Health News

New guidance for preventative action against diabetes

Date: Mar-06-2014
A team of academics from the University of Leicester has been instrumental in shaping National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance that will influence medical policy towards diabetes prevention nationwide.

A technique has been patented that opens the door to the development of new drugs against osteoporosis

Date: Mar-06-2014
Scientists from the University of Granada (UGR) have opened the door to the development of new drugs against osteoporosis, one of the most common chronic illnesses in the world, especially among women 65 or over.The researchers, from the University of Granada's Department of Physio-Chemistry, have patented a new methodology that allows specialists to measure - none-invasively and in real time - the concentration of phosphate ions inside living cells.

British Psychological Society: Patients have a right to know - not a duty to know - their diagnosis

Date: Mar-06-2014
Defensive mechanisms protect patients from fully engaging with bad news say healthcare professionals from the University of Leicester.The experiences of doctors, patients and carers of initial cancer consultations have informed new guidelines developed at the University of Leicester, in collaboration with University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and Imperial College London, to help patients better understand their cancer consultations.

UK doctors advised to agree levels of disclosure before emailing patients

Date: Mar-06-2014
Doctors must have consent and agree levels of disclosure before communicating electronically with patients, says UK-wide medical defence organisation MDDUS. At a time when there is much debate surrounding the sharing of patient information, MDDUS is reminding doctors that patients must opt-in before receiving any form of electronic communication from their doctor.

Mother's diet linked to premature birth

Date: Mar-06-2014
Pregnant women who eat a "prudent" diet rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains and who drink water have a significantly reduced risk of preterm delivery, suggests a study published on bmj.com.A "traditional" dietary pattern of boiled potatoes, fish and cooked vegetables was also linked to a significantly lower risk.Although these findings cannot establish causality, they support dietary advice to pregnant women to eat a balanced diet including vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and fish and to drink water.

Next step in live-donor uterus transplant project

Date: Mar-06-2014
In the spring of 2013, a team of researchers and doctors at the University of Gothenburg performed the last of nine planned uterus transplants. The six-month follow up shows that live-donor uterus transplantation has a low risk despite extended surgery duration.In the next phase of the world-unique research project researchers will help seven of the women become pregnant through IVF treatment.In Sweden alone, an estimated 2 000 young women of fertile age cannot become pregnant either because they were born without a womb or lost it later due to disease.

New findings on neurogenesis in the spinal cord

Date: Mar-06-2014
Research from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden suggests that the expression of the so called MYC gene is important and necessary for neurogenesis in the spinal cord. The findings are being published in the journal EMBO Reports.The MYC gene encodes the protein with the same name, and has an important role in many cellular processes such as proliferation, metabolism, cell death and the potential of differentiation from immature stem cells to different types of specialized cells. Importantly it is also one of the most frequently activated genes in human cancer.

Improving antibiotic prescribing in hospitals can make health care safer

Date: Mar-06-2014
The report also found that, in hospitals, a 30 percent reduction in use of the antibiotics that most often cause deadly diarrhea infections with Clostridium difficile can reduce these infections by more than 25 percent. The same antibiotics also prime patients for future super-resistant infections. A new Vital Signs report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that clinicians in some hospitals prescribe three times as many antibiotics than clinicians in other hospitals, even though patients were receiving care in similar areas of each hospital.

Aggression, rule-breaking common among Taiwanese teenagers who have early sex

Date: Mar-06-2014
Taiwanese teenagers - and especially females - who become sexually active at a very young age are more likely to be rule-breakers and be more aggressive than their peers. These are the findings of a national study of Taiwanese youth led by Wei J. Chen of the National Taiwan University, with Chia-Hua Chan as first author. It is published in Springer's journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.Nearly 19,000 sixteen- to nineteen-year-old Taiwanese adolescents took part in a national survey which was conducted through a self-administered web-based questionnaire.

New innovation could mean eye injections are a thing of the past

Date: Mar-06-2014
Drugs used to treat blindness-causing disorders could be successfully administered by eye drops rather than unpleasant and expensive eye injections, according to new research led by UCL scientists that could be a breakthrough for the millions worldwide suffering from age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and other eye disorders. 1 in 5 people over 75 have AMD with well-known sufferers including actress Dame Judi Dench and author Stephen King.