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Study links body image issues in adolescence to adult depression
Teenagers with negative body image are more likely to develop symptoms of eating disorders and depression in early adulthood, a new study suggests.
The research, believed to be the first of its kind, followed more than 2,000 twins born in England and Wales.
It found that higher body dissatisfaction at age 16 predicted greater symptoms of eating disorders and depression well into the twenties, even after taking into account family background and genetics.
Researchers say the findings strengthen evidence that negative body image is not just a reflection of poor mental health but that it can also contribute to it.
Lead author Dr Ilaria Costantini, from UCL’s division of psychiatry, said: “In the last 20 years there has been a concerning increase in depression and eating disorders among young people, so it’s important to find out what is driving this increase in order to develop ways to prevent mental health problems from occurring.”
The study, led by University College London (UCL) and funded by Wellcome, used data from the Twins Early Development Study, a long-running birth cohort tracking the health and wellbeing of twins born between 1994 and 1996.
By comparing identical twins, who share 100 per cent of their DNA, with non-identical twins, who share roughly half, the researchers were able to analyse the roles of shared genetics and environmental influences.
Study participants were asked at age 16 about body image concerns, including feeling “fat”, fearing weight gain and judging themselves by their weight or body shape.
Participants were also surveyed at age 21 about eating disorder symptoms, and at both 21 and 26 about depressive symptoms and body mass index.
The researchers found that higher levels of body dissatisfaction at age 16 were linked to higher eating disorder and depressive symptom scores in early adulthood.
Their twin study design enabled them to factor out the effects of shared genes and other environmental factors shared by the twins, such as the same family, neighbourhood and school, to determine that body image concerns in adolescence do appear to cause an increase in later mental health issues.
While both boys and girls showed links between body dissatisfaction and later mental health problems, the associations were stronger in girls.
Dr Costantini said this could reflect the greater cultural and social pressures placed on young women to meet unrealistic appearance standards.
The researcher said: “In Western societies we typically presume that young women are under greater pressure than young men to look a certain way, especially in relation to thinness, and our findings do suggest that these pressures may translate into stronger long-term mental health effects for girls.
“However, it is important to recognise that this may partly reflect the limited way in which body dissatisfaction was measured in this cohort.
“The items focused mainly on weight and shape, which tend to be more salient concerns for girls.
“If we had captured body dissatisfaction in a broader way, for example by including muscularity, height, skin, or other appearance-related concerns, our findings for boys might have been different.”
Senior author professor Francesca Solmi, from UCL’s division of psychiatry, said the findings underline the importance of tackling body dissatisfaction as part of wider public health strategies:
Solmi said: “It is vital that body dissatisfaction is tackled head-on during the teenage years across multiple settings, including in the school system, government healthcare strategies and in the wider culture.
“We need to create environments that value diversity in appearance and avoid sending harmful messages about weight or beauty ideals.
“That means working with families, schools, and the media to ensure we are not promoting unhealthy beauty and weight standards.”
The USC Clinical Trial Recruitment Lab will fund four projects testing how AI can strengthen recruitment for Alzheimer’s trials.
The initiative, dedicated to accelerating and improving Alzheimer’s clinical trials, selected the projects from more than 30 applicants to explore digital approaches.
Alzheimer’s clinical trials are more complex, costlier and take longer than those in other therapeutic areas, despite the pressing need for new treatments.
The lab evaluates innovative recruitment strategies to improve access and representation in trials, with the goal of identifying scalable evidence-based recruitment practices.
The USC Clinical Trial Recruitment Lab is a collaboration between the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics and the USC Epstein Family Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute.
The four projects will explore the following strategies.
- Miriam Ashford at University of California, San Francisco will develop and test a generative AI voice agent to support remote informed consent and assess patient capacity for Alzheimer’s clinical trials.
- Erika Cottrell at OCHIN, a national network of community health centres, and Vijaya Kolachalama at Cognimark will integrate an AI-enabled diagnostic platform into primary care electronic health record workflows to support earlier identification and referral of patients.
- Andrew Kiselica at University of Georgia will establish a digitally enabled, trial-ready cohort of rural older adults to improve recruitment, participant selection and engagement.
- Raeanne Moore at University of California, San Diego will leverage electronic health record portals and digital cognitive assessments to accelerate prescreening and better match potential participants.
An estimated 5.6 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s and related dementias, a number expected to increase dramatically in the coming decades as the population ages.
An extensive therapeutic development pipeline and new early-detection approaches, such as diagnostic blood tests and advanced digital tools, have the potential to reduce the burden of the disease.
However, fewer than one per cent of eligible individuals participate in Alzheimer’s therapeutic trials due to barriers that include limited patient awareness, health system resource constraints and lack of access to diagnostics, according to research from USC Schaeffer.
Certain populations at higher risk for the disease, including Black and Hispanic patients, remain underrepresented.
“We can only innovate as quickly as we can test new therapies,” said Dana Goldman, founding director of the USC Schaeffer Institute.
“That’s why it’s crucial we keep expanding the toolkit of evidence-based recruitment strategies for running faster, better trials.”
The lab previously funded six pilots, some of which have already yielded insights.
For example, one found remote blood collection could help identify potential participants, while another showed that offering a small gift card significantly increased enrolment in an online memory concerns registry.
“Faster and more effective recruitment is essential, and we’re excited to incorporate these solutions in an integrated way as part of our clinical trials,” said Paul Aisen, founding director of the USC Epstein Family Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute.
“As studies move earlier into pre-symptomatic disease, this opens the door to new recruitment paradigms, and continuing to push forward the science of recruitment will be critical to what comes next in Alzheimer’s research.”
Thousands of men in England will get the prostate cancer drug abiraterone on the NHS within weeks.
For the first time, patients in England whose cancer has not spread will be able to receive abiraterone as the health service widens access to the treatment.
Around 2,000 men diagnosed in the last three months whose cancer has not spread will get access to the treatment if it is of clinical benefit.
An additional 7,000 men are expected to be diagnosed each year and will be eligible for the drug.
The national clinical director for cancer at NHS England, professor Peter Johnson, said: “For thousands of men with prostate cancer, this treatment option could be life-changing by helping keep their cancer at bay for several years.
“The life-extending treatment available on the NHS within weeks will mean thousands of men can kick-start their year with the news that they will have a better chance of living longer and healthier lives.
“The NHS will continue to work hard to offer people the most effective and evidence-based treatments, with several new prostate cancer drugs rolled over the last five years.”
Abiraterone is a hormone-blocking tablet that helps stop prostate cancer spreading by cutting off the testosterone it needs to grow.
Research has shown that for these earlier-stage patients, survival after six years is improved, with trials showing 86 per cent of men alive after six years on abiraterone compared with 77 per cent on standard treatment (hormone therapy with or without radiotherapy).
NHS England has been able to expand access to the drug for thousands more eligible patients by securing better-value supply, following clinical advice to roll this out last year.
The NHS has set a target to save over £1bn on clinically effective biosimilar drugs during this parliament. Biosimilars are approved, lower-cost versions of biological medicines.
More than eight in 10 drugs the NHS now prescribes are lower-cost biosimilar or generic medicines, creating funding for other treatments.
The NHS in England already commissions abiraterone, now available as a lower-cost generic medicine, for advanced prostate cancer, having introduced a policy to commission the treatment in December 2024, nearly one year ahead of positive NICE guidance recommending it in November 2025.
NHS England has worked with campaigners including Prostate Cancer UK to secure this rollout.
In the past five years alone, the NHS in England has also commissioned targeted prostate cancer therapies, including the branded drugs enzalutamide, darolutamide, relugolix and apalutamide.
The health and social care secretary, Wes Streeting, said: “When you’re living with prostate cancer, every day with your loved ones matters.
“I’m delighted the NHS have taken the steps needed to make the drug available, giving thousands of men access to abiraterone, a treatment that significantly improves survival rates and can give patients precious extra years of life.
“We’re backing the best clinical evidence, making smart funding decisions, and ensuring patients get the care they need when they need it most.
“We’re serious about improving prostate cancer outcomes, treating it faster and giving loved ones more time together.”
In parallel with confirming abiraterone’s commissioning, NHS England will also offer blood plasma treatment for people with the rare condition Clarkson’s Syndrome, and genetic testing for parents with pre-existing conditions going through IVF, following clinical advice and enabled by long-term funding.
Sharp rises in blood sugar after meals may raise Alzheimer’s risk, according to genetic analysis of more than 350,000 adults.
The findings point to after-meal glucose, rather than overall blood sugar, as a possible factor in long-term brain health.
Researchers examined genetic and health data from over 350,000 UK Biobank participants aged 40 to 69, focusing on fasting glucose, insulin, and blood sugar measured two hours after eating.
The team used Mendelian randomisation, a genetic method that helps test whether biological traits may play a direct role in disease risk.
People with higher after-meal glucose had a 69 per cent higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
This pattern, known as postprandial hyperglycaemia (elevated blood sugar after eating), stood out as a key factor.
The increased risk was not explained by overall brain shrinkage (atrophy) or white matter damage, suggesting after-meal glucose may affect the brain through other pathways not yet fully understood.
Dr Andrew Mason, lead author, said: “This finding could help shape future prevention strategies, highlighting the importance of managing blood sugar not just overall, but specifically after meals.”
Dr Vicky Garfield, senior author, added: “We first need to replicate these results in other populations and ancestries to confirm the link and better understand the underlying biology.
“If validated, the study could pave the way for new approaches to reduce dementia risk in people with diabetes.”
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