GLP-1 Drugs Show Broad Promise Against Addiction: A new BMJ study adds to growing evidence that GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy may help reduce not only food cravings, but substance use as well. In an analysis of medical records from more than 600,000 U.S. veterans with diabetes, researchers found that patients taking a GLP-1 receptor agonist were 14% less likely than those on an SGLT-2 inhibitor to develop a new substance use disorder involving alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, nicotine, or opioids. Among patients with an existing SUD, GLP-1 use was also linked to fewer emergency room visits, hospitalizations, overdoses, substance-related deaths, and suicide-related outcomes. Experts say the findings are encouraging, though not yet strong enough to replace approved addiction treatments. If ongoing trials confirm the benefit, GLP-1s could help move addiction care into mainstream medicine. (Science)

AI Mammograms Could Double as Heart-Disease Screening: A study published today in the European Heart Journal suggests routine mammograms may be able to do more than screen for breast cancer. Researchers found that AI-based measurement of breast arterial calcification on screening mammograms predicted cardiovascular disease and mortality beyond standard PREVENT risk scores in a large, racially diverse, multi-institutional population. That matters because women are still often underdiagnosed and undertreated for cardiovascular disease, even though it remains a leading killer. The pitch here is not to replace cardiology workups, but to squeeze more preventive value out of a test millions of women already receive. If validated and integrated into practice, mammography could become a kind of “two-for-one” screening platform for cancer and heart risk. (OUP Academic)

Teen Sleep Loss Is Worsening Across Multiple Risk Groups: A JAMA research letter published online March 2 examined national trends in insufficient sleep among U.S. adolescents from 2007 to 2023 and asked whether the problem is concentrated in particular behavioral-risk groups. The answer: sleep deprivation is widespread, and especially concerning when layered onto other vulnerabilities such as heavy electronic media use, mental-health symptoms, sedentary behavior, substance use, or victimization. The study frames inadequate sleep not as an isolated lifestyle glitch but as a public-health problem entangled with broader behavioral and emotional stressors. That makes it a health-and-well-being story with practical implications for schools, parents, clinicians, and policymakers. The takeaway is not simply that teens should sleep more, but that the environments shaping their lives are making healthy sleep harder to achieve. (JAMA Network)

A Digital Tool May Help Match Patients to Better Antidepressants: Published online March 4 in JAMA, a randomized clinical trial tested a web-based decision-support system called PETRUSHKA, designed to personalize antidepressant selection for adults with major depressive disorder. The rationale is straightforward: many patients stop treatment early because the first prescribed drug is a poor fit. The study asked whether using a structured, digital matching tool could reduce discontinuation and improve outcomes relative to usual care. On its face, this is a digital-health story, but it is also a quality-of-life story because depression remains one of the world’s leading causes of disability. If systems like this prove robust in real-world practice, they could make psychiatric prescribing less trial-and-error and more data-informed. That would not replace clinicians, but it could materially improve adherence and patient experience. (JAMA Network)

BMJ Warning: Health-Focused Chatbot Showed Dangerous Triage Flaws: One of the week’s most consequential health-tech stories came from The BMJ, which reported on a recent Nature Medicine study finding major safety problems in ChatGPT Health, including accuracy issues and racial bias. The BMJ piece says the tool underperformed in urgent scenarios and raised concerns about whether a health-branded chatbot can safely guide people making time-sensitive care decisions. This matters because AI health tools are increasingly marketed as convenient, low-friction helpers for symptom checking and care navigation. But convenience is not the same thing as clinical reliability. The broader lesson is that consumer-facing medical AI still needs rigorous independent testing, transparent benchmarks, and real safeguards before it can be trusted in high-stakes contexts. The story is less about one product than about the standards the whole field now urgently needs. (BMJ)

Gene Therapy Offers New Hope for Dravet Syndrome: A Scientific American report published four days ago highlighted new clinical-trial results for zorevunersen, a gene-therapy approach aimed at Dravet syndrome, a rare and often deadly seizure disorder usually diagnosed in infancy or early childhood. The therapy is designed to alter gene expression and could be especially meaningful for patients who do not respond well to existing antiseizure medications. Dravet syndrome is not only medically severe but life-altering for families, so any treatment that changes the disease trajectory has outsized importance. Scientific American notes that the condition can involve frequent seizures, intellectual disability, and substantial mortality before adulthood. The result is an encouraging example of precision medicine moving from concept toward clinical relevance. It is still early, but this is exactly the kind of neurological therapy story worth watching closely. (Scientific American)

Heart-Attack Deaths Are Rising in Younger Adults, Especially Women: Another strong Scientific American piece from this week covered a worrying cardiovascular trend: a new study found that among U.S. adults aged 54 and younger hospitalized with a first severe heart attack, in-hospital deaths have been rising in recent years. The increases were seen in both men and women, but young women were hit especially hard, with higher rates of severe heart attacks. This is a notable shift in the public story we tell about heart disease, which still tends to be framed as mainly an older person’s problem. The finding suggests clinicians and public-health officials may need to rethink screening, messaging, and prevention for younger populations. It also reinforces that cardiovascular risk is being shaped by changing patterns in obesity, stress, metabolic disease, and perhaps delayed recognition of symptoms. (Scientific American)

This Year’s Flu Shot May Still Help Against a Concerning H3N2 Variant: CIDRAP reported six days ago that a new Public Health Alerts analysis found the 2025–2026 seasonal influenza vaccine likely provides partial protection against a widely circulating H3N2 variant known as subclade K. Researchers studied blood samples collected before and after vaccination and found antibody responses rose meaningfully after the shot, even though responses against subclade K were weaker than against the exact vaccine strain. Before vaccination, only 11% of participants were seropositive against subclade K; afterward, that number rose to 39%. That is not a perfect match story, but it is still useful public-health news in a season shaped by concern over immune escape. For everyday readers, the message is simple: even when influenza viruses drift, vaccination can still deliver meaningful defensive value rather than an all-or-nothing outcome. (CIDRAP)

U.S. Measles Cases Are Climbing Fast Again: CIDRAP’s measles update from three days ago is one of the clearest public-health warning stories of the morning. The CDC’s latest weekly update put the U.S. total at 1,281 measles cases, with 12 outbreaks confirmed this year. According to the report, 23% of cases are in children younger than 5, and 77% are in children and young adults up to age 19. Most strikingly, 93% of patients were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status. The country is now on pace to exceed last year’s total, and the Pan American Health Organization has delayed a decision on whether the U.S. could lose its measles-elimination status. This is not just an infectious-disease story; it is a live test of vaccine uptake, trust, and the fragility of public-health gains once thought secure. (CIDRAP)

Japan’s Stem-Cell Approvals Mark a Milestone for Regenerative Medicine: A Science news article published March 5 reports that two conditional approvals in Japan signal a new level of maturity for induced pluripotent stem-cell therapies. The short PubMed abstract is spare, but its significance is clear: these therapies are being positioned to help treat diseased hearts and brains, pushing regenerative medicine closer to real-world clinical use rather than remaining mainly a laboratory promise. Japan has long been an aggressive test bed for iPSC policy and translation, so its regulatory decisions matter globally. The “conditional approval” language is important because it suggests scientific promise mixed with continued scrutiny, not a blank check. Even so, this is one of the week’s clearest signals that stem-cell medicine is moving from futuristic aspiration into a more concrete therapeutic era. (PubMed)

New “Self-Destruct” Strategy Offers Hope for an HIV Cure: A promising new HIV cure strategy aims to force infected cells to destroy themselves before the virus can persist. Researchers are targeting CARD8, an internal sensor that can detect HIV’s protease enzyme and trigger pyroptosis, a fiery form of cell death that wipes out infected cells and their viral cargo. HIV normally evades this alarm, but scientists found that existing drugs such as efavirenz can prematurely activate the protease, exposing infected cells to destruction. In a small study presented at CROI, adding efavirenz to standard therapy reduced latent HIV-infected cells by 20% to 50% in six of seven participants after four months. That is far from a cure, but it offers proof of principle. Researchers are now developing more potent drugs that could shrink HIV reservoirs dramatically and perhaps enable a functional cure. (Science)