Health Policy InsightHealthcare management online analysis and intelligence
Health Policy InsightExperts report more young people with conditions such as bunions after wearing shoes that are too small or narrow
Parents should care for their children’s feet in the same way as their eyes and teeth, according to footwear specialists who say they are seeing more young people with painful conditions such as bunions.
Bunions are bony lumps on the side of the foot. People can be genetically pre-disposed but ill-fitting shoes are seen as an aggravating factor.
Continue reading...From avocado to hemp, extra virgin olive and rapeseed, the shops are packed with various oils. But what is worth spending money on? And are any of them actually better for you?
The world of cooking oils is confusing. I keep spotting new ones on supermarket shelves, trumpeting their health claims. Cold-pressed avocado oil, extra virgin macadamia oil, organic coconut oil, premium hemp seed oil … Even familiar oils are mired in controversy. Is it OK to cook with olive oil? Should you avoid seed oils? Meanwhile, prices keep rising – earlier this month, Walter Zanre, the CEO of Filippo Berio UK, said supermarkets were “taking the mickey” out of customers over olive oil pricing. I asked the experts which oils are really worth splashing out on.
Continue reading...Clients no longer just describe their symptoms, they arrive with screenshots of dense articles, AI chatbot information and the phrase ‘I’ve done my research’
The modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their work
Ben* sat across from me, explaining how his low motivation, lethargy and trouble sleeping seemed like depression from content he had seen online. I made a recommendation to get his bloodwork done with his GP, who advised that Ben was low in vitamin D and iron, which can mimic depressive symptoms. Under the care of his GP, Ben’s symptoms quickly resolved without requiring further psychological intervention.
Thuy* made an appointment with me, armed with information and old school and university records after her colleague was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. After going through the assessment process, I diagnosed her with inattentive ADHD, a commonly underdiagnosed condition among women and girls. Thuy was relieved and felt as though her life finally made sense to her, after years of assuming she was “just lazy”.
What is the study design? Is it a controlled trial or a single-case report? Locate it on the evidence hierarchy.
Who was studied? Did the research include people like yourself in age, gender, health status or ethnicity? A study on 20-year-old athletes may not apply to a 60-year-old with a chronic condition.
Who is behind it? Check the funding source and author affiliations. Is it published in a reputable, peer-reviewed journal? Be warned: the peer-review system itself is under assault from AI-generated “slop papers” – fake studies churned out to pad academic CVs – making vigilance even more paramount.
What are the numbers? How many participants were involved? Are the results statistically significant and do the authors openly discuss the study’s limitations?
What is the consensus? Is this a lone finding or does it align with the broader body of evidence? What do other independent experts in the field say?
Continue reading...The uptick in children focused on skincare has some experts concerned about body image and mental health. But others warn of the risks of rushing to ‘medicalise’ new trends or behaviours
Sephora stores are being overrun with tweens pumping product testers. Eight-year-olds film themselves on “Sephora hauls” and GRMW (get ready with me) videos, applying collagen boosting serums and retinol creams for their nonexistent wrinkles. And party bags are stuffed with face masks and fluffy headbands, instead of glitter and gummy bears.
The rise of “Sephora kids” is a widely reported issue but the uptick of children “obsessed” with skincare has some experts concerned about the long-term effects of age-inappropriate products and increased occupation with appearance at such a pivotal age.
Continue reading...The cosmetic procedure raises concern about the tissue donation process – and our own anxieties about our appearance
There’s a buzzy new diva in the world of cosmetic injectables and she’s quick, easy to recover from … and came from a dead body.
Indeed, people are injecting themselves with fat from corpses in order to pump up their physiques, and it’s catching on more than you would think. “It’s a gamechanger,” Dr Douglas Steinbrech, surgeon at Alpha Male, a Manhattan plastic surgery clinic that’s become popular for this procedure, told the Guardian. “[Recipients] don’t need surgery. They don’t need general anesthesia. They don’t have recovery, and the pain from all that.”
Continue reading...Exclusive: Samaritans call for mandatory training for firefighters amid rise in incidents
Suicide-related callouts to fire and rescue services in England have tripled in the last decade, with Samaritans now calling for mandatory training for firefighters, who they say are struggling to deal with the increase in traumatic incidents.
New figures show that fire services in England attended 3,250 suicide callouts in the year ending September 2025, the equivalent to 62 callouts a week. This was up from 997 callouts in 2009-10 when records began.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Continue reading...Health secretary’s ‘power grab’ to override Nice comes amid growing concern move may be illegal and benefit big pharma
Dozens of MPs are opposing Wes Streeting’s decision to award himself power to dictate what the NHS pays for drugs amid growing concern the move may be illegal.
Thirty-one MPs have signed a House of Commons motion voicing their disapproval of the health secretary being handed the power to override the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (Nice) judgment on how much the NHS should spend on individual medicines.
Continue reading...NHS chiefs fear rising costs and healthcare shortages due to the shipping standstill in the Gulf
The war in Iran has put the NHS on high alert amid fears about looming shortages and rising costs for medicines and medical products such as syringes, intravenous bags and gloves.
Much of modern healthcare is dependent on the petrochemicals now held up by the Gulf shipping standstill – whether for active pharmaceutical ingredients or to produce the millions of sterile single-use items, ranging from personal protective equipment (PPE) to catheters and diagnostic-device casings.
Continue reading...For most of his life, John Robins assumed he got more out of alcohol than it took from him. Now he knows it was the other way round
• ‘I picked up the bottle of wine and drank straight out of it. I was seven’ Read an exclusive extract from his new memoir
The comedian John Robins has always loved talking about booze. In his standup, he used to portray himself as a bon viveur who knew how to give himself the best of times; a larky drinker out for a laugh; a nerdy tippler who recorded nights out in Sherlock Holmes-themed notepads – arrival time, drinks consumed, percentages of alcohol, pub atmosphere. He also had a routine about contracting gout, even though he never has done in real life.
On the radio, he hosted a show with his friend Elis James in which they meticulously detailed pub crawls and coined the phrase “Keep it session”, encouraging listeners to stick to low-alcohol beer when out for the whole evening. If anybody was in doubt about his love of booze, Robins then devised a podcast series called The Moon Under Water, named after George Orwell’s 1946 essay describing the perfect pub. In it, Robins and his co-host Robin Allender invited guests to design their dream watering hole. Yet, despite dedicating so much time to the discussion of booze, Robins could never find the right word to describe his relationship with it. Then in 2023 he finally discovered it: alcoholic.
Continue reading...An exclusive extract from the comedian’s new memoir
• ‘I wanted alcohol to take me to a place where I was not’ Read an interview with John Robins
The first time I tasted alcohol that wasn’t licked off a cork would have been at about the age of five or six. I’m terrible with years and the memory is incredibly hazy. But I was at the house of my godmother, Heather. For some reason they were drinking champagne. I don’t think I remember my mum drinking any kind of alcohol more than a dozen times in my whole life. She claims, and I believe her, to never have been drunk. Considering her son has been drunk, and I’m working from the back of a fag packet here, 4,000 times, that’s quite a contrast. But champagne?! What could the occasion have been? The opening ceremony of the Seoul Olympics? The formation of the Lib Dems? (Wikipedia page doing a lot of heavy lifting here.) Had my dad just moved out? Had the divorce papers come through? Maybe they just had a silly moment, in that wonderful way normal drinkers do – champagne on a Wednesday afternoon! Aren’t we naughty!
For some reason they let me have a sip. Maybe I nagged them until it became intolerable; maybe I just put on my most irresistible face. Maybe they just let me, because of how normal it is to let a child have a sip, and I mean a sip, of wine or beer. Nothing could be more normal. There wasn’t a lot of alcohol around when I was a kid. If we went to a restaurant, Mum might have a gin and tonic. It’s a cliche, but there may have been a glass of sherry at Christmas. It wasn’t a big part of our lives.
Continue reading...Digital communication in its most basic forms can push us into an ‘always on’ state – and generate feelings of exclusion or rejection
When I first started teaching at Oxford in 2005, I would offer “office hours” a couple of times a week. They were literally that – time for students to come by my office and chat about anything on their mind. Emails were formal and for rare occasions, with the expectation that most issues would be discussed in person. Fast forward to 2026, and office hours have been replaced at many universities by constant email and Teams communication. These are incessant, with responses often expected within hours, if not minutes, blurring the line between evenings, weekends and normal working hours.
I have to admit that every time a notification pops up on my phone or laptop, even before reading it, I can feel my stress levels rising. It’s made me reflect on how modern communication is pushing our minds to the limit. While most of the recent conversation on mental health and technology has focused on social media, we forget how even older forms of digital communication can push us into a stressful, “always on” way of being.
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon)
Continue reading...The Albanese government this week launched the most significant intervention in the disability support scheme’s history
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The national disability insurance scheme was a Labor vision brought to life with the Coalition’s blessing, an act of political bi-partisanship that would change the lives of millions of Australians and their families.
But David Bowen, the first chief executive of the agency in charge of the NDIS, doubts it might ever have happened had either side known what it would become 15 years later.
Continue reading...From cooking at too high temperatures to consuming too little fat, what and how we eat can have a big impact on the way we age. Here’s what you might be doing wrong – and how to fix it
One of the challenges with the sheer availability of food in today’s world is that lots of us end up spending many of our waking hours eating. Whether it’s full meals, snacks or desserts, scientists have found that it’s not uncommon for us to be mindlessly grazing at some point during all of our 16 or so waking hours.
Continue reading...Executive order to speed access to psychedelic treatments likely to have limited legal impact despite high-profile push
The Trump administration issued an executive order earlier this month to accelerate access to psychedelic medication for people with “serious mental illnesses”, but experts say the order is more likely to make a difference symbolically than legally.
“Policymakers and the medical field have long struggled to address the burden of suicide and serious mental illness rates in America,” the order reads, noting that some people do not respond to available treatments.
Continue reading...Banning an industry that is brutal to animals could be one of the most consequential public-health measures in decades
Every year, millions of captive animals are gassed or electrocuted and then turned into multithousand-dollar fur coats. Though the industry has shrunk considerably in recent years, it poses a disproportionately large risk to human health. There’s a real chance that the next pandemic could be incubated within the cramped confines of a fur farm, and banning the cruel and senseless practice could be one of the most consequential public-health measures in decades.
Fur farms are hell. Like other “factory” farms, these facilities confine thousands of animals in close quarters, crammed into tiny wire cages. Often, the animals can barely move around, living out their sad, stationary lives atop a pool of their own waste. Some species, like red foxes, begin chewing the tails off of their young, or even killing them.
Neil Vora is the executive director of the Preventing Pandemics at the Source Coalition and led New York City’s Covid-19 contact tracing program from 2020 to 2021
Continue reading...The gambling crisis ‘demands a public health response’ and should be regulated like alcohol or tobacco, expert says
Gambling addiction is spiraling “out of control” in the US, a leading campaigner for stricter guardrails has warned, as experts from around the world are set to gather in Boston to push for more regulation of the industry.
The rapid expansion of online gambling, prediction markets and sports betting platforms, “demands a public health response”, according to Harry Levant, director of gambling policy at the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI), urging policymakers to intervene.
Continue reading...