Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
5 papers
This paper is a meta-analysis of more than 300 studies in humans that looked at links between psychological stress and measures of the immune system. It found that very short, acute stressors (minutes) were tied to increases in some natural (innate) immune measures and decreases in some specific (adaptive) immune…
This 2022 review looks at studies linking stress, inflammation, and changes in the amygdala to depression and anxiety. It says stress can trigger inflammation in the body and brain, that inflammation can change neurons and circuits in the amygdala, and that these changes are linked to depression- and anxiety-like signs…
Researchers had 13 healthy adults take Hericium erinaceus powder every day for seven days. They tested blood with routine blood and serum chemistry tests and checked gut bacteria using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. After the week, the gut bacterial community showed higher within-sample diversity and higher levels of several bacteria…
This 2025 narrative review explains that cortisol normally peaks in the early morning and falls to its lowest levels in the early night. Night-shift work often shifts or flattens that pattern, causing a blunted or delayed morning peak and a less steep decline through the day. The authors link this…
Researchers tested blood from 115 people with bipolar disorder and 115 people without it for past infection with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii. They found past infection (IgG antibodies) in 24.3% of the bipolar group versus 8.7% of the control group. After accounting for other measured factors, having IgG antibodies was…
