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In a provocative new study, Harvard Medical School scientists found that lithium, an element found in some foods and drinking water and in trace amounts in our bodies, can confer resistance to brain aging and Alzheimer’s. Their work, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, reveals that lithium was the only trace metal that was significantly depleted in the brains of people in the earliest stages of memory loss during aging. The scientists also found that feeding tiny amounts of lithium to mice that were deprived of the substance and showed signs of dementia restored their memory. Lithium has long been used to treat mental health conditions, particularly bipolar disorder. But the form of lithium typically used for such treatments, lithium carbonate, is different from the one used by the team, which employed lithium orotate. (Lazar, 8/6)

The brain's health depends on more than just its neurons. A complex network of blood vessels and immune cells acts as the brain's dedicated guardians -- controlling what enters, cleaning up waste, and protecting it from threats by forming the blood-brain barrier. A new study from Gladstone Institutes and UC San Francisco (UCSF) reveals that many genetic risk factors for neurological diseases like Alzheimer's and stroke exert their effects within these very guardian cells. (8/4)

More on medical research —

This year, Dr. Steven Bernstein, a researcher at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, was planning to study the health of farm workers, particularly in the dairy industry in northern New Hampshire and Vermont. The idea, he said in an interview with the Bulletin, was “to develop and test some interventions to improve what we call the social determinants of health: their ability to access fresh food, their transportation, physical activity, exercise, etc. This is a group that has a pretty tough life in a lot of ways. They work really hard, and most of them come from Central America.” (Skipworth, 8/6)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Patient Numbers At NIH Hospital Have Plummeted Under Trump, Jeopardizing Care
The number of people receiving treatment at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center — the renowned research hospital that cares for patients with rare or life-threatening diseases — has tumbled under the second Trump administration, according to government documents and interviews with current and former NIH employees. (Pradhan, 8/7)

In other pharma and tech news —

Sarepta Therapeutics, which has come under regulatory pressure over its gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, hired a Trump-connected lobbying firm after the death of a teenage boy treated with the drug, according to lobbying disclosure reports. (Wilkerson, 8/6)

Gedeon Richter, Hungary’s biggest drugmaker, aims to clinch more deals like its partnership with AbbVie Inc. to expand in the US without being weighed down by import tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump. Richter generated $622 million last year in royalties from its licensing deal with Abbvie, which markets its blockbuster anti-psychotic drug as Vraylar in the US. That income stream won’t be subject to tariffs and is a model Richter wants to pursue with more local US partners in key areas such as women’s health, Chief Executive Officer Gabor Orban told reporters Wednesday. (Gergely, 8/6)

U.S. health regulators are warning doctors and patients about safety issues with two separate Boston Scientific heart devices recently linked to injuries and deaths. The Food and Drug Administration issued two alerts Wednesday about electrical problems tied to the company’s heart-zapping defibrillator systems and a separate issue with a heart implant used to reduce stroke risk. The agency said some of the company’s Endotak Reliance defibrillator wires can become calcified, leading to failures in delivering life-saving shocks to the heart, according to the FDA. (Perrone, 8/6)

The FDA granted accelerated approval to dordaviprone (Modeyso) as the first systemic therapy for adults and children with diffuse midline glioma harboring H3 K27M mutations. Labeling stipulates use in individuals 1 year and older with progressive disease following prior therapy for the rare tumor type, which affects an estimated 2,000 kids and adults in the U.S. annually. (Bassett, 8/6)

Oral ciprofloxacin alone was as effective as a regimen combined with an injectable antibiotic for bubonic plague, a randomized trial showed. ... The study's 4% case fatality rate overall was far below the 23% rate seen in Madagascar at locations that weren't in the trial's recruitment areas. WHO estimates for bubonic plague case fatality rates range from 17% to 26%. (Rudd, 8/6)

People whose homes are near busy highways may be able to reduce their blood pressure by running an air purifier with a HEPA filter, a study found. Just a month of air filter use cut systolic blood pressure by nearly 3 points in healthy adults who had slightly elevated blood pressure, according to the report published Wednesday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. (Carroll, 8/6)

The proposed rates are preliminary and could change before being finalized in late summer. The analysis includes proposed rate changes from 312 insurers in all 50 states and DC. It’s the largest rate change insurers have requested since 2018, the last time that policy uncertainty contributed to sharp premium increases. On average, ACA marketplace insurers are raising premiums by about 20 percent in 2026, �鶹Ů�� found. (Weixel, Choi and O’Connell-Domenech, 8/6)

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she would oppose premium increases from health insurers including Centene Corp., an early sign of the political maneuvering that’s likely to follow instability in insurance markets. Some companies are requesting average rate increases of more than 50%, according to the Arkansas Insurance Department. (Tozzi, Cohrs Zhang and Swetlitz, 8/6)

More on the high cost of insurance and prescriptions —

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a lower court’s ruling to dismiss a challenge to the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, finding once again that the parties involved did not have standing to sue. Almost exactly one year ago, a federal judge dismissed the Chamber’s lawsuit challenging the Medicare negotiation program established through the Inflation Reduction Act. (Choi, 8/6)

The elevator pitch is simple, said one of the organizers, retired journalist T.R. Reid. “The United States ought to provide health care for everybody. We're never going to get it done on a national basis because Congress is owned by the insurance companies and Big Pharma,” he said. The way to get it done, Reid believes, is by winning ballot measures in multiple states, all in the same election – to remake the health care system. Like women's suffrage, child labor laws and legalized marijuana, Reid said, once one or two states do it, others will follow. (Daley, 8/4)

People in America adopt hundreds of thousands of children every year, but not all of them receive health insurance once adopted into their second home. A study by University of Maryland (UMD) School of Public Health, out today in Health Affairs, reveals major differences in coverage depending on adoption type (domestic or international) and citizenship status of the adoptive parent. "Our study, which considered four types of adoptee, found a very high uninsured rate for some adopted children – particularly those adopted internationally by non-citizens living in the United States," said study co-author Jamie Fleishman. The study found that almost one-third (30.7%) of the children in this group has no health insurance at all. (8/4)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Watch: Millions Of Americans Live Where Telehealth Is Out Of Reach
As the federal government reworks rules for a $42 billion broadband expansion program, millions of Americans live in places where there aren’t enough health care providers and internet speeds aren’t good enough for telehealth. A �鶹Ů�� Health News analysis found people in these “dead zones” live sicker and die younger on average than their peers in well-connected regions. (Tribble, Hacker and Jackman, 8/7)

After being sidelined from competitive tennis for 16 months due to health issues, seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams made her comeback in July at the Mubadala Citi DC Open in Washington, D.C. But it wasn’t just her love of the game that brought the 45-year-old superstar back. It was also the health care coverage.  “I had to come back for the insurance,” Williams quipped about the Women’s Tennis Association’s health coverage after her first-round win in Washington. “They informed me earlier this year I’m on COBRA. I was like, ‘I got to get my benefits on.’ Started training. I’m always at the doctor, so I need this insurance.” Williams’ viral comments about health insurance illustrate the frustration and confusion that many workers, including those who leave their employer, have about health insurance coverage and costs, experts said. It also signals a need for greater communication and education about COBRA information from employers, as well as information about benefits more generally. (Mayer, 8/5)

Abstracts related to work done by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) were retracted from a major nutrition conference, sparking concerns that 2 years of work producing a robust scientific report may be disregarded, sources told MedPage Today. In February, the American Society for Nutrition accepted the abstracts for its 2025 meeting in Orlando, and they were set to be presented by government employees, according to DGAC member Christopher Gardner, PhD, an expert in diabetes and nutrition at Stanford University. (Robertson, 8/6)

In related MAHA and nutrition news —

Adults and children in the United States are getting more than 50% of their total calories from ultra-processed foods, according to a new federal report released early Thursday. Among Americans aged 1 and older, an average of 55% of their total calories came from ultra-processed foods, according to results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted between August 2021 and August 2023 and run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (Kekatos, 8/7)

Eating French fries multiple times a week was associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, though this wasn't the case for baked, boiled, or mashed potatoes, researchers said. For every increment of three servings weekly of French fries, the rate of type 2 diabetes increased by 20% (95% CI 1.12-1.28), and for every increment of three servings weekly of total potato, the rate increased by 5% (95% CI 1.02-1.08), reported Walter Willett, MD, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, and colleagues. (Rudd, 8/6)

As CEO of the psychedelic medicine company Compass Pathways, Kabir Nath has had a front-row seat to a dramatic year in the field of psychedelics. Once an industry darling, Compass’ competitor Lykos Therapeutics was brought to its knees last summer when the Food and Drug Administration turned down the drugmaker’s application for the psychedelic drug MDMA combined with talk therapy as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. (Schumaker, 8/6)

On RFK Jr.'s vaccine policy —

One of the most promising avenues toward new cancer treatments are vaccines, therapies designed to prompt an immune response against a patient’s tumors. Many rely on the same mRNA technology that built the Covid-19 vaccines from Moderna and BioNTech. So when the federal government announced it was ending major funding of mRNA vaccines, cancer researchers and patients began to wonder what that might mean for them. (Chen, Molteni and Russo, 8/7)

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to cancel $500 million in funding and wind down development of mRNA vaccines is a disastrous one -- especially with the looming threat of an H5N1 avian influenza pandemic, sources told MedPage Today. "This is a really reckless decision," said Jeff Coller, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who has studied mRNA for more than 30 years. "It's absolutely baffling to me." (Fiore, 8/6)

President Trump’s first-term surgeon general, Jerome Adams, sharply criticized the decision by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday to pare back investments in mRNA vaccine projects, including those underway to help fight bird flu and COVID-19. “I’ve tried to be objective & non-alarmist in response to current HHS actions – but quite frankly this move is going to cost lives,” Adams said Tuesday in a post on the social platform X. (Fortinsky, 8/6)

The Trump administration’s decision to terminate hundreds of millions of dollars to develop mRNA vaccines and treatments imperils the country’s ability to fight future pandemics and is built on false or misleading claims about the technology, public health experts said. Vaccine development is typically a years-long process, but mRNA technology paired with massive injections of federal funding during the coronavirus pandemic drastically slashed the timeline. (Johnson and Weber, 8/6)

On the opioid crisis —

Groups dedicated to keeping drug users healthy — and alive — have thrived during the past decade to counter the staggering toll of the nation’s overdose crisis. They hit the streets to distribute naloxone, the medication that reverses opioid overdoses. Others swap used needles for sterile ones to keep users free from deadly infections. More controversially, in New York City and Rhode Island, nonprofits have run government-sanctioned “overdose prevention” centers, where people can use illicit drugs under the supervision of staffers trained to revive them if they collapse. (Ovalle, 8/6)

In an understated brick building in the heart of Providence’s medical district sits Project Weber/RENEW, one of three overdose prevention centers — sometimes called safe injection sites — in the entire country. (Rasekh, Tillman and Golvala, 8/5)

Planned Parenthood will close its two clinics in Louisiana on Sept. 30 as the organization faces funding challenges under President Trump’s tax and spending package. Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast President Melaney Linton said in a statement the Louisiana closures are a “direct result of relentless political assaults.” “This is not a decision we wanted to make; it is one we were forced into by political warfare. Anti-reproductive health lawmakers obsessed with power and control have spent decades fighting the concept that people deserve to control their own bodies,” she wrote. (O’Connell-Domenech, 8/6)

New York-based Hey Jane has expanded its telehealth business to Michigan, offering abortion pills and emergency contraception, also known as the morning-after pill or Plan B, as well as birth control and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, yeast infections, urinary tract infections and more. The expansion of Hey Jane into Michigan comes as access to in-person abortion and other reproductive health care shrinks in the state — despite a 2022 ballot initiative that amended the Michigan Constitution to protect the right to legal abortion. (Shamus, 8/5)

Contraception is a routine part of life for many Americans and polls show people across political parties agree that it should be legal and accessible. But the Trump administration is walking back access to birth control for some people — including withholding funding from a Nixon-era program that guarantees access to contraception for low income people. (Riddle, 8/7)

Scientific breakthroughs — from next-generation vaccines to long-acting medications to prevent HIV — are fueling new hope in women’s health. But experts warn that persistent gaps in funding and access could stall that progress. (MacPhail, 8/6) 

Abortion news from Tennessee, Montana, and Pennsylvania —

The Tennessee attorney general’s office has subpoenaed four medical groups in the state for records of abortions performed over the last several years as part of a lawsuit over the exceptions to the state’s near-total abortion ban, court documents obtained by the Guardian show. The four subpoenas were issued this spring to Vanderbilt University medical center and a Tennessee hospital run by the national Catholic chain Ascension, as well as two smaller medical practices in Tennessee, Heritage Medical Associates and the Women’s Group of Franklin. (Sherman, 8/6)

Two groups, which were shot down unanimously by the Montana Supreme Court when they tried to halt a provision to protect the right to an abortion hours before it became part of the state’s constitution, have kept a vow to take the fight to a state district court. The Montana Life Defense Fund and the Montana Family Foundation filed suit in Yellowstone District Court late Tuesday afternoon, asking Judge Thomas Pardy to declare Constitutional Initiative 128, passed overwhelmingly by voters in November 2024, invalid because the full text was not printed on the ballot itself, something the group argues makes not just CI-128 illegal, but every amendment passed since 1978. However, the group is only challenging the passage of the abortion amendment because of a two-year statute of limitations. (Ehrlick, 8/6)

Shannon Noelle Jones waived her preliminary hearing today, prosecutors said. She allegedly obtained the medication for her daughter against medical advice. She and her daughter then buried the birth remains in the back yard of their home on the 100 block of Village Square Drive in an effort to conceal the pregnancy and subsequent birth from Jones’ husband and others, authorities claim. (Schweigert, 8/6)

A political action committee affiliated with Democrats is seizing on anger about the massive healthcare cuts President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress enacted last month to enlist health professionals as candidates. The organization known as 314 Action — which takes its name from 3.14, the abbreviation for the mathematical constant pi — is seeking clinicians to face off against Republican lawmakers or fill open seats in next year’s midterm congressional elections. (McAuliff, 8/6)

In other health industry news —

Wait times for emergency hospitalizations continue to rise, with 1 in 20 Americans having to spend more than 24 hours in the emergency department before receiving a bed. This is the warning of a new study led by the University of Michigan (U-M) Medical School, which looked into the problem known as "boarding." (Millington, 8/6)

It’s been a week since St. Luke’s Hospital in Des Peres closed its doors for good and laid off more than 300 people. Approximately half of the employees who lost their jobs at the hospital were able to find work at other St. Luke’s locations, a spokeswoman said in an email. The nonprofit Episcopal health system operates a 493-bed hospital in Chesterfield and several outpatient clinics throughout the region. (Fentem, 8/7)

A woman in Florida was arrested after posing as a nurse and treating over 4,000 patients without a license, according to the Flagler County Sheriff's Office. Autumn Bardisa, 29, was arrested on Tuesday after pretending to be a registered nurse and treating 4,486 individuals at a local hospital from July 2023 until she was fired on Jan. 22, the sheriff's office announced in a press release on Wednesday. "This is one of the most disturbing cases of medical fraud we've ever investigated," Sheriff Rick Staly said in a statement on Wednesday. (Forrester, 8/6)

In January, Dr. Elisabeth Potter said she was midway through performing a breast reconstruction surgery when a call from a representative from UnitedHealthcare came into the operating room. The health insurance company wanted to talk about the patient on the table. “I got a phone call into the operating room saying that UnitedHealthcare wanted to talk to me and that they wanted to talk to me now,” Potter, a plastic surgeon, told NBC News. Potter posted a video on TikTok recounting the call that’s reached nearly 6 million views. (Lovelace Jr., Thompson, Kakouris and Herzberg, 8/6)

A video game that gives you points if you clear a blocked artery. An escape room competition inside a hospital. This is not your usual way of training clinicians, keeping their skills fresh and allowing them to earn continuing medical education credits for free. But it may be the next big thing inside hospitals, as leaders reshape training, look for ways to better engage employees and get them out of lecture halls where they sit glassy-eyed, stealing glances at their phones. (Dubinsky, 8/6)

The toll of wildfires is usually counted in acres burnt, property destroyed and lives lost to smoke and flames. But three studies published Wednesday suggest the cost to human health from the Maui and Los Angeles wildfires was substantially higher. Two of the papers explore what happened after the Hawaii fire in August 2023 — one of the deadliest U.S. wildfires in a century. A third looks at the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year. The Maui fire was directly blamed for more than 100 deaths. (Stobbe, 8/6)

Employees at North Aurora Care Center were worried about admitting V.R. The 28-year-old man had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, hypersexual tendencies and cognitive delay. So, when a local hospital was looking for a place to send him, staff at the northern Illinois nursing home resisted. “We did not want to take this guy,” the director of psychosocial rehab there told government inspectors. “We could not meet his needs.” (Gawthrop, 8/7)

Texas hasn’t reported a new outbreak-related measles case in nearly a month — a hopeful sign that one of the largest outbreaks the United States has seen in decades is starting to slow. But the measles threat hasn’t faded as new outbreaks and growing case counts in other states add to the national tally. (McPhillips, 8/6)

In LGBTQ+ news —

Transgender Iowans on Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income individuals, are having to find other ways to pay for some gender-affirming care after state lawmakers passed restrictions in the 2025 legislative session. (McKinney, 8/6)

He remembers walking towards the worst experience of his life. The dorm hall was a concrete tunnel, with chipped white paint on the walls and a stench of sweat trapped inside. The stairs, he recalls, squeaked underfoot. They led to a wooden door, which Andrew Pledger pried open. (Picheta, 8/6)

Screen time doesn't just affect mental health. It may also take a toll on the physical health of children and teens, according to new research. Published in the Journal of the American Heart Association Wednesday, the research found 10- and 18-year-olds who spent more time focused on devices, including phones, televisions, computers and gaming consoles, were at higher risk for cardiometabolic diseases, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol and insulin resistance. (Moniuszko, 8/6)

Could popular diabetes and weight loss drugs like Ozempic actually protect your brain from stroke damage, or prevent strokes altogether? Three new studies presented at a major neurosurgery conference suggest they might. (Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery, 8/3)

Pediatric hospitals across the United States saw a surge in respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in the summer of 2021 and in the fall and winter of 2022, which many clinicians considered to be a rebound from lifting 2 years of pandemic restrictions and possibly a suppression of immune responses following SARS-CoV-2 infections. Now, a new study published yesterday in Pediatrics used data from 27 US health systems to analyze how and if children under the age of 5 were more susceptible to RSV within 15 to 180 days of a COVID-19 illness. (Soucheray, 8/6)

Clarametyx Biosciences said this week that its investigational antibody treatment for cystic fibrosis patients plagued by chronic bacterial lung infections will receive priority review and development incentives from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). (Dall, 8/6)

Low-dose atropine drops showed potential as a noninvasive alternative for managing vitreous floaters, a small retrospective study suggested. A majority of patients who completed 7 days of treatment (n=22) reported they were satisfied or very satisfied with atropine 0.01% eyedrops. Half of the patients said they would continue using the medication. Counting patients who did not return questionnaires being dissatisfied, the satisfaction level dropped to 29.5%, and 25% said they would continue using the drops. (Bankhead, 8/3)

New data shows a rise in colon cancer among adults ages 45-49. That’s wonderful news. (Lisa Jarvis, 8/6)

It’s easy to scoff at street-corner potheads. But the next time you smell the skunky aroma of marijuana wafting down the sidewalk, consider this: Those dispensaries could help solve a major public health crisis. (Julien Berman, 8/6)

In my childhood, my father took us on a summertime drive from Chicago to Michigan’s Harbor Country. As the miles rolled on, we passed steamy steel mills, blaring billboard ads for Stuckey’s pecan rolls, rickety gas stations and crowded truck stops. I still hold the idyllic memory of that family car trip to the beach in Union Pier, near a cottage my aunt once owned. That’s all changed. On a recent drive for a weekend jaunt to southwestern Michigan, we encountered billboards hawking personal injury attorneys and cannabis dispensaries. One, after the other, after the other. (Laura Washington, 8/6)

Here’s a fact that might make you feel a little strange inside: You and I have plastic in our brains. Tiny particles of polymers are also hanging about in our livers, kidneys, heart and bloodstream. If that doesn’t make your insides itch, consider that in just eight years, scientists have observed an increase in the amount of bodily plastic. (Lara Williams, 8/7)

Exactly what, if anything, plastics are doing to our health remains hotly contested. But the signs aren’t good. (Oliver Franklin-Wallis, 8/7)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to cancel almost $500 million in contracts for projects to develop vaccines using mRNA technology underscores perhaps the greatest harm that he might inflict on the nation with his anti-vaccine ideology. (8/6)