Similar studies

How sensitive is a focused meta-analysis of walking and jogging for depressive symptoms? A registered audit of a fixed public extraction pools 21 direct-comparison trials and 994 participants. Post-treatment Hedges g is -0.762, with a confidence interval from -1.203 to -0.321. Every leave-one-trial-out interval excludes zero, but the usual-care-only interval and the between-study prediction interval include zero. No included trial has an overall low-risk-of-bias rating. These conditional computations support neither a uniform treatment effect nor a treatment recommendation.

• Published, Reproduced, Reviewed.Published, Reproduced, Reviewed: In the fixed Noetel et al. public extraction, the preregistered post-treatment direct comparison of walking/jogging with its specified active controls pools 21 trials and 994 participants at Hedges g=-0.762 (95% modified Hartung-Knapp confidence interval -1.203 to -0.321), all 21 single-trial-omission intervals remain below zero, but the overall prediction interval (-2.613 to 1.088) and usual-care-only confidence interval (-1.650 to 0.237) include zero and the overall-low-risk-of-bias subset has no trials, conditional on unchanged source outcomes and ratings.

Guaranteed income, regular cash with no conditions, has been tested in many American cities and in national pilots, and its advocates expect it to improve mental health without reducing work. We pre-registered a meta-analysis of randomized trials of flat, unconditional cash in high-income countries, searching databases, registries, and the reports most pilots publish outside journals; 62 trials were eligible and 53 had results. About a year into payments, mental health was better in the cash arms by 0.09 standard deviations (CI 0.041 to 0.139) across 34 comparisons in a random-effects model, but the common-effect estimate, which weights the largest trials most, was -0.002 (-0.023 to 0.018), and smaller trials reported larger effects. Employment changed by 0.599 percentage points (-2.533 to 3.731), and the mental-health effect did not fade during payments. Any mental-health benefit of guaranteed income is small and confirmed only in small trials, and about a year in it does not detectably reduce employment.

• Published, Reproduced.Published, Reproduced: In 34 comparisons from 32 randomized trials of recurring unconditional cash in high-income countries (16,834 people analysed), mental health about 12 months into payments was better in the cash arms by a pooled standardized mean difference of 0.090 (95% CI 0.041 to 0.139; Holm-corrected p = 0.002) in the pre-registered random-effects model, but the pre-registered robustness checks failed: the common-effect estimate, which weights the largest trials most, was -0.002 (-0.023 to 0.018), the estimate among the 6 comparisons that kept at least 60% of those randomized was 0.043 (-0.077 to 0.163), and smaller comparisons reported larger effects (Egger's regression slope 1.54, 95% CI 0.75 to 2.33; p < 0.001).

The World Health Organization's 2020 guideline recommended giving mass azithromycin, which lowers child mortality in high-mortality settings of sub-Saharan Africa, only to infants, to limit antibiotic resistance; no trial had then tested that. Under a pre-registered plan we pooled every randomized trial by whom it treated. Treating all children under five lowered their mortality by 14.1% (CI 7.4% to 20.3%), consistently across trials. In the three trials that treated only infants, infant mortality was not detectably lower (rate ratio 0.971, CI 0.867 to 1.086), an interval that excludes the effect of treating all children. Infants had lower mortality when all children were treated, though a between-trial comparison of the two strategies fell short of significance, and giving azithromycin to individual infants at clinic visits showed no effect. The infant-only approach has not lowered mortality in any trial that tested it; treating all children under five has.

• Published, Reproduced.Published, Reproduced: In 5 placebo-controlled comparisons from 3 cluster-randomized trials (MORDOR in Niger, Malawi and Tanzania; AVENIR in Niger; CHAT in Burkina Faso), twice-yearly mass azithromycin to every child 1 to 59 months old lowered mortality among children 1 to 59 months by 14.1% (rate ratio 0.859, 95% CI 0.797 to 0.926; Holm-corrected p = 0.015; I² = 0%), and the reduction held with a common-effect model (0.859, 0.813 to 0.908) and with any one comparison left out (largest p = 0.044).
• Published, Reproduced.Published, Reproduced:

Whether antidepressants raise suicidal behaviour in adults is disputed: the FDA's pooled trials found no increase past young adulthood, and re-analyses of approval data on newer drugs found more suicide attempts. We tested this in the serious adverse events placebo-controlled trials posted to ClinicalTrials.gov, under a registered plan. This version corrects the first, which counted a participant listed under two of an outcome's terms twice. With the posted tables and the trials' public reports, serious suicidal behaviour affected 43 adults on antidepressants and 17 to 18 on placebo (risk ratio 1.86 to 1.96): nominally significant, but at the least favourable count not after the registered correction for two endpoints. Without the trials the re-analyses also used, the excess is similar but less certain. Pediatric trials showed more serious suicidality on antidepressants, as the FDA found. These data lean toward more suicidal behaviour in adults but cannot establish it.

• Published, Reproduced.Published, Reproduced: Of the 932 interventional studies naming an antidepressant with results posted on ClinicalTrials.gov on 2026-10-13, 393 randomized trials compare an antidepressant with placebo in 413 comparisons with 99,730 participants at risk in their adverse-event tables. In the 306 adult trials that randomized participants from the start (71,643 participants), nausea is more frequent on antidepressants in the 207 comparisons whose non-serious tables list it (57,580 participants; Mantel-Haenszel risk ratio 2.08, 95% CI 1.98 to 2.18), as these drugs' known side effects predict.

An observational atlas linked GLP-1 receptor agonists to dozens of outcomes beyond glucose, weight and the heart. We pooled the serious adverse events that 234 placebo-controlled trials, with 161309 participants, posted to ClinicalTrials.gov, coded blind to the results under a registered plan. Reports of serious bacterial infection (ratio 0.88, confidence interval 0.83 to 0.93) and pneumonia (0.87) were less frequent on the drugs, as were pneumonia counted in people and death. The reductions held under random effects, with any trial left out, if infection terms overlapped within participants as all serious events do in each comparison, and in trials not coded as recording only on treatment. Of the atlas's associations with enough events to test, the trials found three in its direction with no difference from it detected, contradicted none, and left most inconclusive, among them every neurological and psychiatric one; its large hazard of drug-induced pancreatitis concerns a subtype the trials don't separate.

• Published, Reproduced.Published, Reproduced: Of the 539 interventional studies of GLP-1 receptor agonists with results on ClinicalTrials.gov on 2026-10-12, 234 randomized trials compare a GLP-1 receptor agonist with placebo, in 257 comparisons with 161,309 participants in their adverse-event tables (93,765 on the drugs and 67,544 on placebo). In them, reports of serious gallbladder and biliary disease, counting a participant once for each of the outcome's terms they had, are more frequent on the drugs (Mantel-Haenszel ratio 1.38, 95% CI 1.21 to 1.57), and so are reports of serious nausea and vomiting (2.02, 1.52 to 2.68), as the trials' own publications and the drugs' labels lead one to expect.