Medicine

The drugs giant AstraZeneca (AZ) has signed a deal with heart researchers in Canada which pushes forward the project to prevent – and even reverse – heart disease and diabetes by identifying the genes that put people at risk. There’s been a lot of talk about ‘personalised medicine’ that offers us our own therapy tailored to our own weaknesses – specifically, the genetic time-bombs lurking our DNA. Until now, GPs have looked at our family history of heart disease, cancer, diabetes etc and (at least inwardly) shrugged. There’s only so much they can do. The AZ deal with the Montreal Heart Institute will produce one of the largest genetic screenings to date. To quote

The age of enlightenment was a beautiful thing. People cast aside dogma and authority. They started to think for themselves. Natural science flourished. Understanding of the natural world increased. The hegemony of religion slowly declined. Eventually real universities were created and real democracy developed. The modern world was born. People like Francis Bacon, Voltaire and Isaac Newton changed the world for the better. Well, that’s what most people think. But not Charles, Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall. In 2010 he said: ‘I was accused once of being the enemy of the Enlightenment,’ he told a conference at St James’s Palace. ‘I felt proud of that.’ Then he added:

As the FT reports, Apple and IBM have got into bed together. The deal they’ve struck has major implications for the growing number of people using wearable tech (and indeed mobile phones) to monitor their health. Here are the details. IBM has entered into partnership with Apple and other manufacturers of medical devices to make health data from wearable tech available to doctors and insurers. One outcome will be personalised treatments for diabetics. But that’s only part of the picture. This is how it will work. If you’re self-monitoring your heart rate, calories and cholesterol levels – as more and more of us are – you will now be able to

Apple’s new smart watch, unveiled by Tim Cook yesterday, had incredible potential. But its functionality has been hindered by technical hitches – and, especially, overzealous legislators. Their cloying presence must have been felt at every product meeting. Engineers working on Apple’s watch did so with the rasping breath of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the back of their necks. The result? Apple is nowhere near giving us a device that allows comprehensive self-monitoring of health – thanks to federal regulations. Public health services everywhere tell us that prevention is better than cure. But the FDA doesn’t trust Apple, or any manufacturer of wearable tech, to gather the sort of intimate

When republicans meet, we console ourselves with the thought that our apparently doomed cause will revive. The hereditary principle guarantees that eventually a dangerous fool will accede to a position he could never have attained by merit, we chortle. With Charles III, we have just the fool we need. I don’t laugh any more. Britain faces massive difficulties. It can do without an unnecessary crisis brought by a superstitious and vindictive princeling who is too vain to accept the limits of constitutional monarchy. If you want a true measure of the man, buy Edzard Ernst’s memoir A Scientist in Wonderland, which the Imprint Academic press have just released. It would

There’s something wrong with the relationship between patients and their GPs. I’ve spent much of this winter in my local surgery, what with one thing and another, sitting among the stoic and snivelling, drifting between different doctors. They’re pleasant, if perfunctory, but with each visit I became more sure that something fundamental is awry. The docs seem ill at ease, as if their collective nose is out of joint, and I don’t think it’s overstretching or underfunding that’s the problem. My unprofessional diagnosis is that there’s a change under way in the balance of power between patients and medics; the status of GP as unimpeachable oracle is under threat, he

Every so often you read a piece about alternative medicine that asks: how does it work? How does homeopathy work, how does acupuncture work, etc. There was a piece in the Telegraph recently that asked: how does naturopathy work? There was a complicated answer about ‘healthy electromagnetic frequencies’ and so on; ‘bioresonance’, ‘modalities’, and a marvellous quote about how ‘Every cell in the body puts out a certain electromagnetic frequency, that can be measured – a healthy stomach cell sounds different to a healthy brain cell…’ Presumably those words have some sort of meaning to someone. But the problem with this piece – and with an awful lot of other

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_15082013.m4a” title=”Andrew Haldenby and Sean Worth join Sebastian Payne to discuss NHS reforms.”] Listen [/audioplayer] GPs enjoy the salary of bankers, regularly pulling in £100,000 for a five-day week, with no on-call or weekend duties and a lovely taxpayer-funded holiday every year. I know this because it says so in the papers, so it must be true. Stories of GP largesse are far from accurate, and bear testament only to the media’s desire for sensationalism. GPs are the true medical heroes of the NHS, the soldiers in the trenches, too loyal to the metaphorical army to revolt, protest or express opinions, lest such opinions serve as an indirect abrogation

Did you know that one in six couples in the UK have difficulty conceiving? That’s roughly 3.5 million not very happy people. A healthy diet, not smoking and not being too overweight or too underweight can all improve your chances of having a baby. Here are some other ideas worth a try. Take care with technology. Both mobile phones and laptops have been implicated in reducing sperm quality. Research has found that while using a phone increased testosterone, it also reduced levels of luteinising hormone, important in male fertility. Carrying your phone around in your trouser pocket is not great either and, as for laptops, using one on your lap if

Lacking in pep? Looking for some extra zing as winter sets in? The Spectator recommends our energy conference on 1 December. Tickets are still available, sign up here. Society is changing fast because we live longer. But the NHS was designed for a different age where the gap between retirement and death was much smaller. The result is that the health service’s financial footings are fragile and require new ways of delivering health to keep spending at sustainable levels. A new roadmap for reform of the NHS has been produced by Sir Simon Stevens. But there is a large hole where herbal medicine should be. Sadly, it does not merit a single

Have you ever tried that good old test for halitosis – licking your wrist, letting it dry, then having a good whiff – and been shocked at the result? The bad news is that mints don’t work, but here are a few tips that might succeed in making your breath smell sweeter. Brush your tongue As well as brushing your teeth, you need to brush your tongue, if an American study is anything to go by. Levels of smelly sulphur compounds caused by food bacteria dropped by 53% in people who brushed both teeth and tongue for a minute twice a day for a fortnight. Scrape your tongue Even better,

Who enjoys all that calorie counting? If you hate diets but love the idea of losing a bit of weight, these quick fixes might just help you shift a few pounds – or prevent you from putting on any more. Get enough shut-eye. Research has shown that people who are sleep-deprived eat a lot more the next day than those who are well rested. In one study it was an average 600 calories more. Why? Quite simply, if you stay awake for longer, you’re more likely to have the munchies. Down the dairy. A few studies have suggested that people who eat more dairy products when they’re trying to lose

Ebola clinics in many parts of West Africa are full, so more and more people are being told to stay at home and take Paracetamol and fluids if they become infected. It means if someone in your family gets Ebola, you all have to stay in the house, which is effectively a death sentence. At the moment, the disease is killing 70 per cent of the people it infects, but that’s likely to go up. People who need other medical treatment can’t get it, and in Sierra Leone 40 per cent of farmland has been abandoned. Western governments are building secure military encampments for health workers, fearing civil unrest and

Over in my day job, I recently wrote a piece about ‘superfoods’ and the myths that a particular kind of food can protect you from illnesses. The only food advice for which there is consistent evidence is that you should eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables; all this stuff about how you should eat pomegranate to make your liver healthy, or whatever, is complete nonsense. One of the items that keeps cropping up was broccoli. It contains a chemical called sulforaphane, which supposedly helps with diabetes, lung disease and breast cancer. Naturally, the evidence for all this is lacking: the tests were all carried out with

No one likes getting the flu and for some people, in particular the sick and elderly, the virus can prove deadly. So it’s worth taking a few simple steps in a bid to stave it off. 1. Wash your hands. Use soap and water to wash off the germs you pick up on all the surfaces you touch (and make sure you clean them too). Wash hands often and thoroughly – sing “Happy Birthday” or another short song to yourself while you’re doing it. And grasp the tap with a piece of loo paper when you turn it off. Overkill? Maybe. But who wants the flu? 2. Don’t smoke. You’re