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How video gaming may shape sleep, diet, and activity across the lifespan

This narrative review found that video gaming can have both benefits and risks for health across the lifespan. It may provide short-term stress relief and social connection, but frequent or prolonged gaming is also associated with sedentary behaviour, poorer sleep, disrupted eating patterns, and lower diet quality, with effects shaped by age, sex, timing, content, and motivation.

31 Mar 2026

Children’s screen use surged significantly during and after pandemic

First systematic review to track long-term trends across pre- and post-pandemic periods finds dramatic rise in screen use among children and adolescents.

30 Mar 2026

How gut imbalance may drive obesity, diabetes, and heart disease

A new review argues that gut dysbiosis is closely linked to metabolic dysfunction through intertwined effects on inflammation, oxidative stress, gut barrier integrity, microbial metabolites, and epigenetic regulation. It also highlights microbiome-targeted strategies such as high-fiber diets, probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics, exercise, and fecal microbiota transplantation as promising ways to support metabolic health.

30 Mar 2026

Study proposes genetic basis for autism’s strong sex bias

Autism has a significant and enduring sex bias, with roughly four boys diagnosed for every girl. For many years, experts have believed this disparity arises primarily from diagnostic inequities because much of autism research - and the screening tools that grew out of it - has historically focused on boys, effectively setting a male standard for what autism "looks like."

30 Mar 2026

How do diet, smoking, alcohol, and stress reshape the female microbiome?

This review examines how modifiable lifestyle and environmental factors shape the female vaginal, gut, oral, and skin microbiomes, with diet, alcohol, smoking, obesity, stress, hygiene, physical activity, and sexual behaviours all linked to site-specific microbial shifts. It argues that understanding these patterns could help guide future female-focused prevention and intervention strategies.

30 Mar 2026

Sleep brain activity offers clues to infant neurological development

Electrical signals from the brain could help identify potential issues in the organ's development, a new study reports.

30 Mar 2026

Modern lifestyle amplifies genetic risk for type 2 diabetes

Some people have a greater genetic risk than others of developing type 2 diabetes. Now, more of these at-risk people are actually developing diabetes than previously.

30 Mar 2026

Retinal organoid study identifies pathways and compounds to protect cone cells

Scientists led by Botond Roska at the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel (IOB) and collaborators have identified genetic pathways and compounds capable of protecting cone photoreceptors from the degeneration that underlies conditions like age-related macular degeneration.

30 Mar 2026

Collaboration advances EMA601 as potential first-in-class stroke therapy

Boehringer Ingelheim and the Lower Franconian biotech company EMFRET Analytics have signed a cooperation and license agreement for the preclinical development program of the GPVI‑blocking antibody EMA601.

30 Mar 2026

Swimming in treated pools safe for children with tympanostomy tubes

A new study published in Otolaryngology−Head and Neck Surgery, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Academy of Otolaryngology−Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF), finds that children with tympanostomy tubes who swim in treated pools are not at increased risk of ear drainage, while those exposed to untreated or natural bodies of water face significantly higher odds of developing recurrent otorrhea.

30 Mar 2026

Alcohol impacts gene expression differently across brain regions

Erica Periandri and Gabor Egervari, from Washington University in St. Louis, led a study to explore how alcohol exposure in male mice influences gene expression and mechanisms that regulate gene function-or epigenetics.

30 Mar 2026

Artemin identified as marker and target in feline osteoarthritis

By comparing osteoarthritis pain pathways known to be active in dogs and humans to those in cats with degenerative joint disease (DJD), researchers found that elevation of a particular molecule, artemin, could serve as a marker of disease (and possibly pain) as well as a potential therapeutic target.

30 Mar 2026

Study reveals CAR T approach for hard-to-treat solid tumors

Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy - CAR T for short - has been a major advance in treating blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma.

30 Mar 2026

Study reveals ALDH2 vulnerability in APC-deficient colorectal cancer

A precision cancer strategy that selectively kills tumour cells while leaving healthy tissue intact may be within reach for the majority of colorectal cancer patients, according to new research published in Genes & Disease.

30 Mar 2026

Researchers identifiy a promising strategy to reverse pulmonary fibrosis

Researchers at National Jewish Health and collaborating institutions have uncovered a critical mechanism driving persistent pulmonary fibrosis and identified a promising strategy to reverse it.

30 Mar 2026

PSMA therapy may postpone hormone treatment in prostate cancer patients

Where previous research showed that PSMA therapy for prostate cancer can prolong the lives of patients who have exhausted all other treatment options, a new study now demonstrates that the therapy is also effective in an earlier stage of the disease.

30 Mar 2026

Brain pathway explains how stress drives alcohol-seeking behavior

Why do stressful moments so often push people toward habits like drinking? A new study from Texas A&M University offers one of the clearest answers yet, identifying a direct connection inside the brain that links stress to addiction‑related behaviors.

30 Mar 2026

Study links atrial fibrillation to poorer brain clearance and cognitive decline

Researchers found that people with atrial fibrillation had lower MRI-based glymphatic activity and poorer cognitive performance than healthy controls, with the greatest impairment seen in non-paroxysmal AF. In patients who underwent catheter ablation, glymphatic activity improved after sinus rhythm was restored, suggesting a possible link between heart rhythm, brain waste clearance, and cognition.

30 Mar 2026

Antidepressant fluvoxamine reduces long COVID fatigue in clinical trial

A randomized placebo-controlled trial found that fluvoxamine, a low-cost antidepressant, reduced fatigue and improved quality of life in adults with long COVID, offering one of the first evidence-based medication options for this persistent condition. In contrast, metformin did not provide meaningful benefit for established long COVID fatigue, highlighting fluvoxamine as the more promising treatment candidate in this study.

30 Mar 2026

Natural peptide in sweat may help block flu infection before symptoms start

Researchers led by the Fisabio Foundation found that dermcidin, a natural antimicrobial peptide present in sweat and respiratory tissues, can block influenza infection by binding to a highly conserved region of the viral hemagglutinin protein and preventing cell entry. The study also found that people who did not develop flu-like symptoms had markedly higher baseline dermcidin levels, suggesting the molecule may help reduce susceptibility to infection and could support the development of broader-spectrum antivirals.

30 Mar 2026