Health

In the United States, children routinely receive an injectable form of the polio vaccine. This vaccine is very effective at preventing illness, but it doesn't block transmission of the polio virus as well as the oral polio vaccine does.

Major health events increase the risk of housing instability and homelessness among Medicaid enrollees, according to a new study at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. These findings shed new light on the complex, bidirectional relationship between health and housing. The research examined housing outcomes following serious health events by tracking reported address changes over four years before and after a sudden hospitalization.

New research from the George Washington University has yielded some unexpected insights into how autistic and non-autistic people learn about one another's preferences. The study indicates that both groups rely on similar learning strategies; however, key differences may help us understand how autistic and non-autistic peers understand one another.

Psychedelic drug experiences are among the most fascinating but mysterious journeys of the human mind. Long the domain of indigenous shamans and modern "psychonauts" who seek self-discovery, the sensory-rich experiences often include kaleidoscopic geometries and intelligent entities that defy description—until now. A new research collaboration and preprint between two frontier research organizations, the Trace Institute and Noonautics, details a plan to study the mathematical architecture of human experience based on the psychedelic compound N,N-dimethyl tryptamine, or DMT. The preprint findings are published on PsyArXiv.

Scientists have created the most detailed cell map to date showing how genetic variation influences inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), revealing the specific cells and genes that drive the disease. Published in Nature, the research carried out at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Open Targets, and Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH), identifies the key genetic and cellular drivers of IBD risk and demonstrates the power of single-cell approaches to understand the complex nature of human disease.

Researchers at Pennington Biomedical Research Center have published the first study to estimate the prevalence of pediatric obesity among U.S. children and adolescents using the new Lancet Commission on Clinical Obesity definitions of preclinical and clinical obesity.

A recent paper in Nature Biotechnology examines problems and solutions for antibody-based therapies for solid pancreatic cancers and tumors of the head and neck.

Cancer researchers highlighted several treatment breakthroughs during their annual summit in Chicago that concluded Tuesday, including preliminary but encouraging data on potential benefits of weight loss medications.

Paralysis on one side of the body is common after stroke. A new study in CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics demonstrates that acupuncture can significantly improve muscle function recovery in patients who have experienced a stroke, with this recovery correlating to increases in gray matter volume in certain regions of the brain related to cognitive-motor integration.

A smartphone app can help individuals with advanced cancer deal with symptoms and maintain their quality of life, according to new research.

A new end-to-end PET imaging approach for osteosarcoma can rapidly and reliably distinguish tumor tissue from normal tissue and accurately assess surgical margins in real time. The novel platform, presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 2026 Annual Meeting, has the potential to fundamentally reshape surgical practice for osteosarcoma by enabling precise tumor resection, significantly reducing the risk of local recurrence, and preserving maximum limb function.

Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have uncovered the first direct evidence that deep brain stimulation (DBS) can remodel white matter pathways in the brain and alter communication across large-scale neural networks, revealing a previously unrecognized mechanism that may explain how the therapy helps patients recover from severe depression. The study, published June 1 in Nature Neuroscience, provides critical insight into the biological basis of DBS, an emerging therapy for treatment-resistant depression and other neuropsychiatric disorders.

Researchers have developed an enhanced wearable motion-tracking system that could improve the accuracy of fitness trackers used to monitor exercise and training. The team provides details in an article published in the International Journal of Data Mining and Bioinformatics.

Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have discovered a promising new way to improve CAR-T cell therapy for solid tumors such as lung cancer and melanoma. The study, published in Nature Cancer, found that focused irradiation, a targeted therapy that delivers high-energy beams to stun rapidly growing cells such as cancer, can help CAR-T cells survive longer and work more effectively inside tumors.

The Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) has published new practice guidance for the use of prostatic artery embolization (PAE) to treat enlarged prostate (also called benign prostatic hyperplasia or BPH). The guidance appears in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology to coincide with the start of Men's Health Month in June.