“The fight against polio has been one of the great success stories of modern medicine with the disease already eliminated in much of the world. However, current immunisation programmes use attenuated ‘live’ or ‘killed’ virus vaccines, both of which carry a risk of live virus escaping back into the wild. A research consortium, led by […]
New Orleans, US, 11 June 2016 – New findings from the two phase 3b SWITCH trials showed that treatment with long-acting basal insulin Tresiba® (insulin degludec injection U-100) resulted in significantly lower rates of overall, nocturnal and severe hypoglycaemia compared with insulin glargine U-100. 1,2 Results from the SWITCH 1 and 2 trials, the first […]
The first treatment for all types of leukaemia is usually chemotherapy, a powerful drug treatment that kills the cancerous cells in the blood. Treatment can also involve a transplant of new blood-forming stem cells, which are produced in the bone marrow, the spongy tissue that forms the centre of the bone. Stem cells are immature […]
Resistance to antibiotics Over my surgical career, I have seen a real change in the way we use antibiotics. Initially, we doled them out at every opportunity, not just to treat, but in the hope of preventing infection from surgery. Today, the situation is very different. We are seeing more and more people resistant to […]
Bio-identical hormone therapy routinely includes key anti-aging hormones such as oestrogen, progesterone, testosterone and DHEA, which can be taken orally in tablet form, administered as a topical gel or even injected. But it can also include a wide range of others, depending on the patient’s ‘deficiencies’. Cortisol: This is the body’s stress hormone because it […]
Jim O’Neill, chair of the UK Government’s Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, has today called for vaccines and alternative approaches to be used more widely in healthcare and agriculture as an alternative to antibiotics in the fight against drug-resistant “superbugs”. There has been much in the media recently about our currently available antibiotics becoming less effective, […]
Read More… from AMR and the importance of finding new ways to prevent and treat infections
A few years ago, I and some GP colleagues – Tony Avery from Nottingham University, and Rupert Payne from Cambridge University – were asked to do a review of polypharmacy by the King’s Fund. Polypharmacy had always been looked on disparagingly through my training in medicine and my subsequent work as a GP. It was […]
Antibiotic resistance occurs when medicines are no longer effective in treating bacterial infections. This is potentially catastrophic, as much of modern medicine would become impossible without antibiotics. Simple infections would become life-threatening and common surgery would become unsafe. Antibiotics are not effective against viral infections, yet they are often used to treat them. Pharmacists are on […]
Read More… from How can pharmacists fight antibiotic resistance?
I want to introduce you to a new drug. You may want to use it, indeed many people across the world do. It is from a natural source that is cheap to make and is easy to use. It is a helpful drug. In that it can help with stress relief, it reduces appetite a little […]
Heart transplant rejection Last year there were 145 heart transplant operations carried out in the UK, which is a life-saving treatment for people with acute heart failure. People who have undergone this procedure do need to take drugs that suppress the immune system for the rest of their lives or their bodies will reject the […]