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Total 273 results found since Jan 2013.

Yoga may help protect against heart disease
ConclusionOverall, this review suggests that yoga may be beneficial in reducing risk factors for cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome.While these are encouraging findings, the authors also caution that these are based on trials with some limitations, including: There was a wide variation in the type of yoga practised, the frequency and the length of each session across the studies. This means it is difficult to say what the actual effects of each approach are, as the overall effects are just an average across all of these approaches. Some may have more of an effect and some may have less. The review does not rep...
Source: NHS News Feed - December 16, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Heart/lungs Obesity Source Type: news

Inactivity 'twice as deadly' as obesity
Conclusion This study’s strengths included its large size and long follow-up period. Researchers also took into account a large number of factors (called confounders) that might have influenced the risk of death, such as diet, smoking history and alcohol intake, although it is still possible that both measured and unmeasured confounders influenced mortality rates. The study had one important limitation. It only measured people’s BMI (calculated by combining their weight and height) and their physical activity once, at the start of the study. It is quite possible that people’s BMI changed over time, and that this wou...
Source: NHS News Feed - January 15, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news

Type 1 diabetes 'more dangerous' in women
ConclusionThis systematic review suggests that type 1 diabetes is associated with a greater increase in risk of death in women than men.A systematic review is the best way to identify and summarise the best-quality studies available to answer a given question. The pooling (meta-analysis) of the studies' results means the review includes more people than the individual studies, and is therefore better able to detect differences between groups.The figures presented are comparisons of the relative increases in risk of death associated with type 1 diabetes within each gender. As women generally live longer than men, even thou...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 9, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Diabetes Source Type: news

Middle-age spread 'seems to reduce dementia risk'
Conclusion This cohort study of more than 1.9 million UK adults aged over 40 links being overweight or obese to a lower risk of dementia, compared with healthy weight people. Underweight people were at a higher risk of dementia. The study has many strengths, such as its large size and applicability to the UK. However, the authors note their results buck the trend of other research, which found being overweight or obese was linked to an increase risk. They suggest their study is probably more reliable than the past ones as they were smaller. They aren't quite sure what this means, and say: "The reasons for and publi...
Source: NHS News Feed - April 10, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Neurology Obesity Source Type: news

Media hypes molecular blood pressure regulation discovery
ConclusionThis animal research has identified a role for certain proteins in controlling blood pressure. Studies like this give clues as to how human biology works and how it can be fixed when it goes wrong. While the researchers suggest drugs targeting the proteins identified could help develop drugs to treat abnormal blood pressure, these drugs have not yet been developed. Researchers will need to develop such chemicals and thoroughly test their effects in animals first before they can be tested in humans. As such, this is early stage research, and there has not been a "treatment breakthrough" yet, because no t...
Source: NHS News Feed - May 8, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Source Type: news

UK women's life expectancy 'second worst' in Western Europe
"British women have second worst life expectancy in Europe," The Guardian reports. This is one of the findings of a Europe-wide health report carried out by the World Health Organization (WHO). The report also warned that European levels of alcohol consumption, smoking and obesity are alarmingly high, which could result in the following possibility: "Young Europeans may die at an earlier age than their grandparents". In the interests of accuracy, we should point out that the claim British women have the second worst life expectancy in Europe is incorrect. This figure is based on an analysis of countrie...
Source: NHS News Feed - September 23, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Cancer Heart/lungs Food/diet QA articles Source Type: news

Sugary drinks linked to increased heart failure risk in men
Conclusion This observational study found an association between the consumption of sweetened drinks and risk of heart failure. The study has some strengths, such as the large population size and long follow-up period. However, it has several limitations, which are acknowledged by the researchers. These include the following: The study included middle-aged and elderly men, so the results cannot be generalised to all age groups and genders. The men were all from Sweden, where there is a different typical diet to that of the UK. Researchers collected data on the daily and weekly intake of sweetened drinks in the pa...
Source: NHS News Feed - November 4, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Food/diet Source Type: news

Will a cholesterol-busting vaccine work for humans?
Conclusion The first thing to keep in mind is this is an early-stage study in the development of a vaccine to lower cholesterol. The study found some of the experimental vaccines the researchers developed had an effect on the cholesterol levels of mice and monkeys to varying degrees. They now need to do further work to show the vaccine is effective and can be used safely in humans. Many drugs have very different effects in humans than they do in other animals. The use of statins to lower cholesterol and reduce the chances of a heart attack or stroke is well established and effective for many people. Although there is ongo...
Source: NHS News Feed - November 12, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Medication Source Type: news

Being happy 'won't help you live longer' survey finds
ConclusionThis large prospective study aimed to assess whether happiness or related measures of wellbeing are associated with risk of death, after allowing for the influence of the poor health and lifestyles of people who are unhappy.The study found poor health was linked with unhappiness in middle-aged women. However, after allowing for this association and adjusting for the influence of other factors that may be associated, such as smoking and poor socioeconomic status, happiness and related measures of wellbeing do not appear to have any direct effect on death. This suggests that, as has sometimes previously been specu...
Source: NHS News Feed - December 11, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Mental health Source Type: news

NHS Health Checks 'prevented thousands of heart attacks'
ConclusionThis descriptive study has provided information about how many people took part in the NHS Health Check programme in the first four years it was available. While the uptake was initially relatively low, it is increasing. It is also encouraging that some of the more vulnerable groups – those who are older and those in the most deprived social group – are most likely to attend the checks. There were limitations to the data available. For example, it was not possible to directly assess whether all new prescriptions and treatments after the checks were as a direct result of the checks. The proportion of people wh...
Source: NHS News Feed - January 15, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Neurology Medical practice Source Type: news

Link between indigestion drugs and dementia 'inconclusive'
Conclusion This study found people taking PPIs had a 44% higher risk of developing dementia in a seven-year period compared with those not taking the drugs. However, it's not accurate to say this was down to the PPIs – the study couldn't prove this, and there are many possible explanations. For a start, the groups weren't very similar. Those taking PPIs had poorer health, and were more likely to be taking a number of medicines and have conditions linked to a higher risk of dementia, such as diabetes and heart disease. After taking these factors into account in the analysis, the link between PPIs and dementia reduc...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 16, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medication Neurology Older people Source Type: news

'Dying of heartache?' Heart problems linked to bereavement
Conclusion The study found that people were more likely to have AF for the first time in the weeks immediately after a bereavement, but that this raised risk does not last. Despite the headlines, this does not mean that anyone who's had a bereavement is at immediate risk of "dying of a broken heart". Atrial fibrillation is treatable and not usually life-threatening. Because this was an observational study, we cannot rule out the possibility that factors such as family history of atrial fibrillation or lifestyle factors could have affected the results, although the researcher's conclusion that this is a small poss...
Source: NHS News Feed - April 6, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Mental health Source Type: news

Exercise benefits you - even in polluted city air
Conclusion This modelling study aimed to assess exposure to air pollution through physical activity and the associated health risks around the world. The study found the background pollution level required to reach the tipping point is only present in less than 1% of cities, according to the WHO. In an average city physical exercise will remain beneficial up to seven hours a day for cycling or 16 hours for walking. In highly polluted areas this became as low as 30 minutes a day for cycling and 90 minutes of walking. The main limitation of this study is that it is only a model and we do not know how true to life the findi...
Source: NHS News Feed - May 6, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news

Heart attacks linked to media statin reports ... reports media
Conclusion This study aimed to estimate the effect on the use of statins in the UK after a six-month period of intense media coverage about the risks and benefits of the drugs. It found that patients were more likely to stop taking statins after exposure to the high media coverage compared with before the six-month period. However, there was no effect for people who had been newly prescribed statins. As the researchers acknowledge, interrupted time series studies like this one cannot confirm a causal link between the media coverage and the observed likelihood of stopping statin treatment. We cannot know the exact reasons...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 29, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Medication Medical practice Source Type: news

'Tooth loss link to increased risk of dementia'
Conclusion This study adds to the evidence that good oral health is linked to good overall health, including a reduction in the chances of developing dementia in later life. But the research doesn't prove that regular tooth brushing will prevent dementia. We don't know what causes dementia. From research so far, it looks as if there are a number of interlinked causes. Brain health and ageing are likely to be affected by factors including diet, exercise, smoking, alcohol use, blood pressure and genetics. While living a healthy lifestyle may certainly reduce the chances of dementia, there are no guarantees. This study ha...
Source: NHS News Feed - March 9, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Mental health Neurology Older people Source Type: news