Letter: Switch transport funds to cycling - The Guardian 22nd August 2008
Some have dared hope that Britain's haul of Olympic cycling medals will prompt a cycling revival and solve the nation's obesity crisis ('Put cycling on school curriculum', August 21). This may happen, but only if we invest significantly more in cycle-friendly infrastructure. Cycling is recognised - along with walking - as the physical activity most accessible to the two-thirds of Britons who do not presently reach even minimum recommended levels of activity. But few will try cycling while our streets are so traffic-dominated and hostile. So while 47% of children would like to cycle to school, for example, only 3% do.
The benefits of walking to school - The Guardian 22nd August 2008
Parents are keen for children to adopt healthier habits - such as walking to school - but safety concerns often clash with best intentions
How to get the most out of school meals - The Guardian 22nd August 2008
After years of campaigns and controversy, school meals are now healthier than before - but there is some way to go before all menus change
Anti-natal: Zoe Williams on parenting - The Guardian 22nd August 2008
You know how I hate to repeat myself, but I repeat: if you are not pregnant for the first time, right now, go and read something else. You'll just be bored if you stay here.\n\nRight, where were we? Weight gain in pregnancy. As C said, while I was standing at a mirror bitching and moaning at my horrible arse in my disgusting trousers: "Did you expect to do a whole pregnancy without putting on any weight?" NoofcourseIdidn'tstupid. But I thought it would be more mysterious. I didn't think it would be as workaday as just eating all the time and ergo getting fat. But we established last week, if that's how you are, physiologically, that's how you are. Surrender to it!
UK has more people of pensionable age than children under 16 | - The Guardian 22nd August 2008
For the first time, the UK has more people of pensionable age than children under 16, the Office for National Statistics revealed yesterday.
Confirmation of the ageing nature of Britain's population comes as the improvement in mortality rates seen in the second half of the 20th century is shown to have accelerated during this decade.NHS dentists in England extracting more teeth - The Guardian 22nd August 2008
NHS dentists in England are extracting more teeth and providing patients with fewer x-rays, fillings and crowns, official figures revealed yesterday.
The NHS Information Centre said treatments involving the fitting or repairing of false teeth accounted for 38% of complex dental activity in 2003-04. This rose to 48% in 2007-08. At the same time, extractions increased from 7% to 8% of dentists' workload, but the proportion of time spent on preparing and fitting crowns fell from 48% to 35% and fillings from 28% to 26%.The NHS should offer infertile couples more and wider treatment to help end the IVF postcode lottery, government advisers said today.\n\nNHS trusts in England should make IVF (in-vitro fertilisation) a higher priority when drawing up spending plans by considering the often unseen effects of infertility on mental health and general wellbeing, the Expert Group on Commissioning NHS Infertility Provision said.
Diary of terminally ill woman who chose euthanasia - The Guardian 23rd August 2008
When Marc Weide's mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she chose euthanasia. Here, we publish his shockingly frank diary of her final days
Bad science: Can obsessing over sport actually improve your health? - The Guardian 23rd August 2008
What I particularly enjoy is the spectacle of fat people - ideally drinking beer - watching television, while somewhere on the other side of the world citizens of all nations are getting some nice exercise in the Olympics (throwing javelins, jumping over metal bars, climbing lamp-posts with banners, and running away from the water cannon).
Drug companies are spending millions of pounds every year on all-expenses-paid trips to conferences around the world for doctors and other hospital staff, in what critics say is a massive marketing exercise dressed up as medical education.
From offensive road signs to bad jokes about silver surfers, age discrimination is one of the besetting problems of our times
Brian Moreton: Damning the demon drink won't deal with a greater ill - The Observer 24th August 2008
My headmaster once carpeted me for truanting. Golf before grades was our teenage version of guns before butter. He aspired to be Yoda, this pedagogue, but with better word order. 'By absconding from school, you have this afternoon missed Dr Roy's excellent annual lecture on astronomy. I consider that punishment enough. Run along.' Twit. It briefly occurred to me to say that missing double maths the following morning would pain me to the soul, but too briefly and not quickly enough.
Poverty is UK's hidden child killer - The Observer 24th August 2008
Government has failed to tackle the epidemic of chronic illness and early deaths among the most disadvantaged in society, says a new report
Letters: Drug company marketing - The Guardian 25th August 2008
Your story detailing the level of incentives paid by big drug companies to medical professionals exposes what appears to be attempt by these companies to buy favours (Drug giants accused over doctors' perks, August 23). This widespread activity seems to go beyond what is normally understood a "perk" given for some minor service rendered. We give these professionals our trust; they know best, we assume, and advise us on what medicines we need to take to maintain our health. How can this trust be maintained in the face of such practices? The companies themselves already make enormous profits from prices for drugs; they realise that spending a few thousands on sending doctors on foreign trips is worth it.
Specialists question decision not to fund drugs for kidney cancer - The Guardian 25th August 2008
The government's drug advisory body has defended its methods of assessing what cancer treatments should be offered to patients after some of the country's most eminent cancer specialists told it to "get its sums right".
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) issued a statement at the weekend explaining its methodology after 26 oncologists - including the directors of oncology at two of Britain's biggest cancer hospitals - wrote to the Sunday Times and called for "radical change" in the way Nice makes its decisions.Elderly 'go hungry in hospital' - BBC Health News 25th August 2008
Elderly people are going hungry in hospital because staff fail to ensure they are fed, a charity has said.
An Age Concern study of 110 English and Welsh NHS trusts found 43% did not run protected mealtimes - where non-urgent work stops to make sure patients eat.Caesarean babies' 'diabetes risk' - BBC Health News 25th August 2008
Children born by Caesarean section have a 20% higher risk of developing type 1 diabetes than those born naturally, says a report in PubMed journal.
This form of diabetes, which can start in early childhood, is on the rise in Europe and scientists are unsure why.Claire Young strutted to television fame as a finalist on this year’s The Apprentice wearing her trademark four-inch high-heeled shoes.
A fast-talking, tough businesswoman, it appeared that nothing could floor her — she threatened that if she won the hit show, she’d ‘shake-up’ the formidible Sir Alan Sugar’s businesses.For some multiple sclerosis sufferers, just getting out of bed is tough.
For 43-year-old father-of-three Jon Salisbury, getting up took up to an hour and involved the help of his wife or his children.Doctors are keeping cancer patients in the dark about new drugs that could extend their lives.
A quarter of specialists questioned for a poll published today say they hide the facts about treatments if they are awaiting official approval from the Government’s drug rationing body NICE.Earlier this month, the Royal College of Midwives warned the Government that problems in Britain's delivery wards were reaching a crisis point as staffing levels were not keeping pace with our increasing birth rate.
Here, newly-qualified midwife Sarah Cameron, 35, who works in a busy London maternity unit, shares her work diary with ADELE WATERS.Surgeons saved my sex life by vaporising my painful prostate - Daily Mail 26th August 2008
Most men over 50 have an enlarged prostate, and every year 40,000 have surgery to relieve a blockage which can lead to a long stay in hospital.
Roger Vause, 65, a computer engineer from Wellingborough, Northants, underwent a new technique so he could go home the same day. He tells CAROL DAVIS his story, and his surgeon explains the procedure.Ask the doctor: Diabetics must look after their kidneys... - Daily Mail 26th August 2008
Dr Martin Scurr has been treating patients for more than 30 years and is one of the country's leading GPs. Here he tackles kidneys and hives...
So-called 'smug marrieds' may actually have a scientific basis for extolling the benefits of stepping down the aisle.
New research shows that not only does having a good marriage keep you healthy, it can also prolong life by up to five years.Dying at home - rather than in a hospital - is something many of us say we would prefer, according to a recent YouGov survey. But although the Government has said it will try to make it easier, it's still an option denied to many people.
Here, in a moving and ultimately uplifting account, writer NICK MAES describes his mother Marjorie's death, and why it was so important for her whole family that it happened in the place she loved best...The traditional English breakfast has long suffered a reputation for being a 'heart attack on a plate' with its high fat and calorie content.
Now those who still regularly enjoy tucking into a fry-up have something else to worry about - a 63 per cent higher risk of bowel cancer.For most people, the Victorian era evokes Dickensian scenes of wool mills, orphanages, and workhouses full of malnourished, overworked children, and adults living short, harsh lives.
But research, published next month in the Journal Of The Royal Society Of Medicine, has found that not only did many of our Victorian forebears live longer than we do today - but they were also healthier and had stronger immune systems.Children could be taught sex education from the age of four, under plans by MPs.
They are calling on the Government to ensure that advice on relationships, contraception and sexually transmitted diseases is compulsory in all primary and secondary schools.More than 1,000 premature births could be avoided every year if women were screened for infections early in pregnancy, a British expert in early births said on Monday.
Dr Ronnie Lamont, a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology, said bacteria and fungi are responsible for just under half of all babies born before 37 weeks.As a child safety measure in the car, its importance could never be underplayed.
Researchers, however, yesterday warned that the convenience of the portable car baby seat is having some far less desirable effects.Eating two eggs a day could help you lose weight and cut cholesterol levels, say researchers.
Previously, there was thought to be a direct link between consuming cholesterol-rich foods such as eggs and an increase in blood cholesterol levels, which raises the risk of heart disease.Britain is the unfairest country in the world - The Telegraph 26th August 2008
Are you better off than your parents? Will your children be better off than you? I defy anyone to say they aren’t instantly stirred by such simple but life-defining questions.
Even the most guarded, hardened Briton will eventually crack with emotion — be it heartfelt appreciation of the sacrifices made by parents, bitter regrets over talents unfulfilled, or the deep pride from seeing the achievements of children, now grown and flown.Caesarean babies at risk of diabetes - The Times 26th August 2008
Babies delivered by Caesarean section have a significantly higher risk of developing diabetes in childhood than those born naturally, a study suggests.
A review of 20 studies on children with type 1 diabetes found those delivered by Caesarean section had a 20 per cent increased risk of developing the condition.Cancer patients kept in dark about ‘too expensive’ drugs - Times Online
Doctors are deciding against telling cancer patients about expensive new treatments to avoid causing distress when they find out that the NHS is unwilling to pay for them.
A quarter of specialists questioned in a survey admitted to hiding the facts about new drugs for bone marrow cancer that may be difficult to obtain on the NHS.Letters: Perks, prescriptions and pills - The Guardian 26th August 2008
Once again the relationship between doctors and the pharmaceutical industry is presented as a moral mire into which doctors are sinking (Drug giants accused over doctors' perks, August 23).
Aida Edemariam on Baroness Thatcher and the nature of dementia - The Guardian 26th August 2008
The confirmation this weekend that Baroness Thatcher suffers from dementia is only really surprising in its particulars - but they are moving particulars, nonetheless. The woman who, as her daughter Carol writes in her new memoir, A Swim-On Part in the Goldfish Bowl, "had a memory like a website", and was capable, during Prime Minister's Questions, of "not only reading and analysing briefs but also virtually knowing them off by heart," now often forgets the beginning of sentence by the time she has got to the end. She also thinks her home is in Grantham (her birthplace in Lincolnshire) when it is in London, and has had to be told that her husband Denis is dead
Alice Wignall on the health benefits of singing - The Guardian 26th August 2008
From church choirs to karaoke bars, singing has always lifted people's spirits. But could it be good for their physical health too? Alice Wignall finds out
Peta Bee on the use of precious metals in medicine - The Guardian 26th August 2008
Gold injections can treat arthritis and silver coating fights hospital infections. Peta Bee reveals the surprisingly practical uses of precious metals in medicine
Tories say Labour neglects teenage health - The Guardian 26th August 2008
The Conservatives yesterday charged the Labour government with creating a "teenage timebomb", presiding over a deterioration of teenage health that has seen the number of young people admitted to hospital annually rise by 23% since 2000.
Using government statistics, the Tories issued a dossier showing that on six counts teenage health had got "steadily worse" since 2000, with the deterioration even more marked among early teens.
UK Health News 08/26/2008
Tuesday 26 August 2008
Posted by Kieran at 11:31
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