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The forgotten organ that could predict how long you live
A long-overlooked organ may hold surprising clues to healthy aging and cancer survival. Researchers at Mass General Brigham used AI to analyze CT scans from tens of thousands of adults and found that people with healthier thymuses—a small immune-system organ once thought to become largely irrelevant after childhood—lived longer and had substantially lower risks of heart disease, cancer, and death.
The article mentions that researchers found a correlation between kidney function and mortality rates, but it's concerning that they don't discuss the socioeconomic factors that likely influence both access to healthcare and kidney health - like whether this predictive model would work equally across different income levels, since people with better insurance and nutrition presumably have healthier kidneys regardless of their genetic predisposition.