People believe that meditation is a simple and easy process that can help you feel peaceful and well. However, to achieve peacefulness through meditation one needs practice, and they also must understand the nuances of meditation. According to the National Center of Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), meditation refers to a variety of practices that help you focus on your mind and body. It has a lot of benefits, according to a 2012 survey 1.9% of US citizens practiced meditation and NCCIH also explains that it helps not just with anxiety, stress, depression, pain but also with withdrawal symptoms of nicotine, alcohol or opioids.

These claims were also supported by a recent study done on opioid cravings which revealed that mindful meditation can actually help nullify these cravings.

What is Opioid Addiction?

MedlinePlus explains that opioid addiction is a long-term illness where people feel a very strong, uncontrollable need to use opioid drugs, even if they don't need them for pain anymore. Opioids are a group of medicines that affect the body's nerves to make you feel good and less pain. Doctors sometimes prescribe these, like oxycodone or fentanyl, for really bad or ongoing pain. But some opioids, like heroin, are illegal and only used to get high.

When someone is addicted to opioids, they have a powerful urge to use them again and again. This can happen even if they were first prescribed the medicine by a doctor and took it as they were told. Many of these prescription opioids end up being misused or given to other people. People who become addicted might start to care more about getting and using the drugs than anything else in their life, which can cause big problems with their work and family.

Meditation's Impact on Opioid Cravings

According to research published in the JAMA Psychiatry in April 2025 there is encouraging news for those battling opioid addiction. The research showed that practicing mindfulness meditation can have a significant impact on reducing the intense urges to use the drug. In fact, when compared to standard support groups, people who learned mindfulness techniques experienced a remarkable 50% decrease in their opioid cravings. This suggests that training the mind through meditation could be a powerful tool in helping individuals regain control over their desires and move towards recovery.

Opioid addiction diminishes the brain's capacity to experience natural rewards, fueling drug cravings. This research indicates that mindfulness training can help rebuild this ability, lessening cravings and potentially preventing opioid misuse by enhancing responses to positive stimuli. The study utilized Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), an eight-week program combining mindfulness meditation with cognitive behavioral therapy and positive psychology. This comprehensive approach targets addiction, emotional distress, and chronic pain, addressing the multifaceted challenges of opioid dependence.

Brain Changes and Emotional Regulation Through Mindfulness

Using brain imaging and other measures, researchers observed that at the beginning of the study, individuals with opioid addiction showed a weaker response in their brains when they looked at things that are typically joyful, like happy babies. This reduced ability to feel positive emotions was linked to stronger drug cravings. However, as participants engaged in the MORE program, their brains started to react more strongly to these positive cues.

The positive findings of this study are not isolated. Earlier research on the MORE program also demonstrated its effectiveness in reducing opioid misuse, with participants showing a substantial 45% decrease over a nine-month period. This impact was nearly three times greater than that of standard group therapy. Beyond the individual benefits, economic analyses suggest that investing in MORE therapy could lead to significant cost savings for society by preventing fatal overdoses, reducing the need for expensive healthcare interventions, lowering crime rates associated with addiction, and increasing productivity in the workforce.

Why More Studies Like This Should Be Encouraged?

While the results of this study and previous work on MORE are very encouraging, the researchers emphasize that this is an ongoing area of investigation. They highlight the need for more extensive studies involving larger groups of people over longer periods to fully understand how mindfulness-based treatments can help the brain heal and support long-term recovery from opioid addiction.

We often hear the older generation claim that youngsters these days, compared to the previous generation, are much weaker. Claims like ‘teenagers from the older generations were much healthier and physically capable’ can be seen on social media, however, does this hold any truth? Have the recent generations grown unhealthier or more fragile? There are two sides to every coin, and this question is the same. A new study by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) has found that children's health in the United States is getting worse.

On the flip side of this coin, we see how and why has the health of children declined in the recent past, is it because kids have grown lazier or does the declining health allude to other factors?

How Has Health Declined In Children?

This decline is seen in several key areas: kids are facing more long-term illnesses, higher rates of both physical and mental health problems, and sadly, even increased death rates compared to children in other wealthy countries. The study also highlights that these are broad, systemic issues, meaning we need new ways to think about supporting and prioritizing children's health. These important findings were published in a medical journal called JAMA.

How Do We Know Health Among Children Has Declined?

Christopher B. Forrest, one of the main authors of the study, said that no single piece of information in their research was shocking on its own. Instead, they gathered a huge amount of data over several years, involving millions of children. All this data consistently pointed to the same worrying trend: an overall decline in the health of children and young people.

To conduct this study, the researchers used information from five national surveys, government records on deaths, and a large database of children's medical records. They looked at how children's health changed from 2007 to 2023. They examined over 170 different health indicators, including long-term physical, developmental, and mental health conditions, death rates, obesity, difficulties with daily activities, and various physical and emotional symptoms.

Worrying Numbers

The study revealed some concerning statistics, from 2007 to 2022, the death rate for babies younger than 1 year old was about 1.78 times higher in the U.S. compared to 18 other rich countries. In children between the age of 1 and 19, the death rate was about 1.80 times higher. The biggest differences for babies were due to being born too early and sudden unexpected infant deaths. For older children, the largest gaps were linked to gun violence and car accidents.

Additionally, from 2011 to 2023, the number of children aged 3 to 17 with a long-term health condition also increased. In one group of 10 children's hospitals, it went from about 40% to 46%. For the general population, it rose from about 26% to 31%.

Interestingly, during the study period, researchers also saw increases in rates of obesity, girls starting puberty earlier, trouble sleeping, limits on daily activities, various physical symptoms, feelings of sadness, and loneliness.

What Does A High Mortality Rate Among Children Signify?

The researchers emphasize that healthy children are the foundation for a healthy country, as healthy kids are more likely to become healthy adults. They note that recent scientific reviews suggest the U.S. is facing a serious crisis with children's health getting poorer. This has sparked a lot of interest in understanding the main causes of these problems.

UNICEF notes that we have made significant progress in reducing child mortality rates, which has fallen by 52 per cent. With the help of lifesaving intervention, more and more children are being granted the gift of healthy living, however, the fight hasn’t ended yet. The 2024 United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation report that children are still dying from preventable causes. An estimated 4.8 million children died in 2023 before reaching the age of five, this includes children who died within the first 28 days of their life and 2.5 million children within the age of 1-59 months. Beyond this, we saw the death of 2.1 million children, adolescents as well as youngsters aged 5-24. Here are some things that these numbers show

Unequal Access

High child mortality directly reflects unfair access to healthcare, nutrition, and protection, especially in vulnerable areas. Deaths result from these critical inequalities.

Preventable Deaths

Many child deaths are avoidable, highlighting failures in public health, vaccine access, clean water, and basic medical care. These are not inevitable tragedies.

Weak Health Systems

High rates show weak national commitments, insufficient health investments, and fragile systems. Sustained success needs strong national effort and robust health data.

Socio-economic Gaps

Child mortality reveals deep inequality. Children from poorer families, rural areas, or less educated mothers face higher death risks, especially in certain regions.

Crises & Conflict Impact

Living in unstable or war-torn regions drastically raises a child's death risk. These areas bear a disproportionate burden, showing violence's devastating toll.

Newborn Vulnerability

Nearly half of all under-five deaths are newborns, emphasizing their extreme fragility. This demands more targeted interventions and investment during early life.

Progress at Risk

Persistent high mortality signals that global child survival gains are threatened. Crises, economic instability, and weak health systems could reverse hard-won progress.

Urgent Action Needed

High child mortality demands immediate action, strong political will, and financial commitment. Every child deserves an equal chance at survival, which must be ensured.

Building a Better Future for Our Kids

While the authors strongly believe we need to identify and address the direct causes of these problems, they also strongly argue for broader solutions. This means we should focus on making a better "home environment" for children. This involves building stronger connections between people, improving the places where kids live, and creating community systems that truly help them.

We need to spend money on excellent early education for young children, better support for families, safer neighborhoods, and healthcare that understands and respects different cultures.

Kids are naturally strong and can bounce back. If we make their surroundings better and fix the problems found in this study, we can build a solid base for a healthier future for all young people in our country.

Our bodies work in mysterious ways, even if you see similar results in some people, there will always be exceptions. Cancer treatment is no different. Even though the odds are good for certain people, others cannot be as sure of how or what may happen during the process of treatment but why is that?

Powerful new cancer treatment, called immunotherapy, work incredibly well for some cancers but barely affects others. Now, scientists think they might know why, it turns out that tiny proteins in a patient's own body, called autoantibodies, seem to play a big role in how well these treatments work. These autoantibodies are usually linked to illnesses where the immune system attacks the body, like psoriasis or lupus. But this new research suggests they can also greatly influence a person's response to cancer immunotherapies.

How Autoantibodies Influence Tumor Shrinkage?

The study found that certain natural autoantibodies can significantly increase the chances of tumors shrinking. In some cases, these autoantibodies made it five to ten times more likely for a patient to respond positively to a type of immunotherapy called checkpoint blockade. This is a major discovery because it shows these naturally occurring proteins can have a powerful effect on treatment outcomes.

This research focused on immune checkpoint inhibitors. These are drugs designed to boost the body's natural ability to fight cancer. They essentially remove the cancer cells' "disguise" that allows them to hide from the immune system. While these drugs have completely changed how we treat many cancers, like melanoma and certain lung cancers, they don't work for everyone. Understanding why some patients respond and others don't has been a big puzzle.

Why Do Some People Respond Better To Cancer Treatment?

According to a 2020 study in the National Cancer Institute, researchers looked at ‘exceptional responders’ meaning people who respond exceptionally well to treatment while others don’t. Many of the patients in this study had advanced cancers that are usually very hard to treat, yet some of them saw their cancer shrink for many years.

The researchers found that for about a quarter of the patients (26 out of 111), the researchers found specific molecular features in their tumors that could explain their amazing responses. These features included unusual combinations of rare genetic changes in the tumor, or a high number of certain immune cells, like B lymphocytes, getting into the tumor. They also found that some people who had unusual changes in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes which are responsible for repairing the DNA, also influenced the treatment. These unusual changes meant the genes couldn’t repair the DNA, making the cancer cells vulnerable to treatment.

In other cases, the body's immune system played a big role in getting rid of the tumor. For example, higher levels of specific immune cells called B lymphocytes in tumors were linked to these great responses.

Another interesting find was that sometimes, due to a rare combination of genes, the treatment led to the death of tumor cells, this is called synthetic lethality, meaning that two non-lethal things combine and become a deadly combo.

Role of Autoantibodies in Cancer Treatment

The study revealed that cancer patients generally have more of these autoantibodies in their blood than healthy people. What's fascinating is that some of these autoantibodies were connected to better treatment results.

For example, certain autoantibodies acted like a shield, blocking a specific immune signal called interferon. When these autoantibodies were present, the immunotherapy drugs, like checkpoint inhibitors, were much more effective at attacking tumors. This makes sense because other research has shown that too much interferon can actually exhaust the immune system, making it less effective at fighting cancer.

It's almost as if some patients' bodies produced their own helpful medicine, neutralizing interferon and giving the cancer treatment a significant boost. This discovery provides a clear path for creating new combination therapies that could intentionally adjust the interferon pathway for all patients.

However, not all autoantibodies were helpful. Some were actually linked to worse outcomes. These likely interfered with important immune system functions needed to fight cancer. Future research will focus on finding ways to remove or block these harmful autoantibodies, which could improve immunotherapy for many more patients.

Many cancers can often be treated successfully when detected early. Surgery, radiation and chemotherapy are all powerful tools to remove or destroy tumors in their original location. However, when cancer metastasizes, that is, when the original tumor at one place in the body breaks loose and begins growing elsewhere in the body, the treatment becomes infinitely more complex. This is the stage of metastatic or stage 4 cancer, which forms the true proving ground of modern medicine.

Metastatic cancer happens when cancer cells detach from the primary tumor, circulate in the bloodstream or lymphatic system, and develop new tumors in other tissues or organs. They are not a new type of cancer; they're the same cancer that originally occurred at the primary site.

So if colon cancer metastasizes to the liver, it's still colon cancer—not liver cancer. This makes a difference because it decides how physicians treat the disease. For example, metastatic breast cancer in the lungs is treated with breast cancer therapies, not with lung cancer drugs.

How Does Cancer Spread from One Organ to Another?

Metastasis is the biological process that begins when cancer cells become capable of invading nearby tissues. They can enter into the bloodstream or lymph system, catch a ride to other places, and take up residence in new sites. If they are successful, they will start developing new tumors.

Certain cancers follow predictable patterns of metastasis. Prostate cancer tends to spread to bone, and melanoma to brain and lung. Breast cancer prefers lymph nodes, bone, lung, and liver.

Scientists at Memorial Sloan Kettering and other elite centers are trying to figure out why some cancers prefer some organs. Genes, the immune system, and the 'soil' of the target organ (how conducive it is to cancer) all contribute. This may one day be the key to more successful prevention and earlier treatment.

Where Does Cancer Tend to Spread?

Although cancer can technically metastasize to nearly any organ in the body, some organs are more frequently involved. The lymph nodes are usually the primary location where cancer cells gain entry, serving as an initial checkpoint for the metastatic process. The liver is a common target, especially in colon, pancreatic, and stomach cancer, because of its high vascular flow and filtering function. Lungs are a frequent location, particularly in cancers originating from the breast, colon, and kidneys. Bones are frequently involved in advanced lung, breast, and prostate cancer, producing pain and architectural disturbances. The brain, on the other hand, is a frequent location of metastasis in melanoma and lung cancer patients with resultant neurological manifestations and special treatment.

Symptoms Of Metastatic Cancer

The symptoms of metastatic cancer vary greatly depending on where the cancer has spread. For instance:

• Bone metastases typically cause deep, aching pain and possibly lead to bone fractures.
• Lung metastases may cause cough, chest discomfort, or shortness of breath.
• Liver metastases can result in belly pain, jaundice, or abnormal liver enzymes in a blood test.
• Brain metastases may trigger headaches, seizures, or neurological changes.

Is Metastatic Cancer Curable?

This is where it gets complicated. A few forms of metastatic cancer are held to be potentially curable—particularly if the spread is limited and treatment is forceful. A good example is with colorectal cancer that has a small quantity of liver metastases. In these scenarios, surgical resection with chemotherapy could lead to long-term survival.

But most cancers that spread are not curable in the classical sense. That doesn't necessarily leave the patient out of luck. Many treatments try to contain the disease, alleviate symptoms, and buy time. That's called palliative care, but it doesn't mean surrendering—it means redefining success from cure to control.

Others survive for years with stage 4 cancer, particularly with the help of today's therapies such as targeted therapy and immunotherapy. Outcomes are highly variable depending on the cancer type, the degree of metastasis, and the responsiveness of the cancer to treatment.

Why Chemotherapy May Have Stopped Working For Metastatic Cancer?

Chemotherapy is still a mainstay of cancer treatment, including metastatic cancer. Chemotherapy kills rapidly dividing cells, a characteristic of cancer. However, cancer cells can become resistant to chemo drugs over time. Such resistance could be driven by genetic mutations, alterations in the tumor microenvironment, or prolonged exposure to the same agent.

Notably, it's not that chemotherapy "stops working" across the board. Rather, it might cease to work for an individual patient's cancer. When this occurs, oncologists will usually change to another drug, use combination therapies, or investigate clinical trials with newer treatments.

As Professor Ian Davis, Director of ANZUP Cancer Trials Group, explained, “We’ve known for more than 20 years that chemotherapy has significant efficacy in metastatic prostate cancer. It hasn’t stopped working—newer agents are simply expanding our arsenal.”

What Comes Next When Cancer Progresses?

Living with cancer that is advanced is coping not only with the disease but also with the emotional, physical, and practical issues associated with it. Discussions around prognosis, life quality, and treatment options become the forefront. The following is what patients and families need to remember:

• Alternatives are still present, even if a therapy stops working, another can benefit. These include clinical trials, targeted therapies, or symptom-management interventions.
• Support, counseling, support groups, and palliative care services assist patients in coping physically and emotionally.
• Quality of life takes precedence since many individuals opt for treatments that enable them to feel more like they have a sense of normalcy, even though such treatments may not guarantee a cure.

Breakthroughs in genetic testing, liquid biopsies, and tailored medicine are providing physicians with additional tools for comprehending and tackling metastatic disease. Immunotherapies—medications that utilize the body's immune system to combat cancer—are providing long-term remission to some patients who formerly had limited choices.

At the same time, targeted treatments focus specifically on the cancer cells' distinct mutations, minimizing harm to other tissue. For a few types of cancer, such as metastatic lung cancer with particular gene mutations, such targeted medicines have greatly prolonged survival.

Although chemotherapy remains pertinent, the future of cancer treatment is certainly more individualized, targeted, and patient-focused. Although it usually can't be cured, metastatic cancer isn't necessarily a death knell. With the proper treatment team, educated decisions, and emotional support, many patients still discover meaning, happiness, and even renewed vigor as they move through the treatment journey ahead.