For many mums-to-be it is advised that taking regular folic acid supplements during pregnancy, and whilst trying to conceive, has significant health benefits for their unborn baby, namely around reducing the risk of neural tube defects such as spina bifida (NHS, 2013). However, do these supplements also affect the risk of the unborn baby developing [read the full story…]
Previous studies have suggested that people with mild learning disability show a higher rate of offending when compared with peers without learning disability and that this rate is especially high in those aged under 18. High rates of learning disability have also been found in studies of young offenders in custody. In the U.S., one [read the full story…]
In 2010, a study by Age UK suggested that up to one in three people aged 65 and over fall each year and that the cost to the NHS in England of falls amongst older people was estimated to be up to £4.6m a day. Age UK suggest that if older people took regular exercise [read the full story…]
Depression and anxiety are common conditions in adolescence that can lead to persistent and life-long mood and anxiety disorders for some people. One theory is that prenatal maternal stress can contribute to depression in young people (the so called fetal programming hypothesis). The notion here is that pregnant women who experience stress may send messages to their foetus [read the full story…]
Nearly 10 million people were in prison in 2008, according to estimates provided by the World Prison Population List (Walmsley, 2009). The United States tops the imprisonment league table with 2.3 million individuals behind bars, that’s 756 per 100,000 of the population. Whatever your view on the US legal system and incarceration, it’s interesting to [read the full story…]
Since starting this blog two years ago, I have written about a number of studies that highlight the health inequalities faced by people with severe mental illness. The evidence keeps piling up and it’s really quite shocking that we are not doing more to diagnose and treat physical health problems in people with conditions such [read the full story…]
Studies have shown that the prevalence of depression in pregnant women is 7-19%. Being depressed during pregnancy can result in preterm delivery, which can in turn lead to illness and even death of the newborn child. Researchers have struggled to single out the causes of these risks. Is it the depression, the medical treatment being [read the full story…]
Over 1 billion people on Earth smoke tobacco. WHO figures tell us that 80% of the smoking population live in low-middle income countries, most of which are not protected by any kind of smoke-free public health legislation. China is a particular black-spot in this regard. It has the largest tobacco smoking population in the world [read the full story…]
Caries in children aged 71 months and younger or early childhood caries (ECC) has been reported with a prevalence of between 20 and 80% in some populations. The aim of this review was two fold, to assess the association between the acquisition of oral cariogenic bacteria and caries outcomes in infants and to identify the [read the full story…]
There is increasing interest in the use of salivary proteins as biomarkers for oral diagnostics and some studies have suggested potential for these biomarkers in oral cancer and Sjögrens syndrome . The aim of this review was to evaluate the potential of salivary proteins as biomarkers for dental caries An electronic search was performed in [read the full story…]
