NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

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Breast cancer enzyme may slow tumour growth

24th May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

"Cancer cell enzymes shown to act as 'good cops'," is the headline on the BBC News website. The BBC reports on laboratory research into an enzyme called MMP-8 and its effects on breast cancer. The research reveals that while MMP-8 appears to stimulate the growth of breast cancer cells in the short-term, it may slow tumour growth in the long-term. Scientists are likely to want to explore new treatments that use MMP-8’s ability to slow tumour growth in this way. However, this study used laboratory-grown cells, which don’t behave in the same way as tumour cells within the body. It ...

Could open plan offices be bad for your health?

24th May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

Open plan offices make employees “less productive, less happy, and more likely to get sick” reports the Mail Online website. The article is actually based on a number of studies, but the one we found most interesting was a national survey from 2011, conducted in Denmark, looking at self-reported sick days of open plan workers compared to individual office workers. The study found that people working in an enclosed office space reported lower levels of sickness compared to those working in an open office. Theories offered by the researchers as to why this may be the case, include: open plan ...

Research could lead to 'universal' flu vaccine

23rd May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

“Scientists create new flu vaccine that works against many different strains of the virus,” The Independent reports. This headline, and several others like it, is based on early stage research into the development of alternative flu vaccine technologies. While the results of this research are promising, they do not mean that a universal flu jab has been developed. The study used a new technique where two proteins are bound together to form a nanoparticle. These nanoparticles stimulated an immune response to a greater variety of flu strains than the currently available flu jab. It is important to stress that this ...

Do iPads and electric lights disturb sleep?

23rd May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

"Terrible night's sleep? Blame your mobile phone" is the advice on the Mail Online website, as "exposure to artificial light 'fools' the brain into staying awake." This – and similar headlines in the Daily Express, The Guardian and Metro newspapers – is based on a recent opinion piece in the journal Nature, which has published a dedicated supplement on the science of sleep. The opinion piece suggests that the invention of electric light has altered our sleep patterns over the last century. In particular, the widespread use of LED lights, which we rely on to view smartphones, tablets, televisions and ...

Cold weather may increase blood pressure

22nd May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

'Bad weather could raise your blood pressure and even kill you,' is the unnecessarily alarmist headline in the Daily Mail. It reports on a large, complex study that looked for any association between changes in weather and blood pressure rates. The research focused on patients at a blood pressure clinic in Glasgow and looked at two consecutive visits the patients made within a 12-month period. The researchers combined these findings with Met Office weather data from the time of these visits to assess whether changes in patients' blood pressure were related to changes in the weather. They found that decreases ...

Could a mother's lack of iodine harm her child's IQ?

22nd May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

“Mothers’ diets may harm IQs of two babies in three,” warns The Independent. The newspaper reports on its front page that iodine deficiency is widespread among pregnant women. Iodine is recognised to play a role in the healthy development of the baby’s brain and nervous system while in the womb and the World Health Organization recommends that pregnant women eat iodine-rich foods. Severe lack of iodine is one of the leading causes of brain damage in the developing world. But a new study, reported in most of the media today, suggests that even mild-to-moderate iodine deficiency during pregnancy may be ...

Claims vitamin B prevents Alzheimer's are unproven

21st May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

'Should you be taking vitamin B to protect against Alzheimer's?,' asks the Daily Mail. Its question is prompted by new research into whether a daily dose of vitamin B could reduce the loss of brain tissue in people with mild cognitive impairment. Mild cognitive impairment is thought to be a risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers were particularly interested in the effects of B vitamins on ‘grey matter’ – brain tissue. Grey matter consists of a complex mixture of nerve cells and is found in regions of the brain associated with higher cognitive functions, such as memory and ...

Sharing a bed with your baby ups risk of cot death

21st May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

"Bed-sharing 'raises cot death risk fivefold'," BBC News reports. The news has featured in much of the media, with headlines based on a large analysis of previous studies into the risk of cot death, or sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), associated with bed-sharing. Bed-sharing is where babies sleep in the same bed as their parents. It has long been known that bed-sharing with a parent who smokes or has consumed drugs or alcohol increases the risk of SIDS. This new study aimed to see if bed-sharing still increased the risk of SIDS in the absence of these risk factors. The ...

Job stress may raise our 'bad cholesterol' levels

20th May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

'A stressful job really can kill you – by raising your cholesterol,' reports the Mail Online website. This headline is based on Spanish research that looked at the relationship between job stress and lipid (fat) levels in the blood of more than 90,000 people. The research found that people who reported difficulties coping with their job had higher levels of what has been dubbed "bad cholesterol" (LDL cholesterol) and lower levels of "good cholesterol" (HDL cholesterol). High levels of LDL cholesterol can clog up the arteries, increasing an individual's risk of developing cardiovascular diseases such as coronary heart disease. A ...

Vitamin D may help treat severe asthma

20th May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

”Sunshine vitamin 'may treat asthma'”, BBC News informs us, as a new lab-based study suggests vitamin D could help control symptoms of severe asthma. Asthma is caused by inflammation of the airways, related to malfunctioning of the body’s immune system. In theory, the immune system mistakes harmless substances, such as dust mites, as a threat and triggers inflammation of the lungs and airways (which causes the symptoms of asthma). The study in question looked at IL-17A, which is one of the molecules thought to be associated with the malfunctioning immune response seen in asthma. Researchers examined whether vitamin D had ...

Rise in number of unpaid carers and young carers

17th May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

"Children are picking up the caring roles the state has abandoned," The Guardian says, while The Independent says that 180,000 children work as unpaid carers. These new figures come from the Office for National Statistics, which has pulled together data on unpaid care in England and Wales from the 2011 census. The census (which has been carried out every 10 years since the middle of the nineteenth century) reveals an increase in the proportion of the population who are providing unpaid care. This has risen from 11.5% in 2001 to 11.9% in 2011 in women, and from 8.8% to 9% ...

Time-lapse technique may boost success rate of IVF

17th May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

“IVF advance triples couples' chances of having a baby”, The Daily Telegraph reports. The innovation in question is actually based on an old imaging technique called time-lapse photography, where a camera is set to record a series of images at regular intervals. This technology is now available for monitoring the development of IVF embryos before they are transferred into the womb. The researchers in this study developed a way of using the information collected to identify which embryos had a low or high chance of having an abnormal number of chromosomes (called aneuploidy). Aneuploidy can reduce the chances of embryos ...

Absent fathers linked to depression risk in girls

16th May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

“Study shows girls with absent fathers more likely to develop depression," the Mail Online has revealed. It reports on a large UK study that found that girls whose biological fathers were absent during the first five years of their childhood had an increased risk of symptoms of depression. No increase in risk was found for girls whose fathers were absent later in childhood, and no increase in risk was found for boys with absent fathers. Researchers collected information regarding the physical absence of the biological father during childhood, as well as information on depression symptoms when the child was 14. ...

Human embryo stem cells cloning breakthrough

16th May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

"Human embryonic stem cells created from adult tissue for first time," The Guardian reports, while the Daily Mail's front page leads with the somewhat fanciful warning that new research raises the "spectre of cloned babies". These headlines are based on newly published research into the use of a technique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) as part of embryonic stem cell research. It should be noted that no babies were born as a result of this research, and the researchers had no intention of producing a live cloned human being. SCNT involves taking donated egg cells from women and ...

Drug combination offers hope for osteoporosis

15th May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

“Double drug hope for brittle bone sufferers”, reports the Daily Mail. This headline follows a small but well-designed trial of treatments for postmenopausal osteoporosis. As women go through the menopause, levels of the hormone oestrogen begin to fall. This drop in oestrogen can lead to a thinning and weakening of the bones, increasing the risk of broken bones (fractures). While current treatments can help prevent further weakening of the bones, they are not particularly effective at restoring bone strength – known as bone mineral density (BMD). In this study, researchers found that using a combination of teriparatide (Forsteo) and denosumab ...

'Broken' body clock may be linked to depression

15th May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

"Depressed people are out of sync with the rest of the world because their body clocks are broken," reports the Mail Online website, while The Independent claims that depressed people live in a "different time zone". The story comes from a study that looked at the activity of genes thought to be involved in regulating the body's internal clock – the innate sense that most people have of the changes over a 24-hour day to night cycle (circadian rhythms). Researchers did a detailed study of gene expression, the effect that certain proteins contained inside individual genes have on genetic activities ...

Is the rise in neurological deaths due to modern life?

14th May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

'Technology, food additives and air pollution are causing people to develop dementia earlier than ever,' reports the Mail Online website. But this is a claim with little to no evidence to support it. The study the Mail reports on looked at death rates in 10 developed countries, including the UK and the US. The researchers specifically focused on what they termed "neurological deaths". These are deaths arising from conditions that affect the brain and nervous system, such as motor neurone disease and dementia. This study found that the overall death rate has fallen over the past 30 years. But levels ...

Angelina Jolie’s breast surgery announcement

14th May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

Writing in the New York Times, actress Angelina Jolie has announced that she has recently undergone a double mastectomy (where both breasts are surgically removed) followed by breast reconstruction surgery. She writes that this is because genetic testing revealed she had a 87% chance of developing breast cancer in later life, as well as a 50% risk of ovarian cancer. This means she took a decision to have ‘preventative surgery’. Jolie explained: "I decided to be proactive and to minimise the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. "Cancer is still a ...

Could a good mood make you eat more food?

14th May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

‘Research has found emotional eaters tend to eat more when happy’, reports the Mail Online website. The news is based on a small study looking at whether experimentally altering mood has an effect on the amount of calories a person eats. The researchers examined the effects on what they describe as ‘emotional eaters’ – people who reported using food as a coping mechanism for emotions. A group of 86 students, who said they were either emotional or non-emotional eaters, were shown TV and movie clips to evoke either a positive, negative or neutral mood. The researchers then assessed how much ...

New coronavirus 'likely' to spread person to person

13th May 2013

NHS Choices: Behind the headlines

‘WHO warns that a deadly novel coronavirus could be passed from person to person’, The Independent reports. The news – featured in much of the media – is based on the latest ‘state of play’ advice from the World Health Organization (WHO) on the novel coronavirus (nCV). nCV, which is genetically similar to the SARS virus, was first reported in the autumn of 2012 and appears to have originated in the Middle East. Initial symptoms of nCV are similar to a severe case of the flu and include: fever cough shortness of breath breathing difficulties Unlike flu, nCV is thought ...