Study links environment and youth mental health - Phys.org

A photo of processed food. (CHCH News Stock Photo) A Canada-wide study led by researchers at McMaster University found a new possible link between brain damage and ultra-processed foods.

What can more than 100,000 medical scans reveal about the fat that burns energy, and why are researchers examining an everyday blood pressure medication? Study: Artificial intelligence-enabled clinical phenotyping of human brown fat. Image Credit: Love Employee / Shutterstock

In a recent study involving nearly 3,000 brain MRI examinations, researchers found a significant association between residing in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods and deteriorating brain health indicators. The findings were published in Radiology. John-Paul J. Yu, MD, PhD, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, highlighted the study's implications, noting, "We’ve shown very robust, measurable metrics that our living environment has an outsized impact on the brain at the molecular and cellular level. "This retrospective analysis examined whether individuals living in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods showed higher brain age gaps and decreased total brain volume. The brain age gap reflects the difference between a person's actual age and their brain's apparent age as estimated from MRI data. The researchers evaluated brain MRIs from 2,826 patients—1,094 men and 1,732 women—aged 18 to 96. The imaging data was collected from consecutive clinical MRI examinations at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics from January to June 2024. Patients with imaging evidence of existing disease were excluded from the study

Among cancer patients, the high financial cost of cancer care is a prevalent problem. This financial burden is also associated with potentially harmful behavioral strategies that patients might use to cope with costs, such as delaying or forgoing treatment and skipping medications. Collectively, researchers refer to this impact as financial toxicity.

Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) could transform diabetes management for millions of Americans with type 2 diabetes who don't take insulin, according to findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The clinical trial found that adults using CGMs spent approximately five additional hours each day within their target blood sugar range compared with those receiving routine care. Nearly twice as many CGM users also achieved an A1c level below 7%, a common treatment goal for people with diabetes.