Leftovers can be good for you

Boxing day has arrived and we can all look forward to eating leftovers for the next few days. Take heart though – Christmas fare, in moderation, can actually be good for you, even if aren’t really looking forward to curried turkey salad and refried sprouts. Brussels sprouts These contain more than your daily requirement of […]

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The 12 Days of NHS Choices Christmas

Christmas is the season of giving and goodwill and NHS Digital has trawled through the analytics of NHS Choices over the past year to bring you the numbers behind what the nation is searching for via this improvised Christmas Carol. On the first day of Christmas NHS Choices gave to me – 525 million reasons […]

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Christmas feasting a heart attack risk

We all like to over indulge at Christmas and most of us can get away with feasting on delicious turkey, mince pies, brandy cream and champagne. The average person eats around a whopping 5,240 calories on Christmas Day, including a lot of fat. Most of us can get away with it. But overeating is dangerous […]

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Merry Christmas without asthma

Christmas trees, candle fumes and smoking Christmas puddings may be festive but they can all make asthma symptoms worse this holiday season. A sudden change in weather, especially gusts of freezing air, thunderstorms, colds and flu can all trigger asthma attacks. Asthma sufferers have more sensitive airways and the condition can lead to unpleasant symptoms […]

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A new boost for leukaemia treatment

Leukaemia treatment can be made more effective by using a drug for iron overload, according to new research. Scientists led by a team at Imperial College London have found that chemotherapy for one type of leukaemia could be improved by giving patients a drug currently used to treat an unrelated condition. Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) […]

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10 most common Christmas stressors

Christmas is many things to many people. For some, it’s about family time, others good food and drink, for some it’s the gifts or traditions, the tree, or simply the children’s excitement. Whatever the best (or worst) bits of Christmas are for you, it is invariably stressful in the run up to Christmas and often […]

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Have an accident-free Christmas

Christmas is an exciting time of year as families come together to celebrate. However, studies by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) have shown it is also a potentially dangerous time of year. More than 6,000 people will end up in hospital on Christmas Day and more than 80,000 will visit A&E […]

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Restricting free OTC prescriptions

NHS England is proposing to draw a new line between when the NHS will help someone, and when citizens are required to fall back on their own private resources when it comes to prescriptions for over-the-counter medicines. This may or may not be a good idea, but it certainly shouldn’t be motivated by a funding […]

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Million Miracles campaign to prevent blindness

Recent figures published by the Lancet show 36 million people are blind, yet 75% of blindness is preventable or treatable. Cataract, which takes just 10 minutes to treat and costs as little as £30, is the leading cause of preventable blindness. Every cataract operation, regardless of who receives it, is like a little miracle – […]

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The Unmentionables: Intimate health products in conflict zones

As an academic, I am interested in the political and health nexus of conflict, and three years ago, I was working on an academic study concerning sexual and reproductive health amongst forcibly displaced communities in Greece. As I explored the high rates of survival sex amongst young migrants, it became abundantly clear that the entire […]

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