https://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Hip dips are having a moment. The perfectly normal indentations that sit below your hips on the outer thigh have become the latest body feature to be scrutinized, fixed and agonized over on social media. But what are they? Can you actually get rid of them? And should you even try? https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-hip-dips.html Wed, 10 Jun 2026 20:20:02 EDT news700306705 Changes are on the horizon for the food that students can choose in English schools. The government is proposing updates to the school food standards, which set out what schools can serve. The changes are aimed at increasing fiber and reducing fat, sugar and salt in school food. These will, for example, remove deep fried foods and fruit juice from school menus, while also limiting how often options such as pizza can be offered. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-pizza-lovers-savory-snackers-secondary.html Tue, 09 Jun 2026 13:40:08 EDT news700223822 Fiber is an essential part of a healthy diet. By eating a variety of plant-based foods, increasing fiber intake gradually and staying well hydrated, you can support gut health and overall well-being while making fiber goals more achievable and sustainable. Purna Kashyap, M.B.B.S., a gastroenterologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, offers tips to add fiber to your diet. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-fiber-gut-health-expert-kind.html Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:00:02 EDT news700204502 University of Maine researchers have published new findings about how muscles form, why certain muscle diseases develop and why symptoms may not appear until years after muscle degeneration begins. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-mylpf-protein-molecular-linchpin-muscle.html Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:00:02 EDT news700157941 Flatulence, or farting, is something people often joke about or find embarrassing when it happens unexpectedly. It is, however, an essential bodily function that allows the digestive system to keep pressure within the intestinal tract low and prevents painful stretching of the stomach and intestines. Even though it is normal to fart, it remains unclear what counts as a healthy number. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-people-gas-app.html Mon, 08 Jun 2026 10:00:05 EDT news700130400 It's no accident that we spend a third of our lives asleep. It is essential to our health, and even animals for whom resting is complicated—such as aquatic mammals that need to surface to breathe, or birds that go up to 10 days without touching dry land—manage to sleep with surprising adaptations. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-good-night-healthy-gut-bacteria.html Sun, 07 Jun 2026 20:30:02 EDT news699540301 A team of experimental oncology researchers at the University of Alberta is shedding light on how the deadly brain cancer glioblastoma spreads. In newly published research, they identify a potential treatment target to slow or even stop it. Glioblastoma is an aggressive form of cancer that affects 4 in 100,000 people, according to Brain Tumor Canada, with an average survival of 12 to 18 months. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-inhibit-brain-cancer-infiltration-mechanism.html Sat, 06 Jun 2026 14:00:05 EDT news699866873 A group of eating behavior and metabolism experts from across Europe have published a Perspective article in the journal Science examining the limitations of current evidence on ultraprocessed foods (UPFs). https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-experts-highlight-limits-evidence-ultraprocessed.html Fri, 05 Jun 2026 17:00:01 EDT news699876111 Scientists at Université de Montréal's Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC) have identified a dynamic structure that forms a network on the surface of epithelial cells. Led by Gregory Emery, director of IRIC's vesicular trafficking and cell signaling research unit, and Ph.D. students Claire Baudouin and Léa Marpeaux, the research is published in the Journal of Cell Science. It shows that, in certain skin cells, actin fibers can connect with neighboring cells to form a shared network on the surface of the tissue. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-hidden-actin-web-skin-cells.html Thu, 04 Jun 2026 14:40:03 EDT news699795898 University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers report the final outcomes of a pioneering pilot clinical trial using electrical stimulation of the spinal cord to improve arm and hand mobility in people with chronic stroke in Nature Medicine. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-years-spinal-cord-arm-function.html Thu, 04 Jun 2026 05:00:01 EDT news699698402 Humans and other animals can learn new skills and behaviors from others they interact with. This process, referred to as social learning, has been widely investigated in the past, particularly in the context of responses to threatening stimuli or social norms. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-wrong-mouse-swap-exposes-social.html Wed, 03 Jun 2026 09:46:53 EDT news699698727 Losing weight is hard. Keeping it off is often even harder. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-gut-microbe-weight-regain-dieting.html Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:40:04 EDT news699624302 Millions of Americans are currently taking GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic or Wegovy for weight loss. But along with the fat, many are quietly losing something else: muscle. Unlike fat, muscle doesn't return quickly, and muscle loss can have deleterious effects on strength, mobility, and overall health. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-drug-muscle-glp-weight-loss.html Tue, 02 Jun 2026 18:20:04 EDT news699634921 Researchers at the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (Stevens INI) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC have created one of the largest reference models ever developed for the human brain, using diffusion MRI scans from more than 54,000 people to chart how the brain's communication pathways develop, mature, and decline across the lifespan. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-brain-growth-white-human-lifespan.html Tue, 02 Jun 2026 13:40:04 EDT news699620087 Trace elements are needed only in small amounts, but they can have large effects on the developing brain. A research team led by Niigata University has now reported that copper, an essential trace element, may help connect metabolic changes in the body with white matter development and social behavior in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-copper-imbalance-autism-social-symptoms.html Tue, 02 Jun 2026 11:20:09 EDT news699615241 Researchers from UCL (University College London) and the ESRF (The European Synchrotron) have produced the first three-dimensional map of the heart's electrical wiring in Tetralogy of Fallot, one of the most common congenital heart problems, revealing anatomical features that may explain why many patients develop heart conduction disorders in this condition. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-3d-heart-electrical-wiring-patients.html Mon, 01 Jun 2026 16:20:04 EDT news699546181 Cambridge scientists have grown miniature circuits in the lab that mimic how the brain and spinal cord connect, which underlies human movement. They used this model to show how damage to these connections previously considered "irreversible" could, in fact, be reversible. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-lab-grown-brain-spinal-cord.html Thu, 28 May 2026 16:20:05 EDT news699200617 Both robot-assisted simple prostatectomy (RASP) and laser enucleation of the prostate (LEP) are safe and effective surgical options for large-volume benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), according to a review published online May 4 in Frontiers in Medicine. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-robot-simple-prostatectomy-laser-enucleation.html Thu, 28 May 2026 15:20:06 EDT news699192834 In a new study published recently in the journal Nature, researchers at Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt Health have created the first growth charts for white matter in the brain over a human lifetime. The work brings together nearly two decades of Vanderbilt research collaborations, the university's extensive MRI data collections, and an advanced AI-enabled computing platform. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-brain-reveal-lifetime-white-growth.html Thu, 28 May 2026 13:20:02 EDT news699191039 Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture released the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans—a mixed-bag of guidance that has been both lauded and criticized by the medical science world. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-dietary-guidelines-kids.html Thu, 28 May 2026 09:20:06 EDT news699177842 Food labels make calories seem simple. They show the number of calories per serving, which is calculated based on how much fat, carbohydrates and protein the food contains. But inside the body, digestion is far more complicated. Food passes through a living microbial ecosystem that can influence how many of those calories people actually absorb. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-gut-microbes-calories-absorb-food.html Wed, 27 May 2026 18:00:07 EDT news699119881 People who drink a glass of 100% fruit juice or a smoothie each day as part of the U.K.'s 5-a-day healthy eating guidance see improvements in their mental well-being, according to new research from Newcastle University, U.K. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-daily-fruit-juice-depression-scores.html Wed, 27 May 2026 09:40:01 EDT news699092920 Researchers at Cincinnati Children's have identified a potential new way to relieve chronic pain linked to neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), a genetic condition best known for causing tumors to grow along nerves. The new findings suggest that pain in NF1 may begin before tumors appear and may be driven by abnormal signaling from Schwann cells, which normally support and protect nerves. The abnormal signaling produces excess glial cell line–derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), a protein that can heighten pain signaling. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-schwann-cells-trigger-nf1-pain.html Wed, 27 May 2026 04:11:51 EDT news699073831 Regular guava juice consumption may prove a readily accessible and affordable addition to helping lower the risk of anemia in women in low and middle income countries, suggests a synthesis of the available evidence, published in BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-regular-guava-juice-consumption-women.html Tue, 26 May 2026 18:30:02 EDT news698914493 While humans are acquiring new skills that entail performing coordinated movements, such as walking, playing an instrument or skateboarding, their brains are known to continuously detect mistakes and correct movements over time. This gradual acquisition of task-specific movements is known as motor learning. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-hidden-brain-circuit-movement-errors.html Tue, 26 May 2026 13:20:01 EDT news699018100 For decades, people have been told that their weight problems can be solved by math: Calories in, calories out. If weight were a simple math equation, more people would likely have the weight they desire. But it is much more complicated. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-body-weight-obesity-doctor-size.html Mon, 25 May 2026 19:40:01 EDT news698921379 Researcher Daan van der Vliet, together with colleagues from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Leiden University, and Utrecht University, has discovered an important mechanism that may be linked to severe progression of multiple sclerosis (MS). In brain tissue from patients with rapidly progressing MS, they found large numbers of abnormal immune cells overloaded with fat droplets. The study offers new leads for treatments as well as biomarkers that could better predict disease progression. The work is published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-overloaded-brain-cleanup-cells-severe.html Fri, 22 May 2026 14:20:03 EDT news698677121 Electrical stimulation of the spinal cord, such as following a spinal cord injury, has made great strides in recent years. However, high-frequency stimulation pulses, which are used in many current applications, appear less efficient at activating those nerve fibers that are believed to contribute decisively to therapeutic effects. This is the conclusion of a study conducted by an international team with the participation of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-spinal-reveal-high-frequency-pulses.html Thu, 21 May 2026 19:00:02 EDT news698593321 Even minimal exposure to modern medicine can rapidly change the human microbiome. In a new study appearing in Cell Reports, researchers reveal that the gut microbes of remote Amazonian Indigenous communities have begun shifting toward patterns more commonly seen in urban, industrialized populations after only a few medical visits. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-modern-medicine-gut-microbial-diversity.html Wed, 20 May 2026 11:10:01 EDT news698398861 Losing muscle strength is a natural part of aging. At the core of this decline is a drop in the number of muscle stem cells (MuSCs), the specialized cells responsible for maintaining and regenerating muscle tissue throughout our lives. Loss of muscle strength can severely affect mobility, increasing the risk of falls, fractures and, most importantly, the loss of independence. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-recharge-aging-muscle-stem-cells.html Mon, 18 May 2026 15:20:06 EDT news698330818