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Wondering what to learn over the vacation season?

Here’s a glance again at our largest well being tales over the previous 12 months, with a few of our best-read options, fascinating scientific research, and high information items from 2023.

Ozempic: How a TikTok weight reduction pattern brought about a world diabetes drug scarcity – and well being considerations

A diabetes drug is going through shortages worldwide and inflicting well being considerations as customers flood social media with posts boasting its properties as a “wonder” weight reduction hack.

France’s drug security company stated this week it was ramping up surveillance measures to make sure that prescriptions of the remedy, Ozempic, are restricted to sufferers with kind 2 diabetes.

Produced by the Danish firm Novo Nordisk, Ozempic is an injectable drug that regulates blood sugar ranges and insulin. It’s normally prescribed to adults affected by Type 2 diabetes, the most typical kind of diabetes. Read more here.

As European medical doctors retire, might AI assist to unravel a well being workforce scarcity?

Experts say AI shouldn’t be there to exchange well being staff however slightly might assist to automate a number of the extra administrative duties that fall on them.

As a rising variety of analysis research analyse the usage of synthetic intelligence (AI) in detecting illnesses or deciphering affected person knowledge, these applied sciences might quickly change into extra broadly obtainable in medical doctors’ places of work.

But how might that change the workload for medical doctors and nurses? It’s a query that many specialists within the subject have been contemplating as European international locations face well being employee shortages. Read more here.

‘We wish to give again’: Retired medical doctors open follow to handle medical employee disaster in France

A novel medical follow run by retired medical doctors has opened its doorways in rural southern France amid an ongoing healthcare disaster.

Yves Carcaillet was only a 12 months into his retirement when he was approached by his metropolis to return to work.

He’s now one in all eight medical doctors aged 69 to 78 who’re working a clinic within the metropolis of Albi to handle a medical skilled scarcity within the space. The follow is the primary of its type and was launched in late June.

“I’d been a doctor for 45 years and found leaving my patients very painful, especially when I knew they would struggle to find another doctor to take them on,” the 74-year-old physician instructed Euronews Next. Read more here.

German scientists make a ‘main discovery’ that would decelerate the ageing course of

A brand new examine from Germany has probably discovered the solutions to time-old questions: what drives ageing and what can we do to reverse it?

Despite centuries of analysis and progress in medication, many mysteries stay unresolved, chief amongst them being an understanding of what causes ageing and the way can we sluggish it down or reverse it.

But a brand new examine by a group of scientists in Germany, revealed within the scientific journal Nature, could lastly have discovered the solutions to those questions. Read more here.

‘Trying to seek out options’: Worsening medication scarcity is leaving pharmacists and sufferers at midnight

Shortages of widespread older medicines are growing. Experts say it’s partly as a result of pharmaceutical firms are de-incentivised from producing them.

At a pharmacy in japanese Paris, there’s a protracted listing of medicines which might be presently unavailable from suppliers.

Pharmacist Pierre-Antoine Drubay says he has seen these shortages improve within the final 12 months, estimating that on any given day, round a 3rd of the medicines sufferers are in search of are out of inventory.

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It is affecting medicines for all pathologies, he added, from antibiotics to medicines used to deal with heart problems and diabetes. When the pharmacist’s provider outdoors the French capital says the medicines aren’t obtainable, the one possibility left is to troubleshoot. Read more here.

Europe is dwelling to the world’s heaviest drinkers. Which nation drinks probably the most alcohol?

Among the ten international locations that drink probably the most on the planet, 9 are within the EU. But there are huge variations between nations.

If you’re feeling that Europeans drink so much, your hunch is appropriate: folks throughout the continent devour extra alcohol than in another a part of the world.

Each 12 months in Europe, each particular person aged 15 and over consumes, on common, 9.5 litres of pure alcohol, which is equal to round 190 litres of beer, 80 litres of wine or 24 litres of spirits. Read more here.

‘It’s not gone. It’s altering. It’s killing’: The COVID variants the WHO is watching carefully

There are a number of circulating subvariants of Omicron globally. But what are they and why are we not as involved as WHO officers about it?

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While the peak of the pandemic could also be over, the virus that causes COVID-19 continues to mutate with a number of variants circulating in each nation.

Yet regardless of this, testing and surveillance have decreased, with specialists urging folks to maintain taking the specter of this illness significantly. Read more here.

Climate change helps this new lethal virus to unfold throughout Europe

Warmer temperatures are remodeling Europe into the right habitat for ticks carrying CCHF, a lethal virus which within the worst instances ends in demise.

An endemic unfold by ticks and normally discovered within the Balkans, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East might quickly unfold throughout Europe as local weather change pushes the bugs to maneuver up via the continent, in line with scientists.

Experts have been ringing alarm bells over the potential unfold of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, or CCHF, which the World Health Organization (WHO) has listed amongst its 9 “priority diseases”. Read more here.

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World going through human well being disaster from unchecked local weather change, new report warns

In its eighth report, the Lancet Countdown mission has made some dire projections for human well being ought to we fail to stem the local weather disaster.

The lives of present and future generations dangle within the stability, in line with the authors of a brand new report into the results of inaction on limiting temperature will increase.

Scientists have lengthy warned of the disaster going through the local weather ought to we fail to maintain temperature will increase to not more than 1.5 C above pre-industrial ranges. Read more here.

‘Geneva affected person’ turns into first to be cured of HIV after ‘normal’ stem cell transplant

After 20 months after interrupting antiretroviral remedy, HIV was undetectable within the affected person’s blood.

A person generally known as the “Geneva patient” has change into the newest particular person on the planet to be cured of HIV after a stem cell transplant for most cancers remedy. Read more here.

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‘We’re nonetheless at dwelling sick’: 36 million folks throughout Europe reside with lengthy COVID signs

Around 36 million folks in Europe and Central Asia could also be experiencing signs of lengthy COVID, in line with new estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Fen van Rhijn was working in a pulmonology ward caring for COVID-19 sufferers in March 2022, after they contracted the virus.

Little did the 32-year-old inner medication resident know that it might drastically alter their high quality of life. Read more here.

First IVF child born within the UK with DNA from three dad and mom in main trial to keep away from faulty genes

The controversial trial of mitochondrial donation remedy has confirmed a hit within the UK, stopping a new child child from inheriting faulty genes.

An IVF child created from the DNA of three separate folks has been born within the UK, as scientists attempt to sort out the passing on of faulty genes carried within the mom’s mitochondria.

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The child was born to 1 genetic father and two genetic moms after researchers on the Newcastle Fertility Centre had been granted permission to trial the controversial process again in 2017. Read more here.

How is the World Health Organization funded, and why does it rely a lot on Bill Gates?

Critics complain in regards to the main function the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation performs in funding WHO, however who else can the company flip to?

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – which nonetheless stands robust regardless of its two co-founders splitting up after 27 years of marriage – stated final month it was “not right” for the charity to tackle such an enormous function in funding the World Health Organization (WHO).

Over the years, the billionaire philanthropists have change into the WHO’s second largest donor, making the well being company closely depending on their assist to maintain functioning. Read more here.

Reading your thoughts: This AI system can translate ideas to textual content

The AI system can translate folks’s ideas to textual content, by scanning their brains whereas they take heed to a narrative – and even think about telling a narrative.

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Artificial intelligence has been surprising and provoking thousands and thousands of individuals in current months with its capacity to jot down like a human, create beautiful photographs and movies, and even produce songs which might be shaking up the music trade.

Now, researchers have revealed one other potential utility that would have big implications – AI that may basically learn minds. Read more here.