Health

As growing numbers of people are using cannabis to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new University College London (UCL) study reports that prescriptions are not backed up by adequate evidence. The systematic review, published in the Journal of Dual Diagnosis, finds that the active components of cannabis, called cannabinoids, may hold promise as a treatment...

People who suffered a financial, housing-related, or job-related hardship as a result of the Great Recession were more likely to show increases in symptoms of depression, anxiety, and problematic drug use, research shows. The research findings, published in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveal declines in mental health that were still evident...

University of Cambridge researchers have shown that an algorithm can predict the outcomes of complex chemical reactions with over 90% accuracy, outperforming trained chemists. The algorithm also shows chemists how to make target compounds, providing the chemical ‘map’ to the desired destination. The results are reported in two studies in the journals ACS Central Science and Chemical Communications....

Nearly one in four Arizona teens have used a highly potent form of marijuana known as marijuana concentrate, according to a new study by Arizona State University researchers. Among nearly 50,000 eighth, 10th, and 12th graders from the 2018 Arizona Youth Survey, a biennial survey of Arizona secondary school students, one-third (33%) had tried some...

Feeling unhappy and cranky? The treatment: take a walk under some trees in the park. That may not be the exact prescription of your doctor, but a first-of-its-kind study shows that visitors to urban parks use happier words and express less negativity on Twitter than they did before their visit–and that their elevated mood lasts,...

An international team of researchers led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has grown ‘miniature kidneys’ in the laboratory that could be used to better understand how kidney diseases develop in individual patients. The mini kidneys, known as kidney organoids, were grown outside the body from skin cells derived from a single patient who...

Researchers at Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University created decision models capable of predicting which patients might need more treatment for their depression than what their primary care provider can offer. The algorithms were specifically designed to provide information the clinician can act on and fit into existing clinical workflows. Depression is the most commonly occurring...

First study to demonstrate relationship between green space and mental wellbeing at an individual level published Using data from 25,518 people, the researchers show that Londoners who live within 300m of green space have significantly better mental wellbeing Proximity to green space was more important than lifestyle factors such as employment, income, and general health....

Voters may form false memories after seeing fabricated news stories, especially if those stories align with their political beliefs, according to research in Psychological Science. The research was conducted in the week preceding the 2018 referendum on legalizing abortion in Ireland, but the researchers suggest that fake news is likely to have similar effects in...

People who frequent electronic dance music (EDM) parties often use multiple drugs simultaneously and experience adverse effects with some ending up in the emergency department, say researchers at New York University School of Medicine and Rutgers University. The study, published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, is the first to survey adverse effects associated with...