Health

The world is entering “a new phase” where large outbreaks of deadly diseases like Ebola are a “new normal”, the World Health Organization warns. Previous Ebola outbreaks affected relatively small numbers of people. But the Democratic Republic of Congo is dealing with the second ever largest outbreak, just three years after the world’s largest outbreak ended.The WHO said countries and ...

Migraine sufferers who used a smartphone-based relaxation technique at least twice a week experienced fewer headache days per month, a study has found. The RELAXaHEAD app, developed by researchers from the New York University in the US, guides patients through progressive muscle relaxation, or PMR. In this form of behavioural therapy, patients alternately relax and tense different muscle groups to reduce stress. ...

300 adults from the BAME community in east London are waiting for a kidney transplant. Someone from the BAME community will wait twice as long as a white person for an organ donation. Tower Hamlets Council in partnership with Kidney Research UK and Barts Health NHS Trust are joining forces to raise awareness of the great need for people from ...

The World Health Organization has for the first time recognised burn-out in its International Classification of Diseases (ICD), which is widely used as a benchmark for diagnosis and health insurers. The decision, reached during the World Health Assembly in Geneva, which wraps up on Tuesday, could help put to rest decades of debate among experts over how to define burn-out, and ...

The human immunodeficiency virus uses CCR5 to gain entry into cells The first people to be gene-edited – a pair of baby twin girls – may have been mutated in a way that shortens life expectancy, research suggests. Prof He Jiankui shocked the world when he genetically altered the twins to try to give them protection against HIV. But a ...

With rising incidents of heart attack among those in 25-40 age group, a worrying trend, experts have recommended extensive cardiac screening at high schools and colleges as an effective measure to prevent such cases. Changing lifestyle, food habits, high stress in urban areas, binge drinking and use of narcotics have increased the risk factors among youth. Now experts are not surprised to see a ...

Depression and other mental health problems can spread through social networks, up to “three degrees of separation” or a friend of a friend of a friend, scientists warn. In a hyperconnected world, traditional social networks – face-to-face contacts of daily life – are unravelling with the loss of social supports, said researchers at the Flinders University in Australia. This is ...

In a new study researchers have found that low levels of a circulating hormone called adropin predict increased weight gain and metabolic dysregulation during consumption of a high-sugar diet in a nonhuman primate model. According to the study published in the ‘Journal of Biological Chemistry,’ these findings will help set the stage to develop new therapies for managing metabolic diseases. ...

People with type 2 diabetes are at higher risk of deadly liver cirrhosis and liver cancer according to a new study, reports ANI. According to the study published in the journal, ‘BMC Medicine’ patients in Europe are being diagnosed at the later stages of the disease, which are associated with greater risk of liver-related mortality. The study involving 18 million ...

Drinking coffee keeps the bowels moving because it changes gut bacteria and improves ability of intestines to contract, find researchers. Researchers, feeding rats coffee and also mixing it with gut bacteria in petri dishes, found that coffee suppressed bacteria and increased muscle motility, regardless of caffeine content. “When rats were treated with coffee for three days, the ability of the muscles in the small ...