A substantial number of European patients travel to other countries for fertility treatment, both because they think that they will receive better quality care abroad and in order to undergo procedures that are banned in their home country says a study of the subject launched at the 25th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology today (Monday June 29). Study co-ordinator Dr. Françoise Shenfield, from University College Hospital, London, UK, said that this was the first hard evidence of considerable fertility patient migration within Europe. "Until now we have only had anecdotal evidence of this phenomenon", she said. "We think that our results will be of considerable value to patients, doctors, and policymakers." During a one-month period, the ESHRE Task Force analysed data from participating clinics in six European countries: Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland. Clinics were asked to provide questionnaires to patie ... Read more »

President Obama’s health care reform bill was passed by US House representatives. The bill would provide health coverage to an estimated 32 million additional Americans, meaning 95% of those who are legally in this country would have health insurance, up from 83% today.

At present it is estimated that there are more than 47 million Americans without health insurance coverage. President Obama is trying to provide health insurance coverage to another 30 million US residents through different reforms and policies.

Will this end booming of Medical Tourism industry? Will patients from US stop coming to India and other Asian countries for equal quality, less expensive medical treatments? Will US insurance companies and US employers stop looking at medical tourism options?

The answer is no, it will not stop outbound medical tourism but it might even give a boost to medica ... Read more »

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A recent case study by doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York examined the ethical issues posed by transplant tourism, an offshoot of medical tourism, which focuses solely on transplantation surgery. Many American transplant professionals frown on the practice of transplant tourism where patients travel to countries such as China, India, and the Philippines for their transplantation. These transplant tourists may be subject to sub-standard surgical techniques, poor organ matching, unhealthy donors, and post transplant infections, prompting U.S. health care institutions to refuse treatment of these patients upon return to the U.S. Medical associations have responded with transplant tourism policies and guidelines to advise clinicians on the ethics of caring for transplant tourists. Full details of the study appear in the February issue of Liver Transplantation, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD ... Read more »

Many people with back pain do not know what is causing it and they do not receive effective treatment, but learning to move in a more integrated way makes a big difference, reveals research from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

"People with long-term back pain often protect themselves by unconsciously limiting their movements," says physiotherapist Christina Schön-Ohlsson. "Such inefficient movement patterns gradually become habituated even though the original injury or strain is no longer present."

The answer to the problem is sensory motor learning, where patients are guided to find out how they are moving and how they can free themselves from self-imposed limitations. This process leads patients to develop their bodily awareness and to trust in their bodily sensations again.

In one of the studies 40 patients were randomly divided into two groups to compare experiences of two different types of treatment: exercise therapy and se ... Read more »

The first ever diabetes audit of 200 NHS hospitals has found that 20 per cent of patients on hospital wards have diabetes - twice the proportion previously estimated. In addition, the audit, which is due to be published later this year, will also show that people with diabetes stay in hospital longer than other patients.

Access to specialist advice

The Government's diabetes tsar Dr Rowan Hillson, who is leading the audit, wants to see all patients admitted to hospital with diabetes be given access to specialist advice and believes that having diabetes specialist nurses on wards can reduce readmissions of patients with diabetes, as well as drug errors, and length of stay.

Ensuring the best outcomes

"When they are in hospital it is crucial that people with diabetes have access to the right advice and support from healthcare professionals who have a specialist knowledge of the condition to ensure the best possible health outcomes," said Cath ... Read more »

GoodSurgeonGuide.co.uk, regulated by BAAPS (British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons) was launched in September 2009 and is the first website of its kind. The site is the UK's only Cosmetic Surgery review website and should be the first port of call for anyone considering cosmetic surgery, aesthetic treatments or cosmetic dentistry. The site can also play an important role for surgeons and treatment providers.

The website was created by Christiana Clogg and good friend, Jennie Bassett. Both women had considered cosmetic surgery in the past and were overwhelmed by the amount of choice but the lack of guidance. The decision to undergo surgery was not an easy one, yet finding reviews and experiences from fellow cosmetic surgery patients was becoming the hardest part. It became clear that there needed to be a site that was honest, informative and completely independent from any ... Read more »

There may well be another important reason for giving your sweetheart sweets for Valentine's Day besides the traditional romantic one: The "chocolate cure" for emotional stress is now getting new support from a clinical trial published online in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research. It found that eating about an ounce and a half of dark chocolate a day for two weeks reduced levels of stress hormones in the bodies of people feeling highly stressed. Everyone's favorite treat also partially corrected other stress-related biochemical imbalances.

Sunil Kochhar and colleagues note growing scientific evidence that antioxidants and other beneficial substances in dark chocolate may reduce risk factors for heart disease and other physical conditions. Studies also suggest that chocolate may ease emotional stress. Until now, however, there was little evidence from research in humans on exactly how chocolate might have those stress-busting effects.

In the study, scientists ident ... Read more »

Hospital services in London could close or be down-graded as healthcare in the capital heads towards "a major financial and organisational crisis", with the imposition of real term cuts of £5 billion by 2017, according to a new BMA report launched yesterday (Wednesday 20 January 2010).

The report, 'London's NHS ON THE BRINK', written by health expert John Lister2, was commissioned by the BMA's London Regional Council. In the report, Lister surveys board papers and other published material from primary care trusts (PCTs) in London.

It is expected that from 2011 there will be a freeze on NHS budgets, says the report, but the brunt of the cuts will fall on London.

London faces unique challenges - it has 14.8% of the English population, but could face a much higher share of the expected cutbacks. There are more mental health ... Read more »

Chinese researchers have become the world's fifth most prolific contributors to peer-reviewed scientific literature on clock-reversing regenerative medicine even as a skeptical international research community condemns the practice of Chinese clinics administering unproven stem cell therapies to domestic and foreign patients.

According to a study by the Canadian-based McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health (MRC), published by the UK journal Regenerative Medicine, China's government is pouring dollars generously into regenerative medicine (RM) research and aggressively recruiting high-calibre scientists trained abroad in pursuit of its ambition to become a world leader in the field.

And its strategy is working: Chinese contributions to scientific journals on RM topics leapt from 37 in year 2000 to 1,116 in 2008, exceeded only by the contributions of experts in the USA, Germany, Japan and the UK.

The accomplishment is all the more astonishing given tha ... Read more »