Tag: health

• Saturday, September 29th 2018 - 09:11 UTC

  WHO-led initiative to reduce the use of alcohol by 10% by 2025

  

  The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday released SAFER, a new initiative and technical package outlining five high-impact strategies that can help governments reduce the harmful use of alcohol and related health, social and economic consequences.

• Thursday, September 27th 2018 - 08:50 UTC

  Life expectancy growth in UK has halted: baby girls can reach 82.9 years and baby boys, 79.2

  

  Growth in life expectancy in the UK has come to a halt, new figures show. A girl born between 2015 and 2017 is expected to live until 82.9 years old – no change on the previous figure for 2014-16, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The figure for baby boys born in 2015-17 is also unchanged, at 79.2 years.

• Saturday, September 22nd 2018 - 08:37 UTC

  WHO publishes “Coming of Age” on better health for adolescents

  

  The World Health Organization has published “Coming of age”, an in-depth online feature to advocate for better health for adolescents. The package includes video, gifs, visuals, and features on a range of topics on adolescent health, spanning mental health, sexuality education, as well as violence against and among youth, which remains a leading cause of adolescent deaths world-wide.

• Thursday, May 17th 2018 - 08:13 UTC

  New evidence from genetic data links obesity with increased risk of smoking

  

  A study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) provides new evidence that increased weight and obesity may result in increased smoking. The study, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and funded by Cancer Research UK (CRUK), found that increased body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage, and waist circumference were associated both with a higher risk of being a smoker and with greater smoking intensity, measured by the number of cigarettes smoked per day. These results were consistent in both men and women.

• Wednesday, May 2nd 2018 - 08:18 UTC

  Trump's 2015 “Super” health report was dictated by the president, claims doctor

  

  Donald Trump's former doctor has said he did not write a 2015 letter declaring the then-Republican presidential candidate's “astonishingly excellent” health, US media report. “[Trump] dictated that whole letter,” Harold Bornstein told CNN on Tuesday.

• Tuesday, April 24th 2018 - 08:15 UTC

  First ever genital transplant performed at John Hopkins University in Maryland

  

  A team of US doctors has successfully carried out the world's first total transplant of a penis and scrotum. Surgeons at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, performed the operation on a soldier who had been wounded by a bomb in Afghanistan.

• Sunday, March 4th 2018 - 15:49 UTC

  Sterile by obligation: “I cannot donate sperm because I am Venezuelan”

  

  I was stunned when the occupational assistant, with a form in hand and looking to me over her glasses, told me “is that if you are Venezuelan you cannot participate in this program”. We were just her, a newly purchased stretcher and a plate of donuts.

• Monday, February 19th 2018 - 08:59 UTC

  US scientists discover new family of antibiotics that combat drug resistant diseases

  

  US scientists have discovered a new family of antibiotics in soil samples. The natural compounds could be used to combat hard-to-treat infections, the team at Rockefeller University hopes.

• Tuesday, January 30th 2018 - 08:54 UTC

  Widespread antibiotic resistance to bacterial infections confirmed in WHO global testing

  

  WHO’s first release of surveillance data on antibiotic resistance reveals high levels of resistance to a number of serious bacterial infections in both high- and low-income countries. WHO’s new Global Antimicrobial Surveillance System (GLASS) reveals widespread occurrence of antibiotic resistance among 500 000 people with suspected bacterial infections across 22 countries.

• Thursday, January 18th 2018 - 09:21 UTC

  Advanced research shows how cancer cells interfere with DNA genetic instructions

  

  “Incredible” images of DNA in action have been captured by scientists who will use them to design cancer drugs. Researcher Dr Alessandro Vannini said the pictures were “beautiful” and in artistic comparisons were “definitely a Van Gogh”, since they capture a fundamental part of all plant and animal life, called RNA polymerase III, reading the genetic instructions contained in DNA. It is a process that gets hijacked by cancer.