Don’t Mention ‘Angels’.

Leech Therapy.
Ancient Egyptian physicians considered leeches a cure-all.
And the bloodsuckers have made a comeback.
Doctors use them to relieve blood pressure and reduce blood coagulation.
They are also used to stimulate blood flow in operations to reattach eyelids, fingers and ears.
A leech has three jaws holding a hundred tiny teeth, which move in scissor movements slicing the skin.
Marian Gower, manager of Biopharm Leeches in Swansea – the only UK supplier – said: “We send around 25,000 leeches a year to UK hospitals. They are used after operations to reattach severed limbs as they are so efficient at restoring blood circulation”.

Drinking Wine Could Make You Healthier.
Drinking up to three glasses of wine a day could make you healthier.
Researchers found moderate boozers were in better shape than teetotallers as they were less stressed and had better social lives.
They also had lower heart risk and were not as heavy.
Boris Hansel, who led the study of 150,000 French people, said: “Moderate alcohol intake is a powerful marker of a higher social level and superior health.”

Don’t Mention ‘Angels’.
Hospital bosses want the word ‘angel’ dropped from literature on stillborn babies fearing it will offend non-religious families.
For Christ’s sake, what next?
The Whisperer Group helps families cope with still births and miscarriages.
It hands out “new angel mum” bags with support material.
Founder Michelle Taylor said: “The word angel is not meant to have a religious sense. It is just a word we call our children when we lose them. It is a beautiful word and it fits perfectly”.
I agree.
Whether religious or not, the term angel sums up what these babies are.
Have any ‘non-religious’ families complained?
I doubt it.

The Most Efficient Health Service.
The NHS has been ranked the most efficient health service in a major new international study.
The British system provides the best value for money according to the Commonwealth Fund’s comparison.
The USA came bottom in the study, which also looked at Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland and New Zealand.
This blows apart Tory claims that the NHS wasted money under Labour.

Broccoli Reduces The Risk Of Prostate Cancer.
Research from Canada and the U.S. suggests that just one serving of broccoli each week reduces the risk of prostate cancer by nearly half.
A University of Illinois study in 2007 showed that, when tomatoes and broccoli were eaten as part of a daily diet, they were better at shrinking prostate tumours in rats than broccoli eaten alone.
Broccoli contains lutein, a substance highly concentrated in the macula, a small area of the retina in the eye responsible for central vision.
People with diets high in foods containing lutein are less likely to develop cataracts and age-related macula degeneration, which can lead to sight loss.
Broccoli is high in disease-fighting vitamins A and C, plus fibre and folate (vital to prevent birth defects).
It also has iron, zinc, bone-strengthening calcium and magnesium.
Human and animal studies show that diets high in cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, kale, cabbage and cauliflower can lead to a lower likelihood of a range of cancers, including lung, colon, breast and ovarian cancer.

Tea And Coffee Reduce The Risk Of Heart Disease.
Three to six cups of tea a day can almost halve your risk of dying from heart disease, researchers say.
Having regular cuppas reduces the chance of fatal heart problems by 45%, while supping more than six cuts the risk of having heart disease by more than a third.
And two to four cups of coffee a day can cut the risk by 20%.
Dutch researchers monitored the intake, heart disease, strokes and deaths of 37,514 people over 13 years.

A Pill To Live Longer.
Scientists claim they are close to developing a magic pill that allows people to live beyond 100 – and stay fit and healthy.
They are working on a drug which mimics the effects of three genes that prevent key diseases linked with old age.
Two of the genes increase production of good cholesterol in the body, reducing the risk of heart disease, stroke and Alzheimer’s, and a third helps prevent diabetes.
The pill, which is still some way off, would be taken in your 40s.

Patients Can Regrow A New Knee.
Patients can “regrow their knee” in a laboratory – in a revolutionary operation by British medics.
Shock-absorbing cartilage cannot be regenerated by the body – leaving thousands needing knee replacement operations.
In the new operation, surgeons scrape healthy cells from the knee, and send them to Germany to be re-grown in a Petri dish with growth enhancers.
A fragile sheet of cartilage made from the patients’ cells and DNA is then stitched back into place to revitalise the knee.
More than 70,000 knee replacement operations take place in England and Wales every year.
Orthopaedic consultant Mr Pimpalnerkar said: “It is an amazing breakthrough and may become the norm. it is quite expensive, so this is aimed at younger patients and sport injuries at the moment”.

A Rise In Sexually Transmitted Infections For Over-45s.
Nurses want a safe-sex campaign aimed at over-45s after a sharp rise in sexually transmitted infections.
Cases of herpes, Chlamydia and syphilis have shot up as many older men and women fail to use condoms because they assume safe sex messages are aimed only at the young.
The most common infection among the over-45s was genital warts, with 5,198 cases in 2008 – up 33% on 2004, according to Health Protection Agency data.
Herpes cases shot up 79%, Chlamydia rose by 49% and syphilis went up by 39%.
Experts say high divorce rates and internet dating could be to blame.

More Men Are Dying From Skin Cancer.
Death rates among men suffering the deadliest skin cancer have doubled in 30 years.
Numbers with the disease have risen dramatically among both men and women since the 1970s, a Cancer Research UK study found.
But even though more women are diagnosed with malignant melanoma, more men die from it.
In the late 1970s, fewer than 400 men died from it each year but now it is more than 1,100.
More than 10,400 cases are diagnosed each year in the UK.