A recently published study[i] in Medical Research Archives, the journal of the European Society of Medicine, demonstrates that replacing commonly consumed protein foods with canned beans (including kidney beans, black beans, chickpeas and pinto beans) significantly increased shortfall nutrient intakes and improved diet quality in adults in the United States.

 

[i] PAPANIKOLAOU, Yanni; PAPANIKOLAOU, Ava; SLAVIN, Joanne. Replacing Protein Foods for Canned Beans Increases Shortfall Nutrient Intakes and Improves Diet Quality in Adults. Medical Research Archives, [S.l.], v. 13, n. 9, oct. 2025. ISSN 2375-1924. Available at: <https://esmed.org/MRA/mra/article/view/6993>. Date accessed: 09 oct. 2025. doi: https://doi.org/10.18103/mra.v13i9.6993.

For the nearly 3 million patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), what typically starts as shortness of  breath can rapidly worsen into a suffocating inability to breathe, often leading to a dangerous elevation in pulmonary artery pressure, related heart attacks or fatal respiratory failure within three to five years of diagnosis. USC physician-scientists Denis Evseenko and Toby Maher hope to offer these patients a better prognosis by developing a regenerative drug to block the cells that promote fibrosis, or scarring, in the lungs, with support from a five-year $3.2 million grant from the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Evseenko has already developed two drug-like molecules designed to stop immune cells and small blood vessels from initiating the cellular stress response that triggers inflammation and fibrosis. By blocking inflammation and fibrosis, these drug-like molecules promote a healthier environment conducive to regeneration. To develop these drug candidates for IPF, Evseenko is teaming up with Maher, who is a professor of clinical medicine and director of interstitial lung Disease at the Keck School of Medicine. An experienced pulmonologist recently recruited to the USC Hastings Center for Pulmonary Research, Maher has a biorepository of patient lung specimens and has been involved in more than 100 clinical trials for IPF and other fibrotic lung diseases. Through their collaboration, the team will test the safety and therapeutic potential of the two drug-like molecules in animals and human cells, and develop the most effective one into an oral pill—ideally ready for human clinical trials by the time the grant concludes in five years.

How does your brain know when you need to breathe, when your blood pressure drops or when you’re fighting an infection? The answer lies in interoception: an understudied process by which the nervous system continuously receives and interprets the body’s physiological signals to keep vital functions running smoothly. Now, a collaborative team at Scripps Research and the Allen Institute have received the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s Transformative Research Award to create the first atlas of this internal sensory system.

The community of microbes in the human digestive tract have important implications for health in the gut, brain and immune system.

In a study published in the journal Science, a UCLA-led team explored bacteria commonly seen in the healthy digestive tract and found that a unique mechanism driving mutations may help cells to adapt and colonize the gut.

Further research could open the possibility of altering the human microbiome to alleviate or prevent health problems such as irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease and autoimmune conditions.