Feeling Down Not Good For Your Heart:
If you’re feeling down because of yet more NHS restructuring, a five-year pay freeze in GP pay, gloomy weather and the price of stamps about to rocket, then prepare for more bad news. Read More »

Leader Lansley
If you’ve been troubled by the effect of health secretary Andrew Lansley on the NHS, then it may well be for reasons other than his reforms. According to Norwegian scholar Professor Jan Ketil Arnulf, ‘there are few things more dangerous than leadership’. Read More »

Omega-3 pumped into yogurt: Thinking of topping up your daily allowance of omega-3s? Scientists may have the answer – a fish-oil yoghurt. A team from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University found that it is possible to pump fish oils into yoghurt as an effective ‘delivery mechanism’ for the fatty acids. You’ll be pleased to hear that, after extensive testing, they found that a savoury chilli and lime-flavoured combo could mask the oils’ ‘strong fishy taste’ from ruining the dessert. As lead author Professor Susan Duncan explained: ‘Recent innovations in exotic yogurt flavours provide innovation opportunities.’ Read More »

Male Humans and Flies Binge Drink After Sexual Rejection

We humans may not think we have much in common with fruit flies, but think again. When the sexual advances of male flies fall short, they opt for a very human response: reaching for the bottle. Scientists at the University of California have discovered that Drosophila males binge on alcohol after female flies reject their sexual advances, drinking far more than ‘sexually satisfied’ peers. The researchers think the findings may shed light on how our own love lives influence addition. Or, as lead author Dr Ulrike Heberlein says: ‘If neuropeptide Y turns out to be the transducer between the state of the psyche and the drive to abuse alcohol and drugs, one could develop therapies to inhibit neuropeptide Y receptors.’ Quite.

Popcorn Contains Antioxidants

If you’re looking for a healthy snack to redress the ills of your love-rejection binge, look no further than…popcorn. Researchers now say the snack contains more antioxidants than the equivalent amount of fruit. They argued that the hulls of popcorn are a far more concentrated source of polyphenols and fibre, and therefore are a far healthier snack than first thought. Dr Joe Vinson of theUniversityofScrantoninPennsylvaniasaid: ‘Those hulls deserve more respect. They are nutritional gold nuggets.’

Shock Horror Looking at Fatty Foods Makes Everything Better

Photos of the food in local takeaway shop windows may not always look the most appetising, but research suggests these actually make the food taste better. A study from the Nestlé Research Center in Switzerland found that people reported tastes to be more pleasant when they first saw pictures of foods laced with calories, such as pizza and pastries, rather than when they viewed low-calorie foods such as watermelon or green beans.

Moral Side-Effects

Taking BP drugs can tackle hypertension, but they also may be able to purge a person of racist thoughts, research suggests. Read More »

Now wash your hands
You’d think it was taught on day one of medical school. Yet two thirds of medical students do not know when to wash their hands. More surprisingly still, these weren’t freshers but third-year students. Eighty-five of them from Hannover Medical School took part in the study, published in the American Journal of Infection Control. Read More »

Brain drain: Got lots of friends on Facebook? If so, it could be warping your brain. Brain scans of 125 students found those with more friends on the social networking site had far more grey matter in areas linked to social interaction, autism and memory.

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Manure shock
Last year’s RCGP conference theme was sustainability. To eco-friendly readers who have struggled to make their practice greener in the past year: get a whiff of this. US scientists reckon they can turn manure into electricity. The self-styled ‘cow power’ programme in Vermont allows dairy farms to sell electricity generated from methane back to the grid. Studies suggested the 95 million animals in the US could produce renewable energy equivalent to 8 billion gallons of petrol. However, plans might have to be put on the back (methane) burner. In the current financial climate it costs $2 million to equip a single farm with the technology.

Mobile Disease
You might want to think twice before borrowing a friend’s mobile phone because one in six are contaminated with faecal bacteria, according to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Researchers studied 390 phones in 12 cities across the UK and found that 16 per cent were contaminated with Escherichia coli. The scientists believe mobiles are left covered in potentially harmful bacteria because owners do not wash their hands after going to the toilet. Contamination was highest in Glasgow, which had bacteria levels nine times higher than in Brighton. However, Dr Ron Cutler of Queen Mary, University of London, said it was a ‘nationwide problem’.

Steady Teddy
Creative acronyms are often used by large trials to make it easier for papers and talks. These are often straightforward, such as ADOPT. Enter: The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young, which looked at reducing diabetic ketoacidosis at diabetes onset. A paper on the study is enlivened by reference to TEDDY participants.

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Just the one
Many enjoy a small tipple at lunchtime but MPs are taking it too far, according to Devon GP Dr Sarah Wollaston MP (Con, Totnes). She alleged that MPs often drink so much before debates that they can only just stand up. The Daily Telegraph reported Dr Wollaston as saying: ‘Who would go to see a surgeon who had just drunk a bottle of wine? But we fully accept that MPs can perform as MPs despite some of them drinking heavily.’ She also alleged that members often had ‘no idea’ what they were voting for. Maybe they were just Lib Dems plucking up enough courage to vote in favour of the Health Bill.

Diabetes love
Diabetes patients are being encouraged to try a new ‘dating agency’ – linking them up to a research project.

Experts are keen to get more people with diabetes involved in clinical research: just 1 per cent are currently involved, compared with 30 per cent among cancer patients. Professor Martin Gibson of the Diabetes Research Network at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust told the BBC: ‘We’re trying to bring the two groups together, because both are very interested in finding a cure for diabetes.’ Just remember to bring flowers, too.

Diet answer
A peer has solved the global obesity crisis: just eat less. Lord McColl of Dulwich, a Conservative peer and former professor of surgery at London’s Guy’s Hospital, said it was ‘misleading’ for politicians to claim that exercising will make people lose weight. He was reported to have told a House of Lords debate: ‘For an obese person to lose weight – bearing in mind that most of them can’t exercise because they are so overweight – all he has to do is eat less.’ But what does the Earl of Sandwich think?

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Barrow stories
Bemused looks all around at a commissioning conference in London last week, owing to a strange turn by NHS Alliance chairman Dr Michael Dixon. Introducing NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson, he remarked: ‘I had a dream about David in which he was wearing a pinstriped suit and was sat in a conference not unlike this.’ He went on: ‘As he stood up he was wearing tracksuit bottoms and trainers and had a wheelbarrow. He put someone in the front row in his wheelbarrow and raced off.’

Answers on a postcard to the usual address if you know what that means.

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