EurekAlert! News by Subject: Medicine & Health

Medicine & Health

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 21-Jun-2026 12:16 ET (21-Jun-2026 16:16 GMT/UTC)

16-Feb-2026

Special issue highlights research advancing women’s heart disease and stroke care

American Heart Association
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Journal: Circulation

16-Feb-2026

Researchers question editorial bias in COVID-19 vaccine debate

Impact Journals LLC
Peer-Reviewed Publication

BUFFALO, NY – February 16, 2026 – A new commentary was published in Volume 17 of Oncotarget on February 6, 2026, titled “Censorship in science: How publishing decisions could have shaped the perceived “general consensus” on COVID-19 vaccine safety and efficacy.”

Journal: Oncotarget

16-Feb-2026

Exploring the link between hearing loss and cognitive decline

Society for Neuroscience
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Hearing loss and cognitive decline in presbycusis, a prevalent neurodegenerative disorder, may be linked via neural activity fluctuations and cell death in distinct brain areas.

Journal: eNeuro
Funder: Tianjin Natural Science Foundation Joint Fund, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Taishan Scholars Project of Shandong Province, Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China

16-Feb-2026

Researchers connect the dots between cause-effect events in Alzheimer’s disease

Baylor College of Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study reveals a path of cause-effect molecular events that can lead to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Researchers integrated postmortem human brain gene expression analyses with laboratory fruit fly studies. Their goal was to better understand how typical Alzheimer’s brain changes, such as the formation of amyloid plaques and tau tangles, can lead to neurodegeneration and cognitive decline. Their cross-species approach revealed that some paths seem to aggravate the disease while others may protect against it.

Journal: Molecular Psychiatry

16-Feb-2026

US child mental health care need, unmet needs, and difficulty accessing services

JAMA Network
Peer-Reviewed Publication

About The Study: This nationally representative study showed that, in 1 in 5 U.S. households, parents perceived a mental health treatment need for their children. Among these parents, 24.8% reported an unmet need, 16.6% reported difficulty in accessing care, and 21.8% cited such difficulty as the reason their children did not receive care. This burden was even greater for households with a single parent and multiple children.

Journal: JAMA Pediatrics

16-Feb-2026

Incidental rotator cuff abnormalities on magnetic resonance imaging

JAMA Network
Peer-Reviewed Publication

About The Study: In this population-based study, rotator cuff abnormalities were nearly universal after age 40 and showed poor concordance with shoulder symptoms. These findings suggest that rotator cuff abnormalities often represent normal age-related changes rather than disease and call into question the clinical value of routine imaging for atraumatic shoulder pain. The accompanying commentary is co-authored by San Francisco Giants Team Orthopedist Brian Feeley, M.D.

Journal: JAMA Internal Medicine

16-Feb-2026

Barriers to mental health care leave many children behind, new data cautions

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study led by the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute finds that mental health care gaps for U.S. children remain stark: one in five households reported a child needing treatment, yet nearly a quarter didn’t receive it, and many who did still struggled to access care.

Journal: JAMA Pediatrics

16-Feb-2026

AI-powered companionship: PolyU interfaculty scholar harnesses music and empathetic speech in robots to combat loneliness

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Loneliness has a critical impact on the mental health of citizens, particularly among the elderly. Robots capable of perceiving and responding to human emotions can serve as heart-warming companions to help lift the spirits. A research team at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has discovered that the combined power of music and empathetic speech in robots with artificial intelligence (AI) could foster a stronger bond between humans and machines. These findings underscore the importance of a multimodal approach in designing empathetic robots, offering significant implications for their application in health support, elder care, education and beyond.

Journal: ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction

16-Feb-2026

Bioactive polyphenolic compounds and in vitro anti-degenerative property-based pharmacological propensities of some promising germplasms of Amaranthus hypochondriacus L.

Xia & He Publishing Inc.
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Amaranth is conventionally consumed as a significant source of nutrients and bioactive compounds and is a potential alternate crop. The present study aimed to validate the folklore and ethnomedicinal claims regarding the utilization of foliar tissues of the pseudocereal Amaranthus hypochondriacus L. for their pharmacological propensities, primarily focusing on bioactive polyphenolic compounds and associated anti-degenerative properties, in view of the scarce evidence available on the same.

Journal: Journal of Exploratory Research in Pharmacology