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Eco-Anxiety in Children: Art and Philosophy Trial

MHD featured image for eco-anxiety in children and a classroom art and philosophy trial.

A 2026 pilot trial tested a classroom program for children's climate anxiety: art projects plus guided discussion were supposed to help students express climate emotions and build coping skills. The intervention did not work better than waitlist control, but it also did not make children more anxious. Research Highlights The intervention failed to separate: 46 …

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Heart Failure Depression Linked to Oral Health and Microbiome Dysbiosis

MHD featured image for emotional disorders, heart failure, and oral microbiome research.

A 2026 analysis linked emotional disorders in heart failure to poorer cardiovascular health, oral-health burden, and oral microbiome dysbiosis, but the strongest mediation signal came from oral health rather than systemic immune-inflammation index.1 In fully adjusted NHANES models, emotional disorders were associated with lower Life’s Essential 8 cardiovascular health, OR 0.39, while self-rated oral health …

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Low-Dose Oral THC Did Not Reduce Stress Memory Distress: 36-Adult Trier RCT

Stylized Trier Social Stress Test memory scene with THC capsule and stress-response signals, representing a randomized trial showing no reduction in stress-memory distress.

Cannabis users often say the drug helps them blunt stressful memories. A 2026 randomized trial of 36 healthy adults tested low-dose oral THC against placebo during retrieval of a standardized lab stressor, and on every subjective and physiological measure that mattered, THC did nothing.1 Research Highlights 36-adult, 3-arm RCT: participants got placebo, 5 mg oral …

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Student Mental Health AI Reached 95% Accuracy in Kaggle Data

A 2026 PLOS One machine-learning study reported 95.0% accuracy for a hybrid FT-Transformer plus long short-term memory (LSTM) model predicting student mental-health risk. The technical result is strong inside the dataset, but the clinical claim is still limited because the labels came from repository data rather than prospective clinical diagnosis.1 Research Highlights 95.0% accuracy was …

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Online MBCT for Cancer Distress: 9-Month Trial Data

MHD featured image for online mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and cancer-related distress.

A 2026 analysis followed 161 people with cancer for 9 months to evaluate whether 2 forms of online mindfulness-based cognitive therapy reduced psychological distress: therapist-led group-blended care and individual self-guided modules. Psychological distress improved significantly in both formats, but fewer participants dropped out when the program included therapist-led group sessions. Research Highlights Distress improved through …

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AI Therapy Chatbot and ChatGPT Both Reduced PHQ-9 Depression Scores

MHD featured image for AI therapy chatbot versus ChatGPT depression trial.

A 147-person feasibility randomized trial found that both a structured AI therapy chatbot and general ChatGPT reduced PHQ-9 depression scores compared with assessment-only control, with effect sizes of d = −0.47 and d = −0.44.1 The purpose-built therapy bot did not significantly outperform ChatGPT on depression, anxiety, impairment, or wellbeing. Research Highlights Both chatbots reduced …

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Major Upper-Extremity Amputation Raised Mental Health Odds

Major upper-extremity amputation was linked to substantially higher odds of new mental-health diagnosis, antidepressant initiation, and psychotherapy claims than minor upper-extremity amputation in a matched national database study. The clearest clinical implication is early mental-health screening after major limb loss, not waiting for distress to surface months later.1 Research Highlights 2,452 matched patients were analyzed: …

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