EurekAlert! News by Subject: Medicine & Health

Medicine & Health

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 30-Oct-2026 18:17 ET (30-Oct-2026 22:17 GMT/UTC)

10-May-2026

Digoxin in patients with symptomatic rheumatic heart disease

About The Study: In patients with symptomatic rheumatic heart disease, digoxin reduced the risk of a composite of all-cause death or new-onset or worsening heart failure, with little risk of toxicity. This study is being published to coincide with the European Society of Cardiology Heart Failure 2026 Congress.

Journal: JAMA

9-May-2026

8,500 steps a day can help dieters keep weight off

European Association for the Study of Obesity
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research being presented at this year’s European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2026) in Istanbul, Turkey (12-15 May) and published in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health shows that doing around 8,500 steps a day can help people keep weight off after dieting.

Journal: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Meeting: European Congress on Obesity 2026 (ECO2026)

9-May-2026

Mental defeat – the hidden experience fuelling daily suffering in chronic pain

University of Warwick
Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of Warwick real-time study shows how ‘mental defeat’ drives suffering and causes people with chronic pain to withdraw from everyday activities.

Journal: PAIN
Funder: Medical Research Council

9-May-2026

Lab-grown diamond device might change how we measure radiation doses

Tokyo Metropolitan University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Tokyo, Japan – A team led by researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University, in collaboration with Tohoku University and Orbray Co., Ltd., using heteroepitaxial diamond materials developed by Orbray, have shown that lab-grown diamonds might realize a radiation dosimeter compatible with both medical diagnosis and radiation therapy. They demonstrated that a diamond-based dosimeter could accurately measure doses in the same energy range as diagnostic X-rays, with far better sensitivity per volume than conventional detectors. Using the same device for dosimetry during both diagnosis and therapies could enable improved consistency.

Journal: Medical Physics

8-May-2026

The promise and potential of liver organoids: Development, classification and application

KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Liver organoids, three-dimensional structures derived from stem cells or hepatic progenitors, have emerged as a transformative technology. Unlike traditional two-dimensional cultures or animal models, organoids faithfully recapitulate the complex architecture and functionality of native liver tissue. This review summarizes recent advancements in liver organoid technology, detailing their development, classification, and key applications.

Journal: TransMed
Funder: National Natural Science Foundation of China, Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China

8-May-2026

Scientists develop “aging clocks” to measure body decline

Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Aging is a complex process, and precisely measuring how the human body declines has long been a challenge. Two people of the same chronological age can have very different health trajectories. Scientists have also struggled to move beyond identifying aging markers to pinpointing what actually drives aging itself. Now researchers from China’s Aging Biomarker Consortium (ABC) have built a computational framework—the Digital Aging Twin—to study aging at the individual level in order to predict biological age and track the different aging rates of individual organs.