The Health News United Kingdom September 30 2017
Overview
- According to the Office for National Statistics, centenarians are the fastest growing age group in the UK, with the number of 100-year-olds almost doubling over a 14-year period. Although they make up a very small proportion of the total UK population (0.02% in 2016), their numbers have grown rapidly from 7,750 in 2002 to 14,910 last year.
- UK researchers say that a blood test that could rule out a heart attack in under twenty minutes should be used routinely. A team from King’s College London have tested it on patients and say the cMyC test could be rolled out on the NHS within five years.
- New NHS guidance suggests fussy eaters should be allowed to play with their food if it is the only way children will eat. The new advice from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) urges parents to make mealtimes “relaxed” – and not to try to “coerce” children to eat even if there are concerns they are failing to gain weight.
News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 30th of September 2017. Read by Tabetha Moreto. Health News
According to the Office for National Statistics, centenarians are the fastest growing age group in the UK, with the number of one hundred-year-olds almost doubling over a fourteen-year period.
Although they make up a very small proportion of the total UK population or zero point zero two percent in two thousand sixteen, their numbers have grown rapidly from seven thousand seven hundred fifty in two thousand two to fourteen thousand nine hundred ten last year. In nineteen eighty six there were just were just three thousand six hundred forty two centenarians. Female centenarians outnumber males by five to one. The ONS figures, published on Wednesday, also show that the number of people aged ninety and over living in the UK last year was the highest ever – five hundred seventy one thousand two hundred forty five.
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The rise in centenarians means there are now two for every ten thousand people in the UK. People aged ninety and over make up less than one in one hundred in the population. The ONS said the main driver of population ageing in recent decades has been improving mortality at all ages, but particularly at older ages. Improvements in survival to older ages are due to factors such as improved medical treatments, housing and living standards, nutrition, and changes in the population’s smoking habits, it said. However, data published in a separate ONS bulletin on Wednesday showed that improvements in life expectancy in the UK have slowed in recent years. Life expectancy for a newborn boy was seventy nine point two years in two thousand fourteen to two thousand sixteen, while for a newborn girl it was eighty two point nine years. Since two thousand ten, yearly increases in life expectancy at birth have dropped by more than half for males and by nearly two-thirds for females, compared with the preceding three decades.
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-41399159
UK researchers say that a blood test that could rule out a heart attack in under twenty minutes should be used routinely. A team from King’s College London have tested it on patients and say the cMyC test could be rolled out on the NHS within five years.They claim it would save the health service millions of pounds each year by freeing up beds and sending well patients home.
About two-thirds of patients with chest pain will not have had a heart attack.
A heart trace, called an ECG, can quickly show up major heart attacks, but it is not very good at excluding more common, smaller ones that can still be life-threatening. Currently, patients with suspected chest pain and a clear ECG can have a different heart-attack blood test, called troponin, when they arrive at A and E. But it needs to be repeated three hours later to pick up signs of heart muscle damage.
Levels of cMyC or cardiac myosin-binding protein C in the blood rise more rapidly and to a higher extent after a heart attack than troponin proteins, studies suggest. That means doctors can use the new test to rule out a heart attack in a higher proportion of patients straightaway, according to the researchers who report their trial findings in the journal Circulation. They carried out troponin and cMyC blood tests on nearly two thousand people admitted to hospitals in Switzerland, Italy and Spain with acute chest pain.The new test was better at giving patients the all-clear within the first three hours of presenting with chest pain.
Doctor Tom Kaier, one of the lead researchers, funded by the British Heart Foundation at Saint Thomas’ Hospital, London, said: “Our research shows that the new test has the potential to reassure many thousands more patients with a single test, improving their experience and freeing up valuable hospital beds in A and E departments and wards across the country.”
He says if the test were to be used routinely, it could provide doctors with reliable results within fifteen to thirty minutes. It is only being used for research at the moment, however.
New NHS guidance suggests fussy eaters should be allowed to play with their food if it is the only way children will eat. The new advice from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence or NICE urges parents to make mealtimes “relaxed” – and not to try to “coerce” children to eat even if there are concerns they are failing to gain weight. It suggests eating together as a family, and avoiding “punitive” approaches to bad behaviour at the dinner table are key to helping children who reject the food put in front of them.The NHS guidance says “allowing young children to be ‘messy’ with their food” is better than trying to cajole them into eating nicely. While parents are advised to avoid rushing children, the Nice guidance also suggests avoiding turning mealtimes into long-drawn out battles, and trying to keep eating times consistent. Young children should be encouraged to feed themselves, it suggests – even if that means more of it ends up decorating the kitchen table. General practitioners and health visitors should take a detailed eating history from families if problems persist, and consider sending healthcare professionals in to observe meal times.
Professor Gillian Leng, deputy chief executive and director of health and social care at NICE, said: “Having a child with faltering growth can be distressing for parents and carers. However, simple things such as encouraging relaxed and enjoyable feeding and mealtimes, eating together as a family or even allowing young children to be ‘messy’ with their food can help encourage them to eat.”
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