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Decades of corporate control have shaped diets, harmed farmers and strained the planet — transforming the system will take collective action.

A high-resolution, global atlas of mortality of children under five years of age between 2000 and 2017 highlights subnational geographical inequalities in the distribution, rates and absolute counts of child deaths by age.

The advantage of living in cities compared with rural areas with respect to height and BMI in children and adolescents has generally become smaller globally from 1990 to 2020, except in sub-Saharan Africa.

To better understand the etiology of frailty, the authors perform a large genetic study. They identified 45 additional variants and implicated MET, CHST9, ILRUN, APOE, CGREF1 and PPP6C as potential causal genes, linking frailty to immune regulation, metabolism and cellular signaling.

Estimates from the Global Dietary Database indicated that 2.2 million new type 2 diabetes and 1.2 million new cardiovascular disease cases were attributable to sugar-sweetened beverages worldwide in 2020, with the highest burdens in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Recent estimates of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) intake are generally unavailable. Here the authors show a global SSBs intake of 2.7 servings/week in 2018 in adults (range: 0.7 South Asia, 7.8 Latin America/Caribbean); intakes were higher among males, younger, more educated, and urban adults.

Bhattacharjee and Schaeffer et al. map exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) in 94 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), finding increased EBF practice and reduced subnational variation across the majority of LMICs from 2000 to 2018. However, only six LMICs will meet WHO’s target of ≥70% EBF by 2030 nationally, and only three will achieve this in all districts.

The study advances the use of serological surveys to guide trachoma elimination program decisions and provides a way to set thresholds for whether or not to continue an intervention program.

Modeling analysis from the Global Dietary Database estimated that 70% of new global cases of type 2 diabetes are attributable to suboptimal intake of 11 dietary factors, with substantial differences in dietary risks across world regions and nations.

The authors report a specialized obsidian handaxe workshop at the site of Simbiro III in Ethiopia, suggesting that hominins more than 1.2 million years ago took advantage of opportunities provided by changing environmental conditions.

High-resolution subnational mapping of child growth failure indicators for 105 low- and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2017 shows that, despite considerable progress, substantial geographical inequalities still exist in some countries.

Analyses of the proportions of individuals who have completed key levels of schooling across all low- and middle-income countries from 2000 to 2017 reveal inequalities across countries as well as within populations.

In this disease mapping study, the authors estimate disability-adjusted life year rates for three of the major causes of mortality for children under five 43 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. They identify significant heterogeneity at the subnational level, highlighting the need for a targeted intervention approach.

A global multi-taxon extinction risk assessment of freshwater fauna for The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species finds one-quarter of species to be at high risk of extinction.

A genome-wide association study suggests 41 previously unreported loci on top of the 23 known loci that influence the disease risk for lumbar disc herniations. Many of these loci harbour genes implicated in disc structure and inflammation, as well as genes related to the nervous system and nerve function.

Contrary to the view that urbanization is a major driver of the global rise in obesity, the global increase in body-mass index is shown to be mostly due to increases in the body-mass indexes of rural populations.

Narcolepsy has genetic and environmental risk factors, but the specific genetic risk loci and interaction with environmental triggers are not well understood. Here, the authors identify genetic loci for narcolepsy, suggesting infection as a trigger and dendritic and helper T cell involvement.

The evolutionary history of pigs in Africa is unclear. Here, the authors examine 67 whole genomes, finding incomplete speciation between bushpigs and red river hogs as well as evidence suggesting that humans brought bushpigs to Madagascar 1000-5000 years ago.

Many genetic factors that contribute to uterine leiomyomata (UL) - the most common tumours of the female genital tract - remain to be discovered. Here, the authors conduct a UL meta-genome-wide association study, and find loci related to altered muscle tissue biology that are associated with UL.

A diverse, multidisciplinary panel of 386 experts in COVID-19 response from 112 countries provides health and social policy actions to address inadequacies in the pandemic response and help to bring this public health threat to an end.

The burden of mosaic chromosomal alterations in blood-derived DNA, a type of clonal hematopoiesis, is associated with an increased risk for diverse types of infections, including sepsis and pneumonia.

Large earthquakes are known to trigger subsequent earthquakes in nearby regions, but similar triggering has not been confirmed for volcanic hazards. Analysis of the progressive deformation associated with 13 volcanic dykes intruded in Ethiopia between 2005 and 2009 indicates that magmatic intrusions can help to trigger subsequent intrusions.

Multi-ancestry genome-wide association analyses identify new risk loci for Parkinson’s disease, and fine-mapping and co-localization analyses implicate candidate genes whose expression is associated with disease susceptibility.

Cataloging microbial genomes from Earth’s environments expands the known phylogenetic diversity of bacteria and archaea.

The international community has committed to fight climate change and achieve 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Here the authors assess evidence about the relationships between the two agendas and discuss the need of deeper interdisciplinary efforts to understand these relationships.

The largest meta-analysis of GWASs of hepcidin and sTfR identified 43 genomic loci, of which 15 new. Mendelian randomisation revealed associations of systemic iron status and iron-related loci with selected health outcomes across multiple domains.

Pierre Szepetowski and colleagues report the identification of mutations in GRIN2A in individuals with acquired epileptic aphasia and related childhood focal epilepsies and encephalopathies with speech and language dysfunction.

Sarah von Spiczak, Holger Lerche and colleagues identify mutations in GRIN2A that cause idiopathic focal epilepsy with rolandic spikes.

Tackling antimicrobial resistance will require a sustainable research and development ecosystem for antibiotic development, alongside strategies for responsible use and global access.

A genome-wide association study identifies MFGE8 as protective against coronary atherosclerosis in European and East Asian populations.

Max Tamlander et al. combine polygenic risk scores and clinical assessments to improve prediction of coronary artery disease and type 2 diabetes in European cohorts. Taken together, their results provide a useful method for preliminary cardiometabolic risk assessment in patients.