Adults who have never been married face a significantly higher risk of developing cancer than those who have been married, according to a large U.S. study of more than four million cases. The increased risk spans nearly every major cancer type and is especially pronounced for preventable cancers—those linked to infections, smoking and reproductive factors. Led by researchers at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, the study appears in Cancer Research Communications.

A routine blood test taken by millions in the U.S. each year to measure "bad" cholesterol is not the best measure to guide treatment and prevent heart attacks and strokes, suggests a new Northwestern Medicine study published in JAMA. The study found that another blood test called apolipoprotein B (apoB) outperformed LDL and non-HDL cholesterol in guiding cholesterol-lowering therapy, such as taking statins and other medications.

A large, long-term study led by Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University investigators suggests that some medications commonly prescribed to treat irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)—including antidepressants—may be associated with a small but measurable increase in the risk of death. The findings, published in Communications Medicine, are based on nearly two decades' worth of electronic health records from more than 650,000 U.S. adults with IBS, making it the largest real-world study to examine the long-term safety of IBS treatments.

Imagine you're in line at your favorite bakery, deciding whether to have a doughnut or a tart. You weigh them up, the doughnut wins, and you settle on that. By the time you're at the front of the line, however, only tarts are left. So, you buy one. These two decisions feel completely different. One involves deliberation based on our unique and personal preferences, while the other involves simply recognizing and picking the only available option. But our latest research published in the journal Imaging Neuroscience shows our brains actually make these decisions in surprisingly similar ways.

For centuries, mental illness and physical disease have been viewed as two distinct categories, each with its own field of study, its own doctors, and its own menu of treatments. New University of Colorado Boulder research calls that age-old dichotomy into question, showing that the same chunks of DNA that underlie psychiatric disorders like depression, PTSD and ADHD are associated with risk of a host of physical ailments, too.