Folks who breathe in more air pollution have a higher risk of developing a common non-cancerous brain tumor, a new study says. Several different types of air pollutants, including particle pollution and nitrogen dioxide, appear to increase risk of meningiomas — tumors that form in the layers of tissue that cover the brain and spinal…  read on >  read on >

Even low levels of lead exposure can harm kids’ working memory, potentially affecting their education and development, according to a new study. Exposure to lead in the womb or during early childhood appears to increase kids’ risk of memory decay, accelerating the rate at which they forget information, researchers reported July 9 in the journal…  read on >  read on >

A healthy plant-based diet might protect people from inflammatory bowel diseases, a new study says. People noshing healthy plant-based foods had a 14% lower risk of Crohn’s disease and an 8% lower risk of ulcerative colitis, researchers found. On the other hand, an unhealthy diet containing more animal fats and vegetable oils was associated with…  read on >  read on >

AI programs can exhibit racial bias when evaluating patients for mental health problems, a new study says. Psychiatric recommendations from four large language models (LLMs) changed when a patient’s record noted they were African American, researchers recently reported in the journal NPJ Digital Medicine. “Most of the LLMs exhibited some form of bias when dealing…  read on >  read on >

Two drugs used in lung cancer treatment appear to be tripping over each other, reducing patients’ chances for a cure, a new study says. Corticosteroids are commonly prescribed to alleviate cancer-related symptoms in patients with non-small cell lung cancer, researchers said. But these steroids appear to dampen the effectiveness of immunotherapy against lung cancer, researchers…  read on >  read on >