https://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. A new study finds that employer points systems, which penalize workers for absences regardless of the reason, are strongly associated with presenteeism, the practice of showing up to work while sick, and that these systems undermine the public health benefits of paid sick leave laws even in jurisdictions where such protections are on the books. Published in the June 2026 issue of Health Affairs, the research, "Points-Based Attendance Systems Associated With Presenteeism Despite Paid Sick Leave Protections," draws on 2024 survey data from more than 3,000 hourly service-sector workers at 63 large U.S. firms. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-sick-workers-job-paid.html Thu, 11 Jun 2026 13:20:05 EDT news700400521 California's ranks of uninsured residents could nearly double in the next four years—to nearly 4.6 million people—because of deep federal cuts to Medicaid and dramatic changes in federal and state policy, according to a new report from the UC Berkeley Labor Center. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-uninsured-californians.html Wed, 10 Jun 2026 22:40:03 EDT news700327861 Women with abnormal mammograms often have to wait for weeks to find out whether they have breast cancer. Now, researchers at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley have found a way to help reduce the wait and the worry by using AI to quickly identify those who are most likely to have the disease. By triaging these patients, the AI-guided workflow takes women with abnormal scans through the diagnostic process—from imaging to evaluation and sometimes even biopsy—in a single day. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-ai-breast-cancer-diagnosis-high.html Tue, 02 Jun 2026 18:00:05 EDT news699632762 When most humans reach late adulthood, their ability to coordinate movements and maintain balance, broadly referred to as motor control, tends to gradually decline. While these changes in motor control are widely documented, the extent to which they also affect sensorimotor learning (i.e., the adaptation of movements based on information from the environment) remains unclear. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-aging-reshapes-sensorimotor-older-adults.html Sun, 31 May 2026 09:10:01 EDT news699106570 It's widely known that low-income Black women suffer far higher maternal health risks than low- income white mothers, often because they lack access to quality health care. But in a new book, UC Berkeley law professor Khiara M. Bridges makes a forceful argument that maternal health disparities affect Black women at every rung of the socioeconomic ladder. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-qa-wealth-shield-black-americans.html Mon, 18 May 2026 17:20:06 EDT news698335261 A Kaiser Permanente study of nearly 8,000 men shows that in mid- to late 2024, mpox was far more common than previously thought among men who had sex with men. Individuals without symptoms accounted for most infections and likely played a prominent role in transmission, contrary to prior assumptions that people had to be symptomatic to spread the disease. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-mpox-reveals-hidden-infections-fuel.html Thu, 14 May 2026 17:03:01 EDT news697996921 Thousands of times per year, a family's moment of joy turns to unexpected grief. A seemingly healthy infant stops smiling or making eye contact. Their limbs grow weak. The tiny child suffers seizures and breathing problems. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-children-rare-debilitating-brain-diseases.html Fri, 08 May 2026 14:00:05 EDT news697453981 Violence against women and girls may increase during infectious disease outbreaks—as economic strain, isolation and disrupted services reshape daily life—yet those impacts remain largely unmeasured, according to researchers at Washington University in St. Louis School of Public Health. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-global-outbreaks-fuel-violence-women.html Tue, 05 May 2026 13:00:05 EDT news697204141 Epilepsy is best known for seizures, but many people with the condition also experience much more frequent and subtler disruptions. These brief bursts of abnormal brain activity, called interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs), can happen thousands of times a day, interfering with attention, memory, language, and sleep. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-epilepsy-brain-blips-full-early.html Thu, 30 Apr 2026 05:00:01 EDT news696672952 Professor Iksung Kang (School of Electrical Engineering), in collaboration with Professor Na Ji's research team at UC Berkeley, has developed a technology that accurately corrects image aberrations in microscopes used for live biological imaging. Notably, the experimental design and algorithm development—the core components of this technology—were led by Professor Kang during his postdoctoral fellowship in Professor Na Ji's group. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-ai-enables-clearer-views-deep.html Wed, 29 Apr 2026 16:40:07 EDT news696693901 Researchers at City of Hope, a cancer research and treatment organization, and the University of California, Berkeley, have created a novel microfluidic platform that can assess women's breast cancer risk at the cellular level. The first-of-its-kind platform squeezes individual breast epithelial cells, creating a taxing environment to measure how they deform, recover, and behave under stress, according to a new study published in eBioMedicine. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-ai-individual-breast-cells-cancer.html Thu, 23 Apr 2026 19:30:01 EDT news696167581 Why can images of things we have seen seem so real when we later recall them from memory? A new study led by Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University investigators sheds light on the answer. The research shows that the same brain neurons are activated when we imagine something and when we perceive something. The research, led by Cedars-Sinai, is the first to provide a detailed understanding of the shared mechanism that underlies visual perception and creation of mental images in the human brain. It was published in the journal Science. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-people-neurons.html Thu, 09 Apr 2026 15:00:04 EDT news694962902 Over one billion people worldwide are over 60, and the population is projected to more than double by 2050. But as more people live into their 60s, 70s, and 80s, health care systems across the globe may face new challenges as they attempt to manage associated increases in age-related disease. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-chip-technology-replicates-decades-human.html Mon, 30 Mar 2026 18:40:04 EDT news694104481 Executive function skills are a set of inter-related processes that support attention, self-control, and goal-directed behavior. Executive function has been linked to positive outcomes across multiple domains of development. The skills associated with executive function develop rapidly during childhood and promote longer-term health, academic success, and well-being. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-covid-disrupted-young-children-function.html Tue, 24 Mar 2026 09:00:03 EDT news693467700 A new series in The Lancet led by a UC Berkeley professor equips policymakers and clinicians with a toolkit to break out of silos and make more informed health decisions. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-biology-social-context-key-modern.html Fri, 05 Dec 2025 09:33:06 EST news684149558 Sonoma County is known for its rolling fields and famed vineyards, making the region a pillar in California's wine industry. But a sweeping new survey from UC Berkeley has found that approximately 75% of agricultural workers there have worked during wildfires since 2017, raising questions about worker safety and a program that could further expose workers during wildfire evacuations. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-10-wine-country-agricultural-workers-exposed.html Mon, 20 Oct 2025 13:03:51 EDT news680184225 UC Berkeley scientists tricked the eye into seeing "the greenest green" they'd ever seen. They say it could transform how we understand and treat eye diseases, and expand the way we see the world around us. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-08-olo-realm-vision-science.html Tue, 19 Aug 2025 08:55:19 EDT news674812512 Ann Johnson became paralyzed after a brainstem stroke at age 30. As a participant in a clinical trial led by researchers at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco, she finally heard her voice again. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-08-stole-ability-years-scientists-ai.html Sun, 17 Aug 2025 15:10:01 EDT news674402769 A new UC Berkeley study shows that the so-called love hormone oxytocin is also critical for the formation of friendships. The paper is published in the journal Current Biology. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-08-hormone-oxytocin-friendship.html Mon, 11 Aug 2025 16:17:05 EDT news674147822 Proposed measures to impose historic cuts on Medicaid spending could have a devastating impact on millions of older working-age Americans, according to a new analysis conducted by Nari Rhee, director of the Labor Center's Retirement Security Program, and issued by the UC Berkeley Labor Center. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-06-medicaid-disproportionate-impact-older-workers.html Fri, 27 Jun 2025 11:24:51 EDT news670242290 Many grooves and dimples on the surface of the brain are unique to humans, but they're often dismissed as an uninteresting consequence of packing an unusually large brain into a too-small skull. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-05-groovy-brains-efficient.html Wed, 21 May 2025 16:50:05 EDT news667065002 The pleasure we get from eating junk food—the dopamine rush from crunching down on salty, greasy French fries and a luscious burger—is often blamed as the cause of overeating and rising obesity rates in our society. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-03-scientists-obesity-pleasure.html Wed, 26 Mar 2025 12:00:08 EDT news662110021 Russell Vance is an immunology professor, infectious disease researcher, and the director of UC Berkeley's Cancer Research Laboratory. By studying the immune system's response to bacteria that cause tuberculosis and dysentery, Vance hopes to apply those insights into other areas affecting public health, such as cancer. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-03-federal-worsen-infectious-disease-toll.html Mon, 10 Mar 2025 10:56:04 EDT news660822961 It wasn't that long ago when cigarettes and soda were go-to convenience store vices, glamorized in movies and marketed toward, well, everyone. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-12-soda-taxes-dont-affect-sales.html Tue, 10 Dec 2024 17:06:04 EST news653072761 An intense international effort to improve the resolution of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for studying the human brain has culminated in an ultra-high resolution 7 Tesla scanner that records up to 10 times more detail than current 7T scanners and over 50 times more detail than current 3T scanners, the mainstay of most hospitals. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-fold-resolution-functional-mri-brain.html Mon, 27 Nov 2023 11:00:01 EST news620299870 Decades of redlining—a longstanding banking practice that blocked people of color from getting mortgages—continue to perpetuate racial and socioeconomic inequality in the San Francisco Bay Area and across the country, according to ongoing research from UC Berkeley School of Public Health. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-09-years-outlawed-redlining-neighborhood-health.html Fri, 29 Sep 2023 09:20:03 EDT news615197991 Research from UC Berkeley's Department of Psychology is shifting the understanding of human decision-making processes by highlighting the importance of goal-oriented rewards. Conducted by Berkeley Psychology Professor Anne Collins and Berkeley Psychology doctoral student Gaia Molinaro, the study suggests that the value people attribute to outcomes is subjective, and heavily influenced by their personal goals and the context of the decision. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-07-reveals-goal-oriented-rewards-key-factors.html Tue, 18 Jul 2023 16:50:03 EDT news608917801 Researchers have known that a lack of quality sleep can increase a person's risk of diabetes. What has remained a mystery, however, is why. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-07-deep-sleep-brain-blood-sugar.html Sat, 08 Jul 2023 06:34:39 EDT news608016869 Yuria Celidwen was born into a family of Indigenous mystics, healers, poets and explorers from the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-05-indigenous-spirit-medicine-principles-priority.html Fri, 05 May 2023 12:29:46 EDT news602508581 A deep slumber might help buffer against memory loss for older adults facing a heightened burden of Alzheimer's disease, new research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-05-deep-mitigate-alzheimer-memory-loss.html Thu, 04 May 2023 01:29:21 EDT news602382501