THE MEDICAL NEWS

People with opioid use disorder (OUD) are at increased risk of contracting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). While there are effective interventions that can substantially reduce HIV incidence and opioid overdose, like pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), many patients still face barriers to accessing and staying engaged in care.

Researchers found that more than half of urban rats sampled from low-income communities in Salvador, Brazil, carried active pharmaceutical ingredients in their brain tissue. These pollutants were associated with altered zoonotic infection patterns, including lower Leptospira infection probability in rats carrying azithromycin and higher Capillaria infection probability in rats carrying citalopram.

Genes undergo extensive editing through a process called alternative splicing, which greatly increases the size of the functional genome, the working portion of our DNA that helps make each person unique. Put simply, a single gene can be edited in different ways to produce multiple sets of instructions.

AI-driven genomic analysis could help researchers identify existing drugs that may be repurposed for subtype-specific breast cancer treatment. The review proposes an interpretability-driven framework that links multi-omics data, mechanistic validation, and clinical translation to make AI predictions more transparent and clinically useful.

A small proof-of-concept RCT found that tocilizumab, an IL-6 receptor blocker, showed a non-significant but clinically suggestive pattern of improvement in difficult-to-treat depression linked to low-grade inflammation. The study found that baseline hs-CRP, rather than IL-6, may help identify patients most likely to respond, supporting larger trials of immune-targeted depression care.

Not all broken genes fail in the same way: some simply stop working, while others interfere with what still works.

An 8-month low-calorie diet plus behavioral support helped older adults with overweight or obesity and persistent atrial fibrillation lose weight safely, with no intervention-related serious adverse events. However, the LOSE-AF trial found no meaningful improvement in AF symptoms, rhythm control, AF burden, cardiac remodeling, or further AF procedure rates compared with usual care.