school graduates. In a new study, researchers examined the consequences of these medical school closures between 1900 and 1930 for the number of county-level physicians, nurses, and midwives, and for infant, non-infant, and total mortality. The closures led to a 4% reduction in physicians per capita and resulted in declines in infant mortality, non-infant mortality, and total mortality, they found.

A study led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers found that combining chemotherapy and immunotherapy before surgery for patients with aggressive stage III non-small cell lung cancer that is considered difficult or impossible to surgically remove can help shrink tumors and make surgery possible.

Antidepressants are widely used as a drug based intervention to treat more severe cases of postnatal depression. While they are regularly prescribed, they can provide a limited response. The drugs modulate the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) system—which has a key role in regulating brain activity—and have been proposed as an effective alternative to antidepressants.

In a multi-institutional study published in the European Urology journal, researchers revealed that testing urine-based tumor DNA (utDNA) can help predict which bladder cancer patients are at higher risk for recurrence after treatment.

A new study found that almost all plans in 40 states and Washington, DC covered at least one form of the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone, although certain restrictions and quantity limits may still prevent people from accessing this life-saving drug.

Our brain makes decisions based on direct associations between stimuli in our environment, but it often also does so based on events that initially appear unrelated. How does it achieve this? A recent study by the Cellular Mechanisms in Physiological and Pathological Behavior Research Group at the Hospital del Mar Research Institute, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offers new insights into this process and identifies the brain areas involved.

Homelessness and opioid use disorder are two widespread public health problems in the United States. Providing housing and supportive services, without requiring drug treatment, is a surprisingly cost-effective approach to helping unhoused people with opioid use disorder, Stanford researchers found in a new study in JAMA Network Open.

Once-weekly insulin efsitora alpha (efsitora) is noninferior to once-daily insulin glargine (glargine) for reducing glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) among adults with type 2 diabetes, according to a study published online June 25 in the New England Journal of Medicine to coincide with the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association, held from June 20 to 23 in Chicago.

For patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D), disparities in continuous glucose monitor (CGM) prescriptions are seen by language preference, with less access to CGM prescriptions for adult patients with non-English language preference (NELP), according to a study published online June 17 in JAMA Network Open.

Over thirty percent of adults and children consumed fast food on a given day during August 2021 to August 2023, according to two reports from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), one of two major forms of esophageal cancer, is the sixth most deadly cancer worldwide for which no effective targeted therapy exists. Patients need to rely on chemotherapy as a standard-of-care, which is started ahead of surgical interventions as a so-called "neoadjuvant chemotherapy" (NACT) in the hope of shrinking or controlling tumors. However, most patients become resistant to certain NACTs, leading to poor outcomes.

The ion channel PIEZO2 doesn't just convey touch stimuli. It also plays a key role in the development of coronary vessels, a team led by Annette Hammes from the Max Delbrück Center reports in Nature Cardiovascular Research. The findings could improve our understanding of congenital heart defects.

Scientists are increasingly finding that the gastrointestinal (GI) tract plays a vital role in our overall health. While its main functions center around digestion, the GI tract is also involved in the production of hormones, immune cells, and even neurotransmitters that can affect mood and brain function. As such, the GI tract is host to many different biomarkers that can be useful for identifying, monitoring, and treating disease—everything from short-chain fatty acids that are indicators of metabolic syndrome to cytokines that are biomarkers of inflammation.

While emerging evidence suggests pesticides can be toxic to the mix of microorganisms in the digestive system, a new study is the first to map changes to specific gut bacteria based on interactions between human microbes and insect-killing chemicals observed in the lab and an animal model.