A large global study revealed that women report suffering from pain to a greater degree than men in various parts of the body.
According to the British newspaper The Guardian, the study included data collected from more than 6 million people from 118 countries during the period from 1990 to 2025, and their ages ranged from five years to more than 100 years.
The study team examined pain rates in 11 locations of the body, including the head, face, neck, shoulder, foot, ankle, hand, wrist, chest, back, abdomen, thigh, and knee.
The researchers found that women reported higher levels of pain in all locations measured, and the differences were particularly clear for headaches and facial and abdominal pain.
For both men and women, pain increases occur before age 55, then peak at age 75 or later, with back, hip, and knee pain increasing with age.
The study also showed that people residing in areas ranked lower in the “Human Development Index” suffered significantly from “higher rates of body pain in the later stages of life,” and recorded rates of lower back pain that were almost double the rates recorded among the elderly in other areas.
The researchers noted that current estimates of pain rates focus on medical diagnoses, which may exclude people who have difficulty accessing health care services, which is why they analyzed rates of self-reported pain.
They stated that this analysis could provide the basis for more equitable pain monitoring and prevention efforts.
The death of a 28-year-old Russian laboratory technician sparked a state of health anxiety, after her death was suspected to be linked to pneumonic plague, while Russian officials confirmed that “the situation is under control.”
Rospotrebnadzor, the Russian authority responsible for combating infectious diseases, announced that the young woman, who works at the Irkutsk Institute for Research and Plague Control in Siberia, died after being diagnosed with pneumonia of “unknown” origin.
For its part, the People of Baikal news website reported, citing unnamed sources close to the security services in the region, that she may have contracted pneumonic plague due to a broken test tube.
Yesterday, Monday, US President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that the United States would provide assistance to Russia in this regard, describing the outbreak of the disease as a “big problem for Russia.”
This came after a Trump administration official told Axios on Sunday that the White House “is aware of the reports related to the death of the young Russian woman, is following developments in the situation, and is studying the available options.”
What is pneumonic plague?
Plague is a bacterial disease caused by the plague bacterium called Yersinia pestis. It has three main forms: bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, and septicemic plague.
According to a report published by the Washington Post, pneumonic plague is the most dangerous of these forms and the most capable of being transmitted between humans. Its symptoms can appear quickly, sometimes within 24 hours of infection, and it is transmitted from one person to another through respiratory droplets.
The World Health Organization says that “pneumonic plague is highly contagious and can cause serious epidemics through transmission between people through respiratory droplets.”
Despite its seriousness, the disease is treatable with antibiotics, and the chances of recovery are high when treatment begins early, especially during the first hours of symptoms appearing.
If the disease is not detected and treated early, pneumonic plague may be fatal.
What symptoms should you pay attention to?
Prominent and painful swelling of the lymph nodes, known as plague boils, which results from the multiplication of bacteria within the lymph nodes, does not necessarily appear in people with pneumonic plague.
However, the most prominent symptoms of pneumonic plague are fever, headache, weakness, shortness of breath, chest pain, cough, and rapidly developing pneumonia, which may be accompanied by the discharge of watery or bloody mucus.
How can we confirm the cause of death of a laboratory technician in Russia?
The cause of the death of the Russian laboratory technician is not yet completely clear. If the Russian authorities confirm that the death was caused by pneumonic plague, the World Health Organization is supposed to be informed, but this may take time while the authorities conduct laboratory tests and tissue analyzes to confirm the presence of plague bacteria.
Current and former American officials called on Moscow to share as much information as possible about the incident.
Doctor Ashish Jha, who co-led the US response to the Corona pandemic during the administration of President Joe Biden, said: “What we need now is transparency from the Russian authorities, and I am concerned about whether we will get it or not.”
Therefore, the most important indicator during the coming period will be the results of official tests, the emergence of any new cases among contacts, and whether the Russian authorities will confirm the transmission of the disease from one person to another.
Until these data become clear, the information received does not indicate the presence of a widespread outbreak, but the nature of pneumonic plague makes monitoring the situation extremely important.
Your friend goes on a diet and loses weight, so you try it and don't get the same result. So you're wondering: Did I do it wrong, or does your body need something different? Behind this everyday question is a growing field of research trying to understand the differences in our responses to food, and using artificial intelligence to search for more personalized answers.
Imagine an app that suggests meals after analyzing your eating habits and some indicators of your health, instead of sending the same menu to everyone. This idea is already being tested in various forms, but there is still a distance between a recommendation that seems designed for you and one that is proven to improve your health.
Will artificial intelligence bring us closer to a food that suits everyone, or does it add new promise to a crowded diet market?
More than a prohibited list
“Personalized nutrition” is based on the fact that people’s needs and circumstances are not identical. Age, health status, medications, physical activity, and daily habits are all factors that affect choosing the appropriate food. Research is trying to add deeper information - such as genes, metabolic markers, and gut microbes - to this picture.
The idea does not mean abolishing the principles of general healthy nutrition, or that every person has a secret diet waiting to be discovered. The customization may be simple: advice that takes into account a chronic disease, the family budget, available foods, or the person’s ability to adhere.
The important question then: When do analyzes and algorithms add a benefit worth their cost and complexity?
Guests at our table
Within the intestine live communities of microorganisms known as the gut microbiome. It participates in processing food components, interacts with the body, and its composition varies between individuals. But reading these differences and turning them into useful advice is not an easy task.
In a study published in the journal Nature Medicine on March 23, 2026, researchers analyzed data from 10,068 participants in the Human Phenotype Project, combining food records through the application and analysis of the microbiome.
The team found associations between eating certain foods and the abundance of types of gut microbes, and dietary patterns, including the degree of food processing, were linked to the diversity and composition of these communities.
The researchers developed a simulation to explore how personal dietary modifications might change the microbiome. But they were research predictions; The study did not prove that following lists suggested by the algorithm actually improves health. This is a fundamental difference between drawing a potential path and trying it.
What does the algorithm do?
It is difficult for humans to discover the interwoven relationships within thousands of nutritional records and health measurements. Here machine learning algorithms can look for patterns, build models that predict potential responses, or suggest options worth testing.
But the prediction is affected by the data that the system has learned from. If food records are incomplete, or participants are not representative of recent users, its accuracy may be reduced. Also, discovering a link between a food and a microbe is not enough to prove that changing that food will prevent or treat a disease.
Therefore, the quality of a recommendation is not measured by how detailed it is, or the attractiveness of the application, but rather by what happens to those who follow it compared to other suitable nutritional advice.
Real benefits... but limited
A systematic review and meta-analysis published in The Journal of Nutrition on September 23, 2026 provides an important test of these promises.
The review included 262 studies on personalized nutrition supported by technologies, including artificial intelligence, apps, and wearable devices. Not all of them were therapeutic trials, or used artificial intelligence alone.
In studies that could be statistically combined, the average difference in weight was about two kilograms in favor of the interventions studied. Modest benefits also appeared in reducing waist circumference and systolic blood pressure, while there was no statistically significant overall improvement in sugar and lipid indicators.
Most importantly, the strength of the evidence ranged from low to very low, due to the disparity and limitations of the studies. Therefore, these averages do not represent a promise of what each user will achieve, nor do they prove the superiority of every program that raises the slogan “smart nutrition.”
Does the app know your table?
For the Arab reader, personalization begins with a practical question: Does the system actually understand the food we eat? A single dish may have different ingredients, portions, and cooking method from one home to another, and databases may not accurately reflect this diversity. Then come the questions of cost and privacy: Does the recommendation require repeated testing? Who keeps your health data? Can you buy the suggested foods and include them in family meals?
Advice that seems perfect on screen may fail if it ignores the life of its recipient. It remains important for the dietitian to link scientific information to disease, medications, preferences, and daily reality.
Before you hand over your phone the menu
This research does not declare the end of diets, but rather calls for testing a better way to choose and follow them. Artificial intelligence may become a useful tool when it helps a person understand his options and gives the specialist information that can be reviewed. The question that should precede participation in any program is: What is the evidence that its recommendations improve health? And for whom? And over how long?
The application may know thousands of foods, but knowing what suits you also requires evidence, experience, and dialogue. Success is not that your meal becomes more complicated, but that your health becomes better, and that you are able to continue.
