Volume 59, Issue 1, January 2025

New obesity treatments spotlight the need for researchers to advance compassionate, evidence-based communication that bridges clinical insights with societal understanding, addressing challenges like weight stigma, health behaviors, and the evolving perception of obesity.

How should researchers and clinicians in behavioral medicine think about GLP-1 medications, which are soaring in popularity? This commentary discusses the complex implications, both for patients and behavioral medicine research, of having these drugs on the scene.

Investigators are urged to take advantage of resources from NIH and identified in this commentary to learn about and adopt appropriate sample-size and analytic methods for trials to evaluate behavioral interventions so that their results will be reliable and reproducible.

A culturally tailored, couple-based lifestyle intervention demonstrated feasibility, was well-accepted, and showed promise for improving physical activity and diet quality in Black and Hispanic men with prostate cancer and their spouses.

In overweight couples, on days when one partner used persuasion, the other's physical activity was higher, and the persuader felt better. In contrast, daily pressure was not associated with physical activity, and the partner exerting pressure felt worse.

Children who received positive control from their parents to reduce sedentary time reported higher relationship satisfaction, which was associated with lower parental sedentary behavior. However, when parents applied positive control strategies, their children tended to spend more time sitting.

Adults who became more emotionally reactive to daily stressors across 18 years also increased more in their functional health limitations and chronic health conditions relative to those who became less emotionally reactive.

Encouraging the mindset that common side-effects of methotrexate can be positive signals of treatment efficacy improves early treatment experiences, adherence, and continuation for patients diagnosed with an inflammatory rheumatic condition.

Arab immigrants living with type 2 diabetes who are more integrated into the host society manage their diabetes better and experience less distress about their condition.

Both a behavioral sleep intervention and a healthy eating program improved quality of life and mental health in cancer survivors over 12 months, but only the sleep intervention showed reductions in depressive symptoms within the group

A pilot optimisation trial of a multi-component behavioral intervention to support medication adherence in women with breast cancer demonstrated a fully powered optimisation trial is feasible.

Accelerometry and ecological momentary assessment are feasible and acceptable for adolescent and young adult survivors of childhood cancer. Engaging in more physical activity than usual had real-time benefits on pain, fatigue and mood in this population.

A group-based physical activity promotion intervention based on positive psychology was feasible and acceptable among previously inactive adults, and led to clinically meaningful increases in physical activity, happiness, and physical activity enjoyment.

Midlife women who cope more adaptively and flexibly with stressors are more likely to sustain healthy lifestyle behaviors up to 16 years later.

Life course stress across different domains is associated with physical and mental health outcomes in a 50-year-old cohort.

Mechanistic stress regulation patterns in patients with medical illnesses and their family caregivers can be adequately studied using the newly developed stress task.

Smoking/vaping was more likely on days with more compared to less hassles, although the presence of more daily uplifts removed this effect.

Video teach-back intervention helps patients after hip replacement surgery improve mobility, reduce anxiety, and recover more quickly, making it a valuable addition to post-surgery care.

Both men and women with more stress reported lower concurrent lower sexual desire and arousal (and vice versa) in their daily lives. Sexual desire and sexual activity were associated with less stress measured at a later time.

When a speech stressor was repeated twice four months apart, 42 adults had lower anxiety but higher anticipatory IL-6 responses at the second speech. When a marital conflict was repeated one month apart, a different pattern emerged, such that 82 married participants had lower positive affect as well as less cardiovascular reactivity at the second conflict, and negative conflict behavior helped to determine differences in inflammatory and cardiovascular responses between visits.

People with diabetes and depressive symptoms did not experience worse control of their HbA1c, blood pressure, or cholesterol levels over time.

Habitual positive mood and positive mood over the course of a week, but not on single days, were linked to better sleep among middle-aged to older African American adults. However, positive mood did not lessen the negative impact of stress on sleep at any time frame.

Women identifying as gay or lesbian, bisexual, or with a sexual orientation other than straight, gay or lesbian, and men identifying as bisexual experienced inequities in how often they experienced chronic pain. The availability of social support explains some, but not all, of these inequities.

Psychological factors predict the number of symptoms people notice after a flu vaccination, while demographic factors influence whether they believe these are side effects of the vaccine.

Reading a scenario in which a doctor provided weight loss advice led participants to feel motivated to change their health behaviors but also stigmatized for their weight. Higher-weight people felt motivated to change their health behaviors but also stigmatized for their weight after receiving weight loss advice from a healthcare provider in a hypothetical scenario.

Individuals who tend to perceive more psychological safety show elevated vagally-mediated heart rate variability in the laboratory and more increases in heart rate variability independent of metabolic demands in everyday life.

People new to meditation who used Headspace (a mindfulness meditation app) reported a decrease in feelings of stress, a decrease in repetitive thinking, and an increase in perceptions of one’s ability to confront stress.

US Military Veterans’ perceptions about their Gulf War Illness predicted subsequent levels of disability. Beyond these perceptions, Veterans’ perceived concordance with their provider predicted subsequent satisfaction with care and adherence to care plans.

Patients who believe in or respond to an open-label placebo intervention to alleviate chronic back pain are perceived as less competent but more warm. We argue that these judgements pose an obstacle to the widespread adoption of open-label placebos as a medical intervention.

Despite LGBTQ+ people's high risk of interpersonal violence and suicide, little is known about their exposure to firearms and firearm violence. Research on this topic is needed to guide firearm injury prevention efforts.

Patients on the kidney transplant waiting-list may find relief from fatigue through various manipulative and body-based interventions, such as acupressure, massage, and muscle relaxation.

Tai Chi and Qigong improve physical functioning and psychiatric symptoms in people with schizophrenia or mood disorders.