The largest study of its kind has found menopause is not associated with an increased risk of disability in women with multiple sclerosis (MS). Until now, the impact of reduced sex hormones on women with MS had only been the subject of small studies, some with conflicting results. Published in JAMA Neurology, the Monash University-led project assessed whether menopause modified the risk of disability progression for women with relapse-onset MS. It did not. MS is a chronic autoimmune and neurodegenerative condition, which impacts the immune and nervous ...

SAN FRANCISCO, September 29, 2025 — Radiation therapy may offer a comparable and potentially safer alternative to repeat catheter ablation for patients with severe abnormal heart rhythms that can no longer be controlled with medication. In the first study to directly compare cardiac radiation with standard catheter ablation for ventricular tachycardia, patients treated with cardiac radiation experienced fewer complications with similar effectiveness at controlling disease than those treated with cardiac ablation. Findings of the retrospective ...

Results of the NRG Oncology NRG-GU005 clinical study comparing stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) to moderately hypofractionated intensity-modulated radiation therapy (MH-IMRT) for patients with localized immediate risk prostate cancer indicate that the use of SBRT improved bowel health related quality of life (HRQOL) in this patient population. There was no significant improvement seen for the other primary objectives including urinary HRQOL and there was a lack of improvement in distant-free survival for patients. These results were recently reported during the Plenary Session of the American ...

Vienna, Austria: Instead of stabbing yourself, or someone else, in the thigh with a needle to deliver a dose of adrenaline to counter anaphylactic shock, would it not be easier to use a nasal spray instead? A study presented at the European Emergency Medicine Congress today (Tuesday) shows that liquid or powder nasal sprays are as effective and sometimes even better than injection devices such as EpiPens® for delivering adrenaline [1]. Anaphylaxis is an acute allergic reaction to substances, such as nuts or insect bites or stings, and is a life-threatening emergency. A patient who goes into ...

Children lose 8.45 million days of healthy life each year globally due to second hand smoke, according to research presented at the European Respiratory Society Congress in Amsterdam, the Netherlands [1]. Children from low socio-economic regions face the biggest impact of breathing second hand smoke, also known as passive smoking. The study was presented by Dr Siyu Dai, Assistant Professor in the School of Clinical Medicine at Hangzhou Normal University and an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Paediatrics at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She told the Congress: “Second-hand smoke is a major contributor ...

Using a wood burning stove at home can lead to a decline in lung function, according to research presented at the European Respiratory Society Congress in Amsterdam, the Netherlands [1]. The study was presented by Dr Laura Horsfall, Principal Research Fellow from the Institute of Health Informatics, University College London, UK. The use of solid fuel for domestic heating has increased in Europe due to the marketing of wood as renewable energy and high fossil fuel prices. In the UK, the proportion of harmful ...

New Haven, Conn. — In a new study, Yale School of Medicine (YSM) researchers unveiled a novel diagnostic method for detecting leptospiral virulence-modifying (VM) proteins in the blood and urine of hamsters, an advance that could pave the way for early diagnosis of the tropical disease leptospirosis in humans and improved treatment options. The findings were published in the journal Microbiology Spectrum. Found around the world, leptospirosis affects approximately 1 million people annually, with nearly 60,000 fatalities. The disease is caused by the bacterium Leptospira and is spread ...

The end of pandemic-era enrollment enhancements for Medicaid was associated with a rise in the number of people ending medication treatment for opioid use disorder, as well as a decrease in the number of people beginning such treatment, according to a new RAND study.   While some people who disenrolled from Medicaid may have found other methods to pay for drug treatment, the overall number of those initiating and continuing medication treatment for opioid use disorder declined in the six months after Medicaid unwinding began. The changes were greatest in states that have had the largest disenrollments.   The study ...

A team of researchers including Rice University’s James Tour and Shichen Xu has developed an ultrafast, one-step method to recover rare earth elements (REEs) from discarded magnets using an innovative approach that offers significant environmental and economic benefits over traditional recycling methods. Their study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Sept. 29, 2025. Conventional rare earth recycling is energy-heavy and creates toxic waste. The research team’s method uses flash Joule heating (FJH), which rapidly raises material temperatures to thousands of degrees within milliseconds, and chlorine gas to extract REEs from ...

SAN FRANCISCO, September 29, 2025 — The first randomized trial to compare photon- and proton-based radiation therapy for breast cancer finds that patients report equally strong health-related quality of life with either treatment. Patients who received proton therapy were more likely to say they would recommend or choose it again, but overall patient-reported outcomes were similar. The phase III Radiotherapy Comparative Effectiveness (RadComp) trial enrolled more than 1,200 patients, making it also the largest head-to-head comparison of photon and proton therapy for any ...

SAN FRANCISCO, September 29, 2025 — For patients with intermediate-risk, localized prostate cancer, radiation therapy delivered in five sessions reduced patient-reported side effects compared to longer courses of radiation, according to results of a large, randomized phase III trial. Patients treated with stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) reported fewer declines in bowel, urinary and sexual functioning but were more likely to experience a rise in prostate-specific antigen (PSA). Initial results of the NRG Oncology GU005 ...

On September 5, 2020, California’s Creek Fire grew so severe that it began producing it’s own weather system. The fire’s extreme heat produced an explosive thunderhead that spewed lightning strikes and further fanned the roaring flames, making containment elusive and endangering the lives of firefighters on the ground. These wildfire-born storms have become a growing part of fire seasons across the West, with lasting impacts on air quality, weather, and climate. Until now, scientists have struggled to replicate them in Earth system models, hindering our ability to predict their occurrence ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 29 September 2025    Follow @Annalsofim on X, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and Linkedin              Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of ...

One in 270 Americans (nearly 1 million adults) has a BMI of 60 or greater More than half of surveyed clinics lacked exam tables, chairs and/or gowns for patients weighing 450 pounds Receptionists made stigmatizing comments: ‘We’ve reached our limit for bariatric patients’ Patients with obesity are less likely to get cancer screenings and preventive care CHICAGO --- Patients weighing 450 pounds or more face barriers and discrimination when scheduling or attending doctor visits at subspecialty practices, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study. The scientists used a “secret-shopper” method to attempt to schedule an appointment ...

Adiposity—or the accumulation of excess fat in the body—is a known driver of cardiometabolic diseases such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and kidney disease. But getting the full picture of a person’s risk is harder than it may seem. Traditional measures such as body mass index (BMI) are imperfect, conflating fat and muscle mass and not capturing where in the body fat is located. A new study from researchers at Mass General Brigham and their colleagues found that an AI tool designed to measure ...

Cancer cells are subjected to high mechanical pressure that leads to a rupture of the nuclear envelope when migrating through narrow tissue structures, as in the case of metastasis. DNA would normally leak out in the process, causing damage to the cell. However, researchers at the University of Freiburg’s Cluster of Excellence CIBSS - Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies succeeded in demonstrating that a protective mechanism takes effect at this moment. A fine scaffold of actin filaments forms in the cell nucleus within seconds. The protein actin is a fundamental component of the cell structure. ...

EMBARGO: THIS CONTENT IS UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 3 P.M. U.S. EASTERN STANDARD TIME ON SEPT. 29, 2025. INTERESTED MEDIA MAY RECIVE A PREVIEW COPY OF THE JOURNAL ARTICLE IN ADVANCE OF THAT DATE OR CONDUCT INTERVIEWS, BUT THE INFORMATION MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, OR POSTED ONLINE UNTIL AFTER THE RELEASE WINDOW. Climate change is drying landscapes and raising temperatures faster than many species can adapt. A new research paper from Colorado State University offers a rare empirical look at how these pressures are already reshaping wildlife through the lens of the yellow warbler –– a ...

Researchers from Queen Mary University of London’s School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences, using the simple fission yeast as a model, have shown that new TOR inhibitor rapalink-1 prolongs chronological lifespan.   The new study, published in Communications Biology journal by Juhi Kumar, Kristal Ng and Charalampos Rallis, sheds light on how drugs and natural metabolites can influence lifespan through the Target of Rapamycin (TOR) pathway.   TOR is a conserved signalling pathway active in humans as well as yeast. It is a central regulator of growth and ageing fundamental in age-related diseases such as cancer and neurodegeneration and is already a major ...

A new tool greatly improves scientists’ ability to identify and study proteins that regulate gene activity in cells, according to research led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. The technology should enable and enhance investigations in both fundamental biology and disease research. The activity of a gene is often regulated—switched on, sped up, slowed down, switched off—by one or more proteins that bind to DNA to exert their effect. However, identifying these DNA-binding proteins has been challenging due to the lack of a precise method. In their study, reported Sept. 29 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers developed a ...

Why did life on Earth choose alpha amino acids as the building blocks of proteins? A new study suggests the answer lies in the stability of their inter-molecular interactions. Researchers found that primitive peptide-like molecules made from alpha backbones formed more durable, compartment-like structures than their longer beta counterparts, giving them a potential evolutionary advantage. The findings propose an assembly-driven model for the origins of life, offering fresh insight into how chemistry shaped biology. A new study from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem sheds light on one of life’s greatest mysteries: ...

A team of MIT geochemists has unearthed new evidence in very old rocks suggesting that some of the first animals on Earth were likely ancestors of the modern sea sponge.  In a study appearing today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers report that they have identified “chemical fossils” that may have been left by ancient sponges in rocks that are more than 541 million years old. A chemical fossil is a remnant of a biomolecule that originated from a living organism that has since been buried, transformed, and preserved in sediment, sometimes for hundreds of millions of years.  The newly identified chemical fossils are special types ...

The next time you watch your dog visit the same places around your yard or notice that your cat seems to explore a new area every time it ventures outside, consider this: you might be witnessing an ancient evolutionary strategy in action. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of September 29, 2025 reveals that wild canids have, on average, both a greater density of travel routeways and a greater probability of routeway usage than wild felids. Led by University of Maryland researchers, the ...

At the 18th World Congress on Polyphenols Applications, which will be held in Malta on October 2-3, 2025, Iprona and Polyphenols Applications will announce a global call to action, inviting researchers to strengthen the quality and reproducibility of polyphenol science. Through this initiative, ElderCraft®, a polyphenol-standardised European black elderberry (Sambucus nigra) water extract, is now available at no cost to qualified academic and clinical research groups worldwide. ElderCraft® is a polyphenol and anthocyanin-rich extract, sourced exclusively from ...

For patients with recurrent retroperitoneal sarcomas that cannot be treated surgically, treatment choices are limited. These tumors can grow quite large in the abdomen adjacent to vital organs or enmeshed within the bowel. Given their radioresistant nature they require high doses of radiation that risk damaging healthy nearby tissue. Once patients have undergone an initial radiation course, doctors are often left with no safe radiation treatment option. But a pilot study from Fox Chase Cancer Center, presented at the 2025 American ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Electric space heating systems and appliances like water heaters can help American homeowners reduce their energy use, and possibly their utility bills, according to a team led by researchers at Penn State. The researchers set out to identify the most important factors driving U.S. on-site residential energy consumption, which the team said accounts for approximately 21% of primary energy consumption in the country and is more complex than commercial energy use. They found that electric heating systems like heat pumps, compared to systems that rely on natural gas and oil, had the largest impact on reducing on-site energy ...