About one in three U.S. adults, the equivalent of over 82 million Americans, report having made at least one daily life trade-off in the past year to pay for healthcare expenses, according to new research released today from the West Health-Gallup Center on Healthcare in America. The most common actions taken are prescription rationing and non-adherence (15%) and borrowing money (15%).

Researchers from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research & Technology’s (SMART) Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) interdisciplinary research group, along side collaborators from SCELSE, at Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and University of Geneva (UNIGE), have made a breakthrough discovery revealing how a common bacterium, Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis), releases lactic acid to acidify its surroundings and suppresses the immune-cell signal needed to start a proper response to infection. By silencing the body’s defences, the bacterium can cause persistent and hard-to-treat wound infections. This study explains why some wounds struggle to heal even with treatment and why infections involving multiple bacteria are especially difficult to eradicate.

A combination of hot temperature and high air pollution is associated with increased risk of suicide in the following days, although it's unknown whether environmental changes directly cause increased risk.

Medical University of South Carolina researchers report in Palliative and Supportive Care that early virtual palliative care for people living with dementia, as well as for their caregivers, is both feasible and well-received. The SUPPORT-D program helped families to understand the disease better, plan ahead and feel more supported. Findings suggest that introducing palliative care early, rather than at the end of life, can improve quality of life and reduce uncertainty for families facing dementia.