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Source: NHS News Feed - January 31, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news

Cancer treatment response may be affected by gut bacteria
Conclusion This early-stage study gives us some insights into factors that might influence people's responses to a specific type of cancer treatment (immunotherapy with monoclonal antibodies). The findings are of interest, but don't have any immediate implications for cancer treatment. We don't know what the conditions that required antibiotic treatment were and whether these could have affected the response to immunotherapy. We don't know whether the antibiotics themselves influenced how well the immunotherapy worked, or whether it was their effect on gut bacteria. We also don't know whether having high levels of p...
Source: NHS News Feed - November 3, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Cancer Source Type: news

Could a blood test in middle age predict dementia risk?
Conclusion Inflammation in the body is a response to injury or disease. But if the body is constantly in an inflammatory state, it can harm blood vessels and lead to heart disease. This study suggests high levels of inflammation over the long term might also damage the brain. That's not surprising – what's good for the heart is usually good for the brain, and we already know exercising, avoiding high blood pressure and eating healthily may help protect the brain. Studies like this will help researchers work out more precisely what's happening in the brain when people experience memory loss or dementia. But this study has...
Source: NHS News Feed - November 2, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news

Acid reflux drugs linked to increased stomach cancer risk
Conclusion PPIs are commonly used medicines for acid reflux. This may seem like alarming news for the many people in the UK who take them, but it's important to remember that the overall risk of stomach cancer is still very low. This study has several limitations that mean we should be cautious about the results: This type of study can't prove PPIs caused the increased risk of cancer. The increased risk could be down to other factors. Researchers were unable to adjust their figures to take account of some relevant confounding factors, such as alcohol and tobacco use, as these weren't routinely recorded. Almost all the pati...
Source: NHS News Feed - November 1, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Cancer Source Type: news

Nutrient drink for Alzheimer's has disappointing result in trial
Conclusion This trial provides valuable evidence about the effects of a nutrient drink, Souvenaid, on memory in individuals with early signs that they may develop Alzheimer's disease. Importantly, the researchers found no significant effect on the main outcome their study looked at (memory). They did find less brain shrinkage and slightly better cognitive scores in the experimental group, but this still didn't lead to any reduction in the number who were diagnosed with dementia by the end of the study. This trial therefore provides no evidence that Souvenaid/Fortasyn Connect can help to prevent or slow Alzheimer's developi...
Source: NHS News Feed - October 31, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Neurology Source Type: news

Marriage may help lower dementia risk
Conclusions The general findings that marriage and having more social relationships seem to be linked to better health and wellbeing is in line with the results of much previous research. But there are several important things to keep in mind: Although the study followed people who didn't have dementia at the start of the study, it can't prove that marital status or the number of close relationships directly increased or decreased dementia risk. Biological, health, lifestyle and environmental factors may all influence a person's risk of dementia (particularly the most common form of dementia, Alzheimer's disease, whi...
Source: NHS News Feed - October 30, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Neurology Source Type: news

Afternoon open heart surgery 'leads to fewer complications'
Conclusion This study found evidence of an effect that's worth investigating further to see if there are real differences in heart muscle function and risk of complications from heart surgery at different times of the day. However, there were some limitations: It took place at a single hospital, with a relatively small number of people undergoing operations. The laboratory study found differences in gene activity that suggested the body clock may play a role in making the heart better able to tolerate loss of oxygen and subsequent re-oxygenation. However, there may be other explanations for these differences. For example, ...
Source: NHS News Feed - October 27, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Source Type: news

Report calls for better mental health support in the workplace
"Up to 300,000 people with long-term mental health problems have to leave their jobs each year, a report says," writes BBC News. This was just one of the UK media outlets that published the findings of a report looking at the extent of mental ill health in the workplace, and the related economic and social costs. Most of the media led with headlines stating that 300,000 people with long-term mental health conditions leave work each year – twice the rate of those without mental health conditions. The loss to the economy was estimated to be up to £99 billion a year, including lost productivity output, the cost o...
Source: NHS News Feed - October 26, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Mental health Source Type: news

Blood-thinning drugs may reduce dementia risk in people with irregular heartbeats
Conclusion If you’ve been diagnosed with AF and you have been prescribed anticoagulant treatments such as warfarin or clopidogrel, we already know they protect you against having a stroke. This study suggests they may also help to protect you against dementia. Cutting the risk of dementia for people who have a raised risk because of AF would be an exciting step forward. Unfortunately, we can’t tell from this study whether the protection against dementia was down to the anticoagulants, because of the possible effect of unmeasured confounding factors. Usually, we would want to see a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to f...
Source: NHS News Feed - October 25, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Neurology Source Type: news

New genetic variants associated with breast cancer identified
Conclusion This large analysis of data has identified 65 more SNPs associated with an increased risk of developing breast cancer. These variations hadn't previously been associated with overall breast cancer risk. A second, smaller study published at the same time identified another 7 variations specifically associated with an increased risk of oestrogen receptor negative breast cancer, a type of breast cancer that's notoriously hard to treat. In total, these studies bring the number of SNPs associated with breast cancer to about 180. Although these are interesting findings, there are a few points to bear in mind: The vari...
Source: NHS News Feed - October 25, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Cancer Source Type: news

Eating mushrooms at breakfast may help you feel fuller
Conclusions Though of interest, this study doesn't provide strong evidence that you should eat mushrooms if you want to lose weight. The study has a number of limitations: It's a short-term study that didn't look at effects on weight. It showed that people reported feeling fuller after eating mushrooms, but there were few signs this actually led to them eating less. As the researchers openly acknowledge, there could be other explanations for the findings. To match the protein content in mince required a much larger volume of mushrooms, and therefore a larger sandwich that would have taken more time and effort to chew...
Source: NHS News Feed - October 23, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Source Type: news

Men who perform oral sex on women 'more at risk of mouth and throat cancers'
Conclusion This study uses a large amount of national data to give us an idea about which groups of people have the greatest risk of carrying potentially cancer-causing oral HPV . But while oral HPV may increase people's risk of mouth and throat cancers, the actual number who would go on to develop cancer is extremely small. This study has limitations, which are worth bearing in mind: It only looked at whether people had oral HPV at a single point in time. This makes it difficult to know at what point they became infected and how much this could be down to other risk factors such as smoking, oral sex and number of partn...
Source: NHS News Feed - October 20, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Cancer Source Type: news

Worrying rise in reports of self-harm among teenage girls in UK
Conclusions This valuable study raises concerns about the large increase in rates of self-harm among young teenage girls, and the apparent inequality in both rates of self-harm and recognition of risk between areas of greater and lesser deprivation. It is also notable that alcohol or drug overdose was recorded in the majority of self-harm cases. These suggest, as the researchers rightly say, areas to target public health attention. There are though, a few points to consider: It can be difficult to distinguish between self-harm without intention of suicide and a suicide attempt. This distinction is usually made by discussin...
Source: NHS News Feed - October 20, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Mental health Source Type: news

HIV prevention drug could save NHS £1 billion over 80 years
Conclusion Evidence to support the use of Prep is building. Studies have shown that it is very effective at reducing the chances of becoming infected with HIV, for men at risk of infection through unprotected sex with men. The question is more about the cost of treatment – and who should fund it – than whether it works. NHS England previously went to court to say that it should not be responsible for funding Prep, as it is a preventive treatment, and therefore should come under health promotion budgets held by local authorities. The High Court ruled that the NHS was able to fund the drug. NHS England has since said it ...
Source: NHS News Feed - October 19, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medication Source Type: news

Thousands of studies could be flawed due to contaminated cells
This study shows why it is important for researchers to consistently take these steps. The authors of the current research make a number of suggestions for additional improvements to the current situation, including that: papers reporting on the discovery of misidentified cell lines need to be clearly labelled so that other researchers can easily find them to make sure they don't "spread" misleading research in their own publications those aiming to clean up the contamination problem should write about the contamination, using social media campaigns and general media coverage to highlight the issue and i...
Source: NHS News Feed - October 19, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news