Love to eat potatoes? Consume the starchy vegetable baked or boiled, but not as French fries, according to a study which showed that eating the popular snack item thrice a week may increase the risk of diabetes by 20 per cent.

Three more people have died due to dengue in Bangladesh in the past 24 hours till Wednesday morning, raising the death toll from the mosquito-borne disease in 2025 to 92.

Are you someone who reaches for a cup of coffee every night? According to a new study, nighttime caffeine consumption can increase impulsive behaviour, potentially leading to reckless actions, especially among women.

The findings could have negative implications for shift workers, health care, and military personnel who consume coffee at night, particularly females, said a team of biologists from The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP).

The study, published in the journal iScience, examined how nighttime caffeine intake affects inhibition and impulsivity in fruit flies.

Romania recorded 1,703 new cases of COVID-19 in July 2025, marking a 232 per cent increase compared to the previous month, according to data released by the National Institute of Public Health (INSP).

Of the total cases, 442 were reinfections, occurring more than 90 days after the initial diagnosis.

The INSP also reported seven COVID-19-related deaths in July, involving five men and two women. Four of the individuals were aged 70 to 79, and three were over 80. All had underlying health conditions.

Testing activity increased last month, with 860 RT-PCR tests and 14,750 rapid antigen tests performed, up 25.5 per cent from June. The overall positivity rate rose to 10.9 per cent, an increase of 6.8 percentage points.

Following a healthy diet to lose weight? Make sure it's minimally processed, suggests a study, which showed that reducing processing could help to sustain a healthy weight.

In a first, researchers from the University College London (UCL) nutritionally matched minimally processed (MPF) and ultra-processed (UPF) diets.

The results, published in the journal Nature Medicine, showed that participants lost twice as much weight eating minimally processed foods compared to ultra-processed foods.

“The primary outcome of the trial was to assess percentage changes in weight, and on both diets, we saw a significant reduction, but the effect was nearly double on the minimally processed diet,” said Dr Samuel Dicken, first author of the study from the UCL Centre for Obesity Research.

Chronic inflammation may be associated with an increased risk of frailty, social disadvantage, and cardiovascular disease (CVD), according to a study.

The study, published in the journal Communications Medicine, looked at 74 inflammation-related proteins in blood samples from more than 2,000 women aged between 37 and 84 years and explored how inflammation was linked to frailty, area-level social deprivation, and CVD risk.

The researchers identified 10 inflammatory proteins that were associated with both frailty and living in a deprived area.

Of these, four proteins that are involved in cellular signaling, growth, and movement (TNFSF14, HGF, CDCP1, and CCL11) were also linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

The brain might become the target of new type 1 diabetes treatments and pave a better way for insulin management, according to a study.

Researchers had, over a decade ago, found that an acute complication of type 1 diabetes -- diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) -- can be resolved with the hormone leptin, even in the absence of insulin.

In the analysis, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the team explained how leptin affects the brain and how it might be used in future therapeutics.

DKA happens when the body is unable to make insulin and begins to break down fat for fuel. This can lead to a life-threatening buildup of sugar (glucose) and ketoacids in the blood.

Corneal blindness, once considered a condition largely confined to the elderly, is now emerging as a significant threat among teenagers and young adults across the country, health experts said on Monday.

Corneal blindness, while serious, is a largely preventable cause of blindness. It occurs when the transparent front part of the eye, the cornea, becomes cloudy or scarred due to infections, trauma, or nutritional deficiencies.

Corneal opacities are now the second leading cause of blindness in India, affecting tens of thousands annually.

According to experts at the Indian Society of Cornea and Kerato-Refractive Surgeons’ (ISCKRS) three-day meet in New Delhi, India, records between 20,000 and 25,000 new cases of corneal blindness every year, and the number is growing.

Ahead of the UN treaty on plastics, a new report in The Lancet journal on Monday has warned that plastic pollution is an underrecognised threat to the health of both humans and the planet, which must be addressed immediately.

The report, led by a group of international experts, reviews the current evidence on how plastics -- including microplastics and plastic chemicals -- impact health.

“Plastics are a grave, growing, and under-recognised danger to human and planetary health. Plastics cause disease and death from infancy to old age and are responsible for health-related economic losses exceeding $1.5 trillion annually,” said corresponding author Prof Philip J Landrigan, from Boston College, US.

The report discusses evidence that plastics endanger human health at every stage of their life cycle -- in production, use, and disposal. It showed that airborne emissions from plastic production include particulate matter (PM2.5), sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides, as well as hazardous chemicals to which plastic workers can be exposed.