Category: 4. Health

Severe allergic reactions can be swift and deadly. Two new studies of mice, published August 7 in Science, reveal a key step in this terrifying cascade. What’s more, these findings hint at a drug to prevent it.

Anaphylaxis is a life-threatening allergic reaction commonly triggered by insect stings, medications and foods such as peanuts or eggs. After exposure to the allergen, a person’s immune system can overreact, leading to swelling, trouble breathing and dangerously low…

A new study published in the journal Health Data Science has shown that having poor sleep habits is linked to dozens of diseases, including heart disease, liver cirrhosis, dementia, and gangrene.

The study included data from over 88,000 participants in the UK Biobank. The participants wore accelerometers and had various aspects of their sleep health and habits measured, including sleep duration, sleep onset timing, sleep rhythm, and sleep fragmentation…

California recently passed a budget for 2025-2026 that eliminates Medicaid coverage for GLP-1 agonists for weight loss. Other states are considering similar cuts. States are struggling to close gaps in budgets. Enactment of The Big Beautiful Bill will likely add pressure on budget finances. It’s hard to envision a scenario in which state Medicaid agencies expand…

Over the past two centuries, vaccines have been critical for preventing infectious diseases. The World Health Organization estimates that vaccination prevents between 3 million and 5 million deaths annually from diseases like diphtheria, tetanus, influenza, measles and, more recently, COVID-19.

While there has long been broad scientific consensus that vaccines prevent or mitigate the spread of infections, there is new research suggesting that the therapeutic impact might go beyond the…

Enjoying the outdoors carries the danger of running into nature’s less-friendly side: toxic plants and animals.

As toxicologists at the University of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Poison Center, we see many patients each year suffering from itchy rashes from poison ivy and stings from wasps or bees.

Plants and animals deploy toxins most often in order to defend themselves. Learning how they do that and what happens when the human body is exposed to these substances can offer insights on…

Cancer dysregulates the complex structure of tissues and internal cellular pathways. As a result, the immune system loses its ability to effectively target tumor cells. The immune system is made up of two barriers of protection against pathogens and deleterious infections. Specifically, the innate and adaptive immune responses work together to provide effective immunity. The innate immune system is the first responder to any unfamiliar pathogen. It is a…

Our body is made up of millions of cells that coordinate daily function. They are constantly working to maintain activity and keep us healthy. Cells activate, proliferate, and conduct specialized responsibilities dependent on their differentiated state. As a result, they need energy to carry out these functions. Cells get their energy through a process known as metabolism. It breaks down macromolecules to fuel activity. Glucose or sugar is a primary…

As a grad student in biological engineering at MIT, Jake Becraft had an idea that could change the way we treat cancer: What if genes could be turned on and off like light switches? Thinking it through a bit further, he envisioned “circuits” in which messenger RNA (mRNA), which carries the instructions for making proteins to cells, could be programmed to cause cancerous tumors to reveal themselves to the…

Professor Bryan Fry from UQ’s School of the Environment said revealing exactly how skinks dodge death could inform biomedical approaches to treating snakebite in people.

“What we saw in skinks was evolution at its most ingenious,” Professor Fry said.

“Australian skinks have evolved tiny changes in a critical muscle receptor, called the nicotinic…

This is what can happen when bad stuff in mist gets, well, missed. A Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in New York City has already left at least 70 people sick and three dead. All of these cases have been occurring in…