Salty Drinking Water Linked to Higher Blood Pressure, Especially in Coastal Communities

A systematic review and meta-analysis of 27 observational studies, encompassing over 74,000 participants from 7 countries, indicates that consuming water with higher salinity is associated with increased blood pressure and hypertension risk. The analysis found that higher drinking water salinity was linked to average increases of 3.22 mm Hg in […]

Herpes Zoster Vaccine May Effectively Prevent Dementia

A large natural experiment study in Ontario, Canada, found that receiving the live attenuated herpes zoster vaccine significantly reduced the risk of a new dementia diagnosis by approximately 18% in adults aged 70 and older, providing the strongest evidence to date for a potential causal protective effect. The research leveraged […]

Specific Mental Disorders Significantly Increase the Risk of Acute Coronary Syndrome

According to a systematic review and meta-analysis encompassing over 22 million participants and spanning from 1966 to 2021, specific mental disorders have been confirmed to be significantly associated with an increased risk of Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS). The study screened 3,616 initial records from three major databases, ultimately incorporating 25 […]

US Dietary Guidelines Updated

Released in early 2026, the latest U.S. Dietary Guidelines champion a “real food” approach, advising Americans to prioritize whole foods like vegetables, fruits, proteins, and healthy fats while sharply limiting ultra-processed items, added sugars, and artificial additives. This update introduces significant shifts, including a higher daily protein recommendation, a move […]

Night Shift Work Linked to Higher Cardiovascular–Kidney–Metabolic Risk, Especially With Short Sleep

Long-term and intensive night shift work was associated with a significantly higher risk of cardiovascular–kidney–metabolic (CKM) disease in a large UK Biobank cohort, with the strongest effects seen among individuals who slept six hours or less per night. Among 96,365 participants followed through 2022, those with more than 20 years […]

Stress-Related Brain Activity Partly Explains the Link between Depression, Anxiety, and Cardiac Events

Depression and anxiety were each associated with a higher risk of major adverse cardiac events, with the greatest risk observed when both conditions co-occurred, and these associations were partly mediated by heightened stress-related neural activity and downstream autonomic and inflammatory dysregulation. In more than 85,000 participants from the Mass General […]

Prediabetes Remission Confers Long-Term Protection against CVD

Achieving remission of prediabetes was associated with an approximately 50% lower long-term risk of death from cardiovascular disease (CVD) or hospitalization for heart failure, with benefits persisting for decades in two landmark diabetes prevention cohorts. In post hoc analyses of the US Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study and the Chinese […]

2025 Key Updates in the Care of Adults with Congenital Heart Disease

Recent recommendations of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee emphasize that adults with congenital heart disease achieve better outcomes when managed at specialized adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) centers with multidisciplinary teams and close involvement of ACHD cardiologists, particularly for patients with moderate or complex anatomy or […]

Smartphone-Based Digital CBT Produces Large and Sustained Benefits for GAD

In a fully remote US randomized clinical trial of 351 adults with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), smartphone-delivered digital cognitive behavioral therapy (DCBT) produced significantly greater symptom improvement and higher remission rates than an active psychoeducation control, with benefits sustained through 24 weeks. The DCBT mobile application (DaylightRx) for GAD delivered […]

Intensive BP Control Is Effective and Safe Across Low and High DBP Levels

Intensive blood pressure (BP) control targeting <130/80 mm Hg reduced cardiovascular events and mortality consistently across all baseline diastolic blood pressure (DBP) strata in a post hoc analysis of 33,288 participants from the China Rural Hypertension Control Project, with no evidence that lower DBP diminished benefit. Participants were categorized into […]