https://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Chronic alcohol consumption profoundly alters gene expression in key brain regions involved in reward, impulse control, and decision-making, according to a study led by researchers at the Institute for Neurosciences, a joint center of Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH) and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Published in the journal Addiction, the work provides new insight into the biological basis of alcohol addiction and points toward potential therapeutic targets. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-decades-reshape-gene-key-human.html Mon, 09 Feb 2026 03:00:02 EST news689339341 Every person with functioning ovaries will eventually experience menopause. While the biology is relatively universal, the experience varies dramatically between individuals and in the same person over time. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-hot-flush-gold-women-menopause.html Sat, 07 Feb 2026 12:00:04 EST news689503822 A team of researchers at VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center discovered an innovative way to use a drug already approved for treating irregular heartbeat to selectively target specific functions of enzymes in lymphoma, effectively killing cancer cells and reducing tumor growth with little to no toxicity. Recent findings published in Pharmacological Research set the groundwork for how this strategy could help transform the future of precision medicine in cancer. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-arrhythmia-drug-myc-driven-lymphoma.html Thu, 05 Feb 2026 07:00:08 EST news689488631 A study of more than 500 people living with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and their caregivers, co-led by researchers at Mass General Brigham, found that survey participants viewed the ability to regain basic communication as the minimum acceptable outcome after severe brain injury. The study, published in Critical Care Medicine, shows that many individuals living with TBIs consider outcomes involving significant disability to be acceptable. These results challenge longstanding assumptions by TBI researchers and providers about what constitutes a "favorable" outcome after a severe brain injury, and should inform future care discussions and clinical trials, according to the authors. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-people-traumatic-brain-injury-caregivers.html Tue, 03 Feb 2026 09:16:38 EST news689332561 Gout, a type of inflammatory arthritis caused by a buildup of uric acid (urate) in the body, affects 5.1% of U.S. adults (over 12 million), including 10% of those aged 65 or older. Urate is produced by the body when breaking down compounds called purines and normally dissolves in the blood, but when levels are high, they can precipitate out as monosodium urate crystals which can deposit in the joints. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-glucose-lowering-sglt2i-drugs-patients.html Tue, 03 Feb 2026 07:30:07 EST news689325843 Racism has long disrupted relationships, deepened social divisions, and hindered collective action on global challenges. While modern societies strive to be just and advocate against social injustices, many still turn away from engaging in conversations surrounding racism, health inequities, and racial tensions. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-black-women-health-racism.html Mon, 02 Feb 2026 11:38:56 EST news689254682 When infectious diseases surge, response often comes down to timing: whether communities can position the right people and supplies before case counts spike. A new tool developed by UC San Diego with UNICEF and New Light Technologies helps Peru and Brazil anticipate dengue and malaria, plan resources and lay the groundwork for global expansion. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-dashboard-disease-outbreaks.html Sun, 01 Feb 2026 09:30:01 EST news688987309 Similar—yet not the same: Many studies show that patients often struggle to interpret numerical information in medical contexts, especially probabilities related to recovery and side effects. In a recently published Letter in the JAMA, Professors Tobias Kube (Goethe University Frankfurt) and Winfried Rief (University of Marburg) explain which phrasing can help prevent nocebo effects in communication in outpatient and clinical settings. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-dies-communicating-medical-experts.html Thu, 29 Jan 2026 14:10:02 EST news688915989 January would have marked the 53rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide—that is, until 2022, when the court overturned it. Since then, abortion has been banned in 13 states and severely limited in 10 others. Yet anti-abortion activists remain frustrated, in some cases even more so than before Roe was overturned. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-medication-abortion-anti-groups.html Wed, 28 Jan 2026 18:30:01 EST news688803731 Understanding how a tumor evolves against the attack of the immune system is one of the greatest challenges in modern medicine. Current mathematical models are usually deterministic; that is, they assume fixed values that rarely reflect the reality of patients, where the immune response varies enormously from one person to another. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-deciphering-chaos-fuzzy-ai-immune.html Tue, 27 Jan 2026 14:41:29 EST news688747261 People's perceptions and their interpretation of the world are known to often be influenced by their expectations and past experiences. One well-established example of this is serial dependence, a bias that prompts humans to make judgments about things that they are perceiving based on other stimuli that they observed shortly beforehand. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-sensory-adversely-impact-perceptual-decisions.html Fri, 23 Jan 2026 08:00:01 EST news688296865 For more than a century, maps of the brain have been based on how brain tissue looks under the microscope. These anatomical maps divide the brain into regions according to structural variations in the tissue. But do these divisions really reflect how the brain works? A new study on mice from Karolinska Institutet, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggests that this is often not the case. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-brain-traditional-descriptions-prefrontal-cortex.html Tue, 20 Jan 2026 14:30:01 EST news688141621 Strokes are a medical emergency, yet imaging can capture only snapshots of how brain damage develops in the hours and days that follow. For many other organs, blood tests can indicate acute injury, but until now the brain has lacked a comparable marker. Researchers at LMU University Hospital and international partners report that a new blood biomarker, brain-derived tau (BD-tau), can track the extent of brain injury after ischemic stroke over time. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-blood-extent-brain-injury-reveals.html Thu, 15 Jan 2026 12:15:47 EST news687701701 Alcohol-free and low-alcohol ("nolo") drinks have the potential to improve public health, but experts writing in The BMJ call for a precautionary approach that maximizes potential benefits (e.g., increased substitution of alcoholic drinks with nolo alternatives) while minimizing risks (e.g., preventing encroachment of nolo drinks into alcohol-free spaces). https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-precautionary-approach-alcohol-free-health.html Wed, 14 Jan 2026 18:30:05 EST news687541549 Large language models (LLM) can generate treatment recommendations for straightforward cases of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) that align with clinical guidelines but fall short in more complex cases, according to a new study by Ji Won Han from The Catholic University of Korea and colleagues published in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-ai-advice-physician-early-stage.html Tue, 13 Jan 2026 14:00:03 EST news687442485 Picture this. You're sitting in an office reception, waiting to be called in for an interview for your dream job. You have no appetite. Your palms are sweaty and your heart is thumping. Your anxiety rises. In short, you're stressed. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-stressed-decisions.html Mon, 12 Jan 2026 09:20:02 EST news687431675 Americans have taken an increasingly dim view of sports betting in the seven years since the Supreme Court overturned a federal ban, as online wagers have skyrocketed, igniting concerns over the personal and social costs. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-sports-wagers-skyrocket.html Wed, 07 Jan 2026 21:20:01 EST news687017678 On Jan. 5, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) dramatically reduced the number of recommended childhood vaccinations from 17 to 11, citing practices in other wealthy nations, including Denmark, Germany, and Japan. The CDC said that parents could choose to have their children receive some previously recommended vaccines, including those for flu, rotavirus, COVID-19, meningitis, and hepatitis A and B, after "shared clinical decision-making." https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-cdc-urges-decision-childhood-vaccines.html Tue, 06 Jan 2026 12:19:37 EST news686924341 Birth control pills, taken alone or paired with the drug metformin, did not raise the risk of metabolic syndrome, a precursor of heart disease and diabetes in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) even if those women were overweight, according to researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-birth-ease-pcos-symptoms-added.html Tue, 23 Dec 2025 10:23:38 EST news685707781 When people learn that surrounding visuals and sounds may signify specific choice outcomes, these cues can become guides for decision making. For people with compulsive disorders, addictions, or anxiety, the associations between cues and choice outcomes can eventually promote poor decisions as they come to favor or avoid cues in a more biased manner. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-exploring-people-tend-persistently-bad.html Mon, 22 Dec 2025 13:00:01 EST news685265162 Proteomics International Laboratories Ltd (ASX: PIQ) has announced the publication of a peer-reviewed Australian clinical utility study demonstrating that the PromarkerD blood test provides actionable information that significantly changes how doctors manage patients with type 2 diabetes at risk of diabetes-related chronic kidney disease (CKD). https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-decision-treatment-chronic-kidney-disease.html Mon, 22 Dec 2025 08:13:42 EST news685613582 When killer T cells of our immune system divide, they normally undergo asymmetric cell division (ACD): Each daughter cell inherits different cellular components, which drive the cells toward divergent fates—one cell becomes a short-lived fighter called an effector T cell, the other cell becomes a long-lived memory T cell. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-fate-cell-highlights-cellular-housekeeping.html Fri, 19 Dec 2025 05:00:01 EST news685210626 As child care costs outpace wages, more families are facing difficult decisions about whether to scale back work in order to care for loved ones. Caregiving remains the top reason women ages 25–54 leave the workforce. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-unpaid-caregiving-small-personal-doesnt.html Wed, 17 Dec 2025 21:50:01 EST news685197755 New research shows that one in four children with major traumatic injury do not receive care in a pediatric trauma center, where outcomes are generally better than in adult centers. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-canadian-children-major-traumatic-injuries.html Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:10:06 EST news684669961 In Mozambique, more than one in three children under five suffer from stunting (impaired physical growth) , a sign of chronic undernutrition. New research from the University of Notre Dame shows that improving access to safe drinking water can reduce the odds of stunting by about 20%, making it the most effective Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) intervention for child growth. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-boosts-child-health-mozambique.html Thu, 11 Dec 2025 16:40:12 EST news684693601 When neurologist Steven Arnold is deciding whether to treat an Alzheimer's patient with a new therapy, he relies on averages. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-digital-twin-life.html Tue, 09 Dec 2025 20:10:01 EST news684508943 When I worked on the latest Global Burden of Disease cancer study, a global project that tracks cancer patterns and deaths across countries, I found myself pausing as the numbers loaded on the screen. Even as a scientist used to large datasets, the scale was hard to process. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-world-cancer-crisis-vulnerable-hardest.html Mon, 08 Dec 2025 17:00:01 EST news684414659 We often throw caution to the cold, dark wind of December when it comes to spending. The cost-of-living crisis may slip our minds amid the razzle-dazzle of Christmas. We just want a moment to enjoy ourselves, to forget about the winter gloom. It's natural for us to behave this way. Our brains are wired for it. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-hard-resist-overspending-christmas-willpower.html Mon, 08 Dec 2025 11:30:03 EST news684414409 Health services researchers say shared decision-making (SDM)—a collaborative process where clinicians and patients make treatment choices together—should systematically include family caregivers. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-expert-greater-role-family-caregivers.html Thu, 04 Dec 2025 09:37:26 EST news684063422 At least half of the deaths of people undergoing major types of surgery in Australia were caused by non-technical errors, sparking calls for nationwide improvements. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-inadequate-skills-linked-surgery-deaths.html Wed, 03 Dec 2025 08:14:21 EST news683972041