U.S. men dying nearly 6 years before women is now the largest life expectancy gap between sexes since 1996, according to new research led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and UC San Francisco.

The life expectancy gender gap of 5.8 years in 2021 was a jump from 4.8 years in 2010, when the gap was at its smallest in recent history.

The pandemic, which took a disproportionate toll on men, was the biggest contributor to the widening gap from 2019 to 2021 — followed by unintentional injuries and poisonings (mostly drug overdoses), accidents, and suicide.

“There’s been a lot of research into the decline in life expectancy in recent years, but no one has systematically analyzed why the gap between men and women has been widening since 2010,” said first author Brandon Yan, a UCSF internal medicine resident physician and research collaborator at Harvard Chan School.

Life expectancy in the U.S. dropped in 2021 to 76.1 years — falling from 78.8 years in 2019, and 77 years in 2020.

The shortening lifespan of Americans has been attributed in part to so-called “deaths of despair.” The term refers to the increase in deaths from such causes as suicide, drug use disorders, and alcoholic liver disease, which are often connected with economic hardship, depression, and stress.

“While rates of death from drug overdose and homicide have climbed for both men and women, it is clear that men constitute an increasingly disproportionate share of these deaths,” Yan said.

Using data from the National Center for Health Statistics, Yan and fellow researchers from around the country identified the causes of death that were lowering life expectancy the most. Then, they estimated the effects on men and women to see how much different causes were contributing to the gap.

Before the COVID pandemic, the largest contributors were unintentional injuries, diabetes, suicide, homicide, and heart disease.

But during the pandemic, men were more likely to die of the virus. That was likely due to a number of reasons — including differences in health behaviors, as well as social factors, such as the risk of exposure at work, reluctance to seek medical care, incarceration, and housing instability.

“We have brought insights to a worrisome trend,” Yan said. “Future research ought to help focus public health interventions towards helping reverse this decline in life expectancy.”

That’s according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, which found that about 50% of students who ever tried e-cigarettes reported currently using them — a sign that many youth who try e-cigarettes remain e-cigarette users.

The CDC and FDA study is based on the results from the 2023 National Youth Tobacco Survey. Students in the survey were asked whether they’ve used tobacco products in the last month.

Among high school students, past 30-day use of any tobacco product declined from last year to this year — from 16.5% to 12.6%. That drop was primarily driven by a decline in e-cigarette use (14.1% to 10.0%).

But middle schooler tobacco use went up significantly, according to the report. Past 30-day use of at least one tobacco product jumped from 4.5% last year to now 6.6% among middle schoolers, and the use of multiple tobacco products climbed from 1.5% to 2.5%.

“The decline in e-cigarette use among high school students shows great progress, but our work is far from over,” said Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health.

“Findings from this report underscore the threat that commercial tobacco product use poses to the health of our nation’s youth,” Kittner added. “It is imperative that we prevent youth from starting to use tobacco and help those who use tobacco to quit.”

For the 10th year in a row, e-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco product for middle and high school students.

Among e-cigarette student users, about 25% reported using e-cigarettes daily. Also, nearly nine out of 10 students used flavored e-cigarettes.

Among middle and high school students, 2.8 million (10%) reported current use of a tobacco product. Also, 2.13 million (7.7%) students reported current e-cigarette use.

E-cigarettes were followed by cigarettes (1.6%), cigars (1.6%), nicotine pouches (1.5%), smokeless tobacco (1.2%), other oral nicotine products (1.2%), hookah (1.1%), heated tobacco products (1.0%), and pipe tobacco (0.5%).

Disposable products were the most commonly used e-cigarette device type among youth. However, the most popular brands included a variety of both disposable and cartridge-based products.

Among students who currently used e-cigarettes, the most commonly reported brands were Elf Bar (56.7%), Esco Bars (21.6%), Vuse (20.7%), JUUL (16.5%) and Mr. Fog (13.6%).

A new estimate from the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium has found that the North Atlantic right whale population was around 356 whales last year.

In 2021, their population estimate was around 364 animals North Atlantic right whales, primarily due to the recent cataloging of 18 calves born that year.

“While certainly more encouraging than a continued decline, the ‘flattening’ of the population estimate indicates that human activities are killing as many whales as are being born into the population, creating an untenable burden on the species,” said Heather Pettis, a research scientist in the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium.

There have been two detected deaths of right whales this year: a 20-year-old male struck and killed by a vessel and an orphaned newborn calf.

While it’s promising to have only two documented deaths, research shows roughly two thirds of North Atlantic right whale deaths go undetected.

Meanwhile, New England Aquarium scientists have detected 32 human-caused injuries to right whales this year, including six fishing gear entanglements with attached gear, 24 entanglement injuries (with no attached gear), and two vessel strikes.

“Many of these injuries will likely lead to death, while other injured or sick whales may not be able to reproduce because of their condition,” said Philip Hamilton, senior scientist at the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center.

“This is an important piece of the right whale puzzle,” Hamilton added. “We can’t just focus on (detected) bodies. We must also reduce all injuries that harm this species if they are to turn the corner.”

Calving numbers continue to lag behind what scientists saw a decade ago. This past calving season, just 11 calves were born — fewer than the previous two years (18 in 2021 and 15 in 2022).

Human-caused activities like entanglements and vessel collisions are the main threats to the North Atlantic right whale population, advocate groups said.

“Each year, it’s unfortunately the same story: North Atlantic right whales are swimming along the cliff of extinction,” Oceana said in a statement. “We know what is killing these whales, and yet long-term solutions like stronger vessel speed rules are continually delayed. NOAA’s job is to prevent the extinction of critically endangered animals like North Atlantic right whales, yet this species is still not on a path to recovery and desperately needs stronger safeguards from ship strikes and fishing gear entanglements.”

Brigham and Women’s Hospital scientists report that they have created a cancer-attacking virus that can effectively target glioblastoma. The oncolytic virus treatment extended survival for patients with recurrent glioblastoma, especially among patients with pre-existing viral antibodies.

The virus can infect cancer cells and stimulate an anti-tumor immune response, according to the researchers.

“Almost no immunotherapies for GBM have been able to increase immune infiltration to these tumors, but the virus studied here provoked a very reactive immune response with infiltration of tumor-killing T-cells,” said corresponding author E. Antonio Chiocca, chair of the BWH Department of Neurosurgery.

“That’s hard to do with GBM, so our findings are exciting and give us hope for our next steps,” Chiocca added.

This Phase I, first-in-human trial looked at the safety of an oncolytic herpes simplex virus called CAN-3110. The cancer-attacking virus is the same type of virus used in a therapy for the treatment of metastatic melanoma.

Overall, the trial showed the safety of CAN-3110 in 41 patients with high-grade gliomas, including 32 with recurrent GBM. The most serious adverse events were seizures in two patients.

Notably, GBM patients who had pre-existing antibodies to the HSV1 virus (66% of the patients) had a median overall survival of 14.2 months.

The researchers believe that the presence of HSV1 antibodies sparked a rapid immune response to the virus — which brought more immune cells to the tumor and increased the levels of inflammation in the tumor microenvironment.

“GBM has an aggressive effect in part because of a milieu of immunosuppressive factors surrounding the tumor, which enable the tumor’s growth by preventing the immune system from entering and attacking it,” Chiocca said. “This study showed that with a virus we designed, we can reshape this ‘immune desert’ into a pro-inflammatory environment.”

Moving forward, the researchers plan to complete prospective studies to further investigate the effectiveness of the oncolytic virus in patients who do and do not have antibodies to HSV1.

After showing the safety of one viral injection, the scientists will be testing the safety and efficacy of up to six injections over four months — which, like multiple rounds of vaccination, may increase the effectiveness of the therapy.

People who eat two servings of red meat a week may have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to people who eat fewer servings, and the risk increases with greater consumption, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The Harvard researchers also found that replacing red meat with healthy plant-based protein sources — such as nuts and legumes — or modest amounts of dairy was tied with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.

“Our findings strongly support dietary guidelines that recommend limiting the consumption of red meat, and this applies to both processed and unprocessed red meat,” said first author Xiao Gu, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Nutrition.

Type 2 diabetes is a major risk factor for cardiovascular and kidney disease, cancer, and dementia.

While previous studies have found a link between red meat consumption and type 2 diabetes risk, this study now adds a greater level of certainty about the association.

The researchers analyzed health data from 216,695 participants from the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS), NHS II, and Health Professionals Follow-up Study. The participants were asked about their diet in food frequency questionnaires every two to four years, for up to 36 years. During this time, more than 22,000 participants developed type 2 diabetes.

The scientists found that consumption of red meat — including processed and unprocessed red meat — was strongly linked with increased risk of type 2 diabetes.

Participants who ate the most red meat had a 62% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to those who ate the least.

Every additional daily serving of processed red meat was linked with a 46% greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and every additional daily serving of unprocessed red meat was associated with a 24% greater risk.

The researchers also estimated the potential effects of substituting one daily serving of red meat for another protein source. They found that substituting a serving of nuts and legumes was linked with a 30% lower risk of type 2 diabetes, and substituting a serving of dairy products was associated with a 22% lower risk.

“Given our findings and previous work by others, a limit of about one serving per week of red meat would be reasonable for people wishing to optimize their health and wellbeing,” said senior author Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition.

The researchers also said swapping red meat for healthy plant protein sources would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and provide other environmental benefits.

The red meat and type 2 diabetes study was published on Thursday in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The Mass General Brigham treatment strategy mimics a genetic mutation that’s resistant to the neurodegenerative disease. In the study, the treatment was reportedly effective at reducing abnormal tau proteins associated with Alzheimer’s.

The research team from Mass Eye and Ear and Massachusetts General Hospital developed this monoclonal antibody treatment as a follow-up to their work when they identified a genetic variant in the APOE Christchurch gene that provides extreme resistance against Alzheimer’s.

To turn those gene findings into a potential treatment, the researchers have now developed antibodies that could target interactions between APOE and proteins.

They found that one antibody, called 7C11, could lead to resistance to Alzheimer’s. Their therapy, tested in mice, resulted in a reduction of abnormal tau proteins found in their brains and retinas.

“Our 7C11 antibody was able to target interactions responsible for a major genetic risk factor for sporadic Alzheimer’s,” said co-corresponding author Joseph Arboleda-Velasquez, an associate scientist in the Department of Ophthalmology at Mass Eye and Ear.

“Our findings point to an alternative and hopefully more effective approach to existing treatments and those in clinical trials that focus on reducing amyloid plaques, and ultimately may lead to disease-modifying therapies for various other neurodegenerative conditions,” Arboleda-Velasquez added.

Meanwhile, the National Institutes of Health recently awarded a $13.7 million grant to Boston University researchers investigating the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers hope to identify new targets for developing drugs to treat or slow processes leading to the disease.

The Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine researchers are using whole genome sequencing and other approaches to identify genetic factors for Alzheimer’s disease in Jews currently living in Israel — who trace their ancestors to southern Spain and locations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Arab citizens of Israel.

“In this project, we will leverage the genetic architecture of MENA Jews and Arab citizens of Israel as well as their distinctive environmental exposures and lifestyles, to promote discovery of AD-related genes and variants,” said Lindsay Farrer, chief of biomedical genetics and distinguished professor of genetics. “We expect that this project will identify novel targets for development of effective drugs to treat or retard processes leading to AD.”

A pre-pandemic common cold coronavirus infection may help set the stage for long COVID, according to Boston researchers who have been looking to explain why some patients end up facing the long-lasting, debilitating symptoms.

The researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital teamed up with experts in immunology and virology to look for clues about long COVID in blood samples from patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases.

The team found that among these patients, those who developed long COVID were more likely to have expanded, pro-inflammatory antibodies specific to a coronavirus that causes the common cold.

A person’s viral history, especially prior infection and expansion of antibodies against a pre-pandemic coronavirus, could prime the immune system for developing long COVID, according to the researchers.

“Our study offers evidence and explanation for why some of our patients may be experiencing the persistent and wide-ranging symptoms of long COVID,” said co-corresponding author Zachary Wallace, of the Division of Rheumatology, Immunology and Allergy at Massachusetts General Hospital.

“Identifying a biomarker that helps us better understand current and previous infections could shed light on an inappropriate immune response that leads to some cases of long COVID,” Wallace added.

Up to 45% of individuals with rheumatic diseases — which include rheumatoid arthritis and other chronic autoimmune disorders that cause inflammation — experienced persistent symptoms associated with long COVID 28 days after acute infection with SARS-CoV-2.

Patients with rheumatic diseases are also at risk for more severe disease and complications from acute infection.

The researchers compared immunological changes in patients with rheumatic diseases who recovered from COVID. Specifically, they looked for differences in the immunological fingerprints left behind by previous infections.

The team found an unexpected signal tied to OC43, a coronavirus that causes common cold symptoms. Individuals with long COVID were more likely to have antibody responses specific to this form of coronavirus.

The study is restricted to individuals with rheumatic diseases, and further research is needed to determine if their findings will apply more widely to patients without a pre-existing autoimmune disorder.

“By starting with patients with rheumatic diseases, we may be able to develop biomarkers that help us understand who is at high risk for developing long COVID and strategically enroll individuals into clinical trials to either prevent long COVID or develop therapies to treat it,” said Wallace. “This study represents an important step in that direction.”

The BU Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center study released on Monday details more than 60 cases of CTE diagnosed in athletes under age 30, including the first American woman athlete diagnosed with CTE.

Among a brain bank sample of 152 young athletes exposed to repetitive head impacts (RHI) who died when they were under 30 years old, 41.4% (63 athletes) had neuropathological evidence of CTE — a degenerative brain disease caused by RHI.

“This study clearly shows that the pathology of CTE starts early,” said corresponding author Ann McKee, chief of neuropathology at VA Boston Healthcare System and director of the BU CTE Center.

“The fact that over 40% of young contact and collision sport athletes in the UNITE brain bank have CTE is remarkable — considering that studies of community brain banks show that fewer than 1% of the general population has CTE,” McKee added.

The UNITE Brain Bank is the largest tissue repository in the world focused on traumatic brain injury and CTE. The brain bank contains more than 1,400 brains, including over 700 brains that have been diagnosed with CTE.

The new study published in JAMA Neurology includes the first American woman athlete diagnosed with CTE, a 28-year-old collegiate soccer player whose identity remains private.

Nearly all the young athletes had mild CTE, stages 1 and 2. Three donors had CTE stage 3; there are four possible stages of CTE, with stage 4 being the most severe. In those with CTE, there was often other evidence of brain injury.

Clinical symptoms were common among the athletes, whether or not they had CTE. Clinical symptoms included depression (70.0%), apathy (71.3%), difficulty controlling behaviors (56.8%), and problems with decision making (54.5%). Substance abuse also was frequent, with alcohol abuse present in 42.9% and drug abuse in 38.3%.

“The study suggests that some of the symptoms these young athletes are experiencing are not caused by the early tau pathology of CTE,” said McKee. “It is imperative that young athletes who are experiencing neuropsychiatric symptoms seek out care, as it is likely that the symptoms can be reduced with effective management and follow-up.”

Amateur athletes comprised 71.4% of those diagnosed with CTE, and included American football, ice hockey, soccer and rugby players, and wrestlers.

Those diagnosed with CTE were older (average age at death 25.3 years vs. 21.4 years), and had significantly more years of exposure to contact sports (11.6 years vs. 8.8 years).

CTE cannot yet be diagnosed in the living, and the true prevalence of CTE in any population remains unknown.

“This study highlights the importance of assessing the symptoms and clinical presentation of CTE in living athletes who have sustained repetitive head injuries,” said Nsini Umoh, program director for traumatic brain injury research at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. “While additional research in this area is needed, these findings are a notable addition to the body of research on CTE.”

That’s according to a new Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health study of millions of Medicare beneficiaries. The researchers found that chronic exposures to fine particulate air pollutants (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) over a 10-year period increased the risk of developing cancer.

PM2.5 has been in the news during the last couple of months because that’s the concerning air pollutant from the Canadian wildfire smoke, which has wreaked havoc across the U.S.

While air pollution in the past has been established as a risk factor for lung cancer — and a link to breast cancer risk has been emerging — few studies have looked at its effects on prostate, colorectal, and endometrial cancer risk.

“Our findings uncover the biological plausibility of air pollution as a crucial risk factor in the development of specific cancers, bringing us one step closer to understanding the impact of air pollution on human health,” said Yaguang Wei, research fellow in Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Department of Environmental Health.

“To ensure equitable access to clean air for all populations, we must fully define the effects of air pollution and then work towards reducing it,” Wei added.

Researchers in the study looked at data from Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 or older, collected from 2000 to 2016. All subjects were cancer-free for at least the initial 10 years of the study period.

The researchers created separate cohorts for each type of cancer — breast, colorectal, endometrial, and prostate — with between 2.2 million and 6.5 million subjects in each cohort.

The scientists were then able to create a predictive map of PM2.5 and NO2 concentrations across the country. This was then linked to beneficiaries’ ZIP codes, so the researchers could estimate individual exposures over a 10-year period.

The researchers found that chronic PM2.5 and NO2 exposures increased the risk of developing colorectal and prostate cancers.

For breast cancer, NO2 exposure was tied to a lower risk, while the association for PM2.5 was inconclusive. In regions where air pollution levels were significantly below national standards and the composition of PM2.5 remained stable, their effect on breast cancer risk was more pronounced.

Also, stronger links between pollutant exposures and endometrial cancer risk were found at lower pollution levels.

The researchers noted that even communities with seemingly clean air were not immune to cancer risk. They found substantial associations between exposure to the two pollutants and the risks of all four cancers even at pollution levels below newly updated World Health Organization guidelines.

“The key message here is that U.S. air pollution standards are inadequate in protecting public health,” said senior author Joel Schwartz, professor of environmental epidemiology. “The Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed stricter standards for PM2.5, but their proposal doesn’t go far enough in regulating this pollutant.

“Current NO2 standards are also woefully inadequate,” Schwartz added. “Unless all of these standards become much, much stricter, air pollution will continue to result in thousands of unnecessary cases of multiple cancers each year.”

The study of 273 people found that brain circuits associated with depression were different between people with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and those without TBI.

“Our findings help explain how the physical trauma to specific brain circuits can lead to development of depression,” said study leader Shan Siddiqi, of the Brigham’s Department of Psychiatry and Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics.

“If we’re right, it means that we should be treating depression after TBI like a distinct disease,” Siddiqi added. “Many clinicians have suspected that this is a clinically distinct disorder with a unique pattern of symptoms and unique treatment response, including poor response to conventional antidepressants — but until now, we didn’t have clear physiological evidence to prove this.”

The study included 273 adults with TBI, usually from sports injuries, military injuries, or car accidents. People in this group were compared to other groups who did not have a TBI or depression, people with depression without TBI, and people with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Study participants went through a resting-state functional connectivity MRI, a brain scan that looks at how oxygen is moving in the brain. These scans gave information about oxygenation in up to 200,000 points in the brain at about 1,000 different points in time — leading to about 200 million data points in each person.

Based on this information, a machine learning algorithm was used to generate an individualized map of each person’s brain.

The location of the brain circuit involved in depression was the same among people with TBI as people without TBI, but the nature of the abnormalities was different.

Connectivity in this circuit was decreased in depression without TBI and was increased in TBI-associated depression. This implies that TBI-associated depression may be a different disease process, leading the study authors to propose a new name: “TBI affective syndrome.”

“I’ve always suspected it isn’t the same as regular major depressive disorder or other mental health conditions that are not related to traumatic brain injury,” said David Brody, a co-author of the study and a neurologist at Uniformed Services University. “There’s still a lot we don’t understand, but we’re starting to make progress.”