Health

Doctors' prescribing habits are heavily influenced by payments, gifts, and free meals from pharmaceutical companies, leading to more expensive, less appropriate and more drugs being prescribed, a new Cochrane review finds. This can seriously harm both individual patients and health systems. Pharmaceutical companies use a variety of strategies to market and promote their drugs. This can include one-on-one visits by sales reps to doctors' offices and hospitals, gifts and payments including for example paid meals, travel costs to conferences, entertainment, consulting fees, honoraria for participation in advisory boards, and advertising.

People experience the steepest increases in pain before age 55, rather than in later life as might be expected, a new study led by McGill University researchers has found. Published in Nature Medicine, the study analyzed self-reported pain data from more than 6.1 million people across 118 countries and territories.

Burnout is a syndrome that can develop as a result of chronic work-related stress that is not properly managed. It can affect workers' health, the quality of care they provide and the sustainability of services. It involves physical and emotional exhaustion and can affect anyone working in any sector, although it is particularly common among healthcare professionals due to high work and emotional demands, time pressure, bureaucracy, limited resources, a poor work-life balance and the perception of being undervalued. These factors can lead to emotional exhaustion, psychological disengagement from their work and reduced job satisfaction. The study, titled Characterization of healthcare professionals with low levels of occupational burnout, has identified protective factors against burnout in healthcare professionals. The research was promoted by the Social Observatory and led by Dr Oriol Yuguero of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya's (UOC) eHealth Centre and Anna Mitjans, project coordinator at the Galatea Foundation, with the collaboration of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), the University of Lleida (UdL) and the Catalan Institute of Health (ICS).

Education Editor Jess Taylor-Calhoun shares inclusive writing tips for communicators, clinicians, physicians and researchers, working in health care settings. As an editor, I see how small word changes can make a big difference.

image: Professor Chak-sing Lau (third from right) receives the baton from Professor Lukoye Atwoli (third from left) of Aga Khan University (host of World Health Summit 2026 Regional Meeting) as HKUMed prepares to host the 2027 Regional Meeting for the first time in Hong Kong, China. The LKS Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed) officially received the baton to host the World Health Summit (WHS) Regional Meeting 2027, Hong Kong, China, at the WHS Opening Night in Berlin, Germany, on 11 October 2026. The handover from Nairobi, the 2026 Regional Meeting host, set the stage for Hong Kong, China, to host this leading international platform for global health dialogue for the first time.

As fighting intensifies across parts of Yemen, hospitals are struggling to cope with growing numbers of war-wounded patients while an already fragile health system faces critical shortages of medical supplies, staff and specialized care. All front lines have witnessed an unprecedented surge in weapon-wounded cases; Marib, Taiz and the Red Sea Coast have some of the highest casualty burdens. Hospitals and health facilities are overwhelmed. Some front-line facilities recorded over 700 admissions during a single week. Mass casualty influxes are increasingly frequent.

Researchers in Montreal are taking part in an international clinical trial testing whether a drug can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms in people who show biological signs of the disease but have not yet experienced memory or cognitive decline. “We’re hoping to keep pushing the front here and eventually make Alzheimer’s much less of a societal concern than (it) is right now,” said Dr. Simon Ducharme, a neuropsychiatrist at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute.

Plus: friends and colleagues pay tribute to Mulroney-era speechwriter and Policy magazine publisher L. Ian MacDonald, Conservative MP Michael Guglielmin and Senator Lucie Moncion each take on new roles, and parliamentarians beat diplomats in their annual cricket match at Rideau Hall. Conservative MP Eric Lefebvre gets emotional as he receives a standing ovation in the House of Commons on Oct. 7. Lefebvre was hospitalized following a health scare on the flight home from his party's caucus retreat last month. Screenshots courtesy of CPAC

Researchers from the University of Alberta have found that opioids are best used for acute pain relief for four weeks or less, and may cause more harm than good when used for chronic pain for more than 12 weeks. In a recently published paper in the British Journal of General Practice, the team did a systematic review of 27 randomized controlled trials comparing opioids with non-opioid pain management for the treatment of osteoarthritis or chronic low back pain. The trials examined the ability of opioids such as oxycodone, buprenorphine, oxymorphone, hydromorphone and morphine to produce clinically meaningful pain relief defined as 30 per cent or more over time.

Polypharmacy involving prescription medications affected more than one-third of older adults in 2021 to 2023. HealthDay News — Polypharmacy involving prescription medications affected more than one-third of older adults in 2021 to 2023, according to a research letter published online Sept. 24 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

You thought you had a run-of-the-mill cold, but suddenly you feel much sicker — one of the many signs of pneumonia that begins with a whimper instead of a bang. Many people expect pneumonia to trigger a high fever and severe cough from the get-go. But the lung infection — which kills 50,000 American adults annually — sometimes shows up more quietly, making diagnosis difficult.

Among medically underserved adults referred for lung cancer screening, the rates of sustained tobacco abstinence are higher with financial incentives versus usual care with or without free pharmacotherapy. HealthDay News — Among medically underserved adults referred for lung cancer screening, the rates of sustained tobacco abstinence are higher with financial incentives versus usual care with or without free pharmacotherapy, according to a study published online Oct. 5 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.