Mind & body, in brief

Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel studied more than 300 million lab tests from more than a million women. [1][2]

The tests came from two places: NHANES, a long-running US national health survey, and Clalit, a health insurer that covers about half of Israel's people. [1]

Most studies line women up by their age. This team lined each test up by the time since the woman's final period instead. [1]

Women reach that final period at different ages, half of them between 45 and 53. The team borrowed a maths method used to sharpen blurry telescope pictures to undo the blur this causes. [1]

Seen that way, 52 of 90 common tests jumped at the final period in the US data, in one step rather than a slow slope. [1][2]

Outside the sex hormones, the biggest jumps were in bone, the liver, blood fats and how concentrated the blood is. [1][2]

Men of the same ages showed no such jump, so the authors say it comes from menopause, not from growing older in general. [1][2]

Most of the jumps point towards more risk of disease. Iron and red blood cell tests improved, probably because monthly bleeding stops. [1]

In US women taking hormone therapy the jumps were mostly smaller, but only 9% of the women took it, and they may differ in other ways. [1]

Hormone levels began changing faster 12 to 15 years before the final period, about seven years earlier than past studies had found. [1][2]

Moderate or severe depression scores were found in 19% of women in the year after the final period, against 11% across the 24 years after that. [1]

Martha Hickey, a women's health professor at the University of Melbourne, said the word cliff suggests a dramatic physical and mental decline, which the study does not show. [2]

The study took one snapshot each of many different women and did not follow any woman through her final period. [1][2]

Why it matters. The next test is whether the same step appears when the same women are tested again and again through their final period, which this study could not do. [1][2]

A panel of 37 experts set up by The Lancet, a leading medical journal, presented its report on Sunday at the World Health Summit in Berlin. [5] It names 17 threats to human health up to 2100, from obesity and smoking to climate change and germs that resist drugs. [4][5] Two of them, AI misused to make weapons such as new germs, and nuclear war with the famine after it, could end humanity, though the panel judges both unlikely. [4] The biggest loss that action could still prevent comes from obesity: 23.1 billion years of healthy life. [4][5]

Why it matters. That is about 46 times the healthy years the COVID-19 pandemic took, and the panel wants governments to build health systems ready for such threats. [4][5] It warns its numbers cannot be added together, because one person can suffer from several threats at once. [4]

A study in JAMA Neurology, a US medical journal, looked at 7,579 pregnancies in women with migraine, using US private insurance records from 2018 to 2021. [6] Pregnancies exposed to injected drugs that block CGRP, a body chemical involved in migraine attacks, had about a 40% higher chance of miscarriage in the first 20 weeks. [6] CGRP also helps an embryo attach and a placenta grow. [6] Propranolol, another migraine treatment in the study, showed no such link. [6] Migraine affects about 1.2 billion people, more of them women than men. [7]

Why it matters. The study shows a link, not a cause: these drugs go to people with the worst migraines, and the records do not say how bad each woman's migraine was. [6] More than 90% of medicines approved in the US have an unknown risk of harming an unborn baby. [3]

Brian Hooker, chief scientist of Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group Robert F Kennedy Jr once led, has filed complaints against two Texas doctors. [8] They treated two girls who died of measles last year; Hooker says the state medical board is reviewing the complaints, which the Guardian could not confirm. [8] Kennedy, now the US health secretary, has questioned Pennsylvania's measles deaths, and the CDC lists only two of the five the state reports. [8] Pennsylvania has had more than 1,000 cases this year, and New York state has declared a measles emergency. [9]

Why it matters. Lubbock's public health director says the accusations weigh on doctors who treat the sickest children. [8] Two doses of the measles vaccine lead to protection in 97% of people who get them. [9]

Cuba's health ministry lists 603 basic medicines, and only a little over a third of them are available. [15] BioCubaFarma, the state drug maker, said in June that about 300 of the 395 medicines it should supply had not been made, for lack of imported materials. [15] In Havana, volunteers such as Laura Mendoza hand out donated medicines free through WhatsApp groups. [15] In July Cuba's government allowed private pharmacies, a historic change to its state-run health system, and about 36 plans are under review. [15]

Why it matters. Cuba's government says US financial limits make imports hard to pay for, and that shipments are stranded because shipping firms fear US penalties. [15] Informal sellers now charge up to 1,000 pesos for a pack of blood-pressure pills that once cost 0.30, more than 30% of one 69-year-old's monthly pension. [15]

Researchers compared 575 people taking weight-loss and diabetes drugs like Ozempic with 1,329 similar people who had never taken them, in France, the US, Brazil and Mexico. [14] Nails lifting off the skin were reported by 39% of users and 9% of the others. [14] Half the users reported unusual hair loss, against 34% of non-users. [14] The work was presented at the 2026 congress of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, a body of skin doctors. [14]

Why it matters. The researchers say it shows a link, not a cause: about half the users had nail problems before starting, and people reported their own symptoms. [14] The study was supported by Ducray, a company that sells hair and scalp products. [14]

The Pew Research Center, a US research group, studied 535,512 posts by 6,334 health influencers on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube from February to April. [10] About 54% of posts were about everyday healthy living, like fitness and food, and 34% about illnesses or treatments. [10] Some 38% promoted a product, service or subscription. [10] Only 9% cited an outside source when making a health claim. [11]

Why it matters. Posts about illness and treatment came mostly from influencers who say they are doctors or other health workers. [11] Protein came up in 42% of food posts, and the US food regulator does not test protein powders for lead or check their muscle claims. [10][12]

Patients at public hospitals in towns around Abuja, Nigeria's capital, say staff demand cash for hospital cards, tests and beds, a survey by the News Agency of Nigeria found. [16] Some say they got no receipt, or were told to pay into private accounts. [16] Nigeria's government has been pushing people to pay electronically instead of in cash. [16] Bwari and Kubwa General Hospitals denied knowing of any such scheme and asked patients to bring evidence. [16]

Why it matters. Cash stands beside hospitals in Nyanya, Kubwa and Bwari are busy with relatives raising money for treatment. [16] Without receipts, patients and officials cannot check where the money goes. [16]

Chinonso Egemba, a Nigerian doctor known online as the Aproko Doctor, has millions of followers, including 2.8 million on TikTok. [13] An aproko is Nigerian slang for someone who cannot keep other people's news to themselves. [13] He began after a patient died of a stroke that one cheap blood-pressure pill a day could have prevented. [13] Nigeria has about four doctors for every 10,000 people, and he is now building health channels in local languages such as Hausa. [13]

Why it matters. He co-founded Awadoc, a doctor service run through WhatsApp that more than 200,000 people have joined. [13] About seven in every ten naira spent on health in Nigeria comes straight from people's own pockets, WHO figures show. [13]

Researchers measured which genes were switched on in the blood of 333 South African children. [18] Of these, 41 were in hospital with severe COVID and 71 had mild or no symptoms; others had RSV, a common chest virus, or tuberculosis. [18] More than 5,000 genes behaved differently in children with severe chest infections, many of them in the immune system. [18] The team found 82 genes that could tell severe COVID from mild COVID. [18]

Why it matters. Children with COVID, RSV and tuberculosis often arrive at hospital looking alike, so a blood test that tells them apart could guide treatment. [18] The authors say the genes must be tested in larger groups of children first. [18]

Dyspraxia, a condition that makes everyday movements slow and hard, affects about two children in every class of 30. [17] Researchers surveyed 241 parents of children aged 5 to 18 who have it. [17] Families waited 2.8 years on average between first asking for help and getting a diagnosis. [17] Some 92% of parents said everyday movements tire their child more than other children, and 36% of the children met the hour-a-day activity target, against 45% nationally. [17]

Why it matters. Parents say this tiredness is often mistaken for laziness or bad behaviour. [17] Most of them, 72%, want teachers trained to support these children. [17]

A study in Scientific Reports, a research journal, compared 333 young people: 121 with social anxiety disorder, 65 with a single strong fear and 147 with neither. [19] Social anxiety disorder is a lasting, strong fear of being judged by others. [19] Parents of children with social anxiety disorder did more 'family accommodation': changing routines, reassuring again and again, or helping the child avoid what frightens them. [19] The more parents did this, the more severe the child's anxiety. [19]

Why it matters. The study cannot say which comes first: anxious children may draw more help, or the help may keep the fear going by keeping the child from facing it. [19] A wider parenting style that pushes children to try things was not linked to how severe the anxiety was. [19]

Ethan Griffiths, 14, from Maesteg in Wales, was found to have Burkitt lymphoma, a fast-growing cancer of white blood cells, in January. [22] He was declared cancer-free in May, then the cancer came back. [22] He joined a UK-wide trial of two new drugs for children whose lymphoma had returned, at Bristol's children's hospital. [22] After more chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant, he came home cancer-free in September. [22]

Why it matters. He says he coped by keeping his mind apart from the illness, advice from his father, who also survived cancer. [22] He still tires when walking and plans to return to school slowly. [22]

Researchers surveyed 1,127 students at three medical training colleges in China in late 2024. [20] How many days a week students exercised told the most about their mental health. [20] Frequent moderate exercise, the kind that makes a person breathe harder, went most often with low anxiety and low depression scores. [20] A computer model sorted students by risk well overall, but it caught only about three in four of those in severe distress. [20]

Why it matters. The survey took one snapshot, so it cannot show whether exercise lifts mood or whether calmer students exercise more. [20] The authors say it describes links and is not a screening tool. [20]

Researchers at the University of Oxford released ActiNet, a free program that reads how hard a person is moving from a wrist-worn motion sensor. [21] They trained it on up to a day of sensor data from 151 volunteers aged 18 to 91. [21] It sorted activity levels more accurately than an older method from earlier studies, scoring 0.82 against 0.76 on a standard accuracy score. [21] Its lead held across ages and across men and women. [21]

Why it matters. Large studies of exercise and health count activity from these sensors, so a better reader can change how much activity people are counted as doing. [21]