EurekAlert! News by Subject: Medicine & Health

Medicine & Health

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 3-Jun-2026 17:16 ET (3-Jun-2026 21:16 GMT/UTC)

16-Feb-2026

Incidental rotator cuff abnormalities on magnetic resonance imaging

About The Study: In this population-based study, rotator cuff abnormalities were nearly universal after age 40 and showed poor concordance with shoulder symptoms. These findings suggest that rotator cuff abnormalities often represent normal age-related changes rather than disease and call into question the clinical value of routine imaging for atraumatic shoulder pain. The accompanying commentary is co-authored by San Francisco Giants Team Orthopedist Brian Feeley, M.D.

Journal: JAMA Internal Medicine

16-Feb-2026

Barriers to mental health care leave many children behind, new data cautions

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study led by the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute finds that mental health care gaps for U.S. children remain stark: one in five households reported a child needing treatment, yet nearly a quarter didn’t receive it, and many who did still struggled to access care.

Journal: JAMA Pediatrics

16-Feb-2026

AI-powered companionship: PolyU interfaculty scholar harnesses music and empathetic speech in robots to combat loneliness

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Loneliness has a critical impact on the mental health of citizens, particularly among the elderly. Robots capable of perceiving and responding to human emotions can serve as heart-warming companions to help lift the spirits. A research team at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has discovered that the combined power of music and empathetic speech in robots with artificial intelligence (AI) could foster a stronger bond between humans and machines. These findings underscore the importance of a multimodal approach in designing empathetic robots, offering significant implications for their application in health support, elder care, education and beyond.

Journal: ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction

16-Feb-2026

Bioactive polyphenolic compounds and in vitro anti-degenerative property-based pharmacological propensities of some promising germplasms of Amaranthus hypochondriacus L.

Xia & He Publishing Inc.
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Amaranth is conventionally consumed as a significant source of nutrients and bioactive compounds and is a potential alternate crop. The present study aimed to validate the folklore and ethnomedicinal claims regarding the utilization of foliar tissues of the pseudocereal Amaranthus hypochondriacus L. for their pharmacological propensities, primarily focusing on bioactive polyphenolic compounds and associated anti-degenerative properties, in view of the scarce evidence available on the same.

Journal: Journal of Exploratory Research in Pharmacology

16-Feb-2026

Paper: FDA-required drug labels shouldn’t be treated as evidence of patent infringement

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Drug labels required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are intended to guide the safe and effective use of prescription drugs, but the overzealous and hyperbolic claims of patent infringement by drug companies is tantamount to “patent gamesmanship” that could potentially limit access to affordable generic drugs, said Jacob S. Sherkow, a professor of law and of medicine at Illinois.

Journal: New England Journal of Medicine

16-Feb-2026

Enhancing mortality risk prediction by integrating CKM syndrome stages and CKD-based substaging: evidence from a nationwide cohort study

Chinese Medical Journals Publishing House Co., Ltd.
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In the largest population-based analysis of CKM syndrome to date, researchers from Fuwai Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, leveraged data from over 764,000 adults across 31 provinces of Chinese mainland. The study confirms a stepwise increase in all-cause and cause-specific mortality with advancing CKM stages and reveals profound risk heterogeneity driven primarily by CKD status and its KDIGO-based risk stratification—especially within stage 2, where CKD confers significantly higher mortality than isolated metabolic abnormalities

Journal: Chinese Medical Journal

16-Feb-2026

Discover a new ‘cellular target’ to understand and treat alzheimer’s disease

University of Malaga
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers from the NeuroAD group (Neuropathology of Alzheimer’s Disease) within the Department of Cell Biology, Genetics and Physiology at the University of Málaga, also affiliated with IBIMA–BIONAND Platform and CIBERNED, have made a pioneering breakthrough in the fight against this disease by identifying astrocytes as a promising cellular target for the development of future therapies.

Journal: Journal of Neuroinflammation

16-Feb-2026

Cancer treatment: Optimization of CAR T-cell therapy

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A team led by LMU physician Sebastian Kobold has found a way to allow the body’s immune system to destroy solid tumors.

Journal: Nature Biomedical Engineering

16-Feb-2026

Exploring how the immune system detects drugs coated with ‘stealth’ polymers

Institute of Science Tokyo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A recent study unveils the molecular mechanisms explaining why some ‘stealth’ drug coatings fail to evade the immune system, as reported by researchers from Institute of Science Tokyo. Using single-molecule atomic force microscopy, they measured how individual antibodies bind to poly(ethylene) glycol, showing that hydration and terminal chemistry strongly influence immune recognition. Their findings pave the way for novel drug coatings that stay effective longer by avoiding unwanted immune responses.

Journal: ACS Applied Bio Materials
Funder: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology , Japan, Japan−Taiwan Exchange Association, Innovative Science and Technology Initiative for Security (ISTIS) Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA)