Understanding plague in the 21st century

Apr 08, 2016 09:39 am UTC| Insights & Views Health

In medieval times, plague was known as the black death and resulted in millions of Europeans dying. Plague still persists in many areas, with the highest annual burden of disease in Africa. The advent of antibiotics means...

Medical tourism: having an op overseas adds to the everyday risk of surgery

Apr 08, 2016 09:35 am UTC| Health

Medical tourism is the practice of travelling outside ones home country for medical or surgical treatment. It includes dental tourism, but not wellness tourism, which usually refers to visiting spas, homeopathy treatments...

Booze and driving don't mix but a zero blood alcohol limit isn't the answer

Apr 08, 2016 09:32 am UTC| Health

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians wants to see blood alcohol limits for Australian drivers drop from .05% to .02% and then zero. Dont get me wrong, there is a good argument for lowering the blood alcohol...

How children's brains develop to make them right or left handed

Apr 08, 2016 09:31 am UTC| Health

As children grow older, they tend to favour one hand over the other for certain tasks, particularly for writing or drawing. A childs handedness is generally categorised as right, left or mixed, and tends to settle around...

Diet and lack of exercise main reasons for dramatic rise in diabetes

Apr 07, 2016 05:26 am UTC| Health

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has released the first Global Diabetes report. In 1980, WHO reported that 108 million adults were living with diabetes. Since then the numbers have quadrupled, with the disease claiming...

Want a healthier heart? A daily dose of vitamin D should do the trick

Apr 07, 2016 05:20 am UTC| Health

The old saying goes, an apple a day keeps the doctor a day. But a daily dose of vitamin D is really where its at when it comes to heart health. For the first time, new research shows that a daily dose of vitamin D3 can...

Why you shouldn't wrap your food in aluminium foil before cooking it

Apr 07, 2016 05:06 am UTC| Health

If youre baking fish, roasting vegetables or preparing a piece of meat for dinner tonight, chances are that youll wrap your food in aluminium foil. What you may not realise is that some of the foil will leach into your...