Compared to sugar, consuming sucralose—a widely used sugar substitute—increases activity in the hypothalamus, a brain region that regulates appetite and body weight, according to new USC research. Sucralose also changes how the hypothalamus communicates with other brain regions, including those involved in motivation. The study was just published in the journal Nature Metabolism. Researchers tested how 75 participants responded after consuming water, a drink sweetened with sucralose or a drink sweetened with regular sugar. They collected functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans, blood samples and hunger ratings before and after participants consumed the drink. Sucralose increased hunger and activity in the hypothalamus, especially in people with obesity. It also changed the way the hypothalamus communicated with other brain regions. Unlike sugar, sucralose did not increase blood levels of certain hormones that create a feeling of fullness. The findings show how sucralose confuses the brain by providing a sweet taste without the expected caloric energy and suggest that sucralose could impact cravings or eating behavior.

In a prospective cohort study of more than 85,000 adults in the United Kingdom, researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and University of Oxford found that individuals who engaged in light- and moderate-to-vigorous-intensity daily physical activity had a lower risk of cancer than individuals who were more sedentary. The findings, published March 26, 2025, in British Journal of Sports Medicine, are among the first to evaluate the cancer risk reduction associated with light-intensity activities such as doing errands and performing household chores.

About The Study: Patients who have had a transient ischemic attack (TIA) or minor stroke are at a persistently high risk of subsequent stroke. The findings from this study underscore the need for improving long-term stroke prevention measures in this patient group. 

Stroke survivors who have attended some level of higher education may face even steeper mental declines, according to a study led by Michigan Medicine. The findings suggest that attending higher education may enable people to retain greater cognitive ability until a critical threshold of brain injury is reached after a stroke.

People with autism are typically diagnosed by clinical observation and assessment. To deconstruct the clinical decision process, which is often subjective and difficult to describe, researchers used a large language model (LLM) to synthesize the behaviors and observations that are most indicative of an autism diagnosis. Their results, publishing in the Cell Press journal Cell, show that repetitive behaviors, special interests, and perception-based behaviors are most associated with an autism diagnosis. These findings have potential to improve diagnostic guidelines for autism by decreasing the focus on social factors—which the established guidelines in the DSM-5 focus on but the model did not classify among the most relevant in diagnosing autism. 

About The Study: In this survey study of older U.S. adults, most participants agreed that Medicare should cover weight management medications and more than half of those with body mass index (BMI) of 30 or greater were interested in using them. These results should inform decisions to include weight management medications in the Medicare and commercial insurance programs, as well as utilization policies to control health care costs.