Author: Saswata Banerjee

At last, we have something to fight with loneliness, it seems. Having a sense of purpose in life may be a powerful barrier against loneliness, reveals a new study with more than 2,300 Swiss adults. The report was published recently in the journal Psychology and Aging. Dangers of Loneliness Regardless of the level of social contact an individual enjoys, loneliness is the sensation of being alone. A lack of social relationships is known as social isolation. Some people might feel lonely owing to social isolation, whereas some others can have the same feeling without being socially isolated. According to a…

Researchers at Stanford Medicine have discovered a new subtype of depression that affects 27% of patients and cannot be properly treated by commonly prescribed antidepressants. They labeled it as the cognitive biotype. I published the study report on June 15 in JAMA Network Open. Leanne Williams, PhD, the Vincent V.C. Woo Professor and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, the senior author of the paper, informs that the study is a component of a larger initiative by neuroscientists to discover therapies that target certain depression biotypes. The New Depression Subtype SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, are antidepressants that target…

A simple Facebook post can now lead to the prediction of dropout intentions of individuals from addiction treatments, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI)! A recent report published in Neuropsychopharmacology reveals that It is possible to determine if someone will stay in treatment for a substance use disorder by looking at their social media activities. The study also showed that AI does this job more aptly than standard psychological tests. Substance Use Disorder and Addiction A person with substance use disorder (SUD) suffers from brain and behavior issues, making it difficult for them to manage whether or not they use legal or…

Detection of oral and throat cancer is no more an outdoor procedure as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently approved an in-home saliva test for detecting these cancers. Obstacles in Oral and Throat Cancer Detection The National Cancer Institute predicts that 54,000 new instances of oral cancer and 20,640 new cases of esophageal cancer will be diagnosed in the United States this year. Oral and esophageal cancers had five-year survival rates of 68 and 20.6 percent, respectively, but when discovered early, those rates can rise to more than 86 and 47 percent. Suffering from mouth sores is…

Who knew the simple solar panel on your rooftop can also fetch you drinking water? But this is no more sci-fi. Zero Mass Water has invented the SOURCE solar hydropanel, which is a rooftop solar panel that produces water in addition to electricity. The Global Drinking Water picture According to a report by the World Health Organization (WHO), 663 million people (nearly 10% of the global population), do not have access to clean drinking water. According to the WHO, clean water may not only prevent diseases but also boost a country’s economy while lowering poverty. Poor infrastructure and tough living conditions…

The commonly prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs, statins, may have a surprising potential of treating cancer, as a recent report in the journal Clinical and Translational Medicine says. This recent study by a research group at the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin has startled the medical research community by reporting a potential metastasis-preventing effect of the well-known class of drugs. According to the article, statins can inhibit the metastasis-associated in colon cancer 1 (MACC1) gene, which promotes cancer cell metastasis. Cancer Metastasis is the real threat The majority of cancer deaths are caused by metastasis, which…

Researchers from the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Australia have reported a breakthrough achievement in type 1 diabetes research. Combining GSK-126, a common anticancer drug, with triptolide, a naturally derived compound with anti-inflammatory effects, they were able to stimulate pancreatic ductal cells to evolve into insulin-producing cells. The insights obtained from this study can lead to the development of an alternative method of reviving insulin production in individuals suffering from type 1 diabetes. The Global Diabetes Pandemic Globally, 8.75 million people were surviving with type 1 diabetes in 2022, as reported by the International Diabetes Federation. In this disease,…