Health (Page 111)

Marina Biryukova/Shutterstock While the world is eagerly waiting for COVID-19 vaccines to bring an end to the pandemic, wearing a mask to help prevent viral transmission has become more or less mandatory globally. Though many people embrace mask wearing and adhere to public health advice, some rebel and argue that wearing a mask has been imposed upon them against their will. With mask wearing and social distancing, it’s down to the individual to decide whether or not to comply, yet what influences compliance isn’t straightforward. Demographic factors such as income level, political affiliation and gender have all been associated with whether people choose to wear a mask and socially distance. However, psychology can go some way to explaining why behaviouralContinue Reading

England recently emerged from a four-week lockdown into a series of tiered restrictions, and there is good news about the authorisation of the first vaccine for COVID-19, which is starting to be deployed. But with restrictions loosened, infection rates still high and vaccine deployment slow, is there a risk of a third lockdown in early 2021? The second English coronavirus lockdown has been devastating for businesses in retail and hospitality. Yet we can see the lockdown has “worked”, bringing case numbers down almost by half from their peak. Rates of new admissions to hospital have also fallen, but pressure on England’s National Health Service (NHS) has not eased substantially. COVID-19 Patients in Hospital in England. coronavirus.data.gov.uk The number of patientsContinue Reading

Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock Both in the UK and around the world, healthcare workers will be among the first to be offered a vaccine against coronavirus. But research suggests that some staff are hesitant about accepting one. Why might there be a level of vaccine hesitancy among health workers, and how can we address their concerns? Vaccination behaviour varies between people who accept all vaccines, to those who have uncertainties over accepting or refusing them (the fence sitters), through to people who will refuse all vaccines. The uncertainties that can cause people to be hesitant can range from minor reservations through to more significant vaccine concerns, but are often focused on issues such as safety, and so are different from the more outlandishContinue Reading

The diet could reinforce bad eating habits. Bon Appetit/ Shutterstock The “metabolic confusion” diet is one of the latest fad diets to be blowing up on social media. Like many fad diets, it promises you can lose weight while still eating what you want. Fans of the diet claim that by switching between very low calorie days and high calorie days, you can lose weight while simultaneously speeding up your metabolism. It may sound promising, but there’s no research to back these claims. The metabolic confusion diet is similar to intermittent fasting, but without the extremes of energy (calorie) restriction. A person on the diet might, for example, eat only 1,200 calories one day, then eat 2,000 calories the next.Continue Reading

BaLL LunLa/Shutterstock Vaccinations against COVID-19 are getting underway in England and will soon follow elsewhere. This is great news, but just the start of a long programme that could extend well into the middle of 2021 – and beyond. In the meantime, the number of people protected from symptomatic COVID will steadily grow as more people are vaccinated. The economy won’t suddenly restart with the first injections on December 8, but could it slowly reopen, perhaps allowing those who have been vaccinated to return to a normal life? The idea of “immunity passports” – documents that certify whether someone has had a COVID vaccine or recovered from the disease and can be used to allow entry to a country orContinue Reading

Infant formula sales have doubled between 2005 and 2019. 279photo Studio/ Shutterstock Breastfeeding can play an especially important role in early-life nutrition. It can benefit children’s future school performance and economic prospects in later life, as well as the mother’s health. Health authorities across the world endorse the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommendation that newborns should where possible exclusively breastfeed from the first hour of life until six months of age, and thereafter receive safe and nutritious foods with continued breastfeeding up to two years of age or beyond. Despite this, our recent study shows that global commercial milk formula sales are booming. Between 2005 and 2019, world milk formula sales more than doubled from 3.5kg to 7.4kg per child.Continue Reading

Statins lower cholesterol if taken daily – but may also have other effects on the body. StockLite/Shutterstock Nothing in medicine is as exciting as discovering new drugs. However, this process is time consuming, expensive and not always necessary. Sometimes, existing drugs can be used to manage illnesses that are different to those they were developed for. This “repurposing” approach has many advantages. Existing drugs already have an established safety record and may no longer be covered by patents, making them cheap and easy to roll out. For these reasons, the medical and scientific community decided early on in the pandemic to investigate whether existing antiviral drugs (including lopinavir-ritonavir, hydroxychloroquine and remdesivir) – alone or in isolation – could improve survivalContinue Reading

The protein, called GDF5, plays an important role in the development and function of certain brain neurons. pikselstock/ Shutterstock Parkinson’s disease, a brain disorder that affects over 10 million people worldwide, is caused by the gradual loss of dopamine neurons. The loss of these neurons leads to involuntary tremors, stiffness and balance problems. While there are drugs to treat these symptoms, no drugs exist to slow the progression of the disease. However, we found a brain protein that may be able to prevent the loss of dopamine neurons. This discovery could be important for developing treatments. For many years, scientists have been investigating the use of neurotrophic factors to slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease. These proteins are normally foundContinue Reading

dotshock/Shutterstock In the global effort to overcome COVID-19, much scientific and medical attention has focused on the ability of our immune system to generate antibodies. Antibodies are one of our body’s main weapons against viruses, created to recognise specific proteins on a virus’s surface and initiate processes that ultimately neutralise and remove the virus. We know that for other human coronaviruses, when the body creates antibodies against them, these then go on to provide immunity. Teams developing vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 are confident, therefore, that their vaccines can produce similarly effective responses against COVID-19. But there is still much to understand – not least how long these vaccines will protect us for. Luckily, science is gradually catching up with the virus,Continue Reading

Scientists have recreated the mutant gene that causes a rare cancer called phaeochromocytoma in a millimetre-sized worm. University of Dundee, Author provided When the Williamson family from Dundee lost their mother Sue to a rare cancer named phaeochromocytoma in 2003, they didn’t realise that further devastation was to follow. Of her four children, twins Jennie and James discovered that they also have the faulty gene that cut short their mother’s life. Both twins are affected with inoperable tumours wrapped around vital blood vessels and nerves in their necks. Father Jo decided to appear in a Cancer Research pledge video (below) in memory of his wife and to raise awareness of the important work that cancer researchers do for people likeContinue Reading