Wellness
Wellness, explained daily: the document behind the headline, the figure with its unit, and who pays. From on the article.
- A needle under the skin beats a drip, for some nerve patients — Cochrane review of 360 CIDP patients finds under-skin immunoglobulin lowers relapse risk versus placebo, with milder side effects.
- A new obesity drug works worse in the patients who need it most — Retatrutide produced smaller weight loss in people with type 2 diabetes than in those without it.
- Twenty-five million cases just got a number: type 5 — The International Diabetes Federation named malnutrition-related diabetes type 5 in 2025, ending a 70-year dispute.
- Nearly 70,000 new hepatitis C cases in 2023 were twice the US target — England cut hepatitis C deaths 36% with free testing; the US treats half its chronic cases.
- Twenty-four years of data just changed what 9/11 exposure means — JAMA’s review of the World Trade Center Health Program shows illness still emerging decades after the attacks.
- What it means for a trial to call itself pragmatic — JAMA revisits a 60-year-old term as a snack-based vaccine trial shows what “pragmatic” should mean in practice
- 6.1 million people just redrew what “normal pain” means — A 118-country study of 6.1 million people gives pain its first age- and sex-adjusted reference curves.
- A ship held 101 rescued people for a port that moved the goalposts — On two voyages in 15 days, Open Arms’ 101 rescued passengers waited out a distant, shifting disembarkation port.
- A snack bar moved vaccination rates more than a vaccine campaign did — A nutritional supplement handed out monthly raised measles vaccination coverage in a trial of thousands of children.
- Eleven trials, 774 babies, and no answer on when to start caffeine — A review of 774 preterm infants can’t settle when caffeine should start — only that early often beats late.
- For every 71 people who exercise, one heart attack doesn’t happen — A review of 26,886 patients found cardiac rehab prevents heart attacks and likely cuts deaths, no drug required.
- The 1.1% number that’s supposed to end colonoscopies at 75 — A study meant to stop surveillance colonoscopies in older adults is getting read as proof it should continue.
- Half a million people just joined a study with no end date — Our Future Health enrolled 500,000 UK adults for lifelong data collection, funded by government and drugmakers jointly.
- Thymosin-alpha 1 cut deaths 3% to 5.8%, on 460 people — A hepatitis B injection showed fewer deaths and complications in 1,349 patients — but the trials were too small to be sure.
- Adding chemo to osimertinib helped one gene subgroup, not all of NSCLC — In TP53-mutated lung cancer, osimertinib plus chemotherapy outperformed the pill alone — but only in that subgroup.
- Five trials, 410 patients, and MRSA that clears itself half the time — A Cochrane review of five trials found antibiotics may clear MRSA in cystic fibrosis, but the data barely support it.
- Touch, sound, light: 19 trials, one confident number — Multisensory stimulation may add hospital weight gain in preemies, but survival and development data stay uncertain.
- Combined hormone therapy: 5 more breast cancers, 24 fewer fractures, per 1,000 — A Cochrane review of 45,660 women finds combined hormone therapy trades fracture risk for breast cancer and stroke risk.
- 89 genes survived scrutiny. 426 didn’t. — A review of 515 genes linked to cerebral palsy found only 89 with strong evidence supporting the association.
- Six more quits per 100 patients, and that’s the confident number — Counselling plus nicotine patches in psychiatric wards helps 6 more per 100 quit — with low confidence and thin data.
- Three journals, three fixes, one honest map of what peer review missed — JAMA and The Lancet issued four corrections this week, from a misspelled name to a mislabeled drug mechanism.
- A pet vitamin brand met a healthy-ageing pitch at a trade show — PhytoGaia sells the same tocotrienol antioxidant for ageing humans and pets, with the same evidence gap.
- Ageing became a diagnosis before anyone measured what changed — A Lancet essay argues medicine now treats ordinary ageing as pathology, with no agreed threshold for “abnormal.”
- Arm cycling helped hearts in spinal cord injury. Nobody measured if life got easier — Cochrane reviewed 17 trials of exercise after spinal cord injury; fitness rose, but daily function stayed unmeasured well.
- A pill for dermatomyositis arrives with no augmentation-therapy caveat attached — The FDA approved brepocitinib for dermatomyositis, a disease affecting up to 70,000 Americans with no dedicated drug until now.
- The IV drip that treats a deficiency and adds exacerbations — Cochrane found intravenous AAT therapy raised yearly exacerbations to 1,960 per 1,000 people, versus 1,420 on placebo.
- No cancer screening guideline covers a nursing home resident — No major guideline addresses long-term care residents; 8.1% of women 75+ reach stage 4 breast cancer.
- Two patch materials, one operation, no clear winner after 4,971 patients — Synthetic and biological neck-artery patches show no meaningful difference in stroke or death risk after 80 months.
- The advanced-cancer drop that got smaller under a magnifying glass — Adjunctive ultrasound cut advanced breast cancer by 1.08% vs 1.14% at 180 months in Japan’s J-START trial.
- Three minutes of sprinting beat 45 minutes of jogging, on paper — A trial found short sprints alter more blood proteins tied to metabolic health than long moderate exercise sessions do.
- “Wellness Month” has no owner and no metric — August's "National Wellness Month" has no federal registry, no funder disclosure, and no way to measure if it works.
- Your fitness tracker may be stressing you out — A new survey links constant health tracking to anxiety. The data on why is more specific than the headline.
- Ferrero bought Purely Elizabeth. Here’s what that means — Ferrero paid $850 million for a granola brand. The math on "healthy" acquisitions rarely tracks with what's inside the box.
- Your doctor’s office now wants your Apple Watch data — Health systems are pulling wearable data into patient records. The evidence for what that improves is thinner than the pitch.
- The $60 billion aisle with a one-page evidence file — Most supplements sold have no demonstrated benefit for the people buying them. The exceptions are knowable.
- Ten thousand steps was marketing. Seven thousand holds up. — The famous target came from a pedometer ad. The dose-response research found the real curve.
- The ice bath, measured in effect sizes — Cold plunges promise everything. The trial literature supports a shorter, more interesting list.
- Protein is having a decade. The evidence is narrower. — Protein sells everything from water to cereal. What the requirement research actually supports.
- Your sleep score is a guess in a nice font — Wearables measure movement and pulse well, sleep stages poorly, and the anxiety they generate has a name.
- The weight-loss drugs are rewriting grocery maths — GLP-1 medicines changed appetites at population scale, and the food industry is re-running its forecasts.