He was a top doctor running a sleep clinic when he fell victim to insomnia himself — now in a major new series DR GUY MEADOWS reveals the secrets to getting a better night’s rest Not sleeping well is becoming the malaise of our generation. Ask someone: ‘How are you?’ and you half-expect them to […]
Clues to building a better herpes vaccine
Efforts to develop an effective vaccine for genital herpes, a common sexually transmitted disease, have largely failed. In a new study published in Nature, Yale researchers explore why, and their findings could lead to a better vaccine. Senior investigator Akiko Iwasaki and her colleagues conducted several experiments in mice vaccinated against the herpes simplex virus […]
More isn’t better when it comes to evaluating chest pain
Most patients seen in a hospital emergency department for chest pain did not experience major cardiac events within six months following discharge, new research from UC Davis Health and Oregon Health Sciences University cardiologists shows. Also, the few study participants who had major cardiac events within six months of discharge were not identified by cardiac […]
Mixed reality makes for better surgeons
When neurosurgeons cut into the brain, they must be very, very precise: A single slip could mean disaster. Ehsan Azimi is working on a new augmented reality platform that could greatly improve brain surgeons’ ability to navigate and visualize important landmarks during the procedure. Azimi, a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at the Whiting School […]
Will prescribing museum trips help anyone get better?
Prescribing museum trips may save the NHS cash – but will it help anyone get better? JONATHAN GORNALL on GPs referring patients to ‘non-clinical services’ such as walking and yoga NHS says there is growing recognition health is ‘determined by range of factors’ GPs are encouraged to refer a patient ‘to a range of local, non-clinical […]
Want to understand accented speakers better? Practice, practice, practice
Conversation is at the heart of people’s lives. We use language to communicate our hopes and dreams to our closest friends, to ask for help from colleagues at work and to describe our ailments to medical professionals. Typically this process of communication goes fairly smoothly. But there are circumstances that can make communication even between […]
Antibiotics: we’ve found faster, better way to identify the right one to use
Bacterial infections are best dealt with rapidly, but lab tests to determine the type of infection a patient has are slow. So if a doctor suspects a bacterial infection, she will probably prescribe a broad-spectrum antibiotic. In other words, an antibiotic that kills a wide range of disease-causing bacteria. It’s a buckshot approach rather than […]
How to breathe for better health, studying and test taking
If you’re reading this you’re obviously breathing, but are you doing it right? From the moment we’re born we just do it, we take breathing for granted until someone or something takes our breath away. Most of us don’t realize that as we grow up, we change the way we breathe. “Babies use diaphragmatic breathing. […]
Heart attack patients taken directly to heart centers have better long-term survival
Heart attack patients taken directly to heart centres for lifesaving treatment have better long-term survival than those transferred from another hospital, reports a large observational study presented today at Acute Cardiovascular Care 20191 a European Society of Cardiology (ESC) congress. Directly admitted patients were older, suggesting that heart attacks in young adults, and particularly women, […]
American women have better control of high blood pressure but are more obese than men
Credit: CC0 Public Domain “The good news is that, since the Millennium, there have been reductions in blood pressure and cholesterol levels and in rates of smoking across adults in the United States. However, these rates leave much room for improvement, and the average BMI has gone up, with the greatest rise for women,” said […]