Air pollution is classified as carcinogenic to humans given its association with lung cancer, but there is little evidence for its association with cancer at other body sites. In a new large-scale prospective study led by the Barcelona Institute of Global Health (ISGlobal), an institution supported by the ”la Caixa” Foundation, and the American Cancer Society, researchers observed an association between some air pollutants and mortality from kidney, bladder and colorectal cancer. 

In the first ever study of its kind, Professor Jane Ogden and her researchers from the University of Surrey examined the impact of labelling food products as ‘snacks’ or ‘meals’. 

Caloric restriction diets have been associated with various health benefits, but their effects on the skin have not been previously demonstrated. Research conducted at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil shows that controlling calories helps mice live longer, although it reduces the reserves of fat in adipose tissue needed to keep the body warm.

Researchers at the University of Maryland and Duke University have designed a novel protein-sugar vaccine candidate that, in an animal model, stimulated an immune response against sugars that form a protective shield around HIV. The molecule could one day become part of a successful HIV vaccine.

A study by the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country has characterised the overweight or obese hypertensive population.

McMaster researchers are investigating how lead poisoning affected human health in the Roman Empire.

The research, jointly led by Tracy Prowse, an associate professor in McMaster's Department of Anthropology and Professor Maureen Carroll from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Archaeology, is the first study to investigate lead production and use in the Roman Empire, using archaeological and skeletal evidence from a specific site in Roman Italy.

A probe invented at Rice University that lights up when it binds to a misfolded amyloid beta peptide — the kind suspected of causing Alzheimer’s disease — has identified a specific binding site on the protein that could facilitate better drugs to treat the disease.

A team of environmental chemists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst led by Baoshan Xing, who has long studied how polymers take up chemicals they contact, report in the current issue of Environmental Science & Technology that triclosan, an antibacterial agent in some over-the-counter toothpastes, accumulates in toothbrush bristles and is easily released in the mouth if the user switches toothpaste types.

As more and more adults face old age alone, society needs to rethink its approach to health and elder care before this demographic shift puts further strain on an already taxed system, according to one Western researcher.

For most of human history, adults have generally been part of dense family networks who cared for them as they aged. But increasingly, adults are facing their ‘golden years’ without a spouse or children. This new living condition portends millions facing an absent support system in old age when care is generally assumed by one’s immediate family.

Analyzing samples from a prospective study, University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers found that human exposure to glyphosate, a chemical widely found in weed killers, has increased approximately 500 percent since the introduction of genetically modified crops.