How high is your dementia risk? It might depend on where you live

 News Release 9-Jun-2025

University of California - San Francisco

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In one of the largest and most comprehensive studies of its kind, a research team led at UC San Francisco has identified the regions where dementia occurs most often. 

What They Discovered
Using the Mid-Atlantic* as the basis for comparison, researchers found that dementia rates were 25% higher in the Southeast.** The Northwest*** and Rocky Mountains**** were both 23% higher, and the South***** was 18% higher. The Southwest, which includes California, was 13% higher; while the Northeast, which includes New York, was 7% higher. 

These differences remained when researchers accounted for factors like age, race, and cardiovascular disease. This includes rural areas, where medical care may be less accessible, compared to urban areas. 

What’s Next:
“The study underscores the need to understand regional differences in dementia and the importance of region-specific prevention and intervention efforts,” said senior author Kristine Yaffe, MD, also of the San Francisco VA Health Care System.

First author Christina Dintica, PhD, said the next step is to investigate the factors driving these differences. “Quality of education, early life conditions, and environmental exposures may be among those factors.”

*Mid-Atlantic: Del., Washington, D.C., Md., Pa., Va., W.Va., N.J. **Southeast: Ky., Tenn., Ala., Miss.
***Northwest: Alaska, Idaho, Ore., Wash. ****Rocky Mountains: Colo., Mont., N.D., S.D., Utah, Wyo.
*****South: Ark., La., N.M., Okla., Texas. 
Regions were defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each region comprises four to seven states.

 

Publication: JAMA Neurology Other Researchers: Amber Bahorik, PhD, and John Boscardin, PhD, of UCSF; Feng Xia, PhD, of Northern California Institute for Research and Education. Funding: Alzheimer’s Association (AARF-21-851960), National Institute on Aging (R35 AG071916), Department of Defense (W81XWH-22-1-096).

 

About UCSF: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF's primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area. UCSF School of Medicine also has a regional campus in Fresno. Learn more at ucsf.edu, or see our Fact Sheet.

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Journal

JAMA Neurology

AMERIKA

Use of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at national, regional, and state levels

JAMA Network Open

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About The Study: The findings of this cross-sectional study suggest that although 988 has been contacted more than 16 million times since its launch in July 2022, there remains opportunity to increase 988 use.

Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Jonathan Purtle, DrPH, MSc, email jonathan.purtle@nyu.edu.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.14323)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication. 

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Journal

JAMA Network Ope

Researchers find thousands of pediatric firearm deaths linked to more permissive state gun laws

Mass General Brigham

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Guns are now the leading cause of death for youth in the United States. Researcher from Mass General Brigham investigated whether firearm mortality rates among U.S. children ages 0-17 changed in the 13 years following a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that applied the Second Amendment to state and local governments. In states with the most permissive firearm laws, they found evidence of 6,029 more pediatric deaths due to firearms than would have been expected based on the existing demographic trends—and more than 1,400 excess deaths in states with permissive firearm laws. Rates remained unchanged or decreased in states with more strict laws. The results are published in JAMA Pediatrics.

“We saw over 7,400 more pediatric deaths due to firearms than would have been expected,” said first author Jeremy Faust, MD, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system. “And when checked against other causes of death, including homicides and suicides not involving firearms, there were not similar changes. This show that differences in firearm laws matters.” 

The study categorized states as either most permissive, permissive, or strict based on gun ownership and use policies, and compared their pediatric firearm mortality rates before the ruling (from 1999-2010) and after the ruling (2011-2023). The researchers also found that existing disparities for pediatric firearm deaths among Black youth increased in permissive states and persisted, but did not increase, in states with more strict laws. The team plans to share their findings with policy makers and stakeholders and hopes to see future research identify which specific policies are most effective.

“Addressing the epidemic of pediatric firearm mortality requires collective action and policy change,” said Onyeka Otugo, MD, MPH, MPA, an author on the study and an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “Gun laws truly make a difference for the collective safety of children.”

 

Authorship: Additional authors include Ji Chen, Shriya Bhat, Miranda Yaver, Benjamin Renton, Alexander Junxiang Chen, Zhenqiu Lin, and Harlan M. Krumholz.

Disclosures: Krumholz reported receiving expenses and/or personal fees within the past 3 years from UnitedHealth, Element Science, Aetna, Reality Labs, Tesseract/4Catalyst, F-Prime, Siegfried and Jensen law firm, Arnold and Porter law firm, and Martin/Baughman law firm; being a cofounder of Refactor Health and HugoHealth; and being associated with contracts through Yale New Haven Hospital from the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and through Yale University from Johnson & Johnson. No other disclosures were reported.

Funding: None.

Paper cited: Faust JS et al. “Firearm Laws and Pediatric Mortality in the US” JAMA Pediatrics DOI: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2025.1363

 

About Mass General Brigham

Mass General Brigham is an integrated academic health care system, uniting great minds to solve the hardest problems in medicine for our communities and the world. Mass General Brigham connects a full continuum of care across a system of academic medical centers, community and specialty hospitals, a health insurance plan, physician networks, community health centers, home care, and long-term care services. Mass General Brigham is a nonprofit organization committed to patient care, research, teaching, and service to the community. In addition, Mass General Brigham is one of the nation’s leading biomedical research organizations with several Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals. For more information, please visit massgeneralbrigham.org.

 

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Journal

JAMA Pediatrics

DOI

10.1001/jamapediatrics.2025.1363 

Article Title

Researchers Find Thousands of Pediatric Firearm Deaths Linked to More Permissive State Gun Laws

Article Publication Date

9-Jun-2025

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Firearm laws and pediatric mortality in the US

JAMA Pediatrics

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About The Study: 

The results of this study demonstrate that permissive firearm laws contributed to thousands of excess firearm deaths among children living in states with permissive policies. Future work should focus on determining which types of laws conferred the most harm and which offered the most protection. 

Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Jeremy Samuel Faust, MD, MS, email jsfaust@bwh.harvard.edu.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2025.1363)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article 

 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2025.1363?guestAccessKey=96590450-83cf-49dc-bc15-af9d3fd0b528&utm_source=for_the_media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=060925

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Journal

JAMA Pediatrics

Location of firearm suicides in the United States

JAMA Network Open

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About The Study: This study found that nearly 1 in 5 firearm suicides in the U.S. occurred outside the home, highlighting the potential to enhance intervention strategies by extending them to broader community settings.

Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Camerin A. Rencken, PhD, ScM, email crencken@uw.edu.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.14423)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

#  #  #

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article 

http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.14423?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=060925

About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication. 

 

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Journal

JAMA Network Open

 

A recipe for success: beefing up the taste of cultured meat with amino acids

Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo

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image: 

Researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, track and control levels of key flavor compounds in cultured beef

 

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Credit: Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo

Tokyo, Japan – Across the world the demand for meat is growing, despite associated environmental and animal welfare costs. Although lab-grown – or cultured – meat could be part of the answer, scientists have yet to perfect one crucial detail: the taste.

In an article to be published in Food Chemistry, researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, have measured and found a way to control the key amino acids responsible for flavor in a step toward making cultured meat taste just like the real thing.

The push toward cultured meat has been adopted because conventional production is not a sustainable solution for tackling growing demand. In order to create the best cultured meat, it is essential to understand the flavor compounds that can make conventional meat delicious.

“We know that free amino acids strongly influence the flavor of traditional meat, and their levels generally increase during the aging process,” explains lead author, Mai Furuhashi. “However, we noticed that the role of free amino acids in the flavor perception of cultured meat has received little research attention.”

Amino acids can be used to build proteins, but when amino acids are instead in their free form they contribute to meat’s flavor: glutamic acid imparts umami, for example, while alanine is sweet. The researchers aimed to further clarify amino acids’ role in the flavor of cultured meat.

The team first obtained muscle cells from conventional meat, which were then grown in a nutrient bath. The cells then underwent cell differentiation, to grow a fiber-like structure, like the tissues in conventional meat. Some samples were then collected to be aged, while others were not.

Liquid chromatography was used to identify and quantify free amino acids in the aged and non-aged cultured meat cells. The researchers found that the levels of free amino acids increased significantly during the aging of bovine cells, with some notable differences compared with conventional meat.

“The levels of free amino acids decreased during differentiation but increased during aging.” says senior author, Shoji Takeuchi. “The surprise was that the levels of free amino acids in cultured muscle cells were actually double those in conventional beef.”

Glutamic acid was the most prominent amino acid in cultured muscle cells, followed by aspartic acid, which may suggest it has a strong umami flavor. Conventional beef was sweeter, with high amounts of alanine.

Moreover, the amount of free amino acids located in the culture medium also influenced the intracellular free amino acids, which also influenced the flavor compounds of cultured meat.

“Increasing levels of a particular amino acid in the medium increased the levels in the cells,” adds Takeuchi. “This is exciting because it means we should be able to control the flavor profile of cultured meat.”

Although other flavor components also require investigating, this research furthers our ability to control the flavor of cultured meat, which may increase its appeal. When looking to feed the world’s growing appetite, lab-grown meat increasingly appears to be the tastiest choice.

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The article, “The Effects of Differentiation and Aging on Free Amino Acid Profiles in Cultured Bovine Muscle Tissue,” appears in Food Chemistry at 10.1016/j.foodchem.2025.144753.

 

About Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo

The Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo (UTokyo-IIS) is one of the largest university-attached research institutes in Japan. UTokyo-IIS is comprised of over 120 research laboratories—each headed by a faculty member—and has over 1,200 members (approximately 400 staff and 800 students) actively engaged in education and research. Its activities cover almost all areas of engineering. Since its foundation in 1949, UTokyo-IIS has worked to bridge the huge gaps that exist between academic disciplines and real-world applications.
 

 

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Journal

Food Chemistry

DOI

10.1016/j.foodchem.2025.144753 

Article Title

The effects of differentiation and aging on free amino acid profiles in cultured bovine muscle tissue

Infectious diseases experts raise alarm about antifungal resistance, call for global effort

Fungicides used in agriculture linked to rising resistance to antifungal drugs for humans and animals

Reports and Proceedings

University of California - Davis Health

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UC Davis infectious diseases experts George Thompson and Angel Desai are raising the alarm about the role new pesticides can play in building resistance to antifungal medical treatments. In a commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine, they call for a coordinated, global "One Health" approach to developing, testing and using agents to fight pathogens like fungi and bacteria.

Fungal diseases cause huge economic and health burdens. Antifungal agents (fungicides) are widely used in agriculture and medicine to combat their spread. However, developing new compounds to kill harmful fungi in plants (pesticides) may increase fungal resistance to treatments in humans and animals.

“Antimicrobial resistant pathogens are a constant reminder for us to use agents judiciously,” Thompson said. “We have learned that the widespread use of antibiotics for livestock resulted in the rapid development of resistance to antibacterials. We have similar concerns regarding the use of antifungals in the environment.”

Thompson is the article's lead author. He is a professor at the UC Davis School of Medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, and the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology.

A One Health approach proposes a more holistic view to health. It emphasizes how changes in one area — like human activity, animal health, or the environment — can have ripple effects across all three.

About antifungal resistance

Changes in the climate and the wind patterns can help spread pathogens like fungi. Also, human travelers, migrating animals and the movement of contaminated items can carry pathogens to new areas.

In the last few decades, there has been a rapid increase in fungus types that cause severe infections in humans. One example of difficult-to-treat fungus is Candida auris (C. auris).

“Fungi have similar cellular machinery to that of humans. This is why medications that kill fungi like C. auris often have side effects for people. With few antifungals to choose from during clinical care, preventing resistance is of paramount importance,” Thompson explained.

Coordinated pesticide development and use

Resistance to treatments is highly linked to the amount of each agent used, the authors wrote. They called for coordinated global regulation to slow the development of resistance to new antimicrobial agents.

“There is a need for a shared antimicrobial approval process that includes a thorough assessment of potential impacts on the environment and human and animal health. This is especially true before any new large-scale environmental and agricultural pesticide use,” Desai said. She is an associate professor in the Department of Internal Medicine.

Their report also noted the foundation of The Interagency Drug and Pesticide Resistance and Efficacy Workgroup, a new entity under The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It is tasked with providing input on upcoming compounds proposed for registration, including potential effects on medical practice. The authors said similar efforts are needed on a global scale.

They noted that shared decision-making among national and global regulatory agencies would be cost-effective. It might help avoid the more expensive and riskier prospects of the rapid spread of resistant pathogens.

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Journal

New England Journal of Medicine

DOI

10.1056/NEJMp2416548 

Method of Research

Commentary/editorial

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Addressing Antifungal Drug Resistance — A “One Health–One World” Challenge

Article Publication Date

7-Jun-2025