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Latest UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) data shows that over the past 2 winters (October to May, 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024) at least 18,000 deaths were associated with flu, despite last winter being a relatively mild flu season. While pandemic restrictions and social behaviours saw flu levels fall dramatically for a few [...]
Researchers have calculated the huge cost of fatal falls among older people in the US, with stark findings. Falls account for around one in five of all injury-related hospital admissions, and the World Health Organisation reports that falls are the second leading cause of unintentional injury deaths worldwide, with the over 65s especially vulnerable, highlight [...]
A new study has revealed that multiple surgeries have a small effect on memory, reaction time, task-switching and problem solving for older patients with each additional surgery. The study also found brain MRIs of people who had surgeries also showed physical differences in areas of the brain responsible for memory. It is the first study [...]
We don’t all age at the same rate. But while some supercentenarians may age exceptionally slowly due to winning the genetics jackpot, a plethora of behavioural and lifestyle factors are known to speed up ageing, including stress, poor sleep, poor nutrition, smoking, and alcohol. Since such environmental effects get imprinted on our genome in the [...]
A new hand-held scanner developed by UCL researchers can generate highly detailed 3D photoacoustic images in just seconds, paving the way for their use in a clinical setting for the first time and offering the potential for earlier disease diagnosis. In the study, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the team show their technology can deliver [...]
Researchers have shown that the carotenoid phytoene increases the lifespan of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and can slow the onset of paralysis associated with the formation of amyloid plaques in a model of Alzheimer's disease. Specifically, increases in longevity of between 10 and 18.6 per cent and decreases in the proteotoxic effect of plaques of between [...]
Scientists have identified a gene responsible for some inherited retinal diseases (IRDs), which are a group of disorders that damage the eye’s light-sensing retina and threatens vision. Though IRDs affect more than two million people worldwide, each individual disease is rare, complicating efforts to identify enough people to study and conduct clinical trials to develop [...]
Scientists identified a protein that regulates cellular clean-up, could also hold the key to new treatments for age-related muscle loss and muscle wasting in cancer patients, enhancing quality of life. With the global population ageing rapidly, sarcopenia, a condition that affects millions of older adults and severely diminishes their quality of life, is emerging as [...]
A new study has found that engaging in recommended weekly amounts of physical activity — either concentrated in one to two days or spread throughout the week — may reduce the risk of a broad range of conditions. Busy with work and other obligations, some people concentrate their moderate-to-vigorous exercise in one or two days [...]
Around one in eight children aged between two and 10 in England are obese, a new NHS survey has revealed. New statistics show around one in seven children (15 per cent) aged between two and 15 were obese in 2022 – similar to 2019 (16 per cent). Obesity rates in 2022 were 12 per cent [...]
