Health News

Mortality attributable to air pollution and extreme temperatures is a major concern, and it is expected to heighten in the future. An international research team found that, under the most probable projection, annual mortality rates linked to air pollution and extreme temperatures could reach 30 million by the end of the century. The research, based on advanced numerical simulations, suggests a concerning trend: pollution-related deaths are expected to increase five-fold, while temperature-related mortality could rise seven-fold, posing a more critical health risk than air pollution for at least 20% of the world’s population.

Children living in war-torn countries not only suffer from poor mental health outcomes, but war may cause adverse biological changes at the DNA level, which could have lifelong health impacts, according to a ground-breaking study.

Scientists have identified human antibodies capable of targeting the proteins responsible for severe malaria, potentially paving the way for new vaccines or treatments. Using organ-on-a-chip technology, researchers successfully demonstrated that these antibodies prevent infected red blood cells from adhering to vessel walls, a key driver of severe malaria symptoms. The antibodies neutralize a conserved region of the malarial protein PfEMP1, overcoming its notorious variability and shedding light on acquired immunity mechanisms. This interdisciplinary study, published in Nature, highlights the power of international teamwork in addressing major health challenges like malaria.

Researchers shrink gastrointestinal tumors in mice using a yeast probiotic to deliver immunotherapy to the gut, offering a potentially novel strategy to target hard-to-reach gut cancers.

People around the world associate a trilled R sound with a rough texture and a jagged shape, and an L sound with smooth texture and a flat shape, according to the findings of a new study. Researchers believe this association may be more universal than the famous bouba/kiki effect.

A new study finds that, in healthy women, some breast cells that otherwise appear normal may contain chromosome abnormalities typically associated with invasive breast cancer. The findings question conventional thinking on the genetic origins of breast cancer, which could influence early cancer detection methods. The study discovered that at least 3% of normal cells from breast tissue in 49 healthy women contain a gain or loss of chromosomes, a condition known as aneuploidy, and that they expand and accumulate with age.

Researchers have pinpointed what could be the early genetic origins of breast cancer — cancer-like mutations appearing in the cells of healthy women. In a new study, the international collaborators analyzed the genomes of more than 48,000 individual breast cells from women without cancer, using novel techniques for decoding the genes of single cells. While the vast majority of cells appeared normal, nearly all of the women harbored a small number of breast cells — about 3 per cent — that carried genetic alterations commonly associated with cancer. The findings suggest that these rare genetic anomalies may represent some of the earliest steps in a series of events that could culminate in breast cancer development.

Being born preterm is associated with an increased risk of death from birth until the third and fourth decades of life.

Experts have identified five elements of a brain-based condition that has emerged as a leading cause of vision impairment starting in childhood in the United States and other industrialized nations. Known as cerebral (or cortical) visual impairment (CVI), some estimates suggest that at least 3% of primary school children exhibit CVI-related visual problems, which vary, but may include difficulty visually searching for an object or person or understanding a scene involving complex motion.

Common cardiovascular drugs are linked to a lower risk of dementia in older age, according to a new study.