The Thin End

With the persistent underfunding of the National Health Service,  crippling 'efficiency savings' and increased pressure on doctors, nurses and other health care workers, it is little surprise that the doctors in the UK have shifted in the political spectrum.  A new study finds that a once generally 'Conservative' profession has now become more leftwing. The survey published online in the  Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health  finds that British doctors are now mostly left-leaning and liberal minded...except for surgeons and high earners. UK doctors think Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU), dubbed Brexit, will be very bad for the NHS. As a group, they are predominantly left-wing and liberal-minded. But high earners tend to lean more to the right of the political spectrum, while surgeons are twice as likely as other specialties to express right-wing views. When respondents rated their political beliefs on a scale of 0 (extremely lef...

How would you react if your neighbour told you he was going to spray his garden with a neurotoxin used in WW2? "Oh don't worry!" he assures you, "it's only a low dose!" "A neurotoxin?" you ask incredulously "Are you crazy?" "It's very effective!" he asserts. "How does it work?" you ask. "It stops the pests' brains working" he asserts with a smile.  "Everyone uses it." "But..." Campaigners in the USA hope  that with Scott Pruitt’s resignation, and with a new administrator Andrew Wheeler at the helm of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), this presents another chance to apply pressure and achieve a national ban in the United States on the organophosphate pesticide chlorpyrifos once and for all. Photo by Elle Dunn Organophosphate insecticides, such as diazinon, chlorpyrifos, disulfoton, azinphos-methyl, and fonofos, have been used widely in agriculture and in...

Is your late night meal delivering cancer on a plate? Are late night meals affecting your health?  A new study suggests timing of late night meals is linked to cancer risk. Modern lifestyles have profoundly changed our eating habits. Our food consumption is now often out of step with our circadian rhythms. We eat to fit into our busy lifestyles, rather than adjusting our lives to our eating needs.  How many of us have late night meals and go to bed soon after eating?  A body of evidence now suggests that this mismatch,  or 'mistiming',  can  profoundly affect our health. Lifestyles driving eating habits.  Experimental and epidemiological evidence shows that long term disruption of endogenous circadian rhythms, in particular due to exposure to light at night, may be associated with a wide range of common diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, obesity and type 2 diabetes.  Now this new study provides some evidence to sh...

The UK, we are told, leads the world in tackling climate change. Since 1990 the UK has  cut emissions by more than 40 per cent while growing the economy by more than two-thirds. Unfortunately, this hides a bleaker reality. British Prime Minister, Theresa May boasts that the UK has "the best performance on a per person basis than any other G7 nation."  She may be right, but... Yes, there is a 'but', and it is a very a big 'but'.  The UK hits its targets by exporting its pollution. Exporting environmental pollution The UK reliance on imports is simply exporting our environmental pollution. Our cheap food comes at a great environmental cost.   Our consumption goes on killing the planet. Photo by Elle Dunn In a globalised world, the demand for food is increasingly met by resources outside a given country’s own territory.  Currently, almost a quarter of all food produced for human consumption is traded internationally.  This is good news for t...

Imagine! Imagine if the greatest medical knowledge and expertise could be harnessed for the wellbeing of all, regardless of their location.  Imagine if we could harness expertise in cancer diagnosis and treatments, even in remote rural areas of Africa.  Imagine the possibilities. One of the greatest barriers to health care is access to expert diagnosis, prognosis and treatment, but what if AI could be used to breakdown this barrier?  Even in the remotest areas there is often access to mobile phone technology.  Could this be harnessed to for the benefit of those who live in these areas.  Could AI be harnessed to ease the ever increasing demands on stretched human medical resources?  Two United Nations specialist agencies are joining forces to expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the health sector to a global scale, and to 'leverage the power' of AI to advance health for all worldwide. Creating a standards framework The International Te...

In addition to facing new concerns about their health, individuals who are diagnosed with cancer often worry about the financial burdens of treatment. A new study in the USA indicates that many patients feel that such ‘financial toxicity’ is not adequately addressed by their doctors and other clinicians. The findings are published online in   CANCER , a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. Growing awareness of financial difficulties There is growing awareness that cancer diagnosis and treatment can create financial difficulties even for patients with health insurance, but it is unclear whether patients today are being helped by their doctors or staff with these challenges. To investigate, Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and her colleagues surveyed patients with early-stage breast cancer and their physicians: 2502 patients, 370 surgeons, 306 medical oncologists, and 169 radiation oncologists. Half of responding medical onc...

The Thin End considers how growth has become a political mantra and how bad trade pollutes the planet and fuels climate change, and the suggestion that there should be carbon taxes. Subscribe to The Thin End Follow @Ray_Noble1