Author: healthadmin

If you’re a parent or live with a medical condition that makes frequent trips to the bathroom unavoidable, you probably know which public restrooms you can use and which ones to avoid. Even so, there are times when we are forced to use facilities that are far from clean. In such situations, many people hesitate. Even if the seat looks acceptable, is it safe to sit down, or could that decision make you sick? What’s inside a public toilet? The average adult produces more than 1 liter of urine and 100 grams of poop every day. Along with its waste…

Protein engineering is a perfect field for artificial intelligence research. Each protein is made up of amino acids. To optimize protein function, researchers modify proteins by replacing one of 20 different amino acids with another. For a protein that is only 50 amino acids long, there are approximately 1.13×1065 possible combinations to test. That’s 113 followed by 65 zeros, or 5 times 1 trillion zeros. With so many potential combinations and impossible to test in the lab, protein engineering is an ideal challenge for AI. Modeling which of these combinations yields the best results is a perfect problem for the…

Despite the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare, a new study led by Mass General Brigham researchers at the MESH Incubator shows that generative AI models continue to fall short in their clinical reasoning capabilities. By asking 21 different large-scale language models (LLMs) to play the role of doctors in a series of clinical scenarios, researchers showed that LLMs often fail to navigate diagnostic workup and create a testable list of potential or “differential” diagnoses. All tested LLMs reached the correct final diagnosis more than 90% of the time when all relevant information for a patient’s case was…

Challenging the classic view, two cognitive scientists argue in a new review that categorization is not a special late stage of sensory processing. Rather, it is a core function that anticipates the body’s needs and movement plans and functions at all levels. Categories are therefore not fixed prototypes stored in “higher-order” areas of the cortex, but are dynamically constructed based on previous experience throughout sensory processing. In a new review article, “Categorization is baked into the brain,” cognitive scientists Lisa Feldman Barrett, Distinguished Professor at Northeastern University, and Earl K. Miller, Picower Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argue that…

Scientists at the Buck Institute on Aging, along with collaborators at the University of California, San Francisco, have discovered that APOE4, the most common genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, causes bone defects specifically in female mice through a mechanism that is invisible to standard imaging and can appear as early as middle age. The survey results are cutting edge sciencerevealed an unexpected biological link between Alzheimer’s disease risk and skeletal health and identified a new molecular pathway that may one day inform early diagnosis of cognitive decline or guide treatment of bone loss in women who carry the APOE4…

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every 25 minutes a baby is diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) in the United States. NAS is a condition that occurs in newborns who are exposed to opioids in utero and develop withdrawal symptoms after birth. Historically, research has focused on the impact of NAS, also known as neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome, on infant health and development, finding that prenatal opioid exposure is associated with an increased risk of adverse developmental, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes in early childhood. But by the time infants with NAS reach the classroom, opioid exposure…

Rutgers Health researchers found that older Chinese immigrants living in areas with better access to community amenities, services, and support infrastructure had slower declines in cognitive function over time. Their research is Social science and medicineexamined data from the Chinese Elderly Population Study, one of the largest studies of older Chinese immigrants in the United States. Researchers investigated how neighborhood resources such as museums, libraries, medical services, and internet access were associated with changes in cognitive function among 2,763 Chinese people. Immigrants age 60 and older living in the Chicago metropolitan area. Although neighborhood context was not associated with cognitive…

A federal policy requiring states to keep Medicaid recipients enrolled during the COVID-19 pandemic expanded postpartum Medicaid coverage across the country, leading to a surge in the number of people remaining insured after giving birth, according to Rutgers Health researchers. Analysis published in of Milbank Quarterly Magazine, A study of Medicaid claims in 15 states found that this coverage expansion resulted in modest changes in health care utilization, with significant increases in emergency department visits and mental and behavioral health examinations. Medicaid claims data provides important insights into service utilization and maternal health status. However, because we typically rely…

A new randomized clinical trial found that men with localized intermediate-risk prostate cancer recover faster and have less short-term impact on daily life when treated with MRI-guided transurethral ultrasound ablation (TULSA) compared to robotic prostate surgery. Results from the CAPTAIN trial were presented today, Sunday, at the SIR 2026 Annual Scientific Meeting in Toronto. The study followed 212 men treated at 23 medical centers between 2022 and 2025. Participants with localized intermediate-risk prostate cancer were randomly assigned to receive TULSA, a new minimally invasive therapy performed by an interventional radiologist, or robotic prostatectomy, a standard surgical approach. The study showed…

The outcome of the third phase was negative, and from a seemingly tightening regulatory environment to a grueling three-month review extension, Travele Therapeutics’ path in the pioneer bid was anything but certain. However, the company defied the odds and won breakthrough FDA approval for Filspari in focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), providing the first treatment for a rare kidney disease. Monday’s FDA approval makes Filspari the first treatment specifically indicated for FSGS, presenting FSGS with a sales opportunity of more than $1 billion, according to analysts at Leerink Partners. The drug was originally approved in 2023 to treat another kidney disease,…