Category Archive

Readers are sending me letters telling me that they’re worried that Brexit could harm their long-term health – especially people with chronic ailments who need a number of drugs. Will the ­supply dry up, they ask? Helgi Johannsson, clinical director at Imperial … Read More

Here’s a stat that should be ­interesting to all of us. One in 50 people is questioning their gender. But that stat gets even more interesting – the NHS can’t cope with the number of patients whose gender dysphoria is … Read More

Can you believe that artificial intelligence has stopped ­advanced cases of prostate cancer from spreading? Technology known as CURATE.AI (CAI) is being used to continuously assess how well a patient is responding to their medication and adjusts the doses accordingly. In an … Read More

Despite the fact that women have given birth over millennia and got through it safely, the current generation of mums-to-be are prey to fear and anxiety as never before. In the old days, horror tales of ­difficult and long births … Read More

Nature or nurture – which is it that causes depression? Well, genes certainly play a part. If your parents have been ­depressed, the chances of you getting depressed are greatly increased. At some point in our lives about one in … Read More

An early menopause used to be a rarity, now it’s not. Why? The average age for the start of the menopause is 51 but we now know thousands of women lose their oestrogen much earlier than that, as early as … Read More

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a particularly painful form of ­the disease where the body produces antibodies to its own joints. But there is hope for sufferers. In the not-too distant future, the pain, stiffness and destruction of joints caused by the condition … Read More

A reader recently asked me to explain what’s meant by ­overdiagnosis. I wasn’t ­surprised because it (and overtreatment) is the buzz word of the moment in medical circles. For the avoidance of doubt here’s the definition of overdiagnosis. It’s the … Read More

The most common fatal genetic disorder in children is Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), the muscle-weakening condition affecting as many as one in 3,500 boys worldwide. “Children with DMD often die either because their heart loses the strength to pump, or … Read More

Anaemia literally means too little blood — or rather, too little healthy blood. The most ­common type is iron-­deficiency anaemia which lowers the amount of iron in red blood cells. That iron, or “haem”, gives the red colour to red … Read More