Private health firm loses NHS treatment centre contract

 The treatment centre contract has been awarded to Nottingham University Hospitals NHS trust. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA A private health firm has lost one of the biggest and longest-running contracts to treat NHS patients, in a significant blow to the creeping privatisation of care. Circle is losing the contract it has held for 11 years to run the Nottingham NHS Treatment Centre, which provides 240,000 operations and checkups a year. Nottingham University Hospitals NHS trust (NUH) has been handed a £320m contract to run the centre for the next five years after a bitter legal…

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How Mushrooms Can Aid In Diabetes Treatment

Eating white button mushrooms daily can act as a prebiotic by improving microbial community in the gut, which could then improve the regulation of glucose in the liver, a finding that could one day pave way for new diabetes treatments, say researchers. In the study, feeding white button mushrooms to mice changed the composition of gut microbes — microbiota — to produce more short chain fatty acids, specifically propionate from succinate, according to Margherita T. Cantorna, Professor at Pennsylvania State University in the US. Previous research has shown that succinate and…

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Single pill with two drugs can boost treatment for blood pressure, says study

A single pill with two drugs could transform blood pressure treatment as most of the patients are often reluctant to take more than a pill, according to a research. The research, published in the European Heart Journal, recognised that a major reason for poor rates of blood pressure control is that patients do not adhere to medications. Non-adherence increases with the number of pills, so administering the two drugs (or three, if needed) in a single tablet could transform blood pressure control rates, the researchers said. “The vast majority of…

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Concussion in teens, physical therapy can help with the treatment

Parents, take note! Teens with a concussion may benefit from earlier physical therapy (PT), suggests a study. The Wolters Kluwer Health study found that for adolescents with symptoms following a concussion, starting physical therapy (PT) earlier – within less than three weeks after the injury – provides outcomes similar to those of later PT. “Multimodal PT interventions administered by licensed physical therapists may be feasible and safe even within the first few weeks after the injury to help facilitate prompt recovery and mitigate the onset of secondary effects from delayed…

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Quit smoking and lose weight for successful arthritis treatment

Obesity in women and smoking in men can hinder the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, a study by McGill University in Canada, has found. Although early identification and aggressive treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) improves outcomes, this study showed that 46% of women and 38% of men did not achieve remission in the first year despite receiving guideline-based care. Multivariable analysis highlighted that obesity more than doubled the likelihood of not achieving remission in women. Other predictors were minority status, lower education, higher tender joint counts and fatigue scores at baseline.…

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Nanorobots developed at IISC Bangalore hold promise for cancer treatment

Researchers at Indian Institute of Science Bangalore have developed a method of using nanorobots to deliver payloads to specific parts of a living cell–a breakthrough that could transform cancer treatment. “We can now very precisely move it from point A and B, that too inside a living cell,” Malay Pal, a co-author of the paper published in the journal Advanced Materials, said. The breakthrough for the Bangalore team is the use of rotating magnetic fields to guide the probes instead of using more conventional tools such as ultrasound or chemicals. The…

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