Author: healthadmin

A large-scale study in siblings showed that the apparent association between prenatal paracetamol use and autism or ADHD disappears when common family-related factors are taken into account, challenging long-held concerns and providing reassurance for the clinically indicated use of paracetamol during pregnancy.Large population-based cohort study published in a journal JAMA Internal Medicine After accounting for familial confounders, they found that prenatal use of acetaminophen (paracetamol) did not appear to increase the risk of autism or ADHD. Familial factors complicate prenatal paracetamol research Acetaminophen (paracetamol) is the most commonly recommended treatment for pain and fever during pregnancy and is considered first…

WASHINGTON — The presidential physical fitness test, which was a divisive feature of children’s education from the 1960s to the 2010s, is being revived as part of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign to promote health among young people and combat chronic disease. Experts on youth physical activity say this is just a positive step toward getting kids active, not a solution to the rise in sedentary children. Experts STAT spoke to said fitness measurement needs to be combined with additional strategies to capture and maintain children’s interest in exercise and avoid unpleasant associations with physical activity. “The bottom…

A prominent climate scientist has hit back at claims he described as “patently false” in a major U.S. government climate report, claiming the report misrepresents his research and downplays the role of human activity in global warming. Professor Benjamin Santer, Emeritus Professor at the University of East Anglia (UEA), was one of the first researchers to identify a distinct human ‘fingerprint’ in the Earth’s climate system. His research helped shape the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) landmark 1995 report. The report concluded for the first time that there is sufficient evidence to support a “clear human impact” on the…

Nuttida Rungratsameetaweemana challenges the narrative that neuroscience has been telling us for decades. According to the traditional explanation, our eyes collect raw information and transmit it through a series of nerves and relay stations deep into the brain, eventually reaching the cortex. There, thinking begins when information is processed and used for higher-order tasks such as reasoning, judgment, and decision-making. Her group’s activities complicate that explanation. Last year, the team published fMRI scans showing unexpected levels of activity in the cortex’s earliest visual areas, the areas that first receive visual signals. Rather than passively communicating what the eye received, these…

Water has been studied more than almost any other substance, and scientists have long debated a surprisingly simple problem. That is, what happens to the chemistry of water when it is squeezed into a space just a few molecules wide. These tiny spaces exist throughout nature and technology, including nanoscale pores, membranes, and biological channels. A new study reveals that the answer is more nuanced than researchers once believed, helping to resolve years of contradictory results. Why water splitting is important One of the characteristic chemical properties of water is its ability to break down into two charged particles: H3O+…

Results from the ongoing eNRGy trial, a single-arm, multicenter, international phase 2 clinical trial evaluating xenocutuzumab in neuregulin-1-positive solid tumors (NRG1) gene fusion, with manageable side effects and clinically meaningful efficacy (including nearly twice the progression-free survival compared to expected with standard therapy) reported in patients with previously treated advanced disease NRG1-Positive cholangiocarcinoma. Based on these results, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved xenocutuzumab as a next treatment. NRG1-I tested positive for bile duct cancer on May 8th. “Second-line chemotherapy is only marginally effective for most patients with this disease, and better treatment options are desperately needed,” says…

When a patient requires a stem cell transplant, finding a registered donor is only the first step. Some potential donors drop out before confirmation typing, reducing the number of candidates available to physicians from. Researchers at Osaka University and their collaborators tested whether a small change in wording could encourage more donors to stick around. This study Economic Behavior and Organization Journal. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is an important treatment for leukemia and other blood cancers, but donor availability remains a challenge worldwide. In Japan, many coordination processes stop before confirmatory typing (CT), a pre-donation test used to confirm whether…

Almost half of dementia cases could be prevented by addressing modifiable risk factors such as physical inactivity, smoking, low education and social isolation, but new research from Curtin University suggests that current public health approaches are falling short of driving real behavior change. Major international reviews published in Lancet Health and Longevity We found that while large-scale health awareness campaigns to prevent dementia have the potential to reach a wide audience, they often lead to only modest improvements in knowledge and limited changes in behavior. This study analyzed public health campaigns and programs in eight countries and found that more…

Researchers who have re-run a key fungicide study on neurotoxicity have come up with vastly different results, and campaigners say the substance should be taken off the market immediately.In 2005, a study conducted by Huntingdon Life Sciences on behalf of ISK, the manufacturer of fluazinam, on the neurotoxicity of fluazinam in pregnant rats concluded that there were no statistically significant effects on brain development in the rat offspring.After safety evaluation, the insecticide fluazinam was approved in the EU in 2008. Fluazinam is a Pfas fungicide used to control various soil-borne fungal pathogens in potatoes and apples. In 2024, 340 tons…

Dear Mr. President, Hello from Florida, where you call your second home and where you probably go golfing every week. There’s a pesky intruder at a reflecting pool in Washington that’s causing a big problem, but it’s not Antifa, it’s an algae bloom. You must be deeply offended to see the media treating this as a huge embarrassment to you. Slate called it “an unavoidable metaphor for the Trump administration’s incompetence, waste, careless interference with iconic federal property, and overall bad taste.” This is one of the milder explanations. Then I heard a comic comparing it to the Iran war…