First US sugar tax sees soft drink sales fall by almost 10%, study shows

The first sugar tax to be introduced on soft drinks in the United States to fight obesity has cut sales by nearly 10% and apparently increased the numbers of people buying water instead, a study has shown.

Berkeley, California, introduced a substantial tax on sugar-sweetened beverages on 1 March 2015. At the rate of 10% – or one penny per fluid ounce – it adds 12 cents to a 12 ounce can of soda priced at $ 1, or 68 cents to a two litre bottle costing just over $ 2 before the tax.

Experts hope that sugar taxes will hike the prices of unhealthy drinks and reduce the number of people who consume large quantities of them. Sugar-sweetened drinks are known to be a significant contributor to obesity, particularly in children and young people.

But taxes have only been introduced after battles with the industry. The latest tax to be introduced – in Philadelphia, in January, where unlike Berkeley incomes are low and obesity rates high – is still being challenged in the courts.

Berkeley is unlike most cities in America, with far higher levels of wealth and education and low consumption of colas and other sugary drinks. Yet Barry Popkin of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA and Lynn Silver from the Public Health Institute found that, even there, the tax had changed people’s behaviour.

“This surprised me,” Popkin told the Guardian. “I didn’t think we’d get much effect at all.” The debate around obesity and the sugar tax had already brought consumption down in Berkeley – and yet the introduction of the tax appears to have brought it down further.

One year after the introduction of the tax, their paper in the journal Plos Medicine shows that sales of sugary drinks in Berkeley fell by 9.6%, while sales in surrounding areas with no tax rose by 6.9%.

While the academics cannot prove that consumers bought water instead, bottled water sales in Berkeley increased by 15.6% after the introduction of the tax. Sales of other non-taxed drinks such as unsweetened teas, milk and fruit juices also rose. But diet drinks and energy drinks appeared not to be so popular – those declined by 9.2%.

Shopkeepers did not lose out because the average grocery bill remained the same. The authors of the study suggest it is possible that consumers are shifting away from sugary drinks to healthier ones – and without causing undue economic hardship because spending did not drop.

In the first year, the tax was levied only in the chain supermarkets and chain petrol stations, so there is still scope for a bigger effect when independent and small shops also bring it in. The money raised is going to child health programmes.

Popkin expects the impact of the tax to be far greater in Philadelphia, where it has been set higher, at 15%, and where incomes are some of the lowest in the USA and consumption of sugary drinks and obesity are high. Proceeds from the tax are going to pay for much needed daycare centres for children. “That was how they sold it,” said Popkin. “The revenue has been double what they expected. Daycare centres have doubled and tripled in size.”

The battle for sugar taxes has not yet been won in the USA, he said. “The industry is still fighting tooth and nail. We have reached a turning point, but the industry is still fighting. They are fighting desperately in Philadelphia because it is a low-income and very high-purchasing city. The implications are quite profound.”

The American Heart Association praised study and the sugar tax.

Its CEO, Nancy Brown said: “This study adds to the compelling evidence that simply cannot be ignored. The residents of Berkeley, who voted for a sugary drink tax in their community, are now seeing the benefits of significantly reduced consumption of sugary drinks, significantly increased consumption of water and consumers are switching to healthier drinks.

“Additionally, Berkeley small businesses have not seen a drop in overall sales. This positive impact is magnified by the fact that the revenue from the tax is being invested in health and wellness across the city.”

But the American Beverage Association said: “This study acknowledges that taxes do not demonstrate a meaningful reduction in obesity rates. A beverage tax that increases the price on certain beverages by more than 50 percent only yields a reduction of 6.4 calories per day.

“America’s beverage companies know we must play a role in improving public health, which is why we are taking aggressive actions to help people reduce the sugar and calories they get from beverages.”

First US sugar tax sees soft drink sales fall by almost 10%, study shows

Number of NHS managers still growing as GP posts fall again

The number of NHS managers has grown by almost 18% in the four years since the government introduced a “bureaucracy-busting” shakeup of the health service, according to the latest official data.

The rise of about 4,650 in total management posts since April 2013, when the controversial Health and Social Care Act came into force, contrasts with an alarming fall in the number of GPs over recent months at a time of unprecedented demand for health care. The figures have drawn criticism from the British Medical Association (BMA), who say ministers are failing in their central objective of shifting more resources and manpower from back-office posts to the front line.

NHS Digital figures show management posts have risen from 26,051 in April 2013 – the month when the highly controversial act pioneered by then health secretary Andrew Lansley came into force – to 30,724 at the end of last year, the latest date for which data has been released. This is a serious embarrassment to the government, which insisted when pushing through the legislation in the last parliament – in the teeth of huge opposition from the medical profession – that a key benefit would be a freeing of resources to redirect effort to the front line.

The BMA said that it would be distressing for patients to learn that management posts were rising as GP numbers continued to fall. The latest data shows 92 GP practices closing in 2016 as GP numbers fell by 400 between October and December. Dr Richard Vautrey, deputy chair of the BMA’s GP committee, said: “Patients will be bemused that when their care is being undermined by GP and nurse staff shortages, the number of administrative posts has risen again. With the NHS at breaking point, we need ministers to get their priorities right. They need to follow through on their election pledges and invest in recruiting more GPs so that we can offer enough appointments to the public.”

Under David Cameron’s premiership, the coalition government said its health reforms, which handed control over commissioning services to GPs, would “cut the number of health bodies to help meet the government’s commitment to cut NHS administration costs by a third, including by abolishing primary care trusts and strategic health authorities”.

The process now appears to have gone into reverse. Between 2015 and 2016 the number of managers and senior managers in the NHS in England increased by about 3.5% in hospitals, trusts and clinical commissioning groups.

At the 2010 election the Tories put a promise to cut NHS bureaucracy at the heart of their pitch to voters. Before unveiling the Health and Social Care Act, they began cutting management posts, which were reduced by 12,000 between 2010 and early 2013. But as the requirements of the changes became clear, many who had been handed redundancy payoffs were then hastily re-employed only months later, some on six-figure salaries, to help run the new-look service.

The current health secretary Jeremy Hunt announced plans in 2014 to “train and retain” 5,000 more GPs by 2020, a pledge since watered down to also include doctors in training. According to the latest NHS England figures, however, 92 practices closed in 2016, up 114% on GP surgery closures in 2014. While 34 merged with other practices, the remainder shut completely.

Last week a survey carried out by the University of Exeter found that two out of every five GPs in the south-west of England were planning to leave the profession, with many citing workload and low morale as reasons.

There are also fears that an exodus of doctors and nurses from other EU countries will accelerate as the UK prepares to leave the EU. A total of 2,348 doctors from the 27 other EU states left NHS England between July and September 2016 compared with 1,281 in the same period in 2015 – a rise of 83%.

An NHS England spokesperson said: “The OECD says that on a like-for-like basis we spend only 2p in the pound on NHS administration, compared to 5p in Germany and 6p in France, and we have one of the most efficient health services in the world. But over the next three years we’re going to cut at least another quarter of a billion pounds from administrative costs to reinvest in frontline patient care.”

Number of NHS managers still growing as GP posts fall again

US cancer death rates continue to fall as 5-year survival rates rise – study

Cancer death rates in the United States are continuing to fall and the five-year survival rates of those diagnosed with the disease have risen, research shows.

The Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, published on Friday, also shows a decline in incidence of cancer among men in recent years, although it remained stable among women.

Death rates from 2010 to 2014 decreased for 11 of the 16 most common types of cancer in men and for 13 of the 18 most common types of cancer in women, including lung, colorectal, female breast, and prostate cancers.

The authors, from the American Cancer Society, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Cancer Institute and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR) suggest a decline in smoking – down more than 50% over the last 50 years – as well as improved early detection and more effective treatment helped bring about the fall.

But they warn that smoking continues to pose a threat along with obesity, rates of which are at 20% or or more in every state.

NAACCR executive director Betsy Kohler said. “The continued drops in overall cancer death rates in the United States are welcome news, reflecting improvements in prevention, early detection, and treatment.

“But this report also shows us that progress has been limited for several cancers, which should compel us to renew our commitment to efforts to discover new strategies for prevention, early detection, and treatment, and to apply proven interventions broadly and equitably.”

The report, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, showed that death rates increased for cancers of the liver, pancreas, and brain in men and for liver and uterine cancer in women.

Overall, cancer death rates decreased by 1.8% per year in men and 1.4% a year in women.

During the period 1999 to 2013, cancer incidence rates in men fell by 2.3%, according to the study.

Compared with cases diagnosed between 1975 and 1977, five-year survival for cancers diagnosed in 2006 to 2012 increased significantly for all manifestations of the disease bar cervical and uterine cancer.

The greatest absolute increases in survival (25% or greater) were seen in prostate and kidney cancers, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, myeloma (bone marrow cancer) and leukaemia.

Further improvements in survival prospects are expected in the wake of recent advances in precision medicine and immunotherapy for late stage cancers. But the authors warn that the high cost of new cancer drugs – up to $ 10,000 (£8,000) per month – may put them out of reach even to Medicare-insured patients, who would still be left with a bill for around 20% of the drug’s cost.

US cancer death rates continue to fall as 5-year survival rates rise – study

Mexico"s sugar tax leads to fall in consumption for second year running

Mexico’s sugar tax appears to be having a significant impact for the second year running in changing the habits of a nation famous for its love of Coca-Cola, and will encourage countries troubled by obesity and contemplating a tax of their own.

An analysis of sugary-drink purchases, carried out by academics in Mexico and the United States, has found that the 5.5% drop in the first year after the tax was introduced was followed by a 9.7% decline in the second year, averaging 7.6% over the two-year period.

Mexico has high rates of obesity – more than 70% of the population is overweight or obese – and sugar consumption. More than 70% of the added sugar in the diet comes from sugar-sweetened drinks. Coca-Cola is particularly popular and holds a place in the national culture, while former president Vicente Fox was the regional head of the company.

Health experts worldwide have been watching the progress of the Mexican tax closely because it could potentially lower the rates of obesity-related diseases and type 2 diabetes in a country with a population of more than 122 million.

The scientists cannot yet calculate the effect on health. But they write in the journal Health Affairs: “These reductions in consumption could have positive impacts on health outcomes and reductions in healthcare expenses in Mexico.”

The Mexican tax, if successful, may pave the way for taxes in other countries. “At the global level, findings on the sustained impact over two years of taxes on the beverages in Mexico may encourage other countries to use fiscal policies to reduce the consumption of unhealthy beverages … to reduce the burden of chronic diseases,” they say.

Mexico is a nation famous for its love of Coca-Cola.
Photograph: Alamy

The study has been carried out by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health and the Mexican Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública (National Institute of Public Health). They found that the tax, which is just 1 peso (4p) per litre of sugary drink, had its biggest impact on the poorest households, where the decline in purchases was 18.8ml per person per day in 2014 and 29.3ml in 2015.

Purchases of other untaxed drinks went up on average by 2% over the two years, although the second year showed a decline. There is evidence from other data, however, of an increase in the production of still bottled water two years after the tax began, which the authors say may suggest some consumers are turning to water instead.

“Overall the results from our study contradict industry reports of a decline in the effect of the tax after the first year of its implementation. We found a greater reduction in purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages in 2015 than in 2014. Moreover, both the absolute and relative reductions were highest among households at lower socioeconomic levels,” said the paper.

Barry Popkin, distinguished professor in the department of nutrition at Gillings and one of the authors, looked forward to collecting data on the health impact. “It will be important for us to continue to monitor this tax and see how this actually will affect overall diets, diabetes prevalence and other biological markers of the many noncommunicable diseases linked with excessive sugary beverage consumption,” he said.

Adam Briggs, of the Nuffield department of population health at Oxford University, said the results of the study were “really encouraging, particularly from a UK perspective where the sugar-sweetened beverages levy is due to be introduced in just 12 months’ time.

“These are very important data for policymakers considering implementing soft drink taxes and it will be fascinating to see how sales continue over time … measuring independent health outcomes of such isolated policies is really challenging but, as the authors say, these reductions in consumption would likely have important population-level health benefits in terms of diabetes and obesity-related diseases.”

The UK planned levy is different to the Mexican tax in its design and structure, he said. “However, the principle that price change leads to sustained behaviour change remains important.”

Gavin Partington, director general of the British Soft Drinks Association, said: “Given their fervent belief in the principle of taxing soft drinks we should at least be encouraged that the authors accept causality cannot be established in terms of the impact of the tax in Mexico and the claimed falls in consumption. Nevertheless, while it seems obvious that price can have an impact on sales levels, it is far from clear that the tax on soft drinks in Mexico has had any impact on levels on obesity.”

Sugar tax graphic

A new report from Euromonitor International said that 19 countries had so far introduced what it called “sin taxes” on food and drinks and more would do so in the near future, with the aim of reducing sugar consumption by 20% in line with guidance from the World Health Organisation.

Euromonitor suggested the Mexican tax may be too low to have the desired effect and that the higher tax of 33 US cents per litre introduced in Berkeley, California, has been a bigger success. Berkeley “is said to have reduced SSB [sugar-sweetened beverage] consumption by 21% and increased water consumption by 63%. In comparison, other cities in the US reported a 4% increase in SSB consumption, and only 19% increase in water consumption in that time,” said the report.

It pointed to countries that might want to introduce “sin taxes” in the near future. “According to the NHS in the UK, consumers should not exceed more than 70g of fat and have no more than 90g of total sugar a day. Euromonitor’s Passport Nutrition data shows that 37 of the 54 (69%) researched countries exceed the fat intake recommendation, and 38 (70%) exceed the sugar recommendation. The top three sugar consumers are Chile, the Netherlands and Belgium, while the top three fat consumers are Germany, Sweden and Austria,” it said.

Mexico"s sugar tax leads to fall in consumption for second year running

Can’t Sleep? Here are 13 Effective Ways to Fall Asleep Faster

Having trouble falling asleep can lead to getting not enough sleep or sleep deprivation, the most signs of which are excessive daytime sleepiness, yawning, and irritability. Chronic sleep deprivation can interfere with balance, coordination, memory, decision-making abilities. Worse still, it suppresses immune system function.

Remedies to the more physical and environmental sleep-deprivers are fairly obvious, even though not always easily employed. So, if you are in the majority of those having trouble to fall asleep and not having a quality sleep, here are some do-it-yourself suggestions:

Avoid eating within 1 ½ – 2 hours of bedtime

Eating or snacking before bedtime is one of many nighttime habits. Eating especially right before your bedtime can be very disruptive to sleep. Salt-filled snacks such as potato chips, for instance, could make you feel thirsty. Drinking too much fluid before bedtime may cause extra trips to the bathroom.

Taking refined carbohydrates and sodas loaded with sugar (especially high fructose corn syrup) before bedtime can also cause disrupted sleep. Eating high-carb diet before bedtime can cause blood sugar to nose dive.

Snack on fats and proteins

Snacking on fats and proteins 2 hours of bedtime are much safer than snacking on carbs especially processed carbs. The reason is these foods would not cause sugar spikes. Fats especially healthy fats such as coconut milk, cheese, full cream milk and most proteins that contain an amino acid tryptophan may help you to feel calm, which in turn make you falling sleep more easily.

Avoid alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine

Caffeine, nicotine, and sugar are stimulants if consumed close to bedtime can prevent you from falling asleep. Caffeine is found in a number of foods and drinks, including chocolate, tea, energy drinks, and some pain relievers. While alcohol sometimes makes users feel sleepy and may speed up the onset of sleep, as the body metabolizes the alcohol, it actually acts as a stimulant, preventing quality sleep and increasing awakenings during the night.

Good nite sleep depends much on parasympathetic nervous system (PSN) dominance. So nicotine, sugar (from table sugar or processed carbs), caffeine, and alcohol (certain amounts) would increase sympathetic nervous system activity resulting in its dominance over PSN and may awaken you as well as disrupt your sleep.

Note: Some people believe that any type of alcohol is bad for health due to ethanol content even only a glass of it at a time. Ethanol is converted to ethanal, a lethal aldehyde. This aldehyde is found to be very cytotoxic, meaning it can destruct and eventually kill cells.

Consider alternative treatment/therapy

 Some medications can cause disrupted sleep. These are the most common ones said to cause it, including alpha-blockers, beta-blockers, corticosteroids, SSRI antidepressants, ACE inhibitors, ARBs, cholinesterase inhibitors, H1 antagonists, glucosamine/chondroitin, and statins.

Write down every drug and supplement you take. If you’re taking any of them and having sleep problems, you may try an alternative treatment or therapy. Gotu Kola and Sensitive Plant, for instance, may be used as alternatives for alpha-blockers and beta-blockers. They may also be used as antidepressants.

Turn off you mind

Convert your concern over something that bothering such as worrying about next day’s event into some kind of action plan and you will rest easier. Take a piece of paper and jot down your top concerns. Then write down the steps you will take to resolve the problems or situations. Don’t forget to include how and when you want to materialize your planned strategies.

Exercise, at least four hours of bedtime

Exercise especially cardio workout helps improve the length and quality of you sleep. 30 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise, for instance, keeps your body temperature up to 4 hours, thus, inhibiting sleep. When your body cools down, at the same time the stress hormone cortisol follows suit, your brain starts releasing melatonin, so then you will get drowsy.

Comfortable sleeping environment

Use your bed for sleep and sex only. Using your bed for other activities such as studying or watching television would let your brain to associate your sleep spot with being awake and alert.

Blue wavelengths are beneficial during daylight hours as they boost attention, reaction times, and moods, however, when emitted by electronics with screens, as well as energy-efficient lighting during bedtime may cause disrupted sleep. Many people don’t know that LED screen of their mobile phones emits blue wavelengths.

Use dim red lights for night lights as it has the least power to shift circadian rhythm and suppress melatonin.

Have sex

Having sexual activities before bed is seldom discussed as one of the ways to induce sleep and to have a good sleep. Some married couples have routine intercourses performed every night or several nights per week before bedtime as a means to help them to fall asleep more easily. Sexual activities release endorphins, which exert a soothing effect on the brain and nervous system.

Some married couples or individuals practice non-orgasmic sex or at least delayed orgasm, obtained via having intercourse or caressing/fondling genitals or sensual parts. The moderate release of dopamine would not only provide pleasure but also long-term satisfaction to both parties as well as inducing good night sleep.

Start a sleep ritual

When you were a child, your mother read you a bedtime story and tucked you into bed every night. This comforting ritual acts as a signal to your brain to fall asleep. Have sex, drink a glass of warm milk, take a bath, listen to calming music, or recite bedtime prayer are bedtime rituals, which help signal the mind and body that it’s time to sleep.

Make your bedroom smell good

Essential oils such as Ylang-ylang, Lavender, Bergamot, Marjoram, Neroli, Sandalwood, and Sandalwood are said can combat insomnia, two symptoms of which are difficulty falling asleep at night and waking up during the night.

The most convenience way to use them is by applying on your neck or pillow.

Epsom Salt and lemon

If you want to improve your sleep every night, you may want to consider taking lemon water with Epsom salt added to it. Magnesium is believed can help calm your brain and autonomic nervous system by activating parasympathetic nervous system over sympathetic nervous system.

Squeeze ¼ lemon in a glass of water, add ¼ teaspoon of Epsom salt and a pinch of Himalayan salt. Drink it ½ hour of your bedtime. It is useful in inducing sleep for those experiencing insomnia, hypertension, anxiety, and depression.

Alternatively, take Valerian root, Gotu Kola, Chrysanthemum or Lemon Grass tea ½ hour before bedtime. It can help relax your mind and body

Take coconut oil

Surprisingly, consuming coconut oil daily is said can help induce sleep and have a good night sleep. Coconut oil is believed to have the ability to regulate body functions and eventually help one sleep more easily.

Turmeric milk

In the evening, having a warm cup of golden yellow turmeric milk is soothing and can help you sleep soundly through the night. How to prepare: in a small pot, bring almond milk to a boil, turn off the heat and whisk in turmeric, cardamom, and raw honey. Adding 1/8 teaspoon of vanilla would make the turmeric milk taste better and further synergize its calming effect.

Can’t Sleep? Here are 13 Effective Ways to Fall Asleep Faster

UK cancer death rates to fall by 15% by 2035 due to advances in research

Death rates from cancer in the UK will fall by 15% by 2035 thanks to advances in research, diagnosis and treatment, with more Britons living longer after their diagnosis, the charity Cancer Research UK predicts.

Breakthroughs will prevent more than 403,000 deaths from the disease by 2035 that would have happened otherwise, according to an analysis from the charity.

However, although the risk of death from cancer is likely to fall, the number of people dying from it will continue to rise, because the ageing and growing population will result in more people being diagnosed, the charity said. Those factors, and the rise in cancers linked to bad diet and alcohol, mean that a typical Briton’s chances of getting cancer have recently risen from one in three to one in two.

Overall 331 people per 100,000 of population died from any form of cancer in July 2014. But improvements in doctors’ ability to detect, diagnose and treat cancer will see that fall to 280 people per 100,000 of population by 2035, CRUK estimates.

“Thanks to research fewer people will die from cancer in the future. We’re resolute that, by 2035, three in four people will survive their cancer for at least 10 years”, said Sir Harpal Kumar, CRUK’s chief executive. “This will mean making more progress in breast, bowel and blood cancers, but also accelerating our effort in those cancers which are currently hard to treat.”

Even though more people will die from cancer, the diminishing risk of death shows that cancer research and treatment are still yielding benefits and heading in the right direction, the charity said. For example, CRUK believes mortality rates from bowel cancer will fall by 23% over the next 20 years – from 32 to 25 deaths per 100,000 population – thanks to advances in surgery and chemotherapy and also better screening for the disease.

Death rates from breast cancer, the most common form of the disease among women, are projected to drop by 26% to 31 per 100,000 women by 2035. Likewise, mortality rates from lung cancer will be 21% lower by then – at 58 deaths per 100,000 people – according to CRUK’s analysis.

But deaths from pancreatic cancer are estimated to fall by only 3%, to 17 deaths per 100,000; and from brain and related tumours by just 2%, to ten deaths per 100,000 people, CRUK said.

However, the risk of death will increase for some cancers. For example, the mortality rate for liver cancer is expected to rise by 58% by 2035.

Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, which has made improving cancer outcomes one of its key priorities, said: “These figures underline how the NHS is successfully translating new research and targeted investment into dramatic gains in cancer care. Thanks to improvements over just the past year, an extra 2,400 families will be able to share this Christmas with a loved one who would not have survived cancer a year ago.”

CRUK’s statistical information team arrived at their conclusions by applying the difference in the actual cancer mortality rates in 2014 and the projected age-standardised death rates for all cancers combined in the UK between 2015 and 2035 to the Office for National Statistics’ projections for the UK population over the study period.

Kumar said that while survival rates for some forms of cancer had improved in recent decades, thanks to the development of new drugs and surgical techniques, the variation in death rates for different forms of cancer was still too wide. For example, mortality rates for brain cancer are likely to remain unchanged over the next 20 years, with just one in five patients surviving for five years. Similarly, just three in 100 people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer live for five years or more after diagnosis.

UK cancer death rates to fall by 15% by 2035 due to advances in research

Without the power of kindness, our society will fall apart | George Monbiot

If there is an irrepressible human trait it’s the determination, against all odds, to reconnect. Though governments seek to atomise and rule, we will keep finding ways to come together. Our social brains forbid any other outcome. They urge us to reach out, even when the world seems hostile.

This is the conclusion I draw from touring England over the past few weeks, talking about loneliness and mental health. Everywhere I have been so far, I’ve come across the same, double-sided story: stark failures of government offset in part by the extraordinary force of human kindness.

First the bad news: reminders of the shocking state of our mental health services. I met people who had waited a year for treatment, only to be given the wrong therapy. I heard how the thresholds for treatment are repeatedly being raised, to ration services. I met one practitioner who had been told, as a result of the cuts, to recommend computerised cognitive behaviour therapy to her patients. In other words, instead of working with a therapist, people must sit at a screen, using a programme to try to address disorders likely to have been caused or exacerbated by social isolation. Why not just write these patients a prescription instructing them to bog off and die?At least then they wouldn’t have to wait a year to be told to consult their laptops. I heard of children profoundly damaged by abuse and neglect being sent to secure accommodation – imprisoned in other words – not for their own safety, or other people’s, but because there is nowhere else for them to go.

These are not isolated cases. It is a systemic problem. There has been no child and adolescent mental health survey in this country since 2004 (though one is now planned). Snapshot studies suggest something is going badly wrong: figures published last week, for example, suggest a near quadrupling in the past 10 years of girls admitted to hospital after cutting themselves. But there are no comprehensive figures. Imagine the outcry if the government had published no national figures on childhood cancer for 12 years, and was unable to tell you whether it was rising or falling.

Of children referred for treatment for mental health disorders, 60% do not receive it. The Guardian recently published a mother’s account of how her child had been treated. Despite a severe mental health disorder, it was only after the child attempted suicide that she received the care she needed. The treatment consisted of sending her to the other end of the country: the only available bed was 300 miles from home. You don’t need to be a psychotherapist to imagine what that might do to a distressed and vulnerable child. But when the beds don’t exist, the health service has no choice. Embarrassed into a semblance of action, the coalition government promised another £250m a year for children’s mental health. It will scarcely touch the sides.

But amid the rubble of a collapsing state, I kept stumbling into something wonderful. Performing with the musician Ewan McLennan, using music and the spoken word to explore these subjects, has brought me into contact with groups that restore my faith in the human spirit.

In Leeds we ate in a cafe run by the Real Junk Food Project, whose meals are made from waste or donated food. Seeing people of all ages, from all stations of life, who had never come together before, yakking away over dinner like old friends, I realised that the project is addressing not only the waste of food but also the waste of social opportunity. Breaking bread together: this is still the best and simplest way of reconnecting.

In Sheffield I met a man creating safe spaces for people experiencing manic or psychotic episodes: using woods, allotments and – if his project gets planning permission – cobb houses like hobbit holes to create a place of comfort for those whose minds are reeling. In Durham I saw how people whose poor mental health and isolation exclude them from work are being gently introduced to the social skills and creativity that might allow them to re-engage. In Bristol I met someone from the Happy City initiative, which is finding ways to measure wellbeing and discovering the best means of enhancing it.

Across the country, groups such as the Campaign to End Loneliness, Age UK, Independent Age, Community Network, Young Minds, the Transition Network, the Network of Wellbeing and the forthcoming Jo Cox Commisssion on Loneliness are trying to provide a coherent response to the troubled times that lead to troubled minds. Everywhere I look, I see the kind of enterprise and innovation with which business is credited, but which seems to be found most often in the voluntary sector.

But what has struck me with greatest force is this. At the end of every gig, we ask people in the audience to turn to someone they don’t know and say hello. I tell them they needn’t do any more than that, but they can keep talking if they wish. On the first night I made the mistake of mentioning the idea before we had wrapped up the show. That was all it took – the conversation flared up immediately, and it was a long time before I could direct people’s attention back to the stage. After every concert the talking has continued long into the night, in the venue’s bar or the nearest pub. It’s as if people have simply been waiting for permission to speak to the strangers who surround them.

Britain, according to government figures, is the loneliness capital of Europe, but even – or perhaps especially – here, the urge to connect is overwhelming. This reattachment, I believe, holds the key to both our psychological and political transformation. Connected, engaged and happy people do not allow themselves to be trampled into the dirt. It is when we are estranged both from each other and from our political environment that we are easiest to manipulate, as the rise of demagoguery in Europe and the US seems to attest.

Neither state provision nor community action is a substitute for the other: we need both. But the more effective community groups and voluntary initiatives become, the harder it is for governments to disregard their duties. By talking together, we find our voice.

• You can comment on this article and others on our Your Opinionsthread, which opens every Wednesday at 10am

Without the power of kindness, our society will fall apart | George Monbiot

Shire shares fall after reporting drop in sales of haemophilia drugs

The pharmaceutical company Shire has reported a drop in sales of haemophilia drugs, its biggest source of revenue since the $ 32bn acquisition of US firm Baxalta was completed in June.

The London-listed company’s third-quarter results disappointed the City. Shire shares closed down 2.6% at £45.28, the second day of falls, as investors also worried about the future pricing of haemophilia drugs in the US.

On Monday, Express Scripts, the largest manager of prescription drug plans for US companies, said it was looking at ways to manage the rising cost of haemophilia medicines.

Hillary Clinton is expected to tackle drug pricing if she wins the US presidential election. The Democratic candidate has repeatedly lambasted high pricing – describing that of EpiPen, drug firm Mylan’s emergency treatment of anaphylaxis, as “outrageous” and accusing entrepreneur Martin Shkreli of “price gouging” vital medicines.

Shire’s chief executive, Flemming Ørnskov, admitted that firms that managed prescription US drug plans wanted to “manage a number of categories more tightly” including haemophilia.

“We live in an environment, certainly during a presidential campaign, where price is in high focus,” he said.

“We can expect for all our categories, not just haemophilia, tighter management, but we have the programmes in place to make sure this does not affect our patients and has limited impact on our overall business. I remain incredibly confident about the outlook for haemophilia.”

Ørnskov said existing patients would not be forced to switch haemophilia medications as this would be considered too risky.

The Danish businessman was upbeat about Shire’s new drug for dry eye disease. Launched in August, Xiidra has already taken a 16% market share in the US. The eye drop is expected to generate annual sales of more than $ 1bn by 2020.

Shire said its integration of Illinois-based Baxalta, which specialises in treatments for rare blood conditions, cancer and immune system disorders, was ahead of schedule.

Sales of haemophilia medicines, also acquired from Baxalta, fell by 6% to $ 884m in the three months to 30 September, which Shire blamed on the timing of some large orders.

Overall, sales more than doubled to $ 3.3bn after the acquisition, but this was slightly lower than analysts had expected. Excluding Baxalta, revenues rose 12%.

Costs related to the takeover were also higher than Shire expected, partly because it has accelerated some factory closures in the US.

Shire is based in Dublin for tax purposes and run from Boston. As announced in the spring, it is pushing ahead with the closure of its Basingstoke office, where 270 people work.

The company wants to open an office in the Paddington, London, as its UK commercial base, so it can be “closer to the heart of life science communities”. There has been speculation that some staff may be moved to Dublin.

Shire shares fall after reporting drop in sales of haemophilia drugs

NHS set to fall £150m short of target on payments from foreign patients

The NHS is set to miss its target of recovering £500m a year for treating patients from overseas, the Whitehall spending watchdog has said.

The National Audit Office (NAO) said hospital trusts in England were getting back more money from overseas visitors who were not entitled to free treatment, but were still facing a shortfall of more than £150m by 2017-18.

The target for reducing the cost of treating overseas patients was announced by the Department of Health in 2014 in a drive to cut trusts’ deficits and counter claims the NHS was being overly generous.

The amount collected has risen from £73m in 2012-13 to £289m in 2015-16. However, the NAO said the increase was mainly due to a new surcharge on temporary migrants from outside the European Economic Area (EEA), which brought in £168m last year.

The department’s forecasts suggest trusts will recover £346m in 2017-18, significantly less than the £500m target. The NAO said the shortfall was in part due to the failure to take account of the cost of administering the programme, while patients were still not paying the full amounts they owed.

“The charging regulations are complex. Trust staff may have to rely on judgment in determining whether a patient is chargeable, sometimes with limited information,” the NAO’s report said.

There was a “particular challenge” in collecting payments from patients – mainly from outside the EEA – who were personally liable for the cost of their treatment, it said. On average, only about half the amount due was being collected.

The head of the NAO, Amyas Morse, said: “Hospital trusts remain some way from complying in full with the requirement to charge and recover the cost of treating overseas visitors.

“In the past two years, the amounts charged and amounts actually recovered have increased. Much of this increase is the result of changes to the charging rules. If current trends continue and the charging rules remain the same, the department will not achieve its ambition of recovering up to £500m of overseas visitor income a year by 2017-18 and faces a potential shortfall in the region of £150m.”

NHS set to fall £150m short of target on payments from foreign patients

NLP Tip: How to Let Go of Thoughts and Fall Asleep Quickly

By Courtney Blair

Of course you know how important sleep is to your physical and mental health….

Some people are fortunate enough to fall asleep quickly, stay asleep, and doze back off if they happen to wake in the middle of the night. Then, there are others who feel that sleep is a personal nemesis, and fight a nightly battle to conquer the elusive monster, many times to no avail.

According to an article titled Sleep and Health published by the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, “Scientists have discovered that insufficient sleep may cause health problems by altering levels of the hormones involved in such processes as metabolism, appetite regulation, and stress response. Studies such as these may one day lead to a better understanding of how insufficient sleep increases disease risk.”

For those who feel that they struggle with sleep, there are many different approaches to dealing with it, and some work better for some people than others.

In NLP there is a technique in which you envision your train of thought as you’re trying to fall asleep, however you may imagine it. Whether you are watching a ‘thought movie’ on an imaginary screen, or reading a ‘thought book’, ignore the content of your thoughts and take a look at just how you’re imagining them playing out in your mind.

Now take that book, or movie screen and make it slowly shrink away or disappear. Get creative and really make it fade away into the distance.

After this is successfully done (it may take more than once to make it stick), practice a few moments of mindful breathing. Just focus on in the intake of air into your lungs through your nostrils, and then the feeling of exhaling that air through your mouth. If your mind begins to veer off into a trail of thoughts again, turn back to your breathing.

This technique has helped many and perhaps tonight if you are struggling to catch those ZZZ’s, and counting sheep just isn’t cutting it, it will help you too.

References

Impact of sleep debt on metabolic and endocrine function. – PubMed – NCBI. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10543671

Sleep and Health | Need Sleep. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/need-sleep/whats-in-it-for-you/health

NLP Tip: How to Let Go of Thoughts and Fall Asleep Quickly

Fall in ovarian cancer deaths worldwide linked to contraceptive pill use

Deaths from ovarian cancer have fallen around the world, largely because of the widespread use of the contraceptive pill, according to a major new study.

Another factor is the decline in long-term use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), according to Italian academics who carried out the study, published in leading cancer journal Annals of Oncology.

While taking the hormonal contraceptive pill for five years or so protects women from ovarian cancer when they grow older, taking hormones in middle-age to alleviate the symptoms of the menopause carries a risk. The drop in women using HRT for long periods of 10 years or more, following revelations concerning risk of both breast and ovarian cancer and heart disease in 2002, is thought to be a factor behind the fall in deaths.

Deaths from ovarian cancer dropped by 10% in the 28 countries of the EU between 2002 and 2012, according to the study. There are substantial variations in the size of the drop between countries. In the UK, the fall was 22%; in Denmark and Sweden it was 24%; but in Hungary, just 0.6%.

Death rates fell in the United States by 16% and in Canada by 8%. In Australia and New Zealand it went down by 12%.

The protective impact of taking the pill is experienced decades later. More than 40% of the over 4,000 deaths year in the UK are in women aged over 75. Women began taking the pill in the 1960s in the UK.

HRT, however, is usually given to women in their fifties to help them with severe symptoms of the menopause, including hot flushes, night sweats and difficulty sleeping.

The research into the change in death rates was led by Professor Carlo La Vecchia of the University of Milan, who said that the difference between European countries evened out somewhat as the pill became more generally available to women over the years.

“The large variations in death rates between European countries have reduced since the 1990s when there was a threefold variation across Europe from 3.6 per 100,000 in Portugal to 9.3 in Denmark,” he said. “This is likely to be due to more uniform use of oral contraceptives across the continent, as well as reproductive factors, such as how many children a woman has.

“However, there are still noticeable differences between countries such as Britain, Sweden and Denmark, where more women started to take oral contraceptives earlier – from the 1960s onwards – and countries in Eastern Europe, but also in some other Western and Southern European countries such as Spain, Italy and Greece, where oral contraceptive use started much later and was less widespread.

“This mixed pattern in Europe also helps to explain the difference in the size of the decrease in ovarian cancer deaths between the EU and the USA, as many American women also started to use oral contraceptives earlier. Japan, where deaths from ovarian cancer have traditionally been low, now has higher rates in the young than the USA or the EU – again, reflecting infrequent oral contraceptive use.”

Some of the countries where long-term use of HRT used to be high and has now declined – with women now opting to take it for just a couple of years or not at all – such as the UK, USA and Germany, are also countries that have seen marked drops in death rates.

“The problem of HRT is not the short-term use for two to three years for menopausal symptoms,” said La Vecchia. “The problem was the long-term use for 10 to 15 years or longer, which proved to be unjustified.”

Fall in ovarian cancer deaths worldwide linked to contraceptive pill use

Novel Tips to Cope with Fall Allergy Season

As all also numerous of us know, environmental allergy symptoms can be debilitating and adjust the way we handle each day. Of program knowing what sets off our allergy symptoms is the initial phase to being ready to overcome them, but we can also attack allergens proactively so they reduce the influence on our lives. Each and every season has its very own obstacles, but with fall ragweed season in bloom, the following are some novel methods to cope, suggestions you might not have heard prior to.

Know Your Genuine Triggers

It sounds apparent, but if we don’t play shut consideration, we may be confusing what is actually triggering allergic reactions. This is specifically real when our sensitivities can adjust from 12 months to yr, or to various instances of the year. As an instance, we may possibly consider the trigger might be pollen outside, but it could just as very easily be dust or fur accumulating indoors, and vice versa. Is there something new in your office, this kind of as a new bouquet of flowers on their desk? Do your allergies flair up every time you go to the regional convenient retailer? If you are struggling and nothing at all you seem to be to do is helping, the 1st phase should be reassessing triggers, as you may be attempting to fix the incorrect dilemma. If your child has allergic reactions then understanding the prime allergies in kids is important to assisting deal with allergy symptoms.

Make sure your Atmosphere is Cost-free of Triggers

When you have identified triggers, now it’s time to decrease them. Simple sufficient, proper? Some ideas you may not have imagined of:

1. 
   Invest in an air purifier. Be sure to modify the air filters in your house and automobile A/C units, but if you’re nevertheless struggling even though indoors, an air purifier in your space can work wonders clearing the air of your allergic triggers.


2. 
   Steer clear of the Outdoors in the Morning: Is it pollen that’s ruining your day? Pollen counts are highest from 5a.m. to 10a.m., so get your everyday jog in the evening and otherwise stay away from getting outside if achievable.


3. 
   Really do not Hang Dry Laundry Outdoors: Due to the fact that is just hanging a giant pollen trap that you’ll be sporting or lying on every day, which is the single worst point you can do for allergies.

Try out Organic Treatments

There are a handful of all-natural techniques to help mitigate or alleviate your allergy symptoms that you may not know. Some are new, potent herbal formulation medicines that you would consider like a pharmaceutical to attack your signs and symptoms rapidly, but with no a lot of of the same side-results. Tried and correct every day supplements like stinging nettles, quercetin and bromlein can lessen the severity of your symptoms in excess of time as organic anti-histamines or anti-inflammatories. Other possibilities include taking a scorching shower and letting the steam ease your sinuses and lubricate occasionally dry sinuses. Greater yet, Neti Pots seem a lot more like genie lamps but can aid with stuffy noses but loosening up the mucus in your sinus cavity but also flushing out numerous of the allergens that are caught in your passageways. All that has to be completed is fill the pot with warm water and salt water and pour it into one particular nostril with your head tilted right up until it comes out the other natural. Try out this everyday, or when signs and symptoms are truly negative.

As you can see obtaining allergies is not a death sentence of sorts. It can make one’s lifestyle far more difficult but currently being mindful of your surroundings and taking precaution can assist people who endure from allergic reactions venture out into the planet. Know what will make your allergies start off acting up and avert this from taking place by becoming ready. Allergy symptoms do not have to rule your lifestyle as there are many a lot more choices to aid the signs and symptoms than there was in the past. Get prepared to make this the very best allergy season of your existence.

Novel Tips to Cope with Fall Allergy Season

Do not fall asleep holding your little one, mother and father warned

Midwives, GPs and wellness guests should also make dad and mom mindful that the dangers are considerably greater if dad and mom drink, smoke or get medication, the advice states. Infants born prematurely or with a minimal birth fat are at an increased risk of cot death if they rest with their parents.

“Falling asleep with a infant, whether that’s in a bed or on a sofa or chair, is risky,’’ explained Prof Mark Baker, the director of clinical practice at Great. “It’s critical that all mothers and fathers and carers know about the association in between sudden infant death syndrome and falling asleep with a child underneath the age of one particular.’’

He additional: ”There is no universal agreement on the causes of sudden infant death syndrome.

”We know there is a link in between Sids and falling asleep with a infant in a bed or on a sofa or chair, but scientific studies into why this occurs can frequently give conflicting final results. And other aspects are most likely to perform a portion in escalating the risk to the infant.

”We recognise that some dad and mom may possibly decide on to share a bed with their infant simply because it could make breastfeeding less difficult, or for cultural motives. Or they may possibly be forced to co-rest because they might not have the area or money for a cot.

”This is why it really is so crucial for parents to understand what the hazards are. The suggestions we are developing aim to assist well being care specialists inform mother and father and carers of the likely hazards related with co-sleeping, according to the greatest obtainable proof.”

The Wonderful guidance has been place out for consultation until the end of the month.

Do not fall asleep holding your little one, mother and father warned

Quackmail: Why You Shouldn"t Fall For The Internet"s Newest Fool, The Foods Babe.

She made the front page of the Financial Times as the blogger who humbled Big Food and whose latest campaign for transparency in beer ingredients left “The King of Beers,” Anheuser Busch InBev, and close running rival SabMiller clamoring like Neville Chamberlain to appease a bully. “The rapid response by AB InBev and SABMiller—which capitulated to Ms Hari’s demands within 36 hours—underscores the growing power of social media over corporate policy,” wrote the FT’s Consumer Industries Editor, Scheherazade Daneshkhu.

Ironically, one of the key factoids in blogger Vani Hari—aka, “The Food Babe’s”—attack on Big Beer was that they “even use fish swim bladders” to make their product without putting this self-evidently dodgy fact on the label; the implication is that beer should not from fish bladder be made. Yet, isinglass—as dried fish bladder is Tolkienesquely called—has been used to clarify beer, wine and liquor since the early 18^th century, and its manufacture was widespread in Colonial America (a versatile compound, it was also mixed with gin and used as a glue to repair broken china). While this may cause vegans to pause before a draught, isinglass has been used and consumed without incident for centuries.

Unfortunately, this kind of clarification, where a blogger takes something commonplace and gives it a nefarious social media friendly twist to advance an agenda, did not make the Financial Times, Business Insider, USA Today, NBC News, and undoubtedly many more news stories that uncritically reported the Food Babe’s victory.

Budweiser – Before 1968 (Photo credit: roger4336)

Fortunately, there are real experts on the Internet, and they are not pulling any punches. The Food Babe “is the Jenny McCarthy of the food industry,” writes “beer snob” and cancer surgeon David Gorski on Science-Based Medicine. “Of course,” he adds, “I don’t mean that as a compliment.”

As Gorski notes, Hari’s strategy is to “name a bunch of chemicals and count on the chemical illiteracy of your audience to result in fear at hearing their very names.” Anti-freeze in beer? propylene glycol has many uses, but the reason it’s used in de-icing solutions is that it lowers the freezing temperature of water. That’s it. There are no concerns about toxicity because you’d have to consume huge quantities of it very quickly to have any effect. More to the point writes Gorski, it’s not, as Derek Zoolander might think, in the beer, it’s in the cooling system for the beer; it just appears that propylene glycol is an ingredient because the law requires listing every production process.

That the media should give The Food Babe a free pass as an expert or as a credible consumer watchdog is especially troubling when you look at some of her other claims, as recorded by the doctors at Science-Based Medicine. As infectious disease specialist Mark Crislip MD noted, Hari out goops Gwyneth Paltrow on the feelings of water by claiming that if you expose water to the words “Hitler” and “Satan” it will change its physical structure in exactly the same way as if you microwaved it. She believes getting the flu shot will give you cancer from all the “chemicals.” She is, naturally, against GMOs.

As Gorski notes, “companies live and die by public perception. It’s far easier to give a blackmailer like Hari what she wants than to try to resist or to counter her propaganda by educating the public. And, make no mistake, blackmail is exactly what Vani Hari is about.”

Actually, a better word would be “quackmail.”

So when are journalists going to hold truth up to this new self-promoting social media juggernaut? Why have so many news stories avoided questioning her claims as they would question her targets in the food industry? Surely, someone who believes that saying “Satan,” repeatedly, to a glass of water will alter the water’s physical properties needs to be treated with a dash of skepticism—no?

Quackmail: Why You Shouldn"t Fall For The Internet"s Newest Fool, The Foods Babe.

Cycling levels in England fall slightly

A new release from the Department for Transport (DfT) shows the percentage of England’s population who cycle at least once a month has dropped from 15.3% to 14.7% in the year to October 2013.

The DfT report states:

Although the change is small, the size of the sample means that we can be confident that this decrease exists in the whole of the English population

The local area walking and cycling in England report, which presents data on cycling and walking among adults in England, uses statistics based on the results from the Active People survey, an annual telephone survey run by Sport England.

A larger proportion of people cycle recreationally than do for utility purposes (for example commuting, shopping or visiting friends) according to the report, whereas the proportions of people walking for pleasure and utility purposes do not differ significantly.

Combined the proportion of people who cycle recreationally and the proportion who cycle for utility purposes is more than those who cycle for all purposes because some people do both. However, a considerably greater proportion walk for both purposes than cycle for both purposes.

The chart below shows the prevalence of people walking and cycling. Click on the tab to see the data for ‘at least once a week’ and for ‘at least five times a week’.

The areas that boast the highest percentage of cyclists for utility purposes are, predictably, the places considered to have better cycling infrastructure and with cycling communities such as Cambridge, Oxford and the Isles of Scilly.

The table below shows the top eight local authorities for those cycling for utility and for those cycling recreationally. It is worth noting that the survey records cycling in the authority where people reside, not where they cycle.

The proportion of male cyclists compared to female cyclists is considerably higher across all age groups – unlike walking, where both genders have similar numbers.

Download the data

• SOURCE: DfT

More open data

Data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian

Development and aid data

• Search the world’s global development data with our gateway

Can you do more with this data?

• Contact us at data@theguardian.com
• Follow us on Twitter
• Like us on Facebook

Cycling levels in England fall slightly

Stem Cell Treatment To Fix The Heart: A Residence Of Cards About To Fall?

For more than a decade cardiac stem cell therapy has attracted an enormous amount of interest, promise, and study bucks. Now an authentic and important new examine published in BMJ finds that numerous of the most promising final results in the discipline are illusory and that the potential advantages of stem cells to treat heart condition are probably far far more modest than we’ve been led to feel. The study also raises disturbing questions about ethics and study carry out (and misconduct) in a higher-flying discipline.

Researchers in the Uk, led by Darrel Francis, closely scrutinized 133 reports from 49 distinct clinical trials testing autologous bone marrow stem cells in individuals with heart condition. They discovered an astonishingly huge variety  of discrepancies in the reports– altogether a lot more than 600  discrepancies, ranging from small oversights to serious unexplained mistakes and apparent deceptions. Several mistakes were mathematical or statistical errors whilst other individuals have been a lot more standard, this kind of as conflicting descriptions of scientific studies as both a potential randomized trial or a retrospective observational study.

The important obtaining of the examine is that there was a really robust correlation among the number of discrepancies in a review and the reported improvement in heart function as measured by left ventricular ejection fraction(LVEF). The five trials with no discrepancies reported no improvement in LVEF (-.four%). In stark contrast, the five trials with the highest quantity of discrepancies– every single with more than 30 discrepancies– reported a very big and, if true, clinically substantial improvement in LVEF (+7.seven%). This impact was steady: the much more mistakes there had been in the study the more probably the examine reported a big treatment effect.

The authors summarized their obtaining:

Our research demonstrates that scientists who obtain progressively greater consistency of reporting find progressively smaller sized effects on ejection fraction of treatment method with stem cells derived from bone marrow. In trials with a discrepancy count of zero, the ejection fraction effect appears to be zero.

The authors explained they were unable to acquire explanations for the discrepancies: “We do not know the lead to of the discrepancies. We have asked for resolution of more than 150 discrepancies through journals. None have been resolved, although we found it triggered correspondence from lawyers.”

By sheer coincidence, the BMJ publication occurs simultaneously with the publication of a Cochrane evaluation of stem cells for heart disease.  The two papers don’t entirely overlap, but they are in several techniques congruent. Analyzing the literature, the Cochrane reviewers located “some evidence that stem cell therapy may possibly be of benefit.” But, they mentioned, “the high quality of the proof is relatively minimal since there had been number of deaths and hospital readmissions in the scientific studies, and person study results varied. Additional analysis involving a big variety of participants is needed to verify these final results.”

Similarly, the BMJ authors note that “viewing all the scientific studies collectively as a single entity, there is on common a good result.” But, they warn, “averaging impact size across all scientific studies may well for that reason not be smart simply because it does not reflect their various factual accuracy.” Although Cochrane  is recognized for its rigorous methodology, it is typically not inside of the purview of Cochrane reviewers to seek out mistakes and inconsistencies in personal scientific studies.

It need to be mentioned that the BMJ paper is only the latest, though probably the most sweeping, of a series of setbacks to cardiac stem cell analysis. Earlier this month two essential papers, one published in Circulation and 1 in the Lancet, from the group of Piero Anversa, a very prominent and high profile stem cell researcher, were discredited as a end result of an ongoing investigation at Harvard Healthcare College and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Final yr, in what amounts to a dry run for the BMJ paper, Francis and colleagues published devastating critiques of  multiple papers from the German research group led by Bodo-Eckehard Strauer and the C-Cure review published in JACC.

“Shocking, profoundly disappointing and… extremely sad”

I asked numerous experts on stem cell and clinical trials specialists to comment on the examine. All agreed that this sort of difficult scrutiny is lengthy overdue. Nicely-acknowledged Yale University cardiologist Harlan Krumholz stated that “this important write-up emphasizes how we can’t enable enthusiasm to get ahead of the science – or even pervert the science to match our expectations. It is also a clarion get in touch with for transparency – new fascinating claims (like all science) need to have all the data accessible for independent scrutiny.”

Steven Epstein is a pioneering gene therapy and stem cell researcher who is at present the director of translational and vascular biology investigation at the MedStar Heart Institute. He was for numerous years the chief of the cardiology branch at the NHLBI.

The benefits and conclusions are surprising, profoundly disappointing and, from a personalized standpoint, extremely unhappy. Nonetheless, the findings and conclusions are not at all surprising to me, as for a lot of many years I’ve been mindful of investigators presenting final results as far more constructive than they truly were, or even indicating a adverse trial was “positive” by emphasizing the effects on 1 of a number of secondary endpoints despite the principal endpoint exhibiting no result.

We undoubtedly require to stay away from lumping investigators guilty of real fraud with people either guilty of distorting their final results by hyping them past the level that can be scientifically justified, or guilty of sloppy data collection and evaluation. Clearly, if fraud is established, the accountable investigators have to be dealt with severely. Nevertheless, even the lesser of the offenses in which data have been misrepresented lead, however, to related outcomes.

Very first, funding is misdirected toward investigators who effectively hype their unproven information, even though investigators demonstrating small incremental results, or even damaging effects, cannot potentially compete for public or private funding possibilities. What also follows is that the recognition on the component of the scientific local community that funding, now generally directed to research that are “hyped” and are an “apparent accomplishment,” truly feel huge pressures to existing their information in a way that appears as profitable as attainable, even although such a result requires some distortion of the difficult scientific final results.

Second, several innocent investigators are misled by such publications and wind up dedicating years of their own investigation proceeding along paths that will lead down blind alleys.

And it’s not just the person investigators who are to blame. Journals want to be the very first to publish what seems to be cutting edge study, and so they, in my see, have markedly lowered their standards as to the degree of documentation essential to be achieved ahead of a preclinical or clinical trial is accepted for publication. It seems the criteria have moved from accepting scientific studies only soon after they provide compelling proof proving the validity of the hypotheses examined, towards accepting research that would be most interesting and newsworthy if true—regardless of the degree of evidence.

Key funding agencies also deserve significant blame, as they as well appear to have been seduced into supporting investigators who have successfully marketed fascinating ideas rather than effectively supported the idea with reliable empirical proof.

This is a crucial time in health care investigation field. It’s nearly as though investigators don’t truly know what to feel any a lot more, even if the research that has caught their attention is published in a prestigious journal. On the other hand, we’ve received to avoid assaulting the integrity of investigators in an whole field, the huge bulk of whom are hardworking, imaginative, and trustworthy.

“Fueled by hype and hope”

Stem Cell Treatment To Fix The Heart: A Residence Of Cards About To Fall?

Survey demonstrates fall in violent crime

“In England and Wales, the growth of multi-agency violence prevention involving police, the NHS and neighborhood authorities may effectively be a aspect – violence has fallen more in areas exactly where this is very best organised.

“Another probable explanation is alterations in alcohol habits.

“Binge consuming has grow to be less regular, and the proportion of youth who really don’t drink alcohol at all has risen sharply. Also, soon after decades in which alcohol has turn into a lot more reasonably priced, because 2008 it has grow to be less reasonably priced.

“For men and women most prone to involvement in violence, those aged 18 to thirty, falls in disposable income are most likely an crucial issue.”

In London, most recent figures launched on Tuesday showed violence with injury was somewhat up on last yr with 852 much more offences – an boost of 1.5 per cent.

Police stated this was attributed to domestic violence offences rather than street violence.

Nonetheless, offences involving weapons reduced in the capital over the year with 17 per cent fewer gun-connected crimes and 11.five per cent fewer knife offences.

Survey demonstrates fall in violent crime

Salt campaign deserves partial credit score for fall in heart deaths

Typical daily salt consumption fell from 9.5g a day in 2003 to 8.1g a day in 2011. Photograph: Alamy

It is understandable that the authors of this research want to highlight salt’s position in lowering heart assault and stroke deaths. Professor Graham MacGregor, one of the three researchers, is the chairman of Consensus Action on Salt and Wellness (Funds), a lobby group that deserves credit score for exposing the dangers of additional salt in foodstuffs and element-shaming, portion-persuading producers to decrease it and government to oversee the process. Sonia Pombo-Rodrigues, an additional co-author, works for Cash.

Its function in encouraging the fall in average every day salt consumption from 9.5g a day in 2003 to 8.1g a day in 2011 is extensively acknowledged, and the ensuing well being benefits plainly significant. But exactly how much of the 42% drop in stroke deaths and forty% fall in ischaemic heart disease fatalities in the course of that time is due to declining salt consumption is not agreed. The paper states that that “is probably to be an critical contributor to the falls in blood pressure from 2003 to 2011 in England. [And] As a end result, it would have contributed substantially to the decreases in stroke and IHD mortality”. It mentions that declining costs of smoking and common cholesterol more than the very same years also played a component.

But these other factors are very likely to be accountable for much more of the falls. Certainly, the authors admit that the fall in systolic blood stress they attribute to less salt in our diet programs would most likely only produce eleven% and six% falls in the number of strokes and IHD respectively, a quarter and a seventh of the declines seen.

Whilst the research does not estimate the probably impact of the falls in smoking and cholesterol, Britain’s increasing disenchantment with cigarettes is vital. The British Heart Foundation lauds that as creating “a large contribution to the decline in cardiovascular illness”. While 41% of women and 52% of guys smoked in 1972, by 2012 just 19% of ladies and 22% of guys did so. The public smoking bans in 2006-07 helped hugely as, medical doctors hope, will plain packaging when it arrives.

There are also other causes why Uk deaths from cardiovascular condition much more than halved from 335,000 in 1971 to 161,000 two years ago. Greater remedies, each surgical and pharmacological, which includes statins, clotbusting medicines and the increasing use of principal angioplasty – the insertion of a stent to preserve open a previously-blocked artery – have improved survival for these who would previously have died. It is a far more complex, but also a lot more promising, picture than just the salt in our food we do not require but generally are not able to escape.

Salt campaign deserves partial credit score for fall in heart deaths

Examine suggests link among fall in salt consumption and drop in heart attack deaths

New analysis suggests hyperlink between the fall in salt consumption and a drop in heart assault and stroke fatalities. Photograph: Hera Meals / Alamy/Alamy

Declining consumption of salt in current many years has been the important issue in the big fall in the variety of individuals dying from a heart assault or stroke, research published today claims.

A 15% drop in average day-to-day consumption of salt in England in between 2003 and 2011 played an crucial role in the 42% fewer stroke fatalities and forty% drop in individuals dying from coronary heart ailment, in accordance to the research published in the health care journal BMJ Open.

The researchers, who include Britain’s leading campaigner towards extra salt in meals, claim that diminishing amounts of salt was “an essential contributor” to falls in blood strain above the eight-12 months time period. “As a end result, the reduce in salt intake would have played an critical position in the reduction of stroke and ischaemic heart condition mortality for the duration of this period,” say the authors.

Deaths from cardiovascular condition in the Uk have more than halved since 1971, falling from 335,000 to 161,000 in 2012.

Among 2003 and 2011 mortality prices from stroke dropped from 134 to 78 (42% down) per one hundred,000 population, and from 232 to 139 (forty% down) per a hundred,000 population for coronary heart illness.

Typical salt consumption fell from 9.5g a day to 8.1g (15%) a day among 2003 and 2011. That was largely due to efforts by the Meals Specifications Company to persuade meals manufacturers to gradually lessen the quantity of salt they added to their goods.

The authors acknowledge that numerous other risk aspects for cardiovascular illness also declined throughout the review period, like regular cholesterol and smoking, despite the fact that average bodyweight as measured by Entire body Mass Index rose, as did consumption of fruit and vegetables.

They reached their conclusions following analysing numerous official sources of well being and life-style information, like numerous years of the Wellness Survey for England and the nationwide diet regime and nutrition survey, which utilized urine samples to gauge salt levels.

Co-author Graham MacGregor, a professor of cardiovascular medication at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medication at Queen Mary University of London, stated the results vindicated the FSA’s prompting of food producers to cut salt ranges, including by setting targets. He is also the chairman of the strain group Consensus Action on Salt and Well being (Money), which lobbied ministers at the time for the FSA to make salt reduction a priority.

The coalition, which has been criticised for relying on voluntary offers with the meals market to tackle wellness difficulties by creating goods healthier, final month published new targets for further falls in salt intake to be attained by 2017. But ministers should be ready to regulate to impose targets if meals producers refuse to cooperate, MacGregor argued.

Clare Farrand, programme lead for Planet Action on Salt and Overall health, stated: “It would now be a gross breach of ethical and corporate accountability for organizations not to lessen salt as the rewards of salt reduction are now so clear.”

Nevertheless, some authorities recommended that the new paper overplayed the extent to which declining salt intake could be credited with the fall in heart attack and stroke deaths. Patrick Wolfe, professor of statistics at University University London, took situation with the authors for assuming that the improved blood pressure seen in the 2003-2011 was largely the consequence of lowered salt intake. “Plausibility of assumption does not equal evidence,” he said.

David Spiegelhalter, professor of the public comprehending of threat at Cambridge university, cited the researchers’ admission that the fall over that time in systolic blood stress would be anticipated to decrease strokes by just 11% and heart attacks by 6%, little amounts of the total falls. Decreased blood pressure did not represent the authors’ claimed “significant contribution” to the lowered death rates.

Examine suggests link among fall in salt consumption and drop in heart attack deaths

This Drug Can make Cows’ Hooves Fall Off – And You are Eating It

When was the final time you at a nice, juicy burger? If you’re like most Americans, it was almost certainly just this week. The United States is a nation of meat eaters, and beef is definitely no exception. Did you know the average American consumes 3 hamburgers every single week?! That adds up to 50 billion burgers a 12 months!

But you may rethink that habit soon after reading this, or at least change exactly where you get your beef. That’s simply because U.S. cattle growers are feeding their cows Zilmax, a drug that is been linked to cows shedding their hooves and other problems like sudden death. And if the cows eat the drug, and you eat the cow — effectively, you know how it goes.

Here’s the deal: Zilmax (or Zilpaterol) is developed by the drug organization Merck, and has been utilized to encourage cow muscle development considering that 2007. By offering their cows Zilmax a few weeks just before slaughter, American cattle growers are ready to enhance the volume of meat each and every cow produces. BEEF Magazine reviews that of the 30 million U.S. cattle processed each 12 months, about 35 percent were becoming fed Zilmax.

But current media coverage, particularly a Reuters special report, has let the public in on the unfavorable side results of Zilmax. In just one particular Tyson Meals slaughterhouse, Reuters identified 17 cows had misplaced their hooves and had to be euthanized. Each one had been feed Zilmax.

The drug has previously been banned in horses, and has been linked to brain lesions, heart failure, and bloody noses in cows. In accordance to information from the Meals and Drug Administration, almost 300 cattle have unexpectedly died or were euthanized after acquiring Zilmax. In the two years given that Zilmax hit the industry, the number of euthanized cattle shot up 175 %.

The findings prompted Tyson Meals to concern a statement saying it would no longer purchase Zilmax-fed cattle. Merck initially stated it would halt U.S. and Canadian revenue of the drug, but later uncovered it had no plans to discontinue Zilmax. A organization spokeswoman stated it’s “too early to speculate” on when product sales will resume, but Merck at the moment does not need FDA approval to deliver the drug back to marketplace.

Here’s how you can make sure neither cows nor you ingest the muscle-building drug Zilmax:

Be Careful In which You Buy Your Beef

The two Tyson and Cargill, Inc. have rejected Zilmax-fed cattle until these animal welfare concerns are resolved. By getting beef from these organizations, you will know you are not consuming a cow that was once fed Zilmax.

Go Natural (or vegetarian)

Organic meat is totally free of chemicals, development hormones, and other medication. It’s a minor a lot more pricey, but if you can afford it, your health is worth the cost.

If you are up for going vegetarian (or even vegan), you can eradicate this difficulty all collectively! It is a sure way to help the atmosphere, steer clear of development hormones and other medicines, and keep away from nasty things like pink slime.

Jordan Markuson is the Founder of Aqua Wellness Labs. He has been a nutritionist, writer and entrepreneur for in excess of ten years. He is an activist supporting consumption of raw, renewable, and natural food items. Jordan believes that based mostly on all available scientific evidence, when meals is cooked it loses the majority of its critical nutrients. He is extremely interested in marine-based mostly phytoplankton as a fish oil replacement simply because of the pure omega-three acids it produces.

lisaferguson.television/

This Drug Can make Cows’ Hooves Fall Off – And You are Eating It