April News

Aspirin can Reduce Migraine Symptom Pain says Review

Lib Dem plan to cut NHS Red Tape

The Liberal Democrats have promised to protect frontline services such as cancer, mental health and maternity despite a squeeze on the NHS budget. Unlike the other two main parties, the Lib Dems are not making any commitment in their manifesto on the level of future NHS funding in England. The promise to protect key services is based on efficiency savings including halving the Department of Health. New elected Local health Boards would plan services in England. The Lib Dems say £140m a year in management costs could be saved by scrapping the regional organisations in the health service, Strategic Health Authorities, and £100m a year by cuts at the Department of Health.

Aspirin can Reduce Migraine Symptom Pain says review

Many migraine sufferers choose to use over the counter medicines. Taking aspirin can reduce the pain of a migraine headache within two hours for over 50% of people, research says. The results come from a Cochrane Systematic Review using data from 13 studies. Researchers found that a high dose of aspirin also reduces nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light or sound - other symptoms of a migraine. But experts stress aspirin can cause side effects and some people will still need to rely on migraine medication.

Study to probe mobile health risk

More than 70 million mobiles are in use in the UK alone. The world's largest study on the safety of using mobile phones has been launched by researchers in London. The project will recruit 250,000 phone users across five different European countries including the UK. It will last between 20 and 30 years and aims to provide definitive answers on the health impacts of mobile phones. Research to date has shown no ill effect, but scientists say those studies may be too short to detect longer term cancers and other diseases. The study is known as Cosmos - the cohort study on mobile Communications. It is being funded in the UK by the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research programme, an independent body, for an initial five year period. A member of that group, Professor Lawrie Challis, said the study was crucial. "We still cannot rule out the possibility that mobile phone use causes cancer. The balance of evidence suggests that it does not, but we need to be sure." The co-principal investigator of the study, Dr Mireille Toledano from Imperial College London, added that there are still "gaps in our knowledge, there are uncertainties". "The best thing we can do as a society is to start now to monitor the health of a large number of users over a long period of time - that way we can build up a valuable picture as to whether or not there are any links in the longer term. She stressed the study was not just about brain cancer." More than 70m phones are in use in the UK at present, out of a global total of 6bn.

Early Baby Survival Rate 'Static'

Premature babies are undergoing more intense treatment to keep them alive. Babies born before 24 weeks are spending longer periods in intensive care but their overall survival rates have not improved, a study has found. Newcastle doctors say while more babies over 24 weeks do now live, the longer-term rates for infants just a week younger are static. About 20% of such babies survive, but those who do usually have disabilities. The study, published in Archives of Disease in Childhood, looked at 230 babies born at 22 and 23 weeks. Over the course of 15 years, the length and intensity of treatment appeared to increase: the average survival time of those babies who ultimately died rose from 11 hours in 1993 to nearly four days by 2007. But despite more active intervention being documented in the last five years of the study, in which 60% of the babies born were actively resuscitated, the longer-term survival rates did not appear to increase. The findings are in keeping with those of the major Epicure study, which showed that while survival rates for babies born at 24 and 25 weeks have improved over the last ten years those for younger infants have not, as their organs are simply not sufficiently developed.