EurekAlert! News by Subject: Medicine & Health - Home

Medicine & Health

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 12-Jun-2026 11:15 ET (12-Jun-2026 15:15 GMT/UTC)

CNIC scientists identify a biomarker that improves risk prediction in a severe form of heart failure

Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (F.S.P.)
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A team from the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC) and Hospital Puerta de Hierro in Madrid, working together with investigators at Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol in Barcelona, has identified a biomarker that could improve risk prediction in patients with transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM), a progressive and potentially fatal disease.

Journal: Circulation

Mechanohealth: Where life science meets physical forces for health innovation

Shanghai Jiao Tong University Journal Center
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Integrating mechanobiological principles into disease pathogenesis, therapeutic development, and tissue engineering is reshaping our understanding of biological systems and accelerating the advancement of mechanotherapy and mechanohealth. This field reveals how mechanical cues regulate cellular behavior, such as force transmission along integrin-nucleus pathways and collective cell migration, and tissue functions. In doing so, mechanobiology connects fundamental research with clinical applications, from limiting cancer metastasis and fibrosis to promoting bone regeneration and maintaining vascular homeostasis. Building on discussion from the Inaugural International Conference on Mechanobiology (ICM) 2025, integrating mechanobiological research with clinical strategies offers new opportunities to address unmet needs, including personalized anti-fibrotic interventions or precision bone regenerative therapies. At the same time, it supports the broader concept of mechanohealth -- a paradigm focused on preserving the physiological mechanical balance within tissues.

Journal: Mechanobiology in Medicine

Pediatric investigation study reveals urbanization shapes mental health of youth in China

Pediatric Investigation
Peer-Reviewed Publication

While the effect of urbanization on mental health has gained traction, no network analysis studies have investigated the disparity in psychological health of children in rural and urban areas. Now, researchers have conducted network analysis to compare the mental health of students from rural and urban areas of China. They found that rural children were more prone to emotional issues, while urban children showed more behavioral problems. These findings underscore the need for targeted interventions.

Journal: Pediatric Investigation

Recordings of local forest soundscapes help to improve wellbeing

University of Surrey
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Listening to one-minute-long audio recordings of forest soundscapes has positive effects on people’s short-term wellbeing, new research finds. Improvements to wellbeing were found to be more significant when soundscapes came from local temperate forests, compared to more exotic tropical forests.

Journal: Journal of Environmental Psychology

VHIO-led study links epigenetic changes caused by diet, tobacco, and pesticide exposure to the development of colorectal cancer in people younger than 50 years of age

Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Investigators from VHIO, which is part of the Vall Hebron Campus, publish the first study to address the impact of the exposome on early-onset colorectal cancer through epigenetic signatures.

The researchers compared epigenetic methylation marks in patients with early-onset colorectal cancer with those of patients with late-onset colorectal cancer and confirmed previously identified risk factors including diet, education level, and smoking.

They have now identified exposure to picloram, a widely used herbicide, as a new risk factor associated with the development of colorectal cancer in individuals younger than 50 years old. Using population data, the investigators report that US counties with a higher use of this pesticide have higher rates of early-onset colorectal cancer, even after accounting for socioeconomic factors and the use of other pesticides.

Published today in Nature Medicine, this research has been possible thanks to the funding received from the "la Caixa" Foundation and the Spanish Association Against Cancer.

Journal: Nature Medicine

Gaps in pediatric burn care must be addressed

UCI Health
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The UCI Health Regional Burn Center is one of the only burn centers in Orange County equipped to treat the most complex burn patients 24 hours a day, including children.

Orange County is not unique in that such centers are few and far between. That is a major problem, say experts in a review paper co-authored by Dr. James C. Jeng, a trauma, burn and critical care surgeon at UCI Health.

Journal: Annals of Surgery Open

Support from a trusted adult in childhood can mitigate the long-term impact of abuse

University of Toronto
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A consistent, caring adult during childhood can make a profound difference for child survivors of physical or sexual abuse. That is the key finding of a new peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, which examined health outcomes among more than 2,100 American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) adults in the United States.

Journal: Journal of Aggression Maltreatment & Trauma

New research reveals mechanisms behind coffee’s positive effects on the gut-brain axis

Cavendish Consulting
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research from APC Microbiome Ireland, a world leading research centre at University College Cork, has comprehensively explored the mechanisms behind coffee’s positive effects on the gut-brain axis for the first time¹.

Journal: Nature Communications

From classroom to Mars: European students return from six-day analog space mission

International Science Council Committee on Space Research
Business Announcement

Nine high school students from Austria, Greece, and Portugal have emerged from a specially designed habitat near Monsaraz, Portugal, marking the successful completion of EXPLORE-2—a six-day simulated Mars mission that placed young Europeans in the shoes of analog astronauts.

Funder: Erasmus+