As a star-studded crowd in Detroit wished a final farewell to Aretha Franklin the Queen of Soul, a relatively unheard-of group of patients around the world reflected on the suffering they had shared with her: neuroendocrine cancer. For the last seven years of her life, Aretha Franklin was being treated for a type of ‘pancreatic […]
As more cases of Ebola are confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, two British experts comment on what is happening and how the virus may be contained. Dr Nicolas Locker, Reader in Virology, at the University of Surrey, said: ‘Only few weeks after confirming the end of an the last Ebola outbreak that started […]
The message of this year’s World Hepatitis Day is ‘Find the missing millions’ which aims to focus attention on the fact that millions of people around the world have Hepatitis C without knowing they have the infection, and around 214,000 people in the UK are undiagnosed. Hepatitis C is a dangerous viral infection that is […]
Scientists have made a major discovery about how cells repair broken strands of DNA that could have huge implications for the treatment of cancer. Their study, published in Nature, uncovered a brand new protein complex in cells that shields broken DNA ends and controls the way in which it is repaired. The new complex pushes […]
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Nicotine exposure during pregnancy, whether from smoking cigarettes, or nicotine patches and e-cigarettes, increases risk of sudden infant death syndrome – sometimes known as “cot death” – according to new research published in The Journal of Physiology. Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden and unexpected death of an infant under 12 months of […]
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Understanding how the heart is built in the womb could help develop drugs and techniques to repair it in adult life, according to University of Aberdeen researchers who have secured funding to investigate the details of this important process. Around 420 people die every day in the UK as a result of cardiovascular disease, according […]
Financial incentives help to drive down unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions from GPs and could reduce the amount of antibiotics in the community, according to a paper published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. This, in turn, could help to curb drug-resistant infections. The findings show the number of patients prescribed antibiotics by their GP for a common […]
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Gut bacteria markers could be a ‘smoking gun’ for liver disease, according to new research. The findings, published in the journal Nature Medicine, hint at the potential for chemical by-products produced by the microbes living inside us to be used as early warning signs of disease, which could be detected using a simple blood test. An […]
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It is deeply shocking to read the conclusions of Bishop James Jones’s review, that the lives of hundreds of people were cut short by one doctor’s inappropriate use of drugs. We have heard of many instances of poor care over the years, but to deliberately shorten the lives of patients represents the very worst betrayal […]
Ghana has made history by becoming the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to eliminate trachoma – the world’s leading cause of infectious blindness. In 2000, about 2.8 million people in Ghana were estimated to be at risk of trachoma. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has today (Wednesday 13th June) made the official announcement that the […]