public-health

ObjectiveThis study aimed to reveal the profiles of the flourishing in undergoing maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) and to investigate influencing factors guided by the principles of Social Support Resource Theory.MethodsA total of 376 MHD patients were recruited between October and November 2022. The study used the PERMA Profiler of Chinese Version, Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale, Perceiv…

A new study led by researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso found that use of weight loss drugs like Ozempic and other GLP-1s is associated with a lower risk of developing alcohol, opioid, nicotine and cocaine use disorders.

Global health policymakers should focus on the way entire healthcare systems work together - improving one element does not always create better outcomes if the wider system is not ready.

Nearly half of Americans with kidney failure who are referred for transplantation never begin the process required to be considered for a new organ, a new study shows, while less than a fifth actually complete the assessment and get on the waitlist.

Veterans who worked in high-blast occupations, such as artillery or weapons training, show higher rates of anger and aggression. Using artificial intelligence to scan medical records, researchers found this occupational exposure carries a distinct behavioral risk.

The Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) and its long-running follow-up, the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study...

Consanguineous marriages, defined as unions between biologically related individuals, remain prevalent in several regions of India due to cultural and social traditions.

Part of Teaching an AI Agent to Make Beautiful Charts Health insurers turn down a lot of claims, and they do not all turn them down at the same rate. In 2024, the largest plans sold on the Affordable Care Act marketplace denied anywhere from 13% to 35% of the in-network claims their members filed. Whether your claim got paid depended a lot on whose name was on your card. Claim denials are back in…

The UN is set to review the legal status of nicotine. An outright ban would go too far, but there is no case for its easy availability The health case for banning cigarettes is ironclad. As the then head of the World Health Organization, Gro Harlem Brundtland, put it in 2000, “a cigarette is the only consumer product which when used as directed kills its consumer”. Smoking is still the leading ca…

Screenings can find treatable conditions before they’ve caused too much damage – but ‘overscreening’ can cause harm I couldn’t help but roll my eyes when tech entrepreneur and longevity influencer Bryan Johnson posted about his girlfriend’s “vaginal microbiome report” in April. (He said it was in the “top 1% of vaginas”.) While the vaginal microbiome is genuinely interesting, most clinicians don’…

Ignorance around hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is a public health catastrophe, say readers in response to an article on how sufferers have to wait 21 years for a diagnosis Your coverage of hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS) is a vital start to addressing a systemic public health catastrophe ( UK hypermobility sufferers wait up to 21 years for diagnosis, study suggests, 15 June ). I am…

New research highlights the far-reaching health effects of movement, showing that even modest physical activity can influence well-being and disease outcomes. Exercise is often treated as a lifestyle choice, but growing evidence suggests it may be one of the most powerful forms of medicine available. Researchers at Wits University have found that movement can help [...]

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first new sunscreen ingredient to be permitted for over-the-counter consumer use in the U.S. since 1999.

For people with kidney failure, a kidney transplant can be life-changing. A successful transplant can allow someone to live longer, feel better, and spend less time receiving dialysis treatments. Yet getting a new kidney is often a long and difficult journey. A new study suggests that many people never get close to receiving a transplant […] The post Why Most Patients in U.S. Never Reach the Kidn…

Many people pay attention to sugar, salt, and fat when trying to eat a healthy diet. However, there is another group of ingredients that often receives much less attention. These ingredients are food preservatives. They are added to many packaged foods to help products stay fresh for longer periods and to prevent spoilage caused by […] The post 8 Common Food Additives Linked to High Blood Pressur…

Alcohol use increases breast cancer risk in a dose-dependent manner. Middle-aged and older women are drinking more heavily across the life course, increasing cumulative exposure and breast cancer risk. A recent study examined the association between age and knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about the alcohol and breast cancer risk, finding that middle-aged women had the lowest knowledge of the ri…

In 1964, the Surgeon General issued an advisory on smoking and cancer, which eventually led to a reduction in smoking prevalence, and smoking-related cancers and deaths. In January 2025, the Surgeon General issued an advisory on alcohol and cancer risk, highlighting the International Agency for Research on Cancer's designation of alcohol as a Group 1 carcinogen, alongside tobacco, asbestos, and f…

Alcohol misuse and suicide are significant public health issues among college students and often co-occur. Individuals with minority identities have a greater risk for both alcohol misuse and suicidality due to increased stress associated with racism and heterosexism. A new study examines risk for alcohol misuse and suicide separately and concurrently among college students with minoritized and i…

Economic deprivation is broadly associated with poor health outcomes, including substance use disorders (SUDs). A new study has examined the impact of lower household income and parental education on the risk for children and young adults from those households to develop SUDs. Findings will be shared at the 49th annual scientific meeting of the Research Society on Alcohol (RSA) in San Antonio, Te…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is loosely defined as a narrow form of data-driven intelligence that is exhibited by machines.Generative AI (GenAI) creates new content based on learned patterns, and is what supports online chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot. Given the low awareness of the relationship between alcohol consumption and breast cancer risk in the U.S., as well as the increasin…