Showing posts tagged with: health

Just a 15 minute stroll four times a week can reduce the risk of an early death by 40%

Older people who take a short walk just four  times a week reduce the risk of an early death by a staggering 40 per  cent.

Each walk only needs to be a 15-minute stroll in the open air to give them a better chance of extending their longevity by a few years, say Italian researchers.

Allowing for a host of other factors from smoking to diet, the walking pensioners had a 40 per cent better survival rate than those who did not, they found.

To read the full article click here.

Alcohol-fuelled sleep 'less satisfying'

A tipple before bedtime may get you off to sleep faster but it can disrupt your night's slumber, say researchers who have reviewed the evidence.

The London Sleep Centre team says studies show alcohol upsets our normal sleep cycles.

While it cuts the time it takes to first nod off and sends us into a deep sleep, it also robs us of one of our most satisfying types of sleep, where dreams occur.

Used too often, it can cause insomnia.

Many advocate a nightcap - nursing homes and hospital wards have even been known to serve alcohol - but Dr Irshaad Ebrahim and his team advise against it.

To read more click here.

Merge NHS and social care, says Labour

The NHS and social care budgets in England should be combined to create a super pot to meet the needs of the ageing population, Labour says.

The money - worth £119bn this year - could be used to provide more joined-up care across the hospital, mental health and care sectors, the party believes.

In a speech on Thursday, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham will say the current arrangements are outdated.

He will claim "dangerous" gaps between services put the vulnerable at risk.

The proposal could see councils get much more involved in making decisions about the NHS, while the biggest hospitals may end up expanding into the community, perhaps even running care homes.

To read the full article click here.

Feeeling TATTered? (that's Tired All The Time): As one in five say they always feel drained, our experts share their fatigue tips.

Are you tired all the time? It’s a symptom so  common it even has a handy acronym – TATT – used by doctors on medical notes.

One in five Britons say they are, according  to NHS figures, with one in ten suffering long-term problems. Yet just a third  of these will have anything physically wrong with them, making it a tricky  problem to tackle.

Although causes such as hormonal problems or  vitamin deficiencies must be ruled out by blood tests, once this is done, what  is left to try?

We know that burning the candle at both ends  can leave you feeling drained, but there are scientifically proven ways to beat  the slump.

Here, experts reveal their favourite methods,  from cutting out a nightly tipple to limiting time spent on your  laptop.

To read the full article click here.

Smoking ban 'cuts premature births'

The theory that public smoking bans cut the number of children born prematurely has been strengthened by new research.

The study of 600,000 births found three successive drops in babies born before 37 weeks - each occurring after a phase of a public smoking ban was introduced.

There was no such trend in the period before the bans were put in place, the British Medical Journal reported.

The study, by Hasselt University in Belgium, comes after Scottish research in 2012 found a similar pattern.

But experts could not fully state the smoking ban was the cause of the change because pre-term births had started to drop before the ban.

It is already well established that smoking leads to reduced birth weight and an increased risk of premature birth.

To read the full article click here.