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“We wanted to see whether the political affiliation had an association with death rates in the U.S.,” said corresponding author Dr. Haider Warraich, associate physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. “Over these two decades, the mortality gap between Republican and Democratic counties has really widened quite considerably.” Mortality rates in Democratic counties dropped from 850 deaths per 100,000 people to 664, but in Republican counties, mortality rates declined from 867 to 771. The mortality gap widened across leading causes of death in the U.S. including heart disease, cancer, drug overdoses and suicide. Democratic counties also saw greater reductions in deaths from chronic lower respiratory tract diseases, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, and kidney disease. (Rodriguez, 6/7)

Attitudes on health-related issues such as abortion and HIV prevention have long tracked along political lines. The study doesn’t include mortality data from the pandemic, which took hold in the US in March 2020. However, the authors say that divisive posturing around virus countermeasures such as vaccines and mask-wearing could mean that the rift will continue to widen. The pandemic was the first time that politics has become such a salient, identifiable public health issue, Haider Warraich, a physician at Brigham and Women’s and the study’s lead author, said in an interview. “The main implication of our study is that what party environment you live in, or what party ideology you are affiliated with, will have a significant outcome on your health,” he said. (Muller, 6/7)

After surgery, some cancer patients can safely skip radiation or chemotherapy, according to two studies exploring shorter, gentler cancer care. Researchers are looking for ways to precisely predict which cancer patients can avoid unneeded treatment to cut down on harmful side effects and unnecessary costs. One new study used a blood test to determine which colon cancer patients could skip chemotherapy after surgery. Another suggests some low-risk breast cancer patients can omit radiation after lumpectomy. (Johnson, 6/7)

In older people with Type 2 diabetes, the brain appears to age at an accelerated rate — about 26 percent faster than normal, according to research published in the journal eLife. Relying on brain scans, brain functioning tests and other data from 20,314 people, ages 50 to 80, the researchers compared neurological changes in those who did and did not have Type 2 diabetes. In both groups, they found declines in executive functions such as working memory, learning and flexible thinking, as well as declines in brain processing speed. (Searing, 6/7)

When it comes to the human body, age is just a number. Thanks to the regenerative powers of human cells, our bodies constantly create new cells — to the tune of about 330 billion a day. But until now, researchers haven’t known much about how long the cells of one of the most important organs, the liver, live. Research in the journal Cell Systems reveals that humans’ livers are forever young, clocking in at less than three years old despite their hosts’ biological age. (Blakemore, 6/6)