Social media data can provide a population-level view of physical activity, from bowling to Crossfit, and inform future efforts to tackle health disparities. A new study led by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) researchers and published in BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine used machine learning to find...

Music may offer an alternative to the use of a drug routinely used to calm the nerves before the use of regional anaesthesia (peripheral nerve block), suggest the results of a clinical trial, published online in the journal Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine. It seems to have similar effects as...

Many of the deadliest or most common cancers get the least amount of nonprofit research funding, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study that examined the distribution of nonprofit research funding in 2015 across cancer types. Colon, endometrial, liver and bile duct, cervical, ovarian, pancreatic and lung cancers were all...

Hallucinations are spooky and, fortunately, fairly rare. But, a new study suggests, the real question isn’t so much why some people occasionally experience them. It’s why all of us aren’t hallucinating all the time. In the study, Stanford University School of Medicine neuroscientists stimulated nerve cells in the visual cortex...

Researchers have identified somatic mutations in the brain that could contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Their findings were published in the journal Nature Communications last week. Decades worth of research has identified inherited mutations that lead to early-onset familial AD. Inherited mutations, however, are behind at most...

Ticks discovered in New Jersey now have spread into neighboring states. “For the first time in 50 years, a new tick species has been identified in the U.S.,” says Dr. Gregory Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic Vaccine Research Group. “Haemaphysalis longicornus, or the Asian longhorned tick, is in eight...

Random plasma glucose tests could be used to predict which patients will develop diabetes, according to a study of Veterans Affairs treatment data. Researchers from several VA systems showed that levels of glucose found during standard outpatient medical testing revealed patients’ likelihood of developing diabetes over the next five years,...

Adverse drug events could be avoided by sharing patients’ medication histories and previous harmful medication exposures among various health-care facilities. That’s one of the key findings of a study published today in CMAJ Open. Led by Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute and UBC researcher Dr. Corinne Hohl, the study’s conclusions...

Continuation of community-wide HIV testing and prompt initiation of treatment as delivered in the HPTN 071 (PopART) study in South Africa and Zambia could lead to substantial reductions in new HIV cases, be cost-effective, and help to achieve the UNAIDS 2030 targets, according to projections from mathematical modelling and cost-effectiveness...

Around one in 20 (6 percent) of patients are affected by preventable harm in medical care a new led by researchers at The University of Manchester has found. The study, published by the BMJ today, also found around 12 percent of those cases cause permanent disability or death. Most preventable...