World of Health

According to a new study of sexual health from Lloydspharmacy – 72% of men have never had an STI screen, compared to 62% of women. Lloydspharmacy also found men were almost twice as likely to test positive for certain STIs such as chlamydia.

13% of men buying chlamydia tests from Lloydspharmacy’s Online Doctor tested positive compared to just six per cent of women.

The research from the community pharmacy chain also found that men are placing themselves at greater risk of picking up an STI with 13% of men having had unprotected sex with more than one person over the last five years, almost double that of women (7%).

With the research revealing that men are more reluctant to be tested but significantly more likely to test positive than women, the findings fuel concerns that men may be delaying testing until they are showing symptoms and that real rates of infection are significantly higher than reported.

Although men are less likely to have had a face-to-face consultation for an STI screen, according to Lloydspharmacy sales of tests online are split almost equally between men and women. This suggests that men prefer the anonymity of the online channel.

Through its Online Doctor service the community pharmacy chain has launched a postal Platinum Test for men which screens for five genital infections; genital Chlamydia, genital gonorrhoea, mycoplasma, ureaplasma and trichomonas. This confidential postal service allows men to be tested and if found to be positive, treated without the need to visit their GP.

“The lower rate of face-to-face testing and higher incidence of positive results amongst men suggests that many men may be waiting until they suspect they have an infection before getting themselves tested”, said Clare Kerr, Lloydspharmacy’s head of sexual health. “This is particularly worrying as many STIs don’t have any obvious symptoms, so men could be putting both themselves and their partners at risk by delaying tests.”

“Embarrassment is a huge barrier to testing and so we hope that removing the need to see a GP or GUM clinic face-to-face will encourage men to test themselves regularly. We can provide accurate tests for a wide range of genital infections anonymously and discreetly through the Online Doctor.”

Website:  http://onlinedoctor.lloydspharmacy.com/

Monday at 8:15 an international group of surgeons started an operation that is the first of its kind at Great Ormond Street Hospital on a ten year old boy.

The boy required a windpipe transplant from a donor to replace the artificial one that was in place in his body, because it had caused his throat to massively bleed three times in a row.

However, the twist of the surgery was that instead of getting a normal donor organ, he became the first child to receive an organ transplant that was created with stem cell advances and made from his own stem cells.

When the boy was born, his windpipe had only grown about one millimetre in width making it impossible for the boy to breathe forcing doctors to replace it with a metal implant.  However, over time the metal device pushed against his blood vessels threatening to cause him to bleed to near death multiple times.

The process of creating his donor organ actually started six weeks ago in Italy when a windpipe was taken from a 30 year old donor and stripped of its tissue.

Afterwards, the donor trachea was flown to London and the team of surgeons took 60ml of bone marrow from the boy’s pelvis so that stem cells could be extracted and injected into the donor organ.

Professor Paolo Macchiarini from the Florence, Italy hospital where the organ was treated, stated that the team accomplished what had taken six months in the past to finish in only four hours which is a landmark in stem cell advances.

A new study published in the Lancet medical journal on the treatment of high blood pressure and the drugs used to control it indicates that physicians may need to change their approach.

Currently, the accepted practice in determining a patient’s risk of stroke or heart attack is to take the average of several pressure readings over a period of time.  Thus, if the results of several tests include one high and the rest low or normal, drug treatment would probably not be recommended.

The new studies concluded that people whose blood pressure varied the most, with spikes of high pressure and other periods of low or normal pressure were most likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke, six times more likely than those with relatively stable pressure.  Those with the highest spikes appeared to be at greatest risk overall.

The findings of this study need further research and clarification, however.  Though the study was comprehensive and reliable, it was not specifically designed to measure the extent of blood pressure variations in individuals, or how much that variation might affect their risk of heart attack.  In addition, the two drugs most commonly used, beta-blockers and calcium-channel blockers, work on different aspects of the condition.

In general terms, beta-blockers serve to lower blood pressure by blocking reception of stimuli to the heart and blood vessels so the heartbeat becomes stronger and slower.

Calcium-channel blockers help prevent the constriction of blood vessels, thereby improving blood flow to the heart.  Both drugs are effective in combating high blood pressure, but one may work better than the other to prevent strokes and heart attacks.

The news media in general is guilty of pouncing on anything that is startling and unusual as opposed to that which may be construed as “old news”.

Case in point,  during a period in 2002, the BBC ran one story on people who died from smoking (8,571) and three stories on a single death from vCJD.   From this we might conclude that both the public and the media are rather blasé about old news, whatever it may be.

That’s not all, though; we also often fail to consider the source.  News stories are generated by reports from agencies and individuals, sometimes those with a vested interest in the public’s reaction to the report.  For a frightening example of this scenario, take the review published recently by Janine Caltado and her colleagues at the Centre for Tobacco Control Research and Education in San Francisco.

They examined every paper ever published on the relationship of smoking to Alzheimer’s, including some claiming that smoking may help prevent this disease.

In all they found 43 published reports, eleven of them written by people affiliated with the tobacco industry.

On average, those eleven papers showed the risks of Alzheimer’s related to smoking less than a third of that presented by the other reports.  Going to greater depths, the reviewers discovered some of the tobacco industry’s marketing strategies, including those intended to recruit young people based on studies showing that the large majority of smokers form the habit before the age of 24.

So check the facts with every resource available, and don’t let preconceived ideas (or wishful thinking) influence your judgment.

In order to prevent disasters such as the death of David Gray from an overdose of meds given by a doctor, the General Medical Council (GMC) has proposed that doctors be subject to a five year check-up so that regulators can find poor performers before major medical problems occur.

Chief executive of the GMC, Niall Dickson, stated at the launch of a consultation document that European doctors currently can practice in the UK without a language or skills test, which is something that the GMC would like to see changed.

Dickson continued to say that the GMC understands that this poses a great problem to the healthcare system since they are not able to look into the competency of the doctors and are working hard with European and UK governments to change the current stipulations.

Although the proposals for checkups on a physician’s license would not have saved David Gray, they would provide useful information and be a step forward for the healthcare system in the UK.

Dickson stated that revalidation would not only help plug the gap, but also help the organization know more about the EU doctors in the UK who are thought to number around 20,000.

The new proposal was released today for consultation to all medical directors and chief executives of each primary care trust that is found within England.  Contained in the writing is a warning that at the moment only ‘limited assurance’ is available in regards to a doctor’s proficiency.

Very low calorie diets are far more effective at tackling obesity than conventional diets, potentially putting an end to losing battles among drastically overweight Britons.  That is the conclusion of a recent year-long trial amongst Britons.

Statistics show that more than one in five women in the UK are overweight, whilst one in six men have a body mass index (BMI) of over 30.  A healthy weight BMI should be between 20 and 25.

In a 12 month study, adult men and women with a BMI at or above 35 were entered into a clinical trial of different diet interventions with the aim of achieving a five per cent weight loss. An initial test was comprised of eating 600 less calories per day than the recommended daily allowance for men/women. Those who failed to achieve the 5% weight loss were then put on either the low carbohydrate, high protein diet (LCHP) or a very low calorie diet (VLCD). The latter eating plan drastically cuts the amount of calories consumed by relying on a diet of milkshakes.

At the end of the year-long trial, the average weight loss for the Very Low Calorie Diet was 31 kilograms, compared to just four kilograms for the low carb/high protein diet, one of the country’s current fashionable eating fads.

The very low calorie programme, known as LighterLife, was also twice as successful as those who stuck with eating just 600 less calories per day, which reduced obese Brits’ weight by an average of 18kg. It also resulted in increased cardiovascular benefits and improvements in cholesterol.

The study was led by Professor Iain Broom, the director of the Centre for Obesity Research and Epidemiology at Robert Gordon University and a professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Aberdeen.Professor Broom said: “This shows how a very low calorie diet can provide excellent weight loss for obese people in both the short and long term, including those patients who have failed other dietary approaches.  The cholesterol benefits are also considerable, as are the lean body mass results which demonstrate that patients see the very same changes in their body composition as those on a conventional diet – there was no difference in the amount of lean body mass change, suggesting that cardiac muscle was not affected by VLCD therapy.”

The study supports what LighterLife seeks to achieve with every client who undertakes it, greater weight loss results and an immediate solution to the side effects of obesity such as high cholesterol and restricted movement. It demonstrates that for people living with obesity a very low calorie diet can be the solution they’ve been looking for.

For more information visit www.lighterlife.com