EurekAlert! News by Subject: Medicine & Health

Medicine & Health

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 20-May-2026 19:15 ET (20-May-2026 23:15 GMT/UTC)

4-May-2026

Researchers uncover brain mechanism that may help slow Parkinson’s disease, curiously only in females

Texas A&M University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

By boosting nicotine‑responsive receptors — without using nicotine itself — scientists protected brain cells from degeneration.

Journal: JNeurosci
Funder: American Parkinson Disease Association

4-May-2026

Cannabis microdosing more common than psychedelics among US adults, national survey finds

University of California - San Diego
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers from UC San Diego have found that microdosing — taking very small amounts of psychoactive substances — is more common among U.S. adults than previously recognized, with cannabis leading by a wide margin.

Journal: American Journal of Preventive Medicine

4-May-2026

Study finds major gaps in dementia care across Mississippi

University of Mississippi
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Some 80% of Mississippi counties have no adult day service centers, and even counties that do have centers cannot meet the needs of people with dementia and their caregivers, a new University of Mississippi-led study indicates.

Journal: Journal of Applied Gerontology

4-May-2026

New study finds low-dose eye drops successful in managing adult myopia for 24 hours

University of Houston
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Groundbreaking research from the University of Houston shows that a single low-dose atropine eye drop can produce daylong effects in managing myopia, or nearsightedness, which affects roughly one-third of U.S. adults.

Journal: Eye and Vision

4-May-2026

Climate change increases spillover risk of rodent-borne arenaviruses

University of California - Davis
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Climate change is likely to drive rodent-borne arenaviruses into parts of South America that have never faced these diseases, putting new communities at risk, finds a UC Davis study.

Journal: npj Viruses
Funder: Wellcome Trust

4-May-2026

Grant backs early-career research on metabolism and food choices

Virginia Tech
Grant and Award Announcement

A Virginia Tech research scientists with the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, has been awarded a National Institutes of Health Mentored Research Scientist Development Award to study how metabolic health influences the brain systems that shape what and how we eat. The four-year award will support her research into how obesity and insulin resistance affect reward learning and decision-making in the human brain.

4-May-2026

Jonathan H. Whiteson, MD, named chair of NYU Langone Health’s Rusk Rehabilitation

NYU Langone Health / NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Business Announcement

NYU Langone Health has appointed Jonathan H. Whiteson, MD, a nationally recognized leader in physical medicine and rehabilitation, as chair of Rusk Rehabilitation, one of the top-ranked centers of its kind in the nation.

4-May-2026

UC Santa Cruz receives California Department of Fish and Wildlife funding to assess health of state’s streams

University of California - Santa Cruz
Grant and Award Announcement

* The project will use environmental DNA (eDNA)—traces of genetic material left behind by organisms—to understand the health of streams throughout California and assess impacts from land use and climate change.

* This work will combine advanced machine learning and geospatial data with the on-the-ground efforts of hundreds of volunteer community scientists.

* The project will launch an open-source, low-cost cloud platform so that Indigenous tribes, land managers, watershed groups, and local agencies have the tools to evaluate stream conditions and monitor biodiversity.

Funder: California Department of Fish and Wildlife

4-May-2026

Dads are dying after their kids are born, and no one is tracking it

Northwestern University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

While maternal deaths are closely tracked, paternal mortality is rarely examined. Research shows fathers — particularly men in their 20s through early 40s — die disproportionately from preventable causes such as suicide, overdose, homicide and accidental injury. Yet paternal mortality is rarely examined in connection to the transition to parenthood. A new Northwestern University study examined paternal mortality data in Georgia and found 60% of deaths were from potentially preventable causes like homicide, accidental injury, suicide, which the study authors call a "huge missed opportunity." The study includes Georgia data only, and the reason is because studying these trends nationally is difficult because of how data is collected and de-identified. The study authors hope the findings will prompt other states to analyze their own data to better understand paternal mortality at a state level and work collectively to create a system to analyze this important national trend.

Journal: JAMA Pediatrics