Health (Page 99)

Oil well fires burning outside of Kuwait. Everett Collection/ Shutterstock This year marks the 30th anniversary of the 1991 Gulf War. A United Nations coalition of about 700,000 troops led by the United States liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation in the first half of 1991. But after the war ended, around 25% of those who served developed Gulf War Illness – also referred to as Gulf War Syndrome – a chronic condition whose cause remains unproven and debated. Symptoms include fatigue, night sweats, memory and concentration problems, diarrhoea, sexual dysfunction and chronic body pain. Many of these symptoms are telltale signs of a brain problem resulting from impaired transmission of nerve signals. Theories of the illness’s causes include the traumaContinue Reading

Dushi82/Shutterstock.com Fire has been essential for cooking since before the dawn of civilisation. In many places across the world, traditional methods – cooking on an open fire or stove – have been replaced by gas or electricity, yet continued use of solid biomass fuels in traditional stoves across the developing world is seriously affecting the health of people who are already vulnerable. Fumes from solid biomass fuel have been a major contributor to the over 1.5 million premature deaths from air pollution every year in India. Indoor air pollution disproportionately affects women and children, who are likely to spend more time in the home. This is a result of solid biomass fuels such as wood, crop waste, or charcoal beingContinue Reading

Back in early January, Prime Minister Boris Johnson predicted that “with a fair wind in our sails”, the UK would be able to offer a first COVID-19 vaccine dose to its first four priority groups by mid-February. The winds have evidently been good. All frontline health workers, care home staff and residents, extremely clinically vulnerable people and over-70s – some 15 million people – were offered a first dose before the middle of the month arrived. The question is what happens next. The UK government’s remaining priority groups cover everyone aged 50-70 and all other clinically vulnerable people. However, the government has shown that it’s willing to be somewhat flexible with prioritisation, having this week added 1.7 million people toContinue Reading

Participants lost around 15% of their body weight on average. Rostislav_Sedlacek/ Shutterstock A recently published clinical trial of the anti-obesity drug, semaglutide, has produced a degree of weight loss which has led some to dub the medication a “game changer” in the treatment of obesity. The trial looked at 1,961 adults who were overweight or obese. Approximately 75% of participants were female. Participants were given a weekly injection of semaglutide, a drug normally used to control blood sugar in the treatment of diabetes. Participants were also advised on how to manage their weight through dieting and exercise. After 68 weeks of treatment, participants lost an average of 15.3kg (around 15% of their body weight) with semaglutide compared to just 2.6kgContinue Reading

Antibodies (blue) neutralising SARS-CoV-2 (orange), the virus that causes COVID-19. Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock The goal of the COVID-19 vaccines being rolled out worldwide is to stimulate our immune systems into creating a protective response against the coronavirus, particularly by generating antibodies. These antibodies then circulate in our blood until needed in the future, attacking and removing the coronavirus quickly from our bodies if we become infected. The speed with which the scientific and medical communities have developed and tested these new vaccines has been extraordinary. However, this short timescale leaves us with some outstanding questions. Key among these is how long the protection we receive from vaccination, or indeed from infection with the virus itself, will last. We know, for example,Continue Reading

The body slows your metabolism on purpose to prevent weight loss. Gts/ Shutterstock When it comes to dieting, research shows the majority of people will regain some – if not most – of the weight they’ve lost. While there are many reasons why this weight regain may happen, some popular claims online are that it’s because dieting permanently wrecks your metabolism. But while it’s true that dieting slows your metabolism, it also improves your metabolism in many positive ways. When we talk about metabolism, we’re typically referring to your metabolic rate. This is the number of calories your body burns at rest. Of course, the more activity we do, the more calories we burn. In order to lose weight throughContinue Reading

Professional sport has been dramatically affected by COVID-19, few more so than rugby union. Across the globe, months of postponed matches and a fixture backlog have added to already congested schedules. Following UK government approval, the men’s English Premiership completed its postponed 2019/20 season in the late summer of 2020. The remaining fixtures were squeezed into a short period of time, with the unprecedented step of matches in August and midweek fixtures. Following the dash to finish the 2019/20 season, the 2020/21 season started in November with less than a month’s break for players and staff. The 2020/21 season been dubbed potentially the most arduous in the sport’s history, as the British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa willContinue Reading

Krakenimages.com/Shutterstock.com Everyone experiences headaches. From dull throbbing dehydration headaches to incapacitating migraines, a sore head is an extremely common complaint. This is perhaps especially true at the moment. COVID-19 can cause them, as can sitting at desks for too long and not getting out of the house enough. When headaches strike, many people’s reaction is to reach for a painkiller. And these can do the job. But a better solution is often to probe the reasons behind the pain – especially if you get similar types of headaches a lot. Even though they all entail pain, where the pain is can clue us into what type of headache we are experiencing. Pain in the face and forehead are markers ofContinue Reading

The UK has met its target of offering a first COVID-19 vaccine dose to its top four priority groups by mid-February. All people over 70, frontline health and care staff, care home residents and extremely clinically vulnerable people have been offered a vaccine, with more than 15 million people having now taken a first dose. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s (JCVI) strategy has prioritised giving vaccines to those most likely to die from COVID-19 – predominantly elderly people. It reflects the stance taken by many countries and by the World Health Organization (WHO), and has been widely supported so far. But although age is a good predictor of who will get severely ill, the relationship is not perfectlyContinue Reading

Our research could be important for developing more effective vaccines in the future. Arturs Budkevics/ Shutterstock We understand much of how the immune system works but, as recent efforts to combat COVID-19 have shown, its sheer complexity means many mysteries still remain. For example, how our immune system learns to remember past infections has proved very difficult to study in humans. But our new study has brought us one step closer to understanding how our body remembers past infections so we can fight them in the future. We uncovered the important role antibodies play in creating long-lived immunity – and that different types of immune cells, called B cells, can influence the type of immune memory generated. Our research focusedContinue Reading