On milestones in healthcare and challenges that remain, women's health, AI and assistive tech, environmental health post Deepavali, and more

This week, health news across the world and India reminded us that progress and challenges often walk hand-in-hand. While the Maldives has become the first country to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV, syphilis, and hepatitis B -- a landmark achievement for public health, other corners of the globe and India continue to grapple with preventable tragedies.

Dr. C. Aravinda reflected on exactly that -- what India can take away from the Maldives' "triple elimination." It's not just the medical intervention, he wrote, but the continuity of policy and the political will to sustain maternal and child health programmes that matter. This conversation felt especially urgent at a time when new research from The Lancet showed that death rates among young people worldwide have not declined, even as overall global mortality has dropped. The findings show an uncomfortable truth: we're losing many adolescents and young adults to preventable causes -- violence, substance use, poor mental health, and road accidents.

That thread of continuity between early prevention and lifelong care wove through much of this week's health reporting. Women's health, for instance, remained at the centre of several important stories.

Afshan Yasmeen reported that women with metabolic syndrome face a higher risk of gynaecological cancers, underscoring how lifestyle diseases are now intersecting with reproductive health. Dr. Shraddha Modi, meanwhile, explained how breast cancer is increasingly affecting younger Indian women, challenging old assumptions about screening and risk. Women also accounted for 49% of hospital admissions under Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY, reported Bindu Shajan Perappadan, a statistic that reflects improved access, but also the rising burden of chronic illness among women.

Another report however, brought in good news for oncology: the Astellas-Pfizer combination therapy halved the risk of death in bladder cancer patients during trials, one of the biggest leaps in survival outcomes this year.

Tech in healthcare is an aspect this newsletter has consistently covered and on that note, Prateek Madhav mapped how artificial intelligence is expanding access, through voice-enabled tools for people with disabilities, while Ankush Sabharwal explores robotics that now assist in healthcare, agriculture, and industrial safety.

And on the digital front, I write on the changing language of medical records, looking at the shift in India's documentation culture, from illegible prescriptions to secure e-health data and what it means for continuity of care.

But while technology offers solutions, it also opens up new risks. A recent investigation revealed that Instagram algorithms feed "eating disorder-adjacent" content to vulnerable teenagers, raising questions about how far mental health harms are being amplified online. The dopamine economy, as Dr. Pretty Duggar Gupta calls it, is already rewiring how we seek pleasure in devices and online content, and reward in our daily lives.

Some of the week's headlines were quieter but no less fascinating. A study identified patterns in RNA sequences linked to psychiatric disorders, offering a potential roadmap to understanding how genes shape mental illness. Another research team reported that music can help ease pain after surgery literally changing neural responses to discomfort.

Meanwhile, Zubeda Hamid's In Focus Podcast tackled a subject that caused widespread concern among parents -- the paracetamol-autism controversy. An expert decoded the evidence behind the claims and underlined a larger point: how misinformation, especially around common drugs, can distort public perception and erode trust in everyday medicine.

Elsewhere, Nathaniel Johnson's piece for The Conversation unpacked the tricky math of antioxidant intake, a reminder that even in the world of nutrition, more isn't always better.

Environmental health was again in sharp focus, as Delhi's air quality plunged during Deepavali. Multiple reports chronicled the sequence: the festival glow, followed by choking skies, "very poor" air, and Stage 2 curbs under the GRAP protocol. The week's coverage asked the same question that returns each year --how long before the right to breathe clean air becomes non-negotiable?

Meanwhile, Ramya Kannan reported that the rotavirus vaccine continues to prove highly effective against gastroenteritis in children, and she revisited the call by Dr. Gagandeep Kang for renewed vaccine equity through India's Universal Immunisation Programme. And Siddharth Kumar Singh chronicled a paediatrician's eight-year legal fight that led to the FSSAI banning oral rehydration salts (ORS) in food products, a significant regulatory win.

In this week in the Nobel series, we explored the work of Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramón y Cajal -- the pioneers who mapped the intricate architecture of the nervous system.

Health Matters newsletter: Tracking health progress and gaps