Category: Health

It seems contradictory: the pills you’re taking for headaches might actually be perpetuating them. Medication-overuse headache is a well-documented medical phenomenon, but the good news is it’s often reversible once identified. Over 10 million people in the UK regularly get headaches, making up about one in every 25 visits to a GP. Most headaches are […]

This roundup of The Conversation’s climate coverage was first published in our award-winning weekly climate action newsletter, Imagine. A close friend of mine escaped her home in the British Virgin Islands during Hurricane Irma in September 2017. She and her young family had to grab their passports and not much else when they fled 200mph […]

A new study suggests that even low levels of physical activity could protect the brain from Alzheimer’s disease – but not in the way scientists expected. The researchers tracked almost 300 older adults with early brain signs of Alzheimer’s for nine to 11 years using pedometers. They found that physical activity didn’t reduce the toxic […]

Frankenstein’s creature is coming back to life – again. As Guillermo del Toro’s new adaptation of Mary Shelley’s gothic masterpiece airs on Netflix, we provide an anatomist’s perspective of her tale of reanimation. Could an assembled body ever breathe, bleed or think? When Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818, anatomy was a science on the edge […]

An international trial found that patients with early-stage breast cancer who underwent a mastectomy, removal of the breast, had similar 10-year survival rates whether or not they received radiotherapy. The trial was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC). Guiding treatment discussions Experts say the findings should help guide treatment discussions, as many patients who […]

You may have heard that vaping is the “safer” choice than smoking. But what if the very thing designed to protect your health also puts your heart at risk? Vaping does not exist in isolation. It is part of a wider story about smoking, inequality and the growing burden of heart disease in the UK. […]

Estimates indicate one in five children under three are either zero-dose or have missed vaccinations because of the war, putting them at risk of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks. The catch-up campaign aims to inoculate these children against measles, mumps, and rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, tuberculosis, polio, rotavirus and pneumonia. It will be carried out by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA, the World Health […]

Five initiatives have today been announced that will bring together a fragmented health data landscape. They will receive investment from the UKRI Medical Research Council (MRC) and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). One of the schemes, the Open Psychiatry Project, will bring together diverse datasets on how genes, cells and molecules […]

Some of the world’s healthiest and longest-living people follow the practice of hara hachi bu — an eating philosophy rooted in moderation. This practice comes from a Japanese Confucian teaching which instructs people to only eat until they’re around 80% full. More recently, it’s been gaining attention as a strategy for weight loss. But while […]

Around one in five mothers experience perinatal depression. This condition involves depressive episodes during pregnancy or just after birth – often with lasting effects on both mother and child. Yet despite its prevalence, identifying who is at risk of experiencing perinatal depression remains one of the greatest challenges in maternal health. More than half of […]