Nature-based social prescribing can help reduce loneliness among adults living in socioeconomically vulnerable urban areas, according to a trial conducted in Barcelona by the European RECETAS consortium. Loneliness decreased among all participants receiving nature-based social prescribing, but those experiencing greater loneliness and poorer emotional wellbeing at the start benefited more from the facilitated group intervention. The study, led by ISGlobal, an institution supported by “la Caixa” Foundation, and published in The Lancet Regional Health Europe, indicates that support could be tailored according to people's needs.

Antibiotic resistance in humans and farm animals poses a major health challenge. A new study published in the journal ‘Nature Communications’ reveals that this problem does not stop at hospital doors or farm gates – indeed, antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) can also be detected in wild animals. A team led by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) and the Max Delbrück Center has shown that wild mice on farms carry around 50 percent of the ARGs found in cattle, pigs or poultry, and that the intensity of livestock farming, amongst other factors, plays a decisive role in determining which and how many resistance genes are transferred into the mice’s microbiome.

Researchers from Monash University have developed miniature human kidneys from stem cells that could accelerate the search for treatments for acute kidney injury (AKI), a sudden loss of kidney function that can cause severe illness and long-term kidney damage. 

The microscopic, living model, published in Genome Medicine, reproduces key features of human kidney injury, allowing researchers to investigate why some kidney cells recover while others develop persistent damage that can contribute to chronic kidney disease.

The health of heart attack survivors follows three distinct paths in the five years after their health event, say researchers from the University of Surrey. The research used an AI tool to find patterns that could not only help clinicians predict which patients could follow which path – but it could also allow them to tailor care sooner through their recovery.