Known flu deaths in the UK have reached 254 this winter with 140 last week and more than 90 percent of deceased are the victims of swine flu (H1N1) and the remainder from influenza B or the H2N3 strain.  This comes at a time when there are shortages of vaccines forcing the UK government to consider stripping doctors of their power to order vaccines.

However on the other side of the Atlantic there is a different picture. Cases of flu are only now being reported and most of those are the traditional H3N2 variety, and vaccine stocks are high.

With so much air traffic between the US and UK it is possible that there could soon be lethal outbreaks of swine flu in the US as the virus can easily be carried by an unsuspecting passengers to different airports across the country. However It is already being seen with the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention reporting about 8% of tested flu samples were the 2009 H1N1 strain.

The dominant theory as to why H1N1 is not so prevalent in the US at the moment is that many US citizens are immune following vaccinations last winter. However January is considered early in the flu season so there is still time for swine flu to spread.

Back in the UK despite the large amounts of deaths last week the flu outbreak could have passed its peak with infection rates dropping significantly, drooping to 66.5 cases per 100,000 people from 108 and almost half from 124 at the turn of the year.

Vaccines are ordered in the UK by GPs, family doctors, who order vaccines based on projections at least six months before the flu season starts but this season many GPs underestimated the demand.

In the US the H1N1 first appeared at an unusual time, in April/May 2009 whereas the flu season usually ends at the end of March so experts say there is still plenty of time foe H1N1 to become established.

Last year flu deaths in the US were only one-third of the normal with about 10,000 being reported mostly elderly people from the H3N2 variety. This years vaccines contain H1N1, H3N2 and Influenza B so should help protect the population from most instances of flu.

It happens all around the world to many people in regular jobs, they don’t drink alcohol during the week when they have to get up early to go to work but save it for the weekend when they often drink too much. But new research  suggests that weekend drinking can do more harm than regular drinking.

In a controversial study undertaken by researchers at the University of Toulouse in France and published in theBritish Medical Journal they compared the drinking habits of middle aged men from three towns across France to those of the same aged men in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Although the Frenchmen drank more overall, around 30 units per week it was the Ulstermen drinking about 22 units a week who were more likely, twice as likely infact, to have a heart attack and possibly die from it. In the UK 1 unit of alcohol is equivalent to 1/3rd of a pint of lager or 1/2 glass of red wine.

Comparing the two groups the Frenchmrn had on average higher blood pressure levels and more of them had diabetes and cholestral levels were about the same in each group but the drinking habits of the two groups were much different. The Frenchmen drank little and often during the week where as the Ulstermen consumed most of their alcohol in two days at the weekend.

According to the research team drinking little and often did not strain the heart compared to the drinking habit of the Ulstermen which could be considered binge drinking. Officially binge drinking is defined as drinking twice your daily alcohol allowance in one day.

If  the research team are right what is it that is dangerous about binge drinking. When your body breaks down the alcohol that you consume it turns into a chemical called acetaldehyde which make immune cells in your blood more likely to attach to the walls of your arteries. Drinking more in one session overworks the body raising the chance of a blocked artery. Drinking little but often allows the body to clear the immune cells eliminating the chance of build up in your arteries.

The findings of the French study have been contested by experts who insist that it is the total amount of alcohol consumption that matters however it is consumed.  Research has also found that long term daily drinking will cause liver disease.

Another point to consider is which alcoholic drinks were consumed. The Frenchmen are predominantly wine drinkers and the Ulstermen are beer and lager drinkers. For many years now red wine in small amounts has been considered beneficial as the wine increases the amount of ‘good’ high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholestrol by about 12 per cent, resulting in your arteries less likely to narrow.

So before you head off for a Saturday night on the town just be aware that saving up your alcohol units may not be a good idea if you believe that you are safe because you are drinking no more than the recommended weekly allowance.

Researchers in Japan have found evidence that drinking tea may prevent weight gain caused by people eating a junk food diet. They also discovered that regular tea drinking also restrained damaging changes in the blood linked to fatty foods that could lead to diabetes.

Searchers at Kobe University published the results in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, and said this could add to the benefits of drinking tea once the results were confirmed after trials on humans.

During the study mice were divided into two groups, one group was given a high fat diet and the other group was given a normal diet. Each of these groups were divided into three subgroups and given either water, green tea or black tea to drink for 14 weeks.

The results show that both kinds of tea suppressed weight gain and the increase of belly fat linked to a junk food fatty diet. They also discovered that black tea also counteracted the harmful effects that a high-fat diet can have on blood.

These harmful effects include increases in cholesterol, high blood glucose (Hyperglycemia) and insulin resistance which could lead to type 2 diabetes where the body does not efficiently use the insulin it has produced.

Rising obesity levels in fast food eating Western countries has resulted in many more people suffering from insulin resistance which in itself can cause adverse health effects including type 2 diabetes.

Regular tea drinking has been linked with several health benefits including lowering the risk of heart disease, some cancers and improving bone density. Devoted tea drinkers will expound many more benefits but not all these benefits have been clinically proven.

Black tea is consumed more than green tea but both have benefits. Tea is the second most widely consumed beverage in the world, in its different forms, exceeded only by the one liquid that we all need, water. It is an integral part of everyday life in many parts of the world and by consuming three or four cups of tea a day you can reap the benefits that tea can bring to your health..

Research has revealed that about 36 million Americans have purchased medicines and pharmaceuticals from unlicensed web pharmacies. Not only are these pharmacies unlicensed but they supply counterfeit and unapproved drugs and even fake drugs in some cases.

The US government is now targeting these web pharmacies in an initiative to shut down the online stores and educate people about the risks of purchasing drugs from these sites. Some major players on the Internet are joining the initiative, companies such as Google, domain registration firm Network Solutions, web hosting companies, payment processors  and credit card companies amongst others.

Working together the companies are targeting every link in the chain needed by unlicensed pharmacies to operate. Stopping them appearing in search engines, delisting domain names, taking websites of the Internet and stopping any payments for reaching there operators will all be targeted.

The initiative was announced yesterday by The Partnership at Drugfree.org, during a White House Forum. Drugfree.org is a nonprofit organization that helps parents prevent, intervene in and find treatment for drug and alcohol use by their children and provides community education programs.

The research into online pharmacies was funded by the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies [ASOP] of which The Partnership is a member. ASOP will continue funding research to find out why 15% of US citizens have bought drugs from online pharmacies and what they purchased. They will also try to find a why some people see online pharmacies as risky and other people see no danger at all. The research was conducted by a telephone survey.

Steve Pasierb, president of Drugfree.org said, “The abuse of prescription medications is one of the most troubling public-health problems in our country today”. He went on to say, “Parents and policy makers need to be concerned about how easy it is to order these potentially abusable drugs online. We support efforts to take the steps necessary to shut down rogue sites and encourage patients to safeguard medications and dispose of them properly when they are no longer needed”.

Rogue Internet drug sellers pose as legitimate, state licensed pharmacies selling FDA approved medication, but without a prescription. This makes it easy for customers to unknowingly obtain unapproved, substandard or fake drugs, which are all potentially dangerous.

Libby Barney, an advisor at B&D Consulting who councils ASOP said “Consumers need to understand that the products they receive from Internet drug sellers are often not the same, FDA-approved medicine that they could get from a legitimate pharmacy. Products sold on rogue websites may be ineffective, harmful or worse”.

We all know, or should know that cycling is good for us. Regular exercise reduces the risk of heart disease and other medical conditions. Cycling to work is becoming more popular but if we decide to use a bicycle do we need to spend a lot of money buying a top quality lightweight version.

A consultant anaesthetist in the UK was using his bicycle for committing backwards and forwards from his home to the hospital where he worked using a steel framed bicycle that had cost him £50 ($77). After using the bicycle for six months of commuting it began to wonder if his commuting times could be reduced by the purchase of a new lightweight bicycle.

Dr Jeremy Groves, not being able to find any data relating to the efficiency of one bicycle over another made a decision to buy a lightweight bicycle and compare his commuting times between the two bicycles. In the UK the government has in place a Cycle To Work scheme which allows an employee to purchase a bicycle, up to a cost of £1000 ($1560) and obtain approximately 50% discount by using tax incentives. Dr Groves took advantage of the scheme and purchased a bicycle at the top end of the price range allowed.

Dr Groves would toss a coin each morning to decide which bicycle to use that day commuting from Sheffield to the Chesterfield Royal Hospital and back, a total distance of 27 miles [43km]. The only daily variable was the amount of clothing worn depending on the weather conditions that day. He kept a record of the times over a period of six months, during which time he used the steel frame bicycle (29.75 lbs, 13.5 kg) on 30 occasions and the carbon bicycle (20.9 lbs, 9.5 kg) on 26 occasions. Each trip was recorded on a bicycle computer and the results were entered into a spreadsheet. The one-way journey of 13.5 miles ranged over an elevation 400 feet.

The top speed and fastest journey time were achieved on the steel framed bicycle and the slowest journey was on the carbon bike in heavy snow. The average journey time on the steel frame bicycle was 1:47:48, and the average journey time on the carbon frame bicycle was 1:48:21.

In conclusion Dr. Groves said that a 30% reduction in bicycle weight did not reduce the commuting time. Despite a new lightweight bicycle having many attractions a reduction in the weight of the cyclist would be more beneficial than a reduction in the weight of the bicycle with a significant saving in costs. He also found the carbon framed cycle rather uncomfortable to use.

Dr. Groves’s study was published in the British Medical Journal and he declared that he was disappointed to find out that his investment did not save him any time on the road. “I could have contested that many in better cycle clothing and in targeting up the lights of my whole bicycle instead,” he said.

It has been known for some time that a small daily dose of aspirin helps to cut the risk of stroke and heart attack among those most at risk. However the protection offered against cardiovascular disease is thought to be small for healthy adults and on the downside aspirin also increases the risk of stomach bleeding. New research has discovered that a small daily dose of aspirin helps reduce the death rate from a range of common cancers. In fact overall cancer deaths can be reduced by 20%.

The results of the research have recently been published in the medical journal the Lancet and covers research of some 25,000 patients in the UK. Patients who were given aspirin had a 25% less risk of death in cancer and a 10% reduction in death from any ailment in comparison to patients who did not receive aspirin.

The aspirin treatment lasted for up to eight years and the long-term monitoring of about 12,500 patients revealed that the protection continued for up to 20 years for both men and women. Risk of death from cancer was reduced by 20% on average but by 40% for bowel cancer, 60% for oesophageal cancer, but only 10% for prostrate cancer.

Professor Peter Rothwell, the lead researcher, said that he was not urging healthy adults to immediately start taking aspirin but it was well worth taking a low daily dose of 75 mg. The risk of internal bleeding from daily aspirin doubled from 1 in 1000 but increased considerably more  in people over 75 years old. He also said that the best time to start taking aspirin daily would be between 45 to 50 and continuing for around 25 years.

Another person involved in the research, Professor Peter Elwood said that individuals should make up their own minds over this issue. “Taking aspirin should be thought of in the same way as other lifestyle changes such as dieting and exercise which can help people have better health”.  He also said that taking aspirin at night with a glass of milk appeared to increase its effect and the milk would help to reduce stomach irritation and help to reduce the risk of stomach bleeding.

If you were researching prostrate cancer what would cause you to compere the length of a man’s index finger to a man’s ring finger as part of your research. The reasons might not be obvious to you, but this is what has been done by researchers from the British Journal of Cancer.

Researchers have found that men who have an index finger longer than their ring finger were less likely to develop prostate cancer in later life. This discovery was made after researchers compared the hands of 1500 prostrate cancer sufferers with the hands of 3000 healthy men.

Researchers from the University of Warwick and Institute of Cancer Research say being exposed to less testerone while in the womb results in a longer index finger and may protect against prostrate cancer later in life. The researchers say more research is needed to confirm their findings but it could lead to a simple test for prostrate cancer risk.

Professor Ros Eeles, one of the report authors said, Tthis exciting finding means that finger patterns could be used to select men at risk, perhaps combined with other factors such as family history, for ongoing screening”.

The chief executive of Prostrate Action, the charity that partly funded the research said, “This research brings us another step closer to helping determine the risk factors for prostate cancer. However we are still a long way from reducing the numbers of men who die each year from prostrate cancer and much more research is needed”.

In case you notice that you have a shorter index finger do not be unduly worried. Dr. Helen Rippon from the Prostrate Cancer charity said, “Men with shorter index fingers share this trait with more than half of all men and it does not mean they will develop prostrate cancer in later life”.

The World Health Organization [WHO] has just released the results of a global study into the effects of passive smoking and have found that it is responsible for 600,000 deaths every year. Tragically one third of those who die are children who are often exposed to the second hand smoke in their own homes.

The study found that the children already suffering from diseases like pneumonia and asthma were very much at risk. Passive smoking causes heart disease, lung cancer and respiratory illness. The study covered results from 192 countries. An estimated 165, 000 children die from smoke related respiratory infections, mostly in Africa and Southeast Asia, by large the worst affected areas.

Passive smoking is the inhalation of smoke, called secondhand smoke or environmental tobacco smoke, from tobacco products used by other people. It occurs when tobacco smoke permeates any environment, causing its inhalation unwittingly by people within the environment.

Armando Peruga, who led the study on behalf of the WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative said, ”This helps us understand the real toll of tobacco. The mixture of infectious diseases and secondhand smoke is a deadly combination, especially for children”.

Because of the time delay in collecting the data and the time it takes to see the effects of passive smoking the most recent figures were from 2004. Across the globe as many as 40% of children, 35% of non-smoking women and 33% of non-smoking men were exposed to secondhand smoke, according to the study.

Collating the data, WHO has estimated that exposure to secondhand smoke caused 379,000 deaths from heart disease, 165,000 deaths from lower respiratory infections, 21,400 deaths from lung cancer and 36,900 deaths from asthma.

The study also revealed that passive smoking has more effect on women than on men, killing some 280,000 worldwide. This is thought to be because women are actually exposed to secondhand smoke more than men are.

The study reveals that Europe and Asia are the areas where most people are exposed to secondhand smoke and the lowest rate areas were in North and South America, Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.

The researchers have admitted that they were limitations to the study but there is no question that the world’s 1.2 billion smokers are exposing their fellow citizens to secondhand smoke and its effects and to indoor air pollution not only in public buildings but in the home as well.