The human body is host to around 1.5 kg of microbes. In fact, the number of bacterial cells in your gut far outnumber human cells. This incredible system is known collectively as the microbiome. The study of the human microbiome is a very young field – we did not have the technological breakthroughs to really study this […]
The Olympic Games in Rio officially open later today yet already we have been embroiled in degrees of controversy. At the forefront is the controversy surrounding doping. We are playing a cat and mouse game with the doping cheat – we develop new and more sensitive tests for the latest doping agents, and in response, they try to […]
A massive leap forward in medical technology took place in the mid 20th century. The most significant change in the UK, after World War Two, was the establishment of the National Health Service. In the field of baby care, tests became available for defects such as spina bifida and Down’s syndrome and treatments were developed […]
What does growing old mean? Too many of us seem to believe that becoming thin and frail is an unavoidable part of ageing. This is the conclusion of a large-scale study commissioned by Abbott and supported by the Patient Association which found that 94 per cent of us fear injury in later life, nearly half […]
The challenge of making data and personal medical information available to individual patients and clinicians in a secure timely way is one that has been around for a long time. Failure to respond to this means that GPs are always asking, ‘what have you done to my patients?’, long after people have been discharged from […]
Scientific research is an ongoing process and one conclusion often raises more questions than it answers. Our research, published in the journal of Clinical Microbiology and Infection in June, provides evidence that some types of blood infections are more fatal in women than in men. In a large cohort of patients with bacteraemia caused by […]
Thirty years ago, being diagnosed with breast cancer was seen by many as a death sentence. Look how far we have come since then. According to the latest figures, 78 per cent of women are predicted to survive their disease for 10 years or more. In many other areas of cancer treatment, the improvements in […]
Lung cancer has very few symptoms at early stage and many people dismiss it as a possibility. We know that 37 per cent of lung cancer patients are only diagnosed when they make an emergency trip to A&E which is far too late. Only around 30 per cent of people with lung cancer survive one […]
Whether you are a health aficionado or just keen to get ‘bikini ready’ for summer, you may have already decided to swap solid food for a liquid diet made up of raw fruit and vegetable juice. If so, you are in good company. Supermodel Kate Moss is known to rely on juicing for last-minute fixes. In June 2013 she […]
Women who have had their appendixes removed are actually more likely to conceive a child afterwards, rather than less. This is what our latest large-scale study, published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, has found which flies in the face of the classic view that appendectomies harm a woman’s chance of having a baby because they […]