Does paracetamol taken in pregnancy affect masculinity?
Conclusion Headlines like those in the media about this study are likely to alarm pregnant women who have taken or may need to take paracetamol in pregnancy. While the study's results can't be dismissed altogether, there are three important things to bear in mind: Studies in mice don't always translate into results in humans. The doses of paracetamol that produced the effects in mice were the equivalent of three times higher than the maximum daily dose for adult humans. The pregnant mice were fed paracetamol every day throughout the last two-thirds of their pregnancy. Most pregnant women take paracetamol at the...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 23, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Pregnancy/child Medication Source Type: news

Sex link to older people's brain power, says study
Conclusion This study got widespread and enthusiastic coverage in the media, as many studies about sex do. But the findings are limited and it's difficult to draw conclusions from them. As the researchers point out, we already know that a healthy social life and staying physically active seem to help keep people's cognitive abilities sharper as they age. It's not a surprise that sexual activity, which has elements of both social and physical activity, is also linked to better cognitive function. But this small observational study only provides a snapshot in time of how sexual activity may link to brain function. We can'...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 22, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Mental health Older people Lifestyle/exercise Neurology Source Type: news

'Contaminated air' on planes linked to health problems
Conclusion These findings indicate that on rare occasions, pilots have not been able to perform as usual due to poor air quality in the cabin. Also poor air quality has been linked to health problems in the long term. However, there are some limitations of the study that need to be considered: The authors claim they have demonstrated a cause-and-effect relationship based on certain criteria. But with the exception of the acute air toxicity incident investigation reports in the second study, these types of study cannot prove causality. While it is likely that exposure to chemicals is toxic, this study did not link many ...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 21, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Lifestyle/exercise Neurology Source Type: news

Cholesterol-lowering jab 'shows promise' for heart disease
Conclusion This mouse study evaluated the potential of the AT04A vaccine to lower cholesterol levels and potentially reduce or prevent heart disease. The results were promising, showing that mice given the vaccine produced antibodies against the enzyme that stops LDL cholesterol being cleared from the body. This resulted in reduced total and LDL blood cholesterol levels, as well as reduced atherosclerosis. No major safety concerns or side effects were reported. Following this research, AT04A has now moved on to a phase I clinical trial. A small number of people will be given the vaccine to see if it's safe for use in huma...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 20, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Heart/lungs Source Type: news

Blood test may show if prostate cancer treatment is working
Conclusion This pre-planned analysis of blood samples collected as part of a trial for metastatic prostate cancer suggests that looking at circulating tumour DNA could act as a form of biopsy to inform whether the cancer is responding to treatment. The findings indicate that a decrease in tumour DNA could suggest treatment is working, while the development of new DNA mutations could suggest the cancer is becoming resistant to treatment. But there are several points to bear in mind. Though the findings show promise, this study only looked at blood samples taken from a relatively small sample of 46 men. Only six of these m...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 19, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Cancer Source Type: news

Is a new flu pandemic just three mutations away?
Conclusion This laboratory study analysed an H7N9 strain of bird flu. Researchers wanted to explore whether a particular change to the surface proteins of a virus was capable of allowing the strain to bind to human tissue. This would theoretically lead to human-to-human transmission of the flu virus. It is worth noting that this ability to attach to human cells does not necessarily mean a mutated bird flu virus will be able to infect, replicate and transmit between humans. Other changes would also be required. However, they were unable to further investigate whether this surface change could lead to human-to-human transmis...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 16, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Medical practice Source Type: news

Obese mums more likely to give birth to babies with birth defects
Conclusion This study assessed whether the risk of birth defects increased with the severity of obesity during pregnancy. It found the risk of a defect increased with an unhealthy maternal BMI, and was higher in boys than in girls. This interesting research had a large sample size and is particularly important given the increasing rates of obesity in the UK. But the study was only able to collect data on maternal BMI during early pregnancy. It would have been interesting to see whether BMI before conception and during the later stages of pregnancy had any effect on the prevalence of defects. Additionally, the research sp...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 15, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Pregnancy/child Obesity Source Type: news

Vegetarian dieting may lead to greater weight loss
Conclusion This research appears to show that there's some association between following a vegetarian diet and a greater reduction in body mass and subfascial fat. But this study has a number of limitations, and the conclusions drawn by the researchers should be interpreted cautiously. There was lower adherence to the diet in the conventional diet group than the vegetarian one. This means the finding of a greater reduction in body mass in the vegetarian group is unsurprising. The thigh was the only part of the body where fat measurements were taken. It could be the case that reduction in abdominal fat – a big risk...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 15, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Obesity Diabetes Source Type: news

Risk of aspirin-related bleeding is higher in the over-75s
Conclusion This valuable cohort study helps to quantify the extent of bleeding risk in people taking aspirin for secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease. Aspirin is well known to carry bleeding risk – particularly in older adults – but this study suggests the risk may be higher than previously thought. The researchers say that for adults under the age of 75, the annual bleeding risk at around 1% is similar to that suggested by previous trials, as is the ratio of bleeds to the number of cardiovascular events. However, this risk increases for older adults, especially for major bleeds of the stomach and upper diges...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 14, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medication Older people Source Type: news

Being overweight, not just obese, still carries serious health risks
Conclusion This impressively large global study demonstrates that the prevalence of obesity is increasing worldwide among both children and adults. It supports what has long been thought, that increased body mass index (BMI) contributes to a range of illnesses and is ultimately responsible for a large number of deaths, particularly from cardiovascular disease. One potential limitation is the use of self-reported BMI or health outcome data in some of the studies, although the majority used a specific independent measurement so this is unlikely to have biased results too much. It is also always difficult from observational d...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 13, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Obesity Source Type: news

Antibiotics and vitamin C could kill cancer cells
Conclusion This isn't the first time vitamin C has been studied for use against cancer: it has previously been shown to kill cancer cells in the laboratory and stop cancer growth in mice. This new two-pronged approach may well prove to be useful in eradicating cancer stem cells in humans, but robust clinical trials are necessary first as cells can behave very differently in a laboratory environment. Although all the drugs and natural products used in this study are already approved for use in humans, we don't know for certain what concentration would be required to obtain similar effects without being toxic. This study ...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 12, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Cancer Source Type: news

Owning a dog may encourage older people to exercise
Conclusion This relatively small observational study shows that dog owners over the age of 65 walk more than matched controls who don't own dogs. This finding is perhaps not surprising, given that dogs need to be walked every day. People without dogs may not have this sort of incentive to get out walking. So, it could be assumed that the dog is the direct cause of the increased walking time. But it's also possible that more active people who enjoy spending time outdoors may be more likely to own dogs. For all we know, the dog owner group may have been more active even if they didn't have dogs. There are some points ...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 9, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Older people Source Type: news

An egg a day may prevent stunted growth in infants
Conclusion This study sounds like good news for undernourished children in parts of the world where stunted growth or being underweight are common, such as the Andean mountains of Ecuador. The study showed that eggs seem to be a safe and practical way of boosting children's nutrition in this population. But this research has some limitations. Adding one food to a diet is likely to affect the rest of the diet, too. And caregivers for the children may have given them different foods in addition to the eggs, or treated them differently in some ways. The children in the control group may also have eaten more eggs than they ...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 8, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Pregnancy/child Food/diet Source Type: news

Is white bread just as healthy as brown?
Conclusion Studies that suggest "everything you thought you knew about healthy eating is wrong" create great headlines, but rarely stand up to much analysis. There are many reasons why you might choose wholemeal bread over white bread, and results from a week-long study in 20 people aren't going to change all of those. The main measure of interest in the study is glycaemic control, a measure of how quickly the body can process glucose consumed in the diet. Poor glycaemic control is seen as a risk factor for type 2 diabetes, where the body can't process glucose properly, leading to high blood sugar, which can da...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 8, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Source Type: news

Even moderate drinking may damage the brain
Conclusion The results in this study indicate a link between alcohol intake – even moderate intake – and structural changes in the brain and decline in the ability to list words beginning with the same letter. The majority of cognitive functioning tests showed no association with alcohol intake. This 30 year-long study has the ability to investigate changes in cognitive ability over a long period of time but does have some limitations: The participants are all people who were civil servants in the 1980s and were mostly male and more middle class and higher IQ than the general population, meaning results might not ...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 7, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Lifestyle/exercise Neurology Source Type: news