At a time when the entire world is undergoing the largest vaccination program ever rolled out by modern medicine, it has never been more important to understand how drug trials actually work. In general, trials of new drugs or treatments boil down to a simple analysis of risk versus benefit — do the benefits of taking a certain drug outweigh the risks? Finding out is a methodical business, which goes something like this. Before any...
Much confusion has been generated among medical professionals and men diagnosed with low-risk prostate cancer by a recent radical rethink on treatment guidelines published by the US National Comprehensive Cancer Network. The NCCN is a well-respected body that for years has supported the generally accepted approach that the best treatment for men diagnosed with low-risk prostate cancer is to do nothing — or, rather, to monitor the progress of the disease through “active surveillance”. Now...
The sun’s rays are all our bodies need to generate the vitamin D that is so essential to our health and, as those of us making it through another long hot summer in the region well know, there is no shortage of those in the Gulf. So why is it that the Middle East and North Africa region consistently has some of the highest rates of vitamin D deficiency in the world? And, as a...
There is a basic truth that dictates survival rates for all kinds of cancer. Detect it early enough and, with appropriate treatment, a patient stands an excellent chance of surviving and living a normal life. The problem is that many cancers are tough to detect in their early stages and, because of a lack of definitive tests for most types of cancer, in most countries screening is carried out for only three of them: bowel,...
From Aarskog-Scott syndrome to Zumbusch psoriasis, generations of clinicians and medical researchers have earned fame, fortune and a kind of immortality through the honor of having the rare disease or disorder they have identified named after them. But when an entire region or country finds itself associated with a deadly infectious disease, the result is more of a curse. Over the years there have been plenty of examples, including the “Spanish flu,” responsible for the...
It will still be many months before we see the back of Covid-19, but as various vaccines start to come onstream there is light at the end of the tunnel. Yet even as the beginning of the end of the pandemic looms, research from around the world is beginning to pose unsettling questions about where and when it all began and, in the process, offering clues to how the world might better defend itself against...
If the news of the new mutant strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spreading “like wildfire” in the UK, and the associated sound of borders around the world slamming shut is keeping you awake, you probably shouldn’t visit the website of the Nextstrain project. Viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 mutate all the time – not deliberately or even cunningly, as some apocalyptic recent coverage seems to imply, but as an inevitable accidental byproduct of the often error-strewn process...
If “empathy” sounds to you like a touchy-feely upgrade from “sympathy,” new research by psychiatrists at the University of California should make you think again. Traditionally, empathy is measured using psychological questionnaires. But the UCLA researchers set out to discover if it could be measured – and predicted – by monitoring brain activity. First, the resting brain activity of 58 male and female volunteers aged 18 to 35 was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging, a...
This story is a part of Covering Climate Now’s week of coverage focused on Climate Solutions, to mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Covering Climate Now is a global journalism collaboration committed to strengthening coverage of the climate story. In public rhetoric, at least, the UAE government confronts head-on the threat of global warming and acknowledges its role as part of the climate change problem. The UAE was one of the first...
Remember climate change, the great existential cloud hanging over the human race and the entire planet? Perhaps not. After all, most of us are now increasingly preoccupied with the newer threat from the coronavirus, or Covid-19: how to avoid catching it, what to do if we do and how to survive the economic meltdown that now seems inevitable in the face of closed shops and schools, grounded airlines and panic in the stock markets. There...
As the number of Covid-19 cases continues to rise around the world, it might seem insensitive to talk about the possible upsides of the virus, but upsides there most assuredly are. As companies and individuals follow the advice of their governments to self-isolate and stay away from the office, one of the biggest changes taking place is the sudden and unprecedented uptake of homeworking. We can only hope that, when the threat of Covid-19 has...