Stomach cancer is a type of cancer that develops in the lining of the stomach. Also, known as Gastric cancer, it affects the elderly more than the adult. According to the American Cancer Society, about 6 of every 10 people diagnosed with stomach cancer each year are 65 or older. Also, the lifetime risk of developing stomach cancer is higher in men (about 1 in 101) than in women (about 1 in 155).

A health expert, speaking to a leading media house, emphasized five common symptoms of stomach cancer that should not be ignored:

1. Unexplained weight loss: Losing weight without trying or experiencing an unexplained drop in appetite, which may signal cancer progression.

2. Pain in the upper part of the abdomen: Persistent or occasional pain in the stomach area, often after eating, can become more severe as the condition progresses.

3. Frequent vomiting after meals: Nausea, sometimes accompanied by vomiting, may occur especially after meals and is linked to cancer blocking or irritating the stomach.

4. Vomiting blood, which may appear coffee-colored: This can indicate bleeding in the stomach, often caused by ulcers or tumors, and requires immediate medical attention.

5. Black, tarry stools: This occurs when blood from the stomach is digested and passed through the intestines, signaling potential internal bleeding

There are also other concerning signs that should not be overlooked such as jaundice, unexplained weight loss, early onset of diabetes, dark stools, and loss of appetite. Health experts strongly advise seeking immediate medical attention if you notice any of these symptoms. If you or a loved one experience these signs, it's crucial to visit a physician for a thorough evaluation to rule out serious underlying health conditions.

How Does Stomach Cancer Spread?

Oncologist Dr Pankaj Kumar Pande, Director–Surgical Oncology, Max Super Specialty Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, Delhi explained that this form of cancer spreads through three main pathways: Direct spread, lymphatic spread, and bloodstream.

1. Direct Spread: In its early stages, stomach cancer can invade nearby tissues and grow into the deeper layers of the stomach or spread to surrounding organs such as the oesophagus, liver, pancreas, or intestines.

2. Lymphatic Spread: Cancer cells can travel through the lymphatic system. The most common areas affected are the regional lymph nodes near the stomach, particularly those around the liver and diaphragm.

3. Bloodstream: "Cancer cells can enter the bloodstream and travel to distant parts of the body," which is a common route for stomach cancer to metastasize to distant organs.

He further explained that cancerous cells spread from the original tumour to other parts of the body through a process called Metastasis. The most common sites for the spread are the liver, lymph nodes, peritoneum, lungs, bones, and ovaries.

Climate change is no longer a distant environmental concern. The effects of increasing temperatures, extreme weather events, melting glaciers, changing rainfall patterns and worsening air pollution on human health are alarming. Countries are continually identifying these health risks but monitoring if their climate policies are actually effective is the big question. This is one of the important areas of discussion at the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31), which starts on November 9, 2026 in Antalya, Türkiye.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is stressing upon health to become a central part of climate policy discussions. The health body has urged countries to increase focus on measurable action, healthcare systems that can withstand climate change and funding to execute those actions.

Ahead of the conference, Dr Diarmid Campbell Lendrum, Head of the Climate Change, Energy, and Air Quality Unit at WHO headquarters said, “Health is the strongest argument for climate action."

Countries Need Reliable Health Indicators For Climate Change

Also read: Climate Crisis Is A Health Crisis: Just 6 Actions Could Save 1.6 Million Lives, Says WHO

Climate change has numerous effects on health. Extreme heat can lead to dehydration, heat exhaustion and heatstroke, while floods and droughts can disrupt access to safe drinking water, food and healthcare. Changing temperatures and rainfall patterns can also fuel spread of infectious diseases, including mosquito-borne illnesses.

Air pollution, which is closely linked to the burning of fossil fuels, adds to the burden of respiratory and cardiovascular disease.

However, measuring these effects is not as straightforward as one might think.

An increase in hospital admissions during a heatwave, for instance, could be considered an indicator, but countries also need to monitor who is most affected, whether healthcare facilities can cope and whether preventive measures are working.

A WHO review published in October 2025, Mapping Climate Change and Health Indicators, examined 31 reports from 22 countries. It identified 3,880 indicators being used to assess health risks related to climate change. After removing overlaps and combining similar measures, researchers identified 1,684 unique indicators.

These indicators covered climate hazards, population exposure, vulnerability, health outcomes, the impact on healthcare systems, future risks, and the policies and resources available to address them.

What Will Countries Measure?

Also read: Big Lancet Report: Heat-Related Deaths Rise 36% Since Paris Climate Agreement, Global Warming Blamed

Health indicators can help governments think beyond recording extreme weather events and examine their consequences for public health and healthcare systems. Some of the areas that countries could monitor include:

• Heat-related illness and deaths: Hospital admissions, emergency visits and mortality linked to extreme temperatures.
• Infectious diseases: Changes in the geographical spread of climate-related diseases, including dengue and malaria.
• Food and water security: Malnutrition, food insecurity and illnesses linked with unsafe drinking water.
• Healthcare infrastructure: The number of hospitals vulnerable to floods, heatwaves and other extreme weather events.
• Healthcare preparedness: Availability of early warning systems, emergency response plans, trained health workers and essential emergency medicines.
• Population vulnerability: Health impacts on children, older adults, people with disabilities, outdoor workers and underprivileged communities.

What Is WHO Calling For At COP31?

WHO is using COP31 to push for stronger implementation of existing climate and health commitments. Its priorities include making healthcare systems resilient to climate change, reducing the health sector's environmental footprint and ensuring that health considerations are included in climate policies and financing decisions.

The conference will begin with a dedicated Health Day on November 9, featuring discussions on health technologies related to climate, digital health, humanitarian response and resilient healthcare systems.

WHO's November 2026 briefing estimates that 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts highly vulnerable to climate change. It also says that scaling up six climate health actions could save 1.6 million lives annually and generate around US$24 in returns for every dollar invested.

Ultimately the challenge for countries is to turn climate and health commitments into measurable improvements. Tracking heat-related deaths, diseases, healthcare preparedness and unequal health impacts can help governments understand where action is working and where gaps remain.

A wearable device developed by Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal has sparked a massive social media debate among doctors over its scientific claims and validity.

Called Temple, the gadget, worn on the forehead, is designed to track physiological signals linked with blood flow in the brain and generate a metric called 'Entropy', which, according to Goyal, is a measure of the body's real-time energy expenditure.

Priced at Rs 85,000, one of the factors that has sparked arguments, the device is now available pre-orders in India. However, medical experts have questioned whether the technology can accurately measure what it claims to and whether its readings offer meaningful insights into brain health, ageing or longevity.

The controversy intensified after Goyal defended the project against criticism from doctors. In a post on X, he said the development had cost $30 million, including $20 million of his personal money. He also said further research was underway.

“We have a number of new research breakthroughs coming up (especially Entropy), and are validating them as we speak,” Goyal wrote on November 6.

Can Temple Actually Measure Blood Flow To The Brain?

Also read: This Easily Available Nutrient Can Also Slow Down Ageing

One of the main concerns is the device's sensor placement. Temple uses optical sensors based on photoplethysmography (PPG), positioned near the temple. These detect changes in blood flow through superficial blood vessels.

However, the superficial temporal artery supplies blood to the scalp and face. The brain receives its blood supply primarily through the internal carotid and vertebral arteries. A signal detected from a superficial vessel cannot automatically be interpreted as a measurement of blood circulation inside the brain.

Dr. Cyriac Abby Philips, widely known online as The Liver Doc, is one of the many doctors who challenged Goyal's claims about Temple on social media post.

He wrote, "Deepinder's Temple device is very much like Baba Ramdev's Coronil. Only one difference. Former is scienceploitation, latter is pseudoscience and both are harmful in their own ways. Learn to identify a scam and fraud when you see one."

Dr Jason Philip, in an X post, called the research behind the device "pseudoscience". He said that the gravity ageing hypothesis is a flawed concept. Ageing is a result of many factors like metabolic factors, genomic instability, mitochondrial dysfunction, chronic inflammation and more.

Many also slammed Goyal for selling the device without solid research or clinical outcomes.

Dr Rishabh Jain responded to Goyal's post, saying that doctors asking for scientific evidence is a legitimate demand. He also said that Goyal's response to clinical questions are mostly commerce-based and does not "constitute scientific validation".

Dr Kapil Singhal, Director of Neurology at the Institute of Neurosciences, Medanta, Noida, told Mint, “Temple appears to be measuring blood flow in the superficial temporal artery, which supplies blood to the scalp, not the brain. The brain receives blood through the internal carotid and vertebral arteries. These are not the same.”

Dr Praveen Gupta, Chairman of Marengo Asia International Institute of Neuro & Spine, Gurugram, also cautioned against treating a reading from one location as representative of the entire brain.

A device may detect physiological changes near the forehead but establishing that these reflect cerebral blood flow requires comparison with established clinical measurements and independent validation.

What Is Entropy And Why Are Doctors Questioning It?

Also read: Mental Health And Longevity: The Mind-Body Connection To Aging Gracefully

Goyal has described Entropy as a new biomarker that measures how hard the body is working to sustain itself. The score is influenced by factors like sleep, exercise, stress, food and meditation.

However, doctors say that a metric responding to changes in activity does not establish what biological function it measures.

Neurologist Dr Sudhir Kumar told India Today that the idea was interesting but required stronger evidence.

“The idea of developing a novel physiological metric from signals recorded over the temple region is certainly intriguing, and advances in wearable technology have the potential to improve our understanding of human physiology. However, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” he said.

He added, “The key questions are not whether the signal changes with exercise, stress, or meditation, but whether it reliably measures what it claims to measure, whether it adds information beyond existing metrics, and whether acting on it improves health outcomes.”

In other words, doctors want to know how Entropy is calculated, what it represents biologically and whether it has been independently shown to improve health outcomes.

Gravity Ageing Hypothesis

Temple is also associated with Goyal's Gravity Ageing Hypothesis which proposes that gravity and prolonged periods spent upright may affect blood circulation to the brain and contribute to ageing.

However, the brain has a mechanism called cerebral autoregulation that helps maintain relatively stable blood flow despite changes in posture and blood pressure.

Dr Gupta told The Indian Express, “The brain automatically adjusts the size of its blood vessels and regulates blood supply to ensure that it continues to receive enough oxygen and nutrients, even when we change positions, stand up or exercise.”

He added that there is no established scientific evidence that everyday exposure to gravity progressively damages the brain or accelerates ageing.

More About Temple

Goyal has said that Temple is a wellness and research product rather than a medical device. He has also argued that its claims will be independently verifiable and that more research will be shared soon.

However, doctors say the difference between detecting a physiological signal and demonstrating its clinical significance is crucial. Temple's ability to track certain readings would not, by itself, establish that it can diagnose neurological conditions, predict cognitive decline or measure longevity.

Kidney cancer, often considered as a disease associated with older adults, has been increasing in people under 50, according to latest data released by NHS England. The data shows that diagnoses in people under 50 have increased in one year as the number of cases in this age group increased by 12% between 2023 and 2024, prompting experts to highlight symptoms that can easily be mistaken for less serious health problems.

According to the figures, 1,227 people under 50 were diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2024, compared to 1,095 in 2023. Although kidney cancer remains more common in older adults, the increase sparks concerns about recognising early warning signs in younger people.

A study published in BJC Reports, which analysed more than 200,000 kidney cancer cases in England between 1985 and 2020, found that incidence among people under 50 had increased substantially. The rise was 157% among men and 133% among women.

Researchers said some of the increase may be linked to certain changing risk factors, including rising obesity rates, but other explanations still remain unclear.

Kidney Cancer May Be Difficult To Recognise In Younger Adults

Also read: Fruits & Vegetables May Help Prevent Acid Buildup Better Than Oral Sodium Bicarbonate In CKD: 10-Year Trial

One challenge is that kidney cancer may not cause obvious symptoms in its early stages. When symptoms do appear, they can resemble common conditions like muscle strain, urinary infections or other causes of back pain.

Andrew Greaves, general manager of Kidney Cancer UK, told the Daily Mail, “It’s very easy to miss, notoriously so.”

Back or side pain, chronic fatigue and night sweats are among the symptoms that can be overlooked. Greaves said around a third of patients report pain in the back, side or flank before diagnosis, while approximately one in four experience persistent fatigue and one in six report night sweats.

Blood in the urine, also known as haematuria, is one of the key warning signs. Greaves said that these symptoms are not limited to cancer. “Even if you said, I’ve got all four of those symptoms, it could still be highly unlikely that it’s kidney cancer, but it might be.”

Warning Signs Of Kidney Cancer

According to the NHS, kidney cancer may cause:

• Blood in the urine, even if it occurs only once
• Constant pain between the ribs and waist
• A lump or swelling in the back, beneath the ribs or in the neck
• Unexplained weight loss and loss of appetite
• Chronic fatigue
• High body temperature that does not go down
• Excessive sweating especially at night

Early Detection Of Kidney Cancer

Kidney cancer can sometimes be discovered incidentally when a person undergoes screening for another health problem. This can make diagnosis challenging because early-stage disease may present few or no symptoms.

Greaves said that more than half of kidney cancers are now found during scans conducted for other reasons.

He also explained that kidney cancer is often diagnosed late as symptoms are initially attributed to other medical conditions. Around a quarter of patients surveyed by Kidney Cancer UK said they had initially been treated for another condition before getting diagnosed with kidney cancer.