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In two days of hearings next month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will consider if clinics offering stem-cell treatments should be more closely regulated. Stem-cell treatments aren’t approved by the FDA and not long ago, Americans had to travel to Mexico, China or elsewhere to receive them. Now, with the regulatory environment murky, clinics offering them are spreading rapidly across the U.S. A recent report in the journal Cell Stem Cell counted 570 clinics advertising stem-cell therapies directly to consumers. Many claim to treat a long list of disorders, from arthritis to Alzheimer’s disease, even though the stem-cell treatment for many of the conditions hasn’t yet been tested on humans. Treatment typically costs thousands of dollars. (Beck, 8/29)

A strain of E. coli resistant to two last-resort antibiotics has for the first time been reported in the United States. The strain was found in the urine of a man treated at a New Jersey hospital two years ago. It was tested in 2016 as part of a larger analysis of bacteria from the hospital. For hard-to-treat bacteria infections, the antibiotics colistin and carbapenem are considered the big guns — a last line of defense when nothing else is working. In recent months mcr-1, a gene which confers resistance to colistin, has been found in E. coli from over 30 countries, including bacteria isolated from pigs and people in China and a patient in New York City. (Wessel, 8/29)

Everywhere you turn, it seems, there's news about the human microbiome. And, more specifically, about the bacteria that live in your gut and help keep you healthy. Those bacteria, it turns out, are hiding a big secret: their own microbiome. A study published Monday suggests some viruses in your gut could be beneficial. And these viruses don't just hang out in your intestines naked and homeless. They live inside the bacteria that make their home in your gut. (Doucleff, 8/29)

If you’re Latino, you could be at risk for colorectal cancer. But the degree of that risk could depend on whether your ancestry traces to Puerto Rico or to Mexico or another Latin American country. A paper published in the September issue of Current Epidemiology Reports discusses the health implications of classifying Latinos as a homogeneous entity while analyzing existing research about their cancer risks and outcomes and those of various subpopulations. (Kelly, 8/29)

Getting treatment for depression may sometimes be a regular part of health care for the “worried well” that leaves those who cannot afford it to suffer by themselves. A new study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine illustrates that phenomenon. Most Americans who screen positive for depression don’t receive treatment — while most who did receive treatment don’t actually have the condition. (Tan, 8/29)