With the distressing spate of news reports about mums and babies who weren’t kept safe in hospital, an initiative in the Midlands to improve patient safety in maternal and acute care settings comes as a relief. The newly announced Midlands Patient Safety Research … Read More
Having a chat can be enough to lift the spirits of someone with dementia
Those of us who have, or have had, daily contact with someone with dementia cast about for ways of helping them. But it turns out something as simple as talking could be a real benefit – talking therapies in particular, say researchers … Read More
Best time to exercise that can help you burn 70% more calories revealed
Food is off the menu for me before I exercise – even if it’s just going for a walk. It seems logical that if your stomach is empty the only place your body can get energy from is fat. Moreover, research … Read More
GPs could predict and prevent serious falls with hospital admissions tumbling
Each year in England, falls cause around 235,000 hospital admissions for people over 65, costing the NHS an estimated £2.3billion. Dr Constantinos Koshiaris of Oxford University, who has developed a new tool for doctors to identify patients at high risk … Read More
Cambridge researchers discover how cancer spreads and look for drugs to stop it
How cancer spreads remains a mystery. Just how and why do cancer cells set off around the body to produce seedlings of cancer that grow into “secondaries” or metastases? What enables cancer cells to travel? Through some amazing research, Cambridge scientists have … Read More
Pharmacies may soon be first to spot gum disease that could lead to heart failure
Recently I wrote about how bad teeth and gum disease can cause serious heart problems. And now along comes research from Birmingham University on a rapid test for gum disease that could help address this – and a lot more. Gum (periodontal) … Read More
Simple diet changes could help debilitating menopause symptoms
There’s been a flurry of interest in the menopause recently, with more attention – finally – on the debilitating symptoms women suffer as their oestrogen levels plummet. And it gives rise to the question: could the loss of oestrogen seriously affect a … Read More
We should tell people how long their food will take to burn off in exercise
Frankly I’ve thought this for years – food labelling shouldn’t just give calories, but also the amount of exercise you have to do to burn them off. Knowing that information you may decide to opt for a “lazier”, healthier alternative. Researchers from … Read More
Sexual health tests given out from vending machines in a bid to tackle disease
Free health information, and easy access to it, is something I’m always in favour of. So a new initiative to provide vending machines offering free sexual health testing kits gets my vote. They’ve been launched in four venues across Bristol, North Somerset … Read More
Scientists find baby talk used by parents is the same in 36 different languages
The universality of baby talk has been a favourite topic of mine for decades, and now a study by the University of York and Denmark’s Aarhus University has revealed that baby talk is the same across 36 languages. ‘Baby talk’, that sing-songy … Read More