Men are much more likely than women to die early from the world’s 20 leading health problems, a new global study shows. Sickness and death was higher in men than women in 2021 for 13 of the top 20 causes of injury and illness, including COVID-19, traffic injuries, heart problems, lung ailments and liver diseases, researchers reported May 1 in The Lancet Public Health. “Our findings shine a light on the significant and unique health challenges faced by males,” co-lead investigator Vedavati Patwardhan, a research scientist with the University of California-San Diego, said in a news release. “Among these challenges are conditions that lead to premature deaths, notably in the form of road injuries, cancers, and heart disease,” Patwardhan continued. “We need national health plans and strategies to address the health needs of men throughout their lives, including interventions targeting behavioral risks such as alcohol use and smoking that typically begin at a young age.” Women tend to live longer, but they endure higher levels of illness during their lifespan, researchers added.  Muscle and bone conditions, mental health problems and headaches are among the non-fatal diseases that plague women, results show. For the study, researchers analyzed data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021, the largest and most comprehensive effort to track illness and death from disease around the world. The effort focused on…  read on >  read on >

Newfangled eyedrops for dogs might be better at helping them fight off infections, a new study says. Eyedrops containing hyaluronic acid helped antibiotics better coat the eyes of healthy dogs, compared to traditional eyedrop formulations, researchers recently reported in the journal Veterinary Ophthalmology. As a result, higher concentrations of the antibiotics remained longer in the canine’s eyes, which could potentially improve the eyedrops’ effectiveness against infection, researchers said. The drops still need to be tested in dogs with eye infections. If they work, then they should also help humans with eye problems, researchers said. “The findings of this study offer clear benefits for our veterinary patients, but they also carry translational relevance for human medicine,” said senior researcher Dr. Lionel Sebbag, an ophthalmologist at Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Koret School of Veterinary Medicine in Israel. “Dogs are affected by many of the same ocular diseases as humans, and their ocular anatomy and physiology are much more comparable to human eyes than those of the more commonly used pre-clinical research species, such as rabbits or rodents,” Sebbag said in a news release. “This makes dogs an especially valuable model in ophthalmic research.” Hyaluronic acid is a gooey, slippery substance that the human body produces naturally, according to the Cleveland Clinic.  It helps lubricate joints, keeps skin stretchy and flexible, and maintains hydration in the body. It’s…  read on >  read on >

Newfangled eyedrops for dogs might be better at helping them fight off infections, a new study says. Eyedrops containing hyaluronic acid helped antibiotics better coat the eyes of healthy dogs, compared to traditional eyedrop formulations, researchers recently reported in the journal Veterinary Ophthalmology. As a result, higher concentrations of the antibiotics remained longer in the canine’s eyes, which could potentially improve the eyedrops’ effectiveness against infection, researchers said. The drops still need to be tested in dogs with eye infections. If they work, then they should also help humans with eye problems, researchers said. “The findings of this study offer clear benefits for our veterinary patients, but they also carry translational relevance for human medicine,” said senior researcher Dr. Lionel Sebbag, an ophthalmologist at Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Koret School of Veterinary Medicine in Israel. “Dogs are affected by many of the same ocular diseases as humans, and their ocular anatomy and physiology are much more comparable to human eyes than those of the more commonly used pre-clinical research species, such as rabbits or rodents,” Sebbag said in a news release. “This makes dogs an especially valuable model in ophthalmic research.” Hyaluronic acid is a gooey, slippery substance that the human body produces naturally, according to the Cleveland Clinic.  It helps lubricate joints, keeps skin stretchy and flexible, and maintains hydration in the body. It’s…  read on >  read on >

It’s a common notion that overuse of smartphones, tablets, laptops and other digital devices is rotting people’s minds. But the opposite appears to be true – regular use of digital technology seems to protect the brain against decline and dementia, at least among those present at the dawn of the tech revolution. Everyday use of digital devices appears to reduce seniors’ risk of cognitive impairment by 58%, on par with the protection gained from lower blood pressure, exercise and brain games, according to findings published April 14 in the journal Nature Human Behavior. These findings contradict concerns that the generation that swapped typewriters for personal computers would be subject to “digital dementia,” with a lifetime of technology use making brain decline more likely, researchers said. “There was no credible evidence … for widespread digital ‘brain drain’ or ‘digital dementia’ as a result of general, natural uses of digital technology,” concludes the evidence review led by Jared Benge, a neuropsychologist at the University of Texas at Austin’s Comprehensive Memory Center. For the review, researchers pooled data from 57 prior studies involving more than 411,000 people. These folks had an average age of 69 when research began. “The first generation who engaged with digital technologies has reached the age where risks of dementia emerge,” making them “digital pioneers,” researchers wrote. Someone born in 1945 would have paid…  read on >  read on >

— Can’t get your teenage girl off her smartphone, iPad or laptop? This could cost her much-needed sleep and increase her risk of depression, a new Swedish study says. Teenagers who spend more time on screens tend to get worse sleep, both in terms of sleep quality and duration, researchers reported April 2 in the journal PLOS Global Public Health. Screen time also caused teens to put off sleep until later hours, affecting their wake/sleep cycles, researchers found. These sleep disturbances are linked to later depression symptoms in girls, but not in boys, results show. “We found that adolescents who reported longer screen times also developed poorer sleep habits over time,” concluded the research team led by Sebastian Hökby, a doctoral student at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. “In turn, this led to increased depression levels, especially among girls.” For the study, researchers tracked more than 4,800 Swedish students between 12 and 16 years of age, collecting data on sleep, depression symptoms and screen time at three different points during the course of a year. Depression symptoms among girls were more than twice those of boys, a gender difference that’s been found in earlier studies, researchers reported. Results also showed that 38% to 57% of girls’ depression symptoms could be explained by changes in sleep patterns driven by screen use. Boys who spent more time…  read on >  read on >

Over-the-counter drugs like aspirin or ibuprofen might help protect against dementia, a new study suggests. These NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) might help protect the brain by quelling inflammation that contributes to dementia, researchers reported in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. People who took NSAIDs long-term had a 12% lower risk of developing dementia, researchers found. “Our study provides evidence on possible preventive effects of anti-inflammatory medication against the dementia process,” senior researcher Dr. M. Arfan Ikram, chair of epidemiology at Erasmus MC University Medical Center in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, said in a news release. “There is a need for more studies to further consolidate this evidence and possibly develop preventive strategies,” Ikram added. For the study, researchers tracked nearly 12,000 healthy residents of The Netherlands taking part in an ongoing study, following them for more than 14 years on average. Of the study participants, 9,520 (81%) had used NSAIDs at any given time, based on pharmacy dispensing records, and 2,091 developed dementia. Long-term NSAID use was associated with a lower risk of dementia, but not short- or medium-term use, results show. In addition, a person’s cumulative dose of NSAIDs did not seem to decrease their risk of dementia, researchers said. “This suggests that prolonged rather than intensive exposure to anti-inflammatory medication may hold potential for dementia prevention,” researchers wrote. However, researchers noted that…  read on >  read on >

Many Americans don’t see anything wrong with taking daily low-dose aspirin, even though experts have concluded its risks outweigh its benefits, a new survey has found. Nearly half (48%) of people incorrectly think that the benefits of taking low-dose aspirin daily to reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke outweigh the risks, according to the survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. “Habits backed by conventional wisdom and the past advice of health care providers are hard to break,” Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the center’s director, said in a news release. “Knowing whether taking a low-dose aspirin daily is advisable or not for you is vital health information,” she added. For years, healthy seniors were advised to take low-dose aspirin to reduce heart attack and stroke risk. The rationale was that aspirin acts as a blood thinner, reducing the risk that a blood clot could cause a heart attack or stroke by clogging an artery. But in 2019, the leading heart groups — the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association — reversed that recommendation in a set of new guidelines. The groups concluded that daily aspirin for healthy seniors 70 and older wasn’t worth the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding.  “If you’re over 70, taking aspirin to prevent a first heart attack or stroke could do more harm…  read on >  read on >

Daily low-dose aspirin can help prevent cancers from returning in about a third of colon cancer patients, a new study says. Taking 160 milligrams of aspirin a day cuts the risk of cancer recurrence in half among colon cancer patients with a mutation in their PI3K genes, researchers reported at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in San Francisco. These PI3K mutations are found in about 30% of all colon cancers, researchers said in background notes. They can make cancers more aggressive and harder to treat. The results of this study could immediately change treatment for those colon cancer patients, researchers said. “Aspirin has been shown to effectively reduce recurrence rates and improve disease-free survival in more than one-third of these patients,” lead researcher Dr. Anna Martling, a professor of surgery at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said in a news release. For the study, researchers recruited more than 600 patients in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway who had moderate to advanced colon cancer or rectal cancer. The patients were randomly assigned to take either daily aspirin or a placebo for three years. Patients taking daily aspirin had a 51% lower risk of cancer recurrence if they had a mutation in their PIK3CA mutation, compared to placebo, researchers found. Recurrence was 7.7% for people taking aspirin versus 14.1% for those on…  read on >  read on >