A new study led by York University looking at the health data of nearly 15,000 people enrolled in a medically supervised weight-loss program found disparities among ethnic and sub-ethnic groups in how much weight they lost. Lead author, York University Faculty of Health Professor Jennifer Kuk, says the results show that the very broad ethnic categories typically examined in clinical settings may mask differences in sub-ethnic groups. Further, she says the findings suggest the need for understanding how socio-economic issues may come into play to better support Black, Middle Eastern, Latin and South Asian communities with their weight-loss. 

A new study reveals a concerning association between viewing social media content emphasizing muscularity and muscle dysmorphia among boys and men in Canada and the United States. The research, part of the 2024 Study of Boys and Men, analyzed data from 1,553 participants and found that exposure to specific types of content is linked to higher rates of probable muscle dysmorphia.

DENVER - A new study conducted by researchers at National Jewish Health has found that early changes in the cheek skin barrier may predict the onset of eczema, or atopic dermatitis (AD), well before any clinical symptoms appear. AD can be linked to food allergies, with early skin reactions potentially increasing the risk of developing asthma later in life. 

In a study published in Nature, University of Michigan researchers have identified that the balance between two proteins—STAT3 and STAT5—is important for making tumors vulnerable to immune checkpoint therapy, and targeting STAT3 degradation is a potential novel cancer immunotherapy strategy.

Loneliness has been long recognized as an adverse outcome of hearing loss, but whether it contributes to hearing loss as a risk factor has remained unclear. In this cohort study using data from 490,865 UK Biobank participants, researchers found that individuals who reported feeling lonely at baseline were significantly more likely to develop hearing loss over a median 12.3-year follow-up period. The study, published in Health Data Science, controlled for a broad range of demographic, lifestyle, clinical, and genetic factors, yet loneliness remained an independent predictor of incident hearing loss.

The association was most pronounced for sensorineural hearing loss and stronger in women than in men. The findings highlight a possible bidirectional relationship between loneliness and hearing loss, suggesting a reinforcing cycle. The authors propose that loneliness may affect auditory health through mechanisms such as inflammation, stress-related neuroendocrine changes, and unhealthy behavior patterns. The research team aims to explore these pathways in future studies and evaluate whether interventions that reduce loneliness can mitigate hearing loss risk.

Ransomware attacks are now the leading cause of healthcare data breaches in the U.S., exposing 285 million patient records over 15 years, according to a study from researchers at Michigan State University, Yale University and Johns Hopkins University.

In a new study published in Nature, researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center explore a surprising phenomenon in which high doses of radiation cause growth in existing metastatic tumors that weren’t directly treated with radiation.