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Total 273 results found since Jan 2013.

Media dementia scare over hay fever and sleep drugs
Conclusion This large US prospective cohort study suggests a link between those taking high levels of anticholinergic medicines for more than three years and developing dementia in adults over 65. The main statistically significant finding was in a group taking the equivalent of any of the following medications daily for more than three years: xybutynin chloride, 5mg chlorpheniramine maleate, 4mg olanzapine, 2.5mg meclizine hydrochloride, 25mg doxepin hydrochloride, 10mg These are not unrealistic doses of medicine, so the results may be applicable to a significant proportion of older adults. The main lim...
Source: NHS News Feed - January 27, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medication Neurology Source Type: news

Strenuous jogging 'as bad as doing no exercise' claim
Conclusion This study has suggested that light to moderate jogging could be associated with living longer compared with being sedentary, but strenuous jogging might not be. Due to the fact that this data was collected prospectively, there are considerable limitations. The main limitation is that although the total number of joggers was quite high (around 1,000), once these joggers were split up by duration, frequency and pace of jogging, some of the individual groups were much smaller. This was particularly the case in the most active jogging categories (those who jogged more often, for longer, and at a higher pace). This ...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 3, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news

Flu and freezing weather may be driving up winter death rates
Conclusion There are always more deaths in winter than other seasons, particularly among elderly people. But why these fairly dramatic spikes in the death rate have occurred is still not understood. It should be noted these figures are provisional, as there can be a delay in the ONS receiving the data. Although the media has focused on the likely cause being flu, the numbers provided are for all respiratory conditions. Cold weather can exacerbate many of these conditions, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. For most fit and healthy people, flu is not a serious threat, but the elderly and those with...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 4, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Lifestyle/exercise Medical practice QA articles Source Type: news

HRT increases ovarian cancer risk by small amount
Conclusion This systematic review and meta-analysis showed that ovarian cancer risk was significantly increased in current HRT users, even in those with less than five years of HRT use (the average was three years). In ex-users, risks decreased the longer ago HRT use had stopped, but risks during the first few years after stopping remained significant. Furthermore, about a decade after stopping, long-duration hormone therapy use (average nine years of HRT use), there still seemed to be a small excess risk. The review has a few limitations, however. The main one is that the review was heavily influenced by just two of t...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 13, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Cancer Medication Older people Source Type: news

Long-term smoking 'may cause' brain shrinkage
Conclusion This study has shown an association between smoking and a thinner cortex, though it cannot prove that smoking caused the cortex to thin. The study was cross sectional, so cannot say which came first – the smoking or the cortex differences. Also, confounding factors other than smoking may be contributing. Strengths of the study include: Having access to measurements of cognitive ability when the participants were 11 years old, before most of them would have started smoking, as a potential indicator of cortex thickness. The radiologists were blinded to which MRIs came from each group, reducing the risk of ...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 12, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Neurology Source Type: news

Over two hours screen time a day may raise a child’s blood pressure
Conclusion The study found a worryingly high incidence of high blood pressure in children of just over 10%, instead of the expected 5%. It also found that low levels of physical activity and high levels of “screen time” raised the risk. Although researchers adjusted their analysis for a range of other factors which might affect blood pressure (called confounders), it is always possible that other unmeasured factors could have affected the results. In addition, the study was reliant on parental estimates of the amount of sedentary behaviour their children had per day, which may be an over- or underestimate. Wearing the ...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 26, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Lifestyle/exercise Pregnancy/child Source Type: news

Over two hours screen time a day may raise a child's blood pressure
Conclusion The study found a worryingly high incidence of high blood pressure in children of just over 10%, instead of the expected 5%. It also found that low levels of physical activity and high levels of “screen time” raised the risk. Although researchers adjusted their analysis for a range of other factors which might affect blood pressure (called confounders), it is always possible that other unmeasured factors could have affected the results. In addition, the study was reliant on parental estimates of the amount of sedentary behaviour their children had per day, which may be an over- or underestimate. Wearing the ...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 26, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Lifestyle/exercise Pregnancy/child Source Type: news

People with gout have lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease
Conclusion This population-based study has found that people with gout had a 24% reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. It was a well-designed study, in that there were large numbers of people in each group and multiple potential confounding factors were taken into account. The validation of the study was also valuable in showing the expected lack of a link between osteoarthritis and Alzheimer’s disease. However, there are some limitations with this type of study, with a major one being that it cannot prove cause and effect. While some potential confounding factors were accounted for in the statistical analysi...
Source: NHS News Feed - March 5, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medical practice Neurology Older people Source Type: news

Being optimistic after heart attack may help with recovery
Conclusion This well-designed study found that people who have a higher level of optimism are less likely to smoke or have depressive symptoms, more likely to be eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, and have a slightly higher physical health score. It also found that people who have low optimism and depressive symptoms are more than twice as likely to have a major cardiac event than people with high optimism and no depressive symptoms. In many ways the overall findings that a greater sense of wellbeing could be transferred into positive lifestyle changes, which could be linked to lower risk of subsequent he...
Source: NHS News Feed - March 6, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Mental health Source Type: news

How alcohol intake can change over a lifetime
ConclusionThis research combined information from nine studies, to model how alcohol intake changes over a lifetime in men and women in the UK, and is reportedly the first to do this.There are some points and potential limitations to note: The authors note that the different studies captured information on drinking in different ways, and although they tried to standardise this, they were not able to obtain complete information on drinking patterns. The data on which the models are based come from different periods, when alcohol consumption habits and strength of alcohol available may have differed. The authors looked ...
Source: NHS News Feed - March 9, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Older people Source Type: news

New blood test could help prevent antibiotic misuse
Conclusion This new test shows promising results in distinguishing between viral and bacterial infections. This is important because of increasing antibacterial resistance and could help doctors to tailor treatment quicker when someone is admitted with a suspected infection. At present, distinguishing between different types of infections is complex and relies on symptoms, signs, a variety of clinical tests and clinical judgement. One of these tests is the CRP, which is used as an indicator of the severity of infection or inflammation, and is often used to monitor this over time. It is surprising that it has been used as...
Source: NHS News Feed - March 19, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medical practice Medication Source Type: news

Fit middle-aged men have lower cancer risk
Conclusion This study shows that cardiovascular fitness is likely to reduce men's chances of developing lung and colorectal cancer, and appears to boost survival from cancer or cardiovascular disease in those diagnosed after the age of 65. This was based on comparing the top 40% of fittest men with the 20% least fit. The study focused on fitness and took account of major risk factors for cancer, such as smoking and blood pressure. However, it left out one important risk factor: diet. What people eat and drink is known to affect cancer risk. The fittest group may also have been the healthiest in terms of eating well and ...
Source: NHS News Feed - March 27, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Cancer Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news

Healthy diet could cut risk of Alzheimer's disease
ConclusionThe study found people who ate a healthy diet – with plenty of green vegetables, wholegrains, legumes and less red meat – may be less likely to get Alzheimer's disease. However, we should be wary of saying that their diet actually protected them from Alzheimer's, as it is a complex disease with many potential causes.The main limitation is that observational studies cannot prove causation, even when researchers take care, as they did here, to include factors that we know affect disease risk. It's also notable that the researchers excluded dementia, other than Alzheimer's disease, from their calculations. It wo...
Source: NHS News Feed - March 31, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Neurology Source Type: news

No such thing as baby brain, study argues
Conclusion The researchers conclude that although the pregnant women reported memory problems, these did not show up on their tests. However, this does not take into account their pre-pregnancy ability. The women may have performed better before they got pregnant, which is why they are now reporting memory problems. None of these women were tested before they got pregnant, which is the major limitation of the study. The researchers say that because there were a similar number of students in each group, the women in the control group was a good enough representation of how the pregnant women would have performed pre-pregna...
Source: NHS News Feed - April 8, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Mental health Neurology Pregnancy/child Source Type: news

Do diet soft drinks actually make you gain weight?
Conclusion This prospective study found that people who drank diet soft drinks every day experienced greater waist circumference gain over up to nine years of follow-up compared with those who never drank diet drinks (3.04cm gain versus 0.77cm). They also experienced a minimal gain in BMI (+0.05kg/m2) over follow-up, compared with a minimal loss in non-users of diet drinks (-0.41kg/m2). However, this study certainly does not prove that diet drinks, and diet drinks alone, are responsible for these small increases in waist circumference and BMI. People who drank diet drinks tended to have higher BMIs and waist circumferen...
Source: NHS News Feed - April 8, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Obesity Source Type: news