Medical Xpress news

Medical Xpress / Enzyme-blocking treatment reverses chronic pain in preclinical study

Chronic pain affects more than 50 million Americans, yet for decades, treatment options for pain that persists in the absence of inflammation have been limited. Seventy-five percent of these patients, disproportionately women, ...

Jan 22, 2026 in Neuroscience
Medical Xpress / Microbial shifts in the gut drive intestinal stem cell aging, but reversal is possible

A new study reveals that age-related changes in the gut microbiota directly impair intestinal stem cell (ISC) function and that restoring a youthful microbial environment can reverse this decline.

Jan 22, 2026 in Gerontology & Geriatrics
Medical Xpress / Policies to screen doctors' fitness seen as lacking in fairness

Nearly one in four U.S. physicians with an active license is over the age of 65. This has spurred a small minority of hospitals to enact policies to assess these caregivers' cognitive and physical health, with the aim of ...

Jan 22, 2026 in Medical economics
Medical Xpress / Spending a lot of time with AI chatbots? You've a higher risk for depression, study finds

Do you find yourself spending hours chatting with AI programs like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Claude or DeepSeek?

Jan 22, 2026 in Psychology & Psychiatry
Medical Xpress / Researchers link obesity, estrogen use, and increased blood-clotting risk

A research team led by Dr. Rinku Majumder from LSU Health New Orleans has published a groundbreaking study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation showing how obesity and estrogen-based medications (including hormonal therapies ...

Jan 22, 2026 in Cardiology
Medical Xpress / Lewy body formation in Parkinson's disease: Scientists propose a new molecular roadmap

Proteins form the building blocks of life, but when they form unusual clumps inside the brain, they raise an alarm that something isn't right.

Jan 21, 2026 in Neuroscience
Medical Xpress / Psilocybin could treat depression via a non-hallucinogenic receptor

Psychedelics, psychoactive substances that alter people's perceptions, mood and thought patterns, have recently shown promise for the treatment of some mental health disorders, including depression and substance use disorders ...

Jan 21, 2026 in Psychology & Psychiatry
Medical Xpress / High-dose inhaled nitric oxide shows early promise as a potential antimicrobial therapy

Overuse of antibiotics has accelerated the development of bacterial resistance to conventional drugs, a global health crisis projected to result in more than 10 million deaths annually by 2050. The multidrug-resistant bacterium ...

Jan 21, 2026 in Medical research
Medical Xpress / What the brain's shape and complexity say about a newborn's development

The neonatal period, which is defined as the first 28 days after birth, is known to be a crucial stage in the development of the human brain. During this stage, the brain is known to grow significantly in size, with billions ...

Jan 21, 2026 in Neuroscience
Medical Xpress / Non-monetary 'honor-based' incentives linked to increased blood donations

Offering non-monetary incentives such as free access to outpatient consultations to frequent blood donors is linked to an increase in donations without compromising blood safety, finds a study from China published by The ...

Jan 21, 2026 in Surgery
Medical Xpress / Largest genetic study of schizophrenia and African ancestry reveals shared biology across global populations

A team of researchers has conducted the largest and most comprehensive genome-wide association study (GWAS) to date of schizophrenia in individuals of African ancestry.

Jan 21, 2026 in Genetics
Medical Xpress / Social interaction among infants boosts diversity of gut microbial strains, study shows

The microbiome of infants is shaped by social relationships from an early age and not only by family sources, finds a recent study published in the journal Nature.

Jan 21, 2026 in Pediatrics