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For years, health authorities have warned against red meat consumption, with the World Health Organization’s cancer research arm classifying it as “probably carcinogenic to humans”. But a controversial new study challenges that position, suggesting that animal protein might protect against cancer deaths rather than cause them.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the WHO, has long classified red meat, including beef, pork, lamb and mutton, as probably carcinogenic. And processed meats such as bacon and sausages are classified as definite carcinogens. This judgment reflects multiple studies linking red meat to colorectal cancer, forming the basis of dietary advice to limit intake.

Yet the new research by Canada’s McMaster University suggests the opposite: that people who consume more animal protein may actually have lower cancer mortality rates. But, before you rush out to buy a pack of sausages, there are some important points you should note.

The study’s methods contain important nuances that complicate its headline-grabbing conclusions. Rather than examining red meat specifically, the researchers analysed consumption of “animal protein”, a broad category that includes red meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy products. This distinction matters significantly because fish, particularly oily varieties such as mackerel and sardines, are associated with being cancer-protective.

By grouping all animal proteins together, the study may have captured the protective effects of fish and certain dairy products rather than proving the safety of red meat.

Dairy products themselves present a complex picture in cancer research. Some studies suggest they reduce colorectal cancer risk while potentially increasing prostate cancer risk. This mixed evidence underscores how the broad “animal protein” category obscures important distinctions between different food types.

The study, which was funded by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, America’s primary beef industry lobbying group, contains several other limitations. Crucially, the researchers didn’t distinguish between processed and unprocessed meats – a distinction that countless studies have shown to be vital.

Processed meats such as bacon, sausages and deli meats consistently show higher cancer risks than fresh, unprocessed cuts. Additionally, the research didn’t examine specific cancer types, making it impossible to determine whether the protective effects apply broadly or to particular cancers.

Interestingly, the study also examined plant proteins, including legumes, nuts and soy products such as tofu, and found they had no strong protective effect against dying of cancer. This finding contradicts previous research suggesting that plant proteins are linked to decreased cancer risk, adding another layer of complexity to an already confusing picture.

These findings don’t diminish the established health benefits of plant-based foods, which provide fibre, antioxidants and other compounds associated with reduced disease risk.

Not a green light

Even if the study’s conclusions about animal protein prove accurate, the study shouldn’t be interpreted as a green light for unlimited meat consumption. Excessive red meat intake remains linked to other serious health conditions, including heart disease and diabetes. The key lies in moderation and balance.

The conflicting research highlights the complexity of nutrition science, where isolating the effects of individual foods proves remarkably difficult. People don’t eat single nutrients in isolation – they consume complex combinations of foods as part of broader lifestyle patterns. It’s more important to focus on overall dietary patterns rather than fixating on individual foods.

A balanced plate approach, featuring a variety of protein sources, plenty of vegetables and fruits, and minimally processed foods, remains the most evidence-based path to optimal health.

While this latest study adds a new dimension to the meat debate, it’s unlikely to be the final word. As nutrition science continues to evolve, the most prudent approach remains the least dramatic: moderation, variety and balance in all things.

Ahmed Elbediwy, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Biochemistry / Cancer Biology, Kingston University and Nadine Wehida, Senior Lecturer in Genetics and Molecular Biology, Kingston University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

With support from the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Alzheimer’s and Related Diseases Research Award Fund (ARDRAF), Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC scientists Sharon Swanger and Shannon Farris are working to understand why this area is especially vulnerable.

Swanger studies how brain cells communicate across synapses in disease-susceptible brain circuits, while Farris focuses on how different circuits in the brain’s memory center function at the molecular level. Their overlapping expertise made the collaboration a natural fit.

“We’ve both been studying how circuits differ at the molecular level for a while,” said Swanger, an assistant professor at the research institute. “This new collaborative project brings together my work on synapses and Shannon’s on mitochondria in a way that addresses a big gap in the Alzheimer’s disease field.”

“This kind of state-level support is critical,” Farris said. “It gives researchers in Virginia the chance to ask questions that may eventually make a difference for people living with Alzheimer’s. It’s meaningful to be part of research that could help people facing that journey.”

A key focus of their research is mitochondria — tiny structures inside brain cells that provide the energy needed for a variety of cellular functions in neurons including synaptic transmission. In Alzheimer’s disease, mitochondria stop working properly in the course of the disease.

Farris and Swanger are investigating whether mitochondria in a vulnerable memory-related circuit may become overloaded with calcium, a key signaling chemical for multiple neuronal and synaptic processes. That overload could contribute to the early breakdown of memory circuits.

“The connection between these cells is one of the first to fail in Alzheimer’s,” Farris said. “We found that this synapse has unusually strong calcium signals in nearby mitochondria — so strong we can see them clearly under a light microscope. Those kinds of signals are hard to ignore. It gives us a model where we can really watch what’s happening as things start to go wrong.”

To test their hypothesis, the researchers will study brain tissue from healthy mice and mice with certain aspects of Alzheimer’s pathology. By comparing how mitochondria function and how brain cells communicate across synapses in each group, they hope to find early signs of stress or failure in the entorhinal cortex-hippocampus circuit.

Swanger and Farris are members of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute’s Center for Neurobiology Research and also faculty in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology of the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine.

A new study from the University of Sydney has revealed how type 2 diabetes directly alters the heart’s structure and energy systems, offering vital insights into why people with diabetes are at greater risk of heart failure.

Published in EMBO Molecular Medicine, the research was led by Dr. Benjamin Hunter and Associate Professor Sean Lal from the School of Medical Sciences. The researchers analysed donated human heart tissue from patients undergoing heart transplantation in Sydney and found that diabetes causes distinct molecular changes to heart cells and structural changes to the muscle, especially in patients with ischaemic cardiomyopathy, the most common cause of heart failure.

“We’ve long seen a correlation between heart disease and type 2 diabetes,” said Dr. Hunter, “but this is the first research to jointly look at diabetes and ischaemic heart disease and uncover a unique molecular profile in people with both conditions.

“Our findings show that diabetes alters how the heart produces energy, maintains its structure under stress, and contracts to pump blood. Using advanced microscopy techniques, we were able to see direct changes to the heart muscle as a result of this, in the form of a build-up of fibrous tissue.”

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in Australia and over 1.2 million people live with type 2 diabetes.

Our research links heart disease and diabetes in ways that have never been demonstrated in humans, offering new insights into potential treatment strategies that could one day benefit millions of people in Australia and globally.” 

Sean Lal, Associate Professor, School of Medical Sciences, University of Sydney

Getting to the heart of the problem

The researchers examined heart tissue from transplant recipients and healthy donors. 

The study discovered that diabetes is not just a co-morbidity for heart disease – it actively worsens heart failure by disrupting key biological processes and reshapes the heart muscle at a microscopic level.

“The metabolic effect of diabetes in the heart is not fully understood in humans,” said Dr Hunter.

“Under healthy conditions, the heart primarily uses fats but also glucose and ketones as fuel for energy. It has previously been described that glucose uptake is increased in heart failure, however, diabetes reduces the insulin sensitivity of glucose transporters – proteins that move glucose in and out of cells – in heart muscle cells. 

“We observed that diabetes worsens the molecular characteristics of heart failure in patients with advanced heart disease and increases the stress on mitochondria – the powerhouse of the cell which produces energy.”

The researchers also observed reduced production of structural proteins critical for heart muscle contraction and calcium handling in people with diabetes and ischaemic heart disease, along with a build-up of tough, fibrous heart tissue that further affects the heart’s ability to pump blood.

“RNA sequencing confirmed that many of these protein changes were also reflected at the gene transcription level, particularly in pathways related to energy metabolism and tissue structure, which reinforces our other observations,” said Dr Hunter.

“And once we had these clues at the molecular level, we were able to confirm these structural changes using confocal microscopy.”

Associate Professor Lal said the discovery of mitochondrial dysfunction and fibrotic pathways could help guide future therapies.

“Now that we’ve linked diabetes and heart disease at the molecular level and observed how it changes energy production in the heart while also changing its structure, we can begin to explore new treatment avenues,” said Associate Professor Lal.

“Our findings could also be used to inform diagnosis criteria and disease management strategies across cardiology and endocrinology, improving care for millions of patients.”

Sep 2 2025

Heart rate is one of the most basic and important indicators of health, providing a snapshot into a person’s physical activity, stress and anxiety, hydration level, and more. 

Traditionally, measuring heart rate requires some sort of wearable device, whether that be a smart watch or hospital-grade machinery. But new research from engineers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows how the signal from a household WiFi device can be used for this crucial health monitoring with state-of-the-art accuracy-without the need for a wearable.

Their proof of concept work demonstrates that one day, anyone could take advantage of this non-intrusive WiFi-based health monitoring technology in their homes. The team proved their technique works with low-cost WiFi devices, demonstrating its usefulness for low resource settings.

A study demonstrating the technology, which the researchers have coined “Pulse-Fi,” was published in the proceedings of the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing in Smart Systems and the Internet of Things (DCOSS-IoT) .

Measuring with WiFi

A team of researchers at UC Santa Cruz’s Baskin School of Engineering that included Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Katia Obraczka, Ph.D. student Nayan Bhatia, and high school student and visiting researcher Pranay Kocheta designed a system for accurately measuring heart rate that combines low-cost WiFi devices with a machine learning algorithm. 

WiFi devices push out radio frequency waves into physical space around them and toward a receiving device, typically a computer or phone. As the waves pass through objects in space, some of the wave is absorbed into those objects, causing mathematically detectable changes in the wave. 

Pulse-Fi uses a WiFi transmitter and receiver, which runs Pulse-Fi’s signal processing and machine learning algorithm. They trained the algorithm to distinguish even the faintest variations in signal caused by a human heart beat by filtering out all other changes to the signal in the environment or caused by activity like movement. 

“The signal is very sensitive to the environment, so we have to select the right filters to remove all the unnecessary noise,” Bhatia said. 

Dynamic results

The team ran experiments with 118 participants and found that after only five seconds of signal processing, they could measure heart rate with clinical-level accuracy. At five seconds of monitoring, they saw only half a beat-per-minute of error, with longer periods of monitoring time increasing the accuracy. 

The team found that the Pulse-Fi system worked regardless of the position of the equipment in the room or the person whose heart rate was being measured-no matter if they were sitting, standing, lying down, or walking, the system still performed. For each of the 118 participants, they tested 17 different body positions with accurate results

These results were found using ultra-low-cost ESP32 chips, which retail between $5 and $10 and Raspberry Pi chips, which cost closer to $30. Results from the Raspberry Pi experiments show even better performance. More expensive WiFi devices like those found in commercial routers would likely further improve the accuracy of their system.

They also found that their system had accurate performance with a person three meters, or nearly 10 feet, away from the hardware. Further testing beyond what is published in the current study shows promising results for longer distances.

“What we found was that because of the machine learning model, that distance apart basically had no effect on performance, which was a very big struggle for past models,” Kocheta said. “The other thing was position-all the different things you encounter in day to day life, we wanted to make sure we were robust to however a person is living.”

Creating the dataset 

To make their heart rate detection system work, the researchers needed to train their machine learning algorithm to distinguish the faint detections in WiFi signals caused by a human heartbeat. They found that there was no existing data for these patterns using an ESP32 device, so they set out to create their own dataset. 

In the UC Santa Cruz Science and Engineering library, they set up their ESP32 system along with a standard oximeter to gather “ground truth” data. By combining the data from the Pulse-Fi setup with the ground truth data, they could teach a neural network which changes in signals corresponded with heart rate.

In addition to the ESP32 dataset they collected, they also tested Pulse-Fi using a dataset produced by a team of researchers in Brazil using a Raspberry Pi device, which created the most extensive existing dataset on WiFi for heart monitoring, as far as the researchers are aware. 

Beyond heart rate

Now, the researchers are working on further research to extend their technique to detect breathing rate in addition to heart rate, which can be useful for the detection of conditions like sleep apnea. Unpublished results show high promise for accurate breathing rate and apnea detection.

Those interested in commercial use of this technology can contact Assistant Director of Innovation Transfer Marc Oettinger: [email protected].

Faced with a worsening drug crisis, policymakers in recent years have made it much easier for doctors to prescribe the highly effective opioid addiction treatment buprenorphine. However, many patients may still struggle to find pharmacies carrying the treatment, finds new research led by the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics.

Buprenorphine was available at just 39% of U.S. retail pharmacies in 2023, a modest increase from 33% in 2017, according to the study published Sept. 2 in Health Affairs. But disparities in who can access the treatment have persisted. Pharmacies in predominantly Black neighborhoods (18%) and Latino neighborhoods (17%) remain significantly less likely to carry buprenorphine as those in white neighborhoods (46%).

Buprenorphine is one of several medications that can ease opioid cravings and withdrawal, and it is the only one that can be prescribed in primary care settings and dispensed at retail pharmacies. Because these treatments are milder opioids and considered controlled substances, they historically have been subject to tight prescribing and dispensing rules.

Recent efforts to ease prescribing rules include the 2023 elimination of the so-called “X-waiver” that required doctors to receive specialized training and registration to prescribe the treatment. However, dispensing rates have changed little, suggesting that pharmacy regulations aimed at preventing opioid (and buprenorphine) diversion, abuse and misuse continue to discourage pharmacies from carrying the treatment, particularly in minority neighborhoods and some areas hit hardest by the opioid epidemic.

Relaxing buprenorphine prescribing rules was an important step in making this critical treatment more accessible, but too many patients lack a nearby pharmacy that carries it. Federal and state policymakers must reduce barriers that make it difficult for pharmacies to stock buprenorphine, especially in some of the more vulnerable communities.”

Dima Mazen Qato, senior scholar at the Schaeffer Center and the Hygeia Centennial Chair at the USC Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Limited access in some hard-hit areas

Researchers analyzed buprenorphine claims from 2017 to 2023 from an IQVIA pharmacy database from covering 93% of U.S. retail prescription claims. Among their key findings:

• Although buprenorphine availability increased in most states, there were significant declines in five states (Florida, Ohio, Tennessee, Washington, Virginia) and Washington, DC.
• In nearly every state, buprenorphine availability was lowest in Black or Latino neighborhoods. In some states (California, Illinois and Pennsylvania), availability in these neighborhoods was about four to five times lower than in white neighborhoods.
• Independent pharmacies in Black and Latino neighborhoods were significantly less likely to stock buprenorphine and were also more likely to stop carrying it over time. But when these pharmacies did stock the treatment, they persistently filled about twice as many prescriptions per month compared with other types of pharmacies.
• Pharmacies in rural counties and those with high rates of opioid-related overdose deaths were persistently more likely to carry buprenorphine. Yet in 73 hard-hit rural counties, less than 25% of pharmacies carried the medication, and another 25 counties lacked a pharmacy.

Areas with fewer dispensing barriers had better access

Researchers said states should consider easing tight controls on buprenorphine dispensing, which can restrict access to the treatment in several ways.

When buprenorphine demand rises, suppliers may delay or pause shipments to pharmacies to avoid scrutiny from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and pharmacies often refuse to stock buprenorphine out of concern the orders will be flagged to the DEA. Some pharmacies carry the medication but refuse to dispense it for fear of running afoul of the federal Controlled Substances Act and similar state pharmacy regulations and laws, which require pharmacists to ensure that prescriptions for controlled substances are valid.

The researchers found buprenorphine availability was greatest in states with the least restrictive prescription drug monitoring programs, including those that limited how law enforcement could access the electronic databases to investigate suspicious prescribing.

The researchers said state and local governments should consider requiring pharmacies to maintain buprenorphine stock, noting that some have issued similar orders for the overdose reversal treatment naloxone and emergency contraception in an effort to improve access.

“If policymakers fail to introduce policies that increase equitable access to buprenorphine at local pharmacies, existing racial and ethnic disparities in opioid use disorder treatment and recovery will likely worsen,” said first author Jenny S. Guadamuz, an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health.