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Found 949 results
  1. News Article
    Injured women are experiencing sex discrimination in the administration of a life-saving drug that cuts the risk of bleeding to death by 30%, researchers have warned. They found that female trauma victims were half as likely to receive tranexamic acid (TXA) as injured men – even though the treatment is equally effective regardless of sex. “These results are very concerning. TXA is the only proven life-saving treatment for traumatic bleeding. Women were treated less frequently than men regardless of their risk of death from bleeding or the severity of their injuries,” said Prof Ian Roberts of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), who was involved in the study. “This looks like sex discrimination, and there is an urgent need to reduce this disparity, so all patients who need the drug have the chance to receive it.” “Whatever of the mechanism of injury, and whatever the bleeding risk we looked at, women were statistically less likely to receive tranexamic acid than men, apart from road traffic collisions with a very high risk of bleeding,” said Tim Nutbeam, whose research was published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia. “However, when we looked at mechanisms of injury which we tend to associate less with major trauma, such as falls from standing, women and particularly older women were much less likely to receive it.” As striking as these results are, they are not necessarily surprising, he added: “It is already known that women with chest pain are less likely to receive aspirin, less likely to be resuscitated for out of hospital cardiac arrest, and less likely to be taken to hospital by an ambulance using lights and sirens.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 18 May 2022
  2. News Article
    The parents of a teenage girl who died from an allergic reaction to a Pret a Manger baguette have set up a clinical trial to make "food allergies history". Nadim and Tanya Ednan-Laperouse's daughter Natasha, 15, died in 2016 after eating a baguette containing sesame, to which she was allergic. The trial will investigate if everyday food products can be used as treatment. It is a unique opportunity to establish immunotherapy as a practical treatment, according to an expert. The trial, set up by the family from Fulham in west London, will see whether commonly available food products, such as milk and peanuts, can be used under medical supervision to treat those with food allergies. After a 12-month desensitisation period, those involved will be tracked for two further years. Mr and Mrs Ednan-Laperouse's daughter died in 2016 after she ate an artichoke, olive and tapenade baguette containing sesame seeds, bought from a Pret a Manger at Heathrow Airport. The wrapper did not have any allergy information, and, as it was made on the premises, this was not required by law at the time. In October, "Natasha's Law" was brought in, making allergy information a requirement for food made on site. Read full story Source: BBC News, 18 May 2022 Related articles on the hub Why allergies are the Cinderella service of the NHS – a blog by Tim McLachlan
  3. News Article
    More than half of people hospitalised with Covid-19 still have at least one symptom two years after they were first infected, according to the longest follow-up study of its kind. While physical and mental health generally improve over time, the analysis suggests that coronavirus patients discharged from hospital still tend to experience poorer health and quality of life than the general population. The research was published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine. “Our findings indicate that for a certain proportion of hospitalised Covid-19 survivors, while they may have cleared the initial infection, more than two years is needed to recover fully,” said the lead author, Prof Bin Cao, of the China-Japan Friendship hospital in China. Until now, the long-term health effects of Covid-19 have remained largely unknown, as the longest follow-up studies to date have spanned about a year. The absence of pre-Covid-19 health status data and comparisons with the general population in most studies also made it difficult to determine how well patients with Covid-19 have recovered. “Ongoing follow-up of Covid-19 survivors, particularly those with symptoms of long Covid, is essential to understand the longer course of the illness, as is further exploration of the benefits of rehabilitation programmes for recovery,” said Cao. “There is a clear need to provide continued support to a significant proportion of people who’ve had Covid-19, and to understand how vaccines, emerging treatments and variants affect long-term health outcomes.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 11 May 2022
  4. News Article
    Women and babies in the UK are “dying needlessly” because of a lack of suitable medicines to use in pregnancy, according to a report that calls for a radical overhaul of maternal health. A “profound” shortage of research and the widespread exclusion of pregnant and breastfeeding women from clinical trials means hardly any new drugs are approved for common medical problems in pregnancy or soon after childbirth, the report finds. Meanwhile, scarce or contradictory information about the safety of existing medicines women may be taking for continuing conditions can make it impossible to reach a confident decision on whether or not to continue them in pregnancy, the experts add. “While pregnancy in the UK is generally considered safe, women and babies are still dying needlessly as a direct result of preventable pregnancy complications,” the authors say. Each year, 5,000 babies in the UK are either stillborn or die shortly after birth, while about 70 women die of complications in pregnancy. The Healthy Mum, Healthy Baby, Healthy Future report draws on evidence from patient groups, clinicians, researchers, lawyers, insurance specialists and the pharmaceutical industry, it proposes “urgent” changes to transform women’s access to modern medicine. The report highlights the “profound lack of research activity” and up-to-date information that leaves pregnant women and their physicians in the dark about whether to continue with certain medicines in pregnancy. Some epilepsy drugs, for example, can increase the risk of birth defects, but coming off them can put the woman at risk of severe seizures, which can also harm the baby. Lady Manningham-Buller said the situation “urgently needs to change”, with the report setting out eight recommendations to prevent needless deaths. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 12 May 2022
  5. News Article
    Covid-19 vaccines are safe for pregnant women to take and can even reduce the risk of stillbirths, according to a new study. Researchers at St George’s University of London and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists collated data from studies and trials involving over 115,000 vaccinated pregnant women. They found that pregnant women – who are more likely to become serious ill if they catch Covid-19 – are 15% less at risk of stillbirth if vaccinated. “We wanted to see if vaccination was safe or not for pregnant women,” said Asma Khalil, professor of obstetrics and maternal fetal medicine at London’s St George’s Hospital in London to The Guardian. “It is safe, but what’s surprising, and it’s a positive finding, is that there was a reduction in stillbirths.” “So far, most of the data on vaccines in pregnancy have been about protecting the pregnant woman herself from Covid. Now we have evidence that the vaccines protect the baby too,” she added. Read full story Source: The Independent, 10 May 2022
  6. News Article
    A dramatic drop in testing for Covid-19 has left the world blind to the virus’s continuing rampage and its potentially dangerous mutations, the head of the World Health Organization has warned. The UN health agency said that reported Covid cases and deaths had been dropping dramatically. “Last week, just over 15,000 deaths were reported to WHO – the lowest weekly total since March 2020,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters. While saying this was “a very welcome trend”, he warned that the declining numbers could also be a result of significant cuts in testing for the virus. “As many countries reduce testing, WHO is receiving less and less information about transmission and sequencing,” he said. “This makes us increasingly blind to patterns of transmission and evolution." “When it comes to a deadly virus, ignorance is not bliss.” William Rodriguez, who heads the global diagnostics alliance FIND, also decried that many governments in recent months simply stopped looking for Covid cases. Speaking at the press conference hosted by WHO, he pointed out that in the past four months, amid surging Covid cases from the Omicron variant, “testing rates have plummeted by 70% to 90% worldwide”. The plunging testing rates came despite the fact that there is now more access to accurate testing than ever before. “We have an unprecedented ability to know what is happening,” Rodriguez said. “And yet today, because testing has been the first casualty of a global decision to let down our guard, we’re becoming blind to what is happening with this virus.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 26 April 2022
  7. News Article
    Women with asthma are twice as likely to die from an asthma attack compared with men in the UK, new figures show as health experts called for urgent research into the condition’s sex-related differences. They are more likely to have the condition, more likely to need hospital treatment for it and more likely to die from an attack, Asthma + Lung UK said. Over the past five years women have accounted for more than two-thirds of asthma deaths in the UK. The charity said the current “one size fits all” approach to asthma treatment is “not working” because it does not take into account the impact that female sex hormones during puberty, periods, pregnancy and menopause can have on asthma symptoms and attacks. More must be done to tackle the “stark health inequality”, it added. Between 2014-15 and 2019-20 more than 5,100 women in the UK died from an asthma attack compared with fewer than 2,300 men. Meanwhile, emergency hospital admissions in England show that, among those aged 20 to 49, women were 2.5 times more likely to be admitted to hospital for asthma treatment compared with men. Asthma + Lung UK said many people were unaware that fluctuations in female sex hormones can cause asthma symptoms to flare up or even trigger life-threatening attacks. It is calling for more research to examine the sex-related differences in asthma. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 27 April 2022
  8. News Article
    Relatives of intensive care Covid patients were left traumatised by being banned from visiting their seriously ill loved ones during the pandemic, a study has found. Researchers found two-thirds of family members of patients in intensive care were still suffering high levels of symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) three months after their relative was admitted. Symptoms of PTSD include flashbacks, nightmares and physical sensations such as pain, sweating, feeling sick or trembling. Before the Covid pandemic, symptoms of PTSD in family members of intensive care patients were between 15 and 30 per cent, depending on the condition. The team from the University of Colorado School of Medicine said visitation restrictions may have inadvertently generated a secondary public health crisis of stress-related disorders in family members of Covid patients. At the height of the pandemic, hospitals across Britain restricted access to patients, with many people forced to say goodbye to dying loved ones over Skype, or behind screens or windows. Even as late as last winter, a Telegraph investigation showed that a quarter of trusts were still imposing restrictions on visitors. The findings suggest that the rates of PTSD may be higher in relatives than in patients. A previous study by Imperial College and the University of Southampton found that only one-third of patients on ventilators suffer symptoms. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 25 April 2022
  9. News Article
    Analysis of thousands of tumours has unveiled a treasure trove of clues about the causes of cancer, representing a significant step towards the personalisation of treatment, a study suggests. Researchers say that for the first time it is possible to detect patterns – called mutational signatures – in the DNA of cancers. These provide clues including about whether a patient has had past exposure to environmental causes of cancer such as smoking or UV light, for example. This is important as these signatures allow doctors to look at each patient’s tumour and match it to specific treatments and medications. Dr Andrea Degasperi, research associate at the University of Cambridge and first author, said: “Whole genome sequencing gives us a total picture of all the mutations that have contributed to each person’s cancer. “With thousands of mutations per cancer, we have unprecedented power to look for commonalities and differences across NHS patients, and in doing so we uncovered 58 new mutational signatures and broadened our knowledge of cancer.” The findings are now being incorporated into the NHS as researchers and clinicians now have the use of a digital tool called FitMS that will help them identify the mutational signature and potentially inform cancer management more effectively. Read full story Source: The Independent, 21 April 2022 You may also be interested to read hub blog: Genetic profiling and precision medicine – the future of cancer treatment
  10. News Article
    We have the technology to start a new era in medicine by precisely matching drugs to people's genetic code, a major report says. Some drugs are completely ineffective or become deadly because of subtle differences in how our bodies function. The British Pharmacological Society and the Royal College of Physicians say a genetic test can predict how well drugs work in your body. The tests could be available on the NHS next year. It would have helped Jane Burns, from Liverpool, who lost two-thirds of her skin when she reacted badly to a new epilepsy drug. She was put on to carbamazepine when she was 19. Two weeks later, she developed a rash and her parents took her to A&E when she had a raging fever and began hallucinating. The skin damage started the next morning. Jane told the BBC: "I remember waking up and I was just covered in blisters, it was like something out of a horror film, it was like I'd been on fire." Jane's experience may sound rare, but Prof Mark Caulfield, the president-elect of the British Pharmacological Society, said "99.5% of us have at least one change in our genome that, if we come across the wrong medicine, it will either not work or it will actually cause harm." "We need to move away from 'one drug and one dose fits all' to a more personalised approach, where patients are given the right drug at the right dose to improve the effectiveness and safety of medicines," said Prof Sir Munir Pirmohamed, from the University of Liverpool. Read full story Source: BBC News, 29 March 2022
  11. News Article
    Just 1 in 10 patients preferred face-to-face GP appointments during the Covid pandemic, with most requesting telephone consultations instead, according to research carried out on behalf of NHS England. The Improvement Analytics Unit (IAU) – a partnership between NHS England and think-tank the Health Foundation – looked at data from 146 England GP practices using the askmyGP online consultation system between March 2019 and September 2021, examining over 7.5 million patient-initiated consultation requests. During the pandemic, GPs suffered a backlash from the media, Government and NHS England over accusations that general practice was closed and GPs were not seeing patients face-to-face. GP leaders suggested that NHS England needed to take the research into account and allow practices to decide their own way of working. The research found that: Before the pandemic, 30% of patients requests specified a face-to-face consultation, dropping to less than 4% at the beginning of the pandemic. But by the end of the study period in September 2021, only 10% of patients requests were for face-to-face GP appointments. Telephone consultations were the most popular option, making up over half (55%) of patient requests in 2020/21. However, less than 1% of patients preferred a video consultation, according to the data. IAU head at the Health Foundation Arne Wolters said: ‘Our analysis shows that patients often choose remote over face-to-face consultations and that GP practices can mitigate the risk of digital exclusion via a blended approach.’ He said that ‘traditional routes to accessing and delivering care’ had been ‘offered alongside an online option and, in planning care, practices were able to take account of factors such as patients’ age, frequency of use, clinical needs and preferences’, at the studied practices." And he added: ‘With patient demand at an all-time high due to the care backlog Read full story Source: Pulse, 18 March 2022
  12. News Article
    People who suffer from severe Covid-19 symptoms are more likely to have long-term mental health problems, a new study suggests. Higher rates of depression and anxiety have been found in people who were “bedridden” with Covid-19 for more than seven days last year, according to a study published in the Lancet. Scientists, drawing on data from 247,249 people across the UK, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, found that people with coronavirus who were not admitted to hospital were more likely to experience symptoms of depression up to 16 months after diagnosis, compared to those never infected. However, over 16 months, patients who were bedridden for seven days or more were between 50 and 60% more likely to experience higher levels of depression and anxiety compared to people never infected during the study period, the researchers found. Overall, people diagnosed with Covid-19 had a higher prevalence of depression and poorer sleep quality compared with individuals who were never diagnosed – 20% of those in the former group experienced symptoms of depression, versus 11% in the latter group. Researchers suggested patients who spent longer in bed or had higher depression or anxiety rates could be suffering from ill health due to a combination of worrying about long-term health effects and Covid symptoms persisting. Patients with severe Covid often experience inflammation, which has previously been linked to chronic mental illness, particularly depression. Read full story Source: The Independent, 15 March 2022
  13. News Article
    Antipsychotics have been frequently and increasingly prescribed for extended periods to people with recorded personality disorder but no history of severe mental illness, a study looking at UK general practice data has found. Researchers from University College London looked at 46 210 people who had had personality disorder recorded in their GP record between January 2000 and 31 December 2016. Of these, 15 562 (34%) had been prescribed antipsychotics. The study, published in BMJ Open, also found that 36 875 people with a record of personality disorder had no record of severe mental illness. An urgent review of clinical practice is warranted, including the effectiveness of such prescribing and the need to monitor for adverse effects, including metabolic complications. Read full story (paywalled) Source: BMJ, 10 March 2022
  14. News Article
    Catching Covid may cause changes to the brain, a study suggests. Scientists found significant differences in MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans before and after infection. Even after a mild infection, the overall size of the brain had shrunk slightly, with less grey matter in the parts related to smell and memory. The researchers do not know whether the changes are permanent but stressed the brain could heal. Lead author Prof Gwenaelle Douaud, from the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, at the University of Oxford, said: "We were looking at essentially mild infection, so to see that we could really see some differences in their brain and how much their brain had changed compared with those who had not been infected was quite a surprise." But the researchers do not know whether the changes are reversible or truly matter for health and wellbeing. "We need to bear in mind that the brain is really plastic - by that we mean it can heal itself - so there is a really good chance that, over time, the harmful effects of infection will ease," Prof Douaud said. The most significant loss of grey matter was in the olfactory areas - but it is unclear whether the virus directly attacks this region or cells simply die off through lack of use after people with Covid lose their sense of smell. UK Biobank chief scientist Prof Naomi Allen said: "It opens up all sorts of questions that other researchers can follow up about the effect of coronavirus infection on cognitive function, on brain fog and on other areas of the brain - and to really focus research on how best to mitigate that." Read full story Source: BBC News, 8 March 2022
  15. News Article
    A painful infection that mainly affects women is too often dismissed as "women's problems". One in every two women suffer a urinary tract infection (UTI) and they are the second most common infection globally. Among those affected is Hannah Hanratty, 36, who suffered months of agony despite multiple negative tests. During her pregnancy, Mrs Hanratty felt the "razor-blade burning pain" when passing urine. It soon developed into a constant pain. Two weeks after giving birth she needed antibiotics following a routine procedure and said the pain immediately went. "It was a UTI all along that just hadn't been picked up by the tests," she said. Now Dr Emma Hayhurst, a senior lecturer in Molecular Biology at the University of South Wales, has developed a device to improve testing and said the current system is "50 years out of date". At the moment a UTI patient may be asked to provide a urine sample which is sent for analysis, with tests back in two to three days. "That's not good enough, we need to make it quicker," said Dr Hayhurst, explaining that the device she's working on would reduce that. "Within 30 minutes the clinician will be able to say what bacteria is causing the UTI and indeed whether there is a UTI in the first place." Dr Hayhurst has received a £50,000 Women in Innovation Award to further her work, but also in recognition of her position as a female role model in the field of science, technology, engineering and medicine - or STEM subjects, as they're also known. "We should be listening to the women who are telling us this is a problem in their lives, but we know many feel like they are being dismissed," she said. Wales' Health Minister Eluned Morgan is due to publish a quality statement on women's health in the summer, and has announced funding for each health board to have a specialist endometriosis nurse. "I feel I have particular responsibility, as the first woman health minister in a long time, to make sure we look at the issue of women's health in a lot more detail," she said. "There are clearly some gaps, certainly when it comes to research, but also in terms of where people are concentrating their efforts and investment. "Quite often, women are not heard in the same way as men are heard and we've really got to make sure we are rebalancing that unconscious bias." Read full story Source: 7 March 2022
  16. News Article
    Researchers at the University of Derby and their regional, national and international partners are working collaboratively to develop bespoke support pathways for patients with Long Covid. Led by Dr Mark Faghy, they are currently running a series of projects to understand the determinants of recovery which captures the lived experience and informs a bigger piece of work to develop a holistic view of the key stakeholders that are required to develop pathways that can improve patient outcomes. One part of this is the launch of a new Delphi Consensus statement which seeks to obtain input from patients, researchers and any healthcare professionals to inform the approaches to support people living with long COVID. If you have an interest in this study, please click here. For more information on the current work, please contact Dr Mark Faghy (@DrMark_Faghy and M.Faghy@Derby.ac.uk) and also see: https://www.derby.ac.uk/news/2022/international-trial-aims-to-improve-the-quality-of-life-for-long-covid-patients/ “
  17. News Article
    The government of Mexico City handed out nearly 200 000 “ivermectin based kits” last year to people who had tested positive for Covid-19, without telling them they were subjects in an experiment on the drug’s effectiveness. The results of that experiment were then written up by public officials in an article placed on popular US preprint server SocArXiv. It became one of site’s most viewed articles, claiming that ivermectin had reduced hospital admissions by 52-76%. But those officials have been under fire at home since SocArXiv withdrew the paper earlier this month, calling it “either very poor quality or else deliberately false and misleading.” Opposition deputies in Mexico City’s Congress demanded hearings and said they would bring legal action against the paper’s lead author, José Merino, head of the city’s Digital Agency for Public Innovation. Explaining the decision to withdraw the article—the first to be taken down by SocArXiv—the site’s steering committee wrote that it had responded “to a community groundswell beseeching us to act” in order “to prevent the paper from causing additional harm.” The committee wrote, “The paper is spreading misinformation, promoting an unproved medical treatment in the midst of a global pandemic. The paper is part of, and justification for, a government programme that unethically dispenses (or did dispense) unproven medication apparently without proper consent or appropriate ethical protections.” Read full story Source: BMJ, 22 February 2022
  18. News Article
    Having Covid-19 puts people at a significantly increased chance of developing new mental health conditions, potentially adding to existing crises of suicide and overdoses, according to new research looking at millions of health records in the US over the course of a year. The long-term effects of having Covid are still being discovered, and among them is an increased chance of being diagnosed with mental health disorders. They include depression, anxiety, stress and an increased risk of substance use disorders, cognitive decline, and sleep problems – a marked difference from others who also endured the stress of the pandemic but weren’t diagnosed with the virus. “This is basically telling us that millions and millions of people in the US infected with Covid are developing mental health problems,” said Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at the VA St Louis Healthcare System and senior author of the paper. “That makes us a nation in distress.” The higher risk of mental health disorders, including suicidal ideation and opioid use, is particularly concerning, he said. “This is really almost a perfect storm that is brewing in front of our eyes – for another opioid epidemic two or three years down the road, for another suicide crisis two or three years down the road,” Al-Aly added. These unfolding crises are “quite a big concern”, said James Jackson, director of behavioural health at Vanderbilt University’s ICU Recovery Center, who was not involved with this study. He is also seeing patients whose previous conditions, including anxiety, depression and opioid use disorder, worsened during the pandemic. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 18 February 2022
  19. News Article
    Blood clots in the brain or the lungs might explain some common symptoms of "Long Covid", including brain fog and fatigue, a UK study suggests. In the study, of 1,837 people admitted to hospital because of Covid, researchers say two blood proteins point to clots being one cause. It is thought 16% of such patients have trouble thinking, concentrating or remembering for at least six months. But the research team, from the universities of Oxford and Leicester, stress: Their findings are relevant only to patients admitted to hospital. They are "the first piece of the jigsaw" but further research is needed before they can propose or test any potential treatments. They tracked cognitive problems at six and 12 months only and through tests and questionnaires, which may "lack sensitivity". Identifying predictors and possible mechanisms was "a key step" in understanding post-Covid brain fog, study author Prof Paul Harrison, from the University of Oxford, said. Leicester's professor of respiratory medicine, Chris Brightling, said: "It's a combination of someone's health before, the acute event itself and what happens afterwards that lead on to physical and mental health consequences." Read full story Source: BBC News, 31 August 2023
  20. News Article
    An NHS body is encouraging women with breast cancer from minority backgrounds to take part in more clinical trials, after research found they are under-represented in studies that can offer life-saving treatment. The pilot project, supported by the NHS Race and Health Observatory, is intended to improve representation in breast cancer clinical trials partly through culturally sensitive communications to people from racially diverse backgrounds. Research from the UK Health Security Agency suggests young black women are more likely to have aggressive breast cancer tumours, experience poorer care and have higher mortality rates, but are significantly under-represented in clinical research. Their lack of inclusion in trials could be partly down to distrust of the research process and a lack of knowledge, according to research by the UK’s National Institute for Health Research. The project, which works in conjunction with Macmillan Cancer Support and the pharmaceutical company Roche, will run for a year and look at developing new ways for people with breast cancer to access clinical trials. It will develop action plans to improve representation and provide enhanced support for patients. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 31 August 2023
  21. News Article
    Top young cancer researchers are leaving the UK in a “brain drain” fuelled by the continuing failure to reach an agreement over the EU’s study programme, scientists warn. The two-and-a-half-year delay in joining the £85bn Horizon Europe scheme, the largest collaborative research programme in the world, has “damaged the UK’s reputation” and made it more difficult to attract and retain the brightest researchers into the nation’s labs. Cancer Research UK (CRUK) surveyed 84 cancer specialists about Horizon Europe and found that three-quarters of respondents favoured association with the programme compared with only 11% who wanted the UK to go it alone with the government’s plan B, known as Pioneer. Prof Julian Downward, head of the Oncogene Biology Lab at the Francis Crick Institute in London, said: “We need Horizon Europe very badly. The current situation is damaging UK science every day. We are losing top junior faculty regularly who decide to move to EU countries so they can take up European Research Council grants.” Read full story Source: Guardian, 25 August 2023
  22. News Article
    New guidance for doctors discouraging them from recommending exercise and cognitive behavioural therapy for chronic fatigue patients is not evidence based, according to researchers. A study questions the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) review process for this guideline for clinicians dealing with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) patients and its use of scientific standards in considering the evidence. One of the study’s lead authors, Prof Trudie Chalder from the psychiatry department at King’s College London said: “The decision to change the guideline has had a direct effect on doctors’ and therapists’ ability to treat patients. Services are no longer able to provide a full range of evidence-based therapeutic interventions. “This could have a devastating impact on people’s lives in that they will no longer be able to access the treatment that could help them the most.” ME, also called CFS, is a long-term condition believed to affect about 25,000 people in the UK, which has a wide range of symptoms including extreme tiredness, muscle pain, mental fogginess and insomnia. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 11 July 2023
  23. News Article
    There has been a rise in the number of young adults in England who report feelings of severe distress, according to a new survey. The study found one in five 18 to 24-year-olds said they experienced severe distress at the end of 2022, compared to around one in seven in 2021. The research suggested reports of severe distress rose across all age groups, except for those over 65. Experts have pointed to the pandemic, cost of living and healthcare crisis. Researchers used a point-based score during telephone interviews to assess severe distress for the survey. People had not necessarily sought clinical help or a diagnosis at this point. The research team, including academics from King's College London and University College London (UCL), say the rise in reports needs to be urgently addressed. Read full story Source: BBC News, 7 July 2023
  24. News Article
    The number of people who die after a breast cancer diagnosis has decreased by two-thirds since the 1990s, a study of more than half a million women in England has shown. The research has taken ten years to complete, says Carolyn Taylor, lead author of the study and an oncologist at the University of Oxford, UK. The analysis includes the 512,447 women in England who were diagnosed with early invasive breast cancer between January 1993 and December 2015. The results published in the BMJ found women who were diagnosed in 1993–99 had a 14.4% risk of dying within 5 years. This fell to 4.9% for women diagnosed in 2010–15. Patient involvement was important to the study, Taylor says. The scientists appointed two patient representatives to guide their research. “They helped us in the questions to be addressed. They looked at the analyses and gave comments and suggestions throughout the study. And they helped us to interpret the results in the way that patients can understand.” Read full story Source: Nature, 23 June 2023
  25. News Article
    There has been an unusual rise in the number of children and teenagers around the world diagnosed with type 1 diabetes since Covid, say researchers. A new study in JAMA Network Open journal has collated available data from different countries, including the UK, on more than 38,000 young people diagnosed during the pandemic. The authors describe the increase in cases of diabetes as "substantial". More work is needed to understand why the rise is happening, they say. Some of the rise could be attributed to catch-up - from backlogs and delays when health services were shut - but does not explain all of the newly diagnosed cases, say scientists. Before the pandemic, the incidence rate of childhood type 1 diabetes was already increasing - by about 3% a year.
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