Training Blog

Research carried out by a Swedish research team suggests that well-educated woman have a positive influence on both their own and their partner’s chances of a long life. The statistics showed that a if the woman only has a school education then her partner had 25% greater chance of dying earlier than the man whose partner had a university education. It is thought that the reason for this is that educatated women are more likely to understand the health messages their family needs. When the roles are reversed it is the male’s income and social status that affect women’s lifespan.

One theory put forward is that women tend to take on the responsibility of feeding the family so a more educated woman will be more aware of better eating habits. It is also is thought women who are better educated tend to receive better healthcare and their partner benefits from this.

I don’t know if this is purely the case in Sweden where the research involved 1.5 million participants all of which were swedish; but I don’t really agree that the better educated women increase the life of the male. I think that it is simply a case of common sense that if you eat well and have an active lifestyle then you will in theory live longer. Plus is some scenarios due to having a high powered job I would have thought that their life may be shortened due to stress related illnesses.

The Government say that swine flu vaccinations will begin in the UK next week (21/10/2009).

The first group to be vaccinated is those in hospital, pregnant women and those with existing health problems. After these people have been vaccinated GPs will start to call in patients from priority groups.

There are four priority groups:

• 1. Individuals aged six months to 65 years with underlying health problems and the immuno-supressed, which includes chemotherapy patients.
• 2. Pregnant women
• 3. Household contacts of people with compromised immune systems
• 4. Individuals aged over 65 with health problems

A recent study has shown that some people with type 2 diabetes are suffering needlessly from regular low blood sugar attacks. The study showed that out of 2,000 people all of which had type 2 diabetes 50% of them reported having symptoms of a hypoglycaemic episoded in the last 2 weeks. GPs claim that this is partly due to the increasing pressure to control their blood sugar makes it worse.

One of the key components of treatment is to ensure blood sugar levels don’t get too high, as this can lead to severe complications. Worryingly it is thought that the some people are on the wrong medication and that in some cases the medication may be causing the hypoglycaemia.

Knowing several people who are diabetic, yes the medication is there to help but it is important to recognise the early warning signs of a hypoglycaemic episode so that you can do something about it before it destroys your day. Also it is worth pointing out that even if you are on medication diet is very important. I know it sounds cheesy but why let diabetes control you when you can control it?

innitus is a condition where the patient reports hearing sounds in one or both ears but there is no external source.

Doctors previously thought that tinnitus was generated by ear problems. However following claims by US doctors that it is possible to pinpoint the area of the brain activated when patients suffer from tinnitus it is now widely accepted that the sounds are generated in the brain. The breakthrough was made by at team at Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit who used a special scanner to map the locations in the brain.

The scan is called magnetoencephalography (MEG) and it measures the very small magnetic fields generated by intracellular electrical currents in the neuron cells in the brain.

They played various sounds until the patients agreed that that was the sound they experienced and then scanned their brains while the sound was played.

Here are just a few interesting facts about tinnitus:

• There are approximately 2.3 million sufferers in the UK with moderate or severe tinnitus
• Tinnitus noise can beat in time with your pulse
• Most people experience brief periods of tinnitus after long exposure to loud noise

The results for the MEG imaging showed that those who only experienced tinnitus in one ear the greatest amount of activity was in the auditory cortex on the opposite side of the brain. However those with tinnitus in both ears brain activity was in both sides of the brain, with greater activity appearing in the opposite side of the brain to the ear with the strongest perception of tinnitus. Another part of the brain that was showing high levels of activity on these scans was the lmbic system that governs how we react to things.

It seems that financial firms could be recovering as a survey has shown that business volumes are growing for the first time in two years. In 3 months a 7% increase was reported. However some areas are still weak, which suggests that the recovery is going to be a long one.

Head of financial services consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Andrew Gray says: “For the first time since June 2007, banks are experiencing an upswing in confidence, confidence is, in part, offset by concerns of further impairments and the impact of ‘tougher’ regulation.”

The UK’s five largest banks recently accepted curbs on bonuses agreed by G20 leaders at the recent Pittsburgh summit, and stronger rules on overall banking are likely to follow. Building societies were feeling downbeat about their prospects, partly because of difficulties with funding. However the satabilisation in the housing market did cause some cautious cheer.

It would seem that the main institutions are looking positive but for the average person, there is still a long way to go. It is hoped that a valuable lesson has been learnt from this financial crisis, and that is to only borrow what you can afford and for financial providers to only lend what they can afford and not to go mad in order to line some beurocrat’s pocket.

On Saturday 26th September a trial began involving 1,000 children to test two swine flu vaccines before the launch of a UK vaccination. The information is limited but the trial will allow the experts to observe immune reactions and any side effects which may occur.

The children participating in this trial are aged between six months and 12 years from Oxford, Southampton, London, Bristol and Devon. Participation in the trial is voluntary and consenting parents were be briefed on the risks. The children are given two doses of the vaccine three weeks apart, then a blood test three weeks after that.

The aim of the trial is to find out if one of the vaccines is better than the other in terms of immune reactions. They also want to ensure that the side effects are minimal before launching the UK vaccination programme.

One of the main problems the study seems to be having is recruiting enough children under the age of three, getting older children didn’t seem to be a problem just the younger ones, Doctor Saul Faust suggests that the younger children don’t usually respond to vaccines as well as adults and older children but says that they need to find out how the younger children respond before the vaccine becomes available to the UK. This could be because the younger children are deemed to be one of the high risk groups because young children, especially those that are under five, do seem to be at risk of serious illness. Also flu epidemics and pandemics are spread very efficiently by children.

The Department of Health has said that they will have enough vaccine for half of the population by the end of the year and that the high risk groups which are medical staff, the elderly and the very young will be immunised first.

Research has shown that in 20% of pregnant women suffer from depression of these 1% of these children have a small but important increased risk of heart defects. Although the overall risk is very low and women should speak to doctors before stopping their drugs. It is worth pointing out that if you have taken antidepressants a specialist scan is sometimes offered to check your baby’s heart and that there are other treatments that don’t require the use of drugs.

It is not all doom and gloom if your baby does have a heart defect as some spontaneously resolve without medical intervention. Speaking as a mother who took anti depressants during the first trimester I can assure you that this risk is very small so there is no need to launch into a major panic. As long as the professionals involved in your care are aware that you have/are taking the antidepressants, they will take this into consideration when deciding on the best plan of action.

There has always been suggestions that alcohol in moderation is good for your health but the latest theory is that a dose of alcohol could be a good treatment for people with head injuries.

The basis of this is the discovery that people are less likely to die following brain trauma if they have alcohol in their blood. The reason for this could be that alcohol dampens the body’s inflammatory response to injury. However doctors do stress that alcohol can create medical complications and is a contributory factor to many accidents.

Experts are warning that people should not interpret these findings as an excuse to drink more alcohol. These findings raise the possibility of administering ethanol to patients with brain injuries to potentially improve their outcome. The amount of alcohol consumed appears to be important factor as too little and there is no effect, too much and the beneficial effects are lost. With the right dose, alcohol stops the cascade of swelling, inflammation and further destruction of brain cells, known as secondary brain injury.

These findings seem to suggest that although alcohol helps one problem it creates another, so the question is if the benefits outway the risks?

Scientists claim that they are getting closer to curing colour blindness using gene therapy. In one study a US team, lead by Professor Jay Neitz were able to restore full colour vision to adult monkeys who were unable to distinguish between red and green. Experts believe that although more studies are needed, the same treatment could potentially work for humans who are colour blind. Until recently they had not thought it was possible to manipulate the adult brain in this way. Scientists believed that adding new sensory information could only be carried out in the earliest years of life; as this is when the brain is at its most malleable.

The study took place 2 years ago and the monkeys improved vision has remained stable ever since. The plan for Professor Neitz’s team is to continue to monitor the animals in order to evaluate the long term effects of the treatment and remain hopeful that a similar idea could be applied to humans who are colour blind.

There are several forms of colour blindness, the most common of which is inherited red/green colour blindness, which passed on through a faulty colour vision gene on an X chromosome. However colour blindness can occur as a result of diseases such as macular degeneration or from side effects of medicines. Statistics show that this research could benefit approximately 7% of men and 1% of women born with genetic colour deficiencies.

This research seems to be the first in primates to address the colour vision deficiencies and indicate that intact cells are modifiable in their colour perception.

Although there is still alot more research to be done before the test is carried out on humans or becomes available in clinics it seems to be a massive step towards curing genetic abnormalities.

Health Secretary Andy Burnham has announced plans to scrap GP catchment areas in England within a year. It follows a claim that ministers want to introduce greater choice into the family doctor system, as they believe that it will drive up standards. The government has trying to get more from GPs ever since their pay rocketed with the introduction of a new contract in 2004. It started with GPs staying open for longer but the idea of ending catchment areas was on the cards before Gordon Brown became prime minister. Lord Darzi mentioned the idea when he revealed his review of the health service in 2008. At the moment catchment areas vary in size; in rural areas doctors see patients up to 40 miles away whilst city-based doctors often only see patients up t0 a 2 mile radius

Patient choice is already a well established right in hospital care with people entitled to choose from any hospital in the country for treatment. Mr Burnham states: “I want the best to be available to everyone, not according to where they live. Too often people’s choice of GP practice is unnecessarily limited by practice boundaries, so, with the profession, I want to open up real choice in primary care.” He also argues that people’s choice of a GP should be based on their own needs – not by lines on a map