Mind & body, in brief

Ofcom, the UK's regulator for online safety, reviewed the first nine months after social media firms took on new legal duties to protect children in July 2025. [1]

It found no significant change in the share of children aged 8 to 17 meeting harmful content, and no sign the harm got less severe. [1]

Ofcom called the finding concerning, and the father of Molly Russell, who took her own life at 14 in 2017, called it staggering. [1]

The harm included pornography, serious violence, weapons and suicide material, and some of it left children feeling unsafe at school. [1]

Personalised 'for you' feeds, which choose each next post for the user, were repeatedly found to be at the root of it. [1]

Girls most often met pornography through their feeds and said it left them confused or upset. [1]

Girls were also the most likely to be shown suicide and eating-disorder posts, again mostly through feeds. [1]

Boys watching self-improvement videos could quickly be led on to posts promoting hatred of women and racism. [1]

Misspelled hashtags and coded words let some of that content slip past the filters meant to block it. [1]

A week earlier, a coroner found that suicide material on TikTok may have played a significant part in the death of Adriana Retyte, 14, in May. [1]

Ofcom said it saw falls on Minecraft, Call of Duty, YouTube, Pinterest and Facebook, and that its data stops before it pressed five big platforms this spring. [1]

The UK government has promised to curb 'addictive' features such as endless scrolling, and a ban on social media for under-16s is due early next year. [7][5]

Why it matters. The next test is the under-16 ban due early next year, and whether Ofcom's next count, which covers its pressure on five big platforms this spring, shows the share falling. [5][1]

Lawyers for about two dozen US states argued in a federal court in Boston on 22 October that Medicaid's new work rules were set up unlawfully. [10] Medicaid is the US public health cover for people on low incomes. [12] From 1 January 2027, a 2025 law makes many adults on Medicaid in 44 states, counting Washington DC, meet work rules to keep it. [12] The states say health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went too far in deciding who is excused, such as people judged medically frail. [10][13] The judge said he would rule in the coming weeks. [10]

Why it matters. State officials have about 70 days to build the system, and STAT reports the mood at their national meeting was very anxious. [10] KFF notes the rule excuses someone as frail only if their illness also stops them meeting the work rules. [13]

KFF, a US health research group, updated its record of how health bills land on families with its October 2026 poll. [15] About 26% of adults say they are very worried about affording health care, close to the 27% very worried about fuel. [15] In the past year, 28% put off care they needed because of the cost, and 43% did not take a medicine as prescribed for the same reason. [15] Among uninsured adults under 65, 62% put off care. [15]

Why it matters. Skipping care because of the cost lands hardest on the uninsured, the young and people on low incomes. [15] About one adult in seven says their health got worse after a delay. [15]

From late October, five private firms that run Medicare claims in 37 US states will stop covering many nerve treatments for chronic pain under Medicare, the US government's health cover for older people. [14] A nerve block numbs the nerve that carries a pain signal, and it can help find where pain comes from. [14] The contractors say the evidence is thin: small studies with short follow-up. [14] The final policy is a little less strict than the 2025 draft. [14]

Why it matters. Barreveld, head of pain medicine at a Massachusetts hospital, writes in STAT that patients with severe pelvic pain lose treatments used for decades. [14] The doctor argues people with chronic pain need choices other than opioids, the strong painkillers behind the US overdose crisis. [14]

In August, US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised the US government's first official definition of ultraprocessed food. [9] These are factory-made foods with added sugar, salt, colours and textures that a home kitchen could not make. [9] Bloomberg Law and the Wall Street Journal report the plan stalled after pushback from food companies and from President Trump's own officials. [9] More than 80 nutrition experts signed a petition, and a Tufts University team planned to take it to the US government's budget office on Friday. [10]

Why it matters. Ultraprocessed food makes up about 55% of the average American's daily calories, according to the CDC, and more for children. [9] A definition would let the US government limit these foods in school meals or label them; an Annenberg survey found 80% support for labels. [9][10]

A summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, attended by more than 100 countries, adopted a declaration on Thursday asking governments to spend more on children's health, schooling and protection. [26] About 400,000 children and teenagers get cancer each year, the World Health Organization says. [26] Rich countries cure more than 80% of them, against under 30% in many poorer ones. [26] A doctor from St Jude, a US children's cancer hospital, said late or missed diagnosis is one of the biggest obstacles. [26]

Why it matters. The declaration asks countries to set their own targets and report regularly on how well services for children work. [26] UNICEF, the UN children's agency, says two-thirds of the child-related goals it tracks for 2030 are off track. [26]

KFF has looked at the one-off $500 'refund cheques' President Trump announced in September. [16] About 1 million people in 30 US states will get one: those who bought a 2026 plan on HealthCare.gov, the US health insurance marketplace, without government help. [16] That is about 5% of marketplace buyers, and the other 95% get nothing. [16] KFF says it is not clear what law allows the cheques. [16]

Why it matters. For most people who get one, the $500 is smaller than the rise in their premium this year, after extra help with premiums ended for 2026. [16] It is also smaller than the average rise expected in 2027. [16]

Heineken, the world's second-largest brewer, warned British pubs and bars that weight-loss drugs could mean fewer pints sold, the Guardian reports. [11] Its presentation, first revealed by Reuters, said drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy can lower the desire to drink alcohol. [11] It advised pubs to push half pints, alcohol-free drinks and food with drinks. [11] Carlsberg, another big brewer, told Reuters the data do not show such an effect. [11]

Why it matters. UK pubs, bars and restaurants sold almost GBP 14bn of beer in the year to February, and less than GBP 300m of it was low- or no-alcohol. [11] About 10 million people in the US used such drugs last year, JP Morgan estimates. [11]

Dr Sarah Redvers was the doctor other GPs in Sussex turned to with child-safety worries. [17] She told the BBC she was bullied out of that NHS job after passing on concerns about how young people distressed about their gender were assessed at one Brighton practice. [17] She has brought a constructive dismissal claim, and her employment tribunal ran for three weeks. [17] In June an NHS safety review found 78 children at that practice, WellBN, had potentially been harmed. [17]

Why it matters. That review said some children, as young as 13, were given puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones without proper checks. [17] NHS Surrey and Sussex has apologised to Redvers and said some processes should have been handled differently. [17]

The US Defense Department has allowed the US Department of Homeland Security to test the Active Denial System at the US-Mexico border, CNN reported. [25] The weapon sends millimetre waves that reach about 0.4mm into the skin, roughly four sheets of paper. [25] There they heat the water in skin cells, which feels like standing in front of a hot oven. [25] A US bioengineer says the burst is too short to do damage, though it causes intense pain. [25]

Why it matters. The weapon has barely been used since it was built in the early 2000s, and Los Angeles dropped a plan to test it in a prison in 2010 after pushback. [25] Its effects in rain or fog are weaker, because moisture soaks up the heat. [25]

Wayne Davies, 40, from Powys in Wales, told the BBC that running became an addiction that left him anxious and short of sleep. [18] He went from casual jogs to marathons and a 75-mile race, and kept worrying about times and fitness data. [18] A 12-week online course from NHS Wales helped him check the data less. [18] A UK addiction therapist says more than 57,000 people visited her clinic's exercise-addiction page in six months. [18]

Why it matters. She says many are people who gave up alcohol or drugs and moved the habit onto exercise. [18] A trainer warns that calorie-counting apps can become just as obsessive. [18]

Women are up to four times as likely as men to get autoimmune illnesses, where the immune system attacks the body's own tissue. [24] Researchers at the Pasteur Institute in Paris measured the body temperature of more than 900 healthy adults. [24] In women's blood, each 1C rise went with a 36% drop in one inflammatory signal from T-cells, immune cells that attack targets. [24] The team presented the work at the Royal Society in London on 12 October. [24]

Why it matters. A woman's core temperature rises about 0.6C after ovulation and falls before her period. [24] The team suggests these swings may wear out the immune system's settings, and a Johns Hopkins expert says studies must now separate the effect of heat from that of hormones. [24]

Doctors in London looked at 61,193 tests for 'active' B12, a vitamin the nerves and blood need. [23] Results differed by ethnicity in adults, with Black patients highest, Asian patients in between and White patients lowest. [23] Among unclear results, a second marker of low B12 was raised in 32.7% of White and 34.1% of Asian patients, but 14.8% of Black patients. [23] The study was published on 24 October. [23]

Why it matters. The authors say the normal ranges for these tests should be set by age and ethnicity. [23] Depending on the cut-off used, 7.8% or 2.4% of the whole group was short of B12. [23]

About 5 to 7 million years ago, a virus left copies of its DNA in an ancestor of chimpanzees, and chimps still carry it at 158 places in their genes. [20] Humans do not have it. [20] A team at Lund University in Sweden cut it out of chimp stem cells and found a gene called LINC00662 switched on. [20] In humans that gene is active and boosts genes for growing nerve cells, the team reports in Science Advances. [20]

Why it matters. It suggests one way human and chimp brains came to differ, even though most of their genes are nearly the same. [20] An outside expert says the work is convincing but that it is too soon to say how much it explains. [20]

In 2020 a deadly virus called SRV spread through a Texas sanctuary for more than 100 macaque monkeys. [19] From 2022 to 2024, researchers offered the monkeys a grape on clean wood or on dung sealed in clear resin, in nearly 200 trials. [19] Of monkeys that had not lived through the outbreak, 79% took the dirty grape. [19] Of the outbreak's survivors, 47% did, the team reports in Royal Society Open Science. [19]

Why it matters. The researchers think disgust, which protects the body from germs, became more easily set off after the outbreak. [19] An outside biologist says the tests came years later, so other causes cannot be ruled out. [19]

Researchers at the University of Miami followed 271 students for seven weeks, some in dance courses and some in other courses. [21] They measured anxiety sensitivity, the fear of the body's own anxiety signs such as a pounding heart. [21] Students in dance courses lost more of that fear of physical signs than the others, even allowing for other exercise. [21] The study, published on 24 October, did not assign students to groups by chance. [21]

Why it matters. Fear of one's own racing heart is a known risk for anxiety, and dancing raises the heart rate in a safe setting. [21] Because students chose their courses, the result shows a link, not proof that dance caused the change. [21]

A survey of 800 Australian parents asked about myopia, or short-sightedness, which usually starts in childhood. [22] Asked if they would join a programme to prevent or delay it in their child, 76.8% said yes, 19.5% maybe and 3.8% no. [22] Parents who knew more about myopia were more willing. [22] Having a short-sighted child did not make parents more willing. [22]

Why it matters. The parents said cost, proof that a treatment works and a recommendation from an eye professional mattered most. [22] The authors say teaching parents about myopia may matter more than personal experience of it. [22]