Category: 4. Health

• Hansen’s Disease (leprosy) is thought to have originated in Eurasia: previous studies on Mycobacterium leprae, the dominant form of leprosy, suggest the disease originated in Eurasia.
• Ancient pathogen genomes from old bones: a team of scientists from Germany and Argentina have reconstructed two genomes of Mycobacterium lepromatosis in 4000-year-old human skeletons from Chile. This pathogen is regarded as a second, less common, cause of Hansen’s Disease.
• A new American chapter for…

A total of 27.2 million people of all ages were uninsured in 2024, marking a nonsignificant increase from 25.0 million in 2023, according to early estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, 2024, released by the National Center for Health Statistics.

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As the U.S. Senate deliberates the One Big Beautiful Bill, a key healthcare issue sparking debate is how to divide Medicaid costs, which serve low-income Americans, between state and federal taxpayers.

Since 2014, Medicaid spending…

Scoliosis Awareness Month spotlights a condition affecting approximately 6 to 9 million individuals in the United States—roughly 2-3% of the population—subtly or overtly reshaping lives through…

New research from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and La Jolla Institute for Immunology, published today in Nature Microbiology, reveals an opportunity for developing a therapy against cytomegalovirus (CMV), the leading infectious cause of birth defects in the United States.

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In radiation therapy, precision can save lives. Oncologists must carefully map the size and location of a tumor before delivering high-dose radiation to destroy cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue. But this process, called tumor segmentation, is still done manually, takes time, varies between…

A new study from scientists at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging has revealed a surprising player in the battle against Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia: brain sugar metabolism. Published in Nature Metabolism, the research uncovers how breaking down glycogen—a stored form of glucose—in neurons may protect the brain from toxic protein…

Torrent Pharmaceuticals—backed by India billionaire brothers Sudhir and Samir Mehta—has agreed to buy U.S. private equity giant KKR’s stake in JB Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals in a deal valued at 119.1 billion rupees ($1.4 billion).

Torrent Pharma will buy a 46.4% stake in JB Pharma at 1,600 rupees per share and will also purchase up to 2.8% of shares from certain employees at the same price. It will then…

“We found that by blocking the enzyme IDO1, we are able to control the inflammation in immune cells called macrophages,” said Subhrangsu S. Mandal, lead author of a new peer-reviewed study and professor of chemistry at UT…

• Healthy adults exposed to fire smoke — which can be composed of gases, particulate matter, and toxins — showed alterations to their immune systems, including changes in the regulation of genes associated with asthma and allergies, and in immune cells that play a key role in fighting pathogens, compared to adults who had no exposure to fire smoke.
• The study is the first to examine the specific immune mechanisms associated with fire smoke exposure, showing cellular-level changes…