Can pets ‘shield’ their owners from the negative impacts of stress? A new study found the mechanism underlying pet-owner interactions may have nothing to do with how well pets help people handle stress at the time it occurs. At the same time, more interaction with pets did not equal more stress-relief – and in interactions between cats and their owners more interaction may even cause people to experience negative feelings more intensely. The researchers said these findings support the idea of multiple mechanisms underlying different effects of human-animal interaction in different contexts.

This month’s tip sheet from Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, features a variety of cancer-related story ideas, including a new immunotherapy drug that significantly extends remission and survival in relapsed multiple myeloma, paradoxical mesothelioma findings, new research illuminating how gliomas evolve after treatment, and a profile of cancer survivorship researcher.

The cost of screening people with the rare, inherited cancer-causing condition Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS) is roughly nine times lower than that of treatment, researchers have found. This evidence is sufficient to make the case for investing in early genetic testing in tumour risk syndromes, they say, with benefits not just for patients, but also for healthcare systems.

Studying the genetics of long-lived families rather than individuals better identifies mechanisms that enable a significantly longer healthy lifespan. Using this approach means that it is possible to separate out the other factors that may affect longevity – socio-economic position, pollution etc. – and concentrate purely on the relevant genetic changes.

Newborn genome screening pilot studies are increasingly being rolled out in countries including the UK, and involve determining the entire sequence of a baby’s genetic code and interrogating it for hundreds of potentially treatable conditions. The research team cautions that most genetic studies to date have been carried out in groups of people who already have a condition, or are in a high-risk family. This means that the known risk of a genetic variant causing a disease (known as penetrance) is often higher than the actual risk in the general population.

To put this to the test, the Exeter team has analysed genetic variants previously found to cause disease, using large datasets of the general population, including nearly a million volunteers in either UK Biobank or All of Us. Focussing on more than 50 genes across 15 diseases included in largescale trials for newborn genome screening, the team looked for the variants, and whether people who carry them have the disease.

A new study finds that adults who simply breathe in secondhand cigarette smoke have about 1.5 times more of the toxin cadmium in their blood than people in smoke-free environments.