One in three women between the ages of 50 and 70 are not aware that a cervical screen is a test that all women should take and among those who had never had one of these tests, the number of women who are not aware of how vital the test is grows to 67%. This is especially the case for women who are single or who are not engaging in sexual activity. Women who are divorced, separated or single were more likely to never have had a screen compared with those in a relationship. These figures come from a YouGov survey which was carried out for Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust.

Across England, the number of 50 to 70 year olds attending for cervical screening fell. In 2010, the numbers fell below 80% and they dropped again in 2011. A statistic released by the NHS Cervical Screening Programme Audit of Invasive Cervical Cancer ’07-’10, reveals that 56% of women between the ages of 50 and 64 who had cancer had not had a screen for 7 years. The equivalent figure for women without cervical cancer was 16%.

This was quite a large survey where 2,397 women between the ages of 50 and 70 were questioned. Worryingly, two thirds of these women were not aware that most cases of cervical cancer were caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV). More than half of them thought that this form of cancer was caused by having a number of different partners and one in five thought that the cancer was hereditary.

Those at the Trust state that the vital message is that a woman can have only one partner in her lifetime and still contract HPV.

7% of the US population between the ages of 14 and 69 are now known to have oral HPV, 10% of cases are among men and a much lower percentage among women, at 3.6%.Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association explains what this discovery highlights. The study was carried out at Ohio State University.

HPV related throat cancers are at an all-time high and the number of cases is expected to exceed the number of cases of cervical cancer by 2012. The study also suggests that most cases of oral HPV are sexually transmitted. The virus causes a particular type of cancer that grows at the back of the mouth and men are three times more likely to become infected than women. The results of this large scale study were significant and with data collected from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, ’09 to ’10, using cross sections of the population of the States via mobile centres, the results illuminated a growing problem. People in the armed forces or who were in institutions were not included in the study.

Data was taken from 5,579 men and women who were between the ages of 14 and 69. Each participant gave an oral sample which involved gargling with a rinse for 30 seconds. They were also surveyed about their sexual behaviour and sexual history.

We now know that 7% were infected with oral HPV. Furthermore, the highest rates were among the 30 to 34 year old age group and then those between the ages of 60 and 64 years.

There was quite a disparity between the number of men infected over the number of women infected which also raises once again the question of whether or not we should be vaccinating the male population against this virus.

The rates of infection increased as the number of sexual partners one had increased. The results of the study show that this virus is mainly a sexually transmitted infection indicating the infection can be prevented. Now that more light has been shed on the population infected and on how they were infected, greater efforts can be made to combat the spread of HPV through appropriate education and vaccination programmes.

Scientists are telling us that sugar is contributing to 35 million deaths every year and is very hazardous to our health. The journal, Nature, features an article on the topic where the authors state that there are now more obese people in the world than those who are malnourished. Sugar is a huge contributing factor according to the authors and it is known to effect metabolism, blood pressure, hormones and the liver. The effects of sugar they say are the same as the effects of alcohol given that they are toxic, extremely accessible and can be addictive.

They also tell us that the amount of sugar consumed around the world has tripled over the last 50 years. They suggest that foods that are not high in sugar should be more accessible and less expensive to purchase. They also ask that the companies making sugary foods take responsibility for the amount of sugar in their products.

Other health specialists say that this article is over the top considering the fact that sugar is only toxic when ingested in amounts that would be deemed unrealistic.

A representative from the Food and Drink Federation suggests that although it is good to look at the harmful effects of sugar and what it is doing to us, it was not a good idea to focus on sugar alone. It should be part of a larger focus on foods and how a healthy balance can be maintained.

Cinematic depictions of the traditional school yard bully often follow the same rule in that characters are typically skinny, rather attractive, well dressed and, above all, popular. However, a team of researchers at Queen’s University beg to differ with this perspective. Their study has shown that obese female teens are three times more inclined to bully than their thinner contemporaries. The study is published in The European Journal of Obesity.

The height and weight of 1,738 students, in 16 schools, was recorded along with information on their experience with bullying and the results made for an interesting reframe of the bullying stereotype.

Girls who were obese were 1.32 times more inclined to be victimized physically than those who would be considered a normal weight. These obese girls were also 1.52 times more than likely to be the bully.

Obese boys however, were on the receiving end of bullying with 2.11 times likelihood of them experiencing bullying in the form of teasing, taunting and being ignored (relational bullying). Their weight did not make them more likely to get involved in such forms of bullying. These facts came as a surprise to the researchers who thought that a bigger physical size among men would indicate being stronger and more likely to be the bully or deter bulling attempts.

Obese girls were 1.76 times more likely than thinner girls to be on the receiving end of such forms of bullying as mentioned above but they were 3 times more likely to bully in this way.

The study really highlights how cyclical this sort of behaviour is. It shows how those who are bullied often retaliate in this way and project what is happening to them on the inside. These tactics certainly won’t improve the growing problem of obesity and young people. Rather than changing their diet and exercise habits, they are finding ways to remain comfortably the same.

Roche, the manufacturer of Xenical, has announced that it anticipates a shortage of stock of 120mg Orlistat capsules and the shortage is predicted to last a number of weeks. The company has been experiencing manufacturing issues and these may take a little while to be resolved and for stock levels in the UK to be replenished. Generic versions of orlistat manufactured by Teva may be available although there are stock shortages on this item as well. If the generic stock does become available, patients are advised to continue with this therapy until brand Xenical becomes available again. It is important that patients continue to obtain their prescriptions through the legitimate supply network.

Patients will be notified through their patient record when we are out of Xenical stock.

Arena Pharmaceuticals must be very pleased with themselves since their application for weight loss treatment, Lorcaserin, was resubmitted and accepted by the Food and drug Administration in the US. The company has also completed a new round of fundraising, which amounted to $33 million.

The original New Drug Application for Lorcaserin had been rejected in 2010. The company has provided further information to the regulator in accordance with its requests regarding concerns that tumours were observed in animal studies. The company’s response to the regulatory body included certain results from their phase III trial, which had not been detailed in the previous application and which outlined study material on the use of Lorcaserin with type-2 diabetes patients.

It is anticipated that the FDA will give a final opinion on Lorcaserin on 27^th June 2012. Meanwhile, we understand that Lorcaserin will be submitting an application to the European Medicines Agency in the next few months.

Researchers at the Welcome Trust- Mahosot Hospital-Oxford University Tropical Medicine Research Collaboration have published a worrying report in the Malaria Journal highlighting the factthat fraudulent anti-malarials will impact hugely on mortality rates over the next year if action is not taken soon.

These fake, and in some cases, poor quality drugs, are entering the system all over the world but the problem is especially significant on the African continent at the moment. Between criminal activity and bad manufacturing standards and practices, it is unlikely patients will continue to benefit from the first line treatments since they are developing a resistance to treatment due to the quality of drugs available.

In order to ascertain how much fake treatment and poor quality treatments were out there, researchers collected data from 11 African nations between 2002 and 2010. They discovered that counterfeit drugs contained a number of active ingredients but they only treated the symptoms of malaria and not the disease itself. It was also discovered that the ingredients used had the potential to cause harmful side effects, especially when taken with other prescription treatments. Because these drugs contain minute amounts of artemisinin, one of the most frequently used treatments in Africa, but only enough so that the manufacturers pass validity tests. Patients taking the drugs will eventually develop a resistance to the bona fide treatments if the parasite is only exposed to small quantities of the active ingredient.

The leader of this research suggests that African regulatory authorities begin to increase their investments in quality control so that only the best quality treatments are available at affordable prices.

A team of researchers at Harvard Medical School claim they have created a pill that has the same effect on the body as exercise does without requiring us to move a muscle. They are looking into the creation of a pill form of irisin, a hormone that is made naturally in the body during exercise.

It has been suggested that irisin, which is found in muscle cells, and known to spur on the burning of calories during exercise, could potentially become a treatment for obesity. We know that the level of this hormone in the body increases while we exercise and in turn helps to control blood sugar levels and increases the amount of energy we expend and the team suggests that the drug could potentially be used to treat diabetes and even cancer. The study is published online in Nature.

Consuming the pill form of this hormone would help the body to produce healthy brown fat, which in turn helps us to lose weight. Unfortunately we have less brown fat as we get older since white fat replaces brown fat as we age and is typically deposited around the waist.

In order to examine whether or not an increase in irisin could produce the same effects that exercise would, obese, pre-diabetic, sedentary mice were injected with small amounts of irisin and after 10 days the mice gained control over blood glucose levels and lost a modest amount of weight. The study’s author suggests that a greater amount of weight would have been lost if the hormone had been administered over a longer period of time.

This is a very interesting development but please don’t sit around waiting for this pill to be licensed. You are going to need to join a gym and shake that booty if you are going to shift those extra pounds!

A recent study shows the benefit of treating overweight patients with glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) agonists, liraglutide and exenatide specifically, regardless of whether or not they have Type-2 diabetes. These drugs mimic a gut hormone which suppresses appetite. The systemic review (literature review) and meta-analysis (interrogation of previously published relevant clinical data) was carried out in Denmark at the University of Copenhagen. It was observed that the participants given the medications with the active ingredients at a clinical relevant dosage had lowered blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

GLP-1R is already in use as a treatment for Type-2 diabetes and this is injected in order to regulate blood sugar levels. The authors searched major medical databases for all studies involving GLP-1R agonists and looked at 25 previous studies involving 6,411 overweight or obese patients who were given GLP-1R agonists (either liraglutide or exenatide) over a period of at least 20 weeks. Some of the patients had diabetes.

The authors state that their study highlights the potential for GLP-1 clinical usage when administered to those with or without diabetes. Positive effects on cholesterol levels and blood pressure readings were also noted as well as a drop in weight. Those in the control groups had been given a placebo or treatment for diabetes such as insulin. Weight loss was noted in both patients with and without diabetes but was more dramatic for those who did not suffer from this illness.

Researchers are looking at the possibility of prescribing the treatment to patients who are overweight and who do not have diabetes but it will take an estimated 2 to 3 years to discover whether or not this is safe. The study’s authors suggest that using this medication is likely to cause nausea and with taking the drug comes the risk of damaging the thyroid and the pancreas. However, the results are still promising and investigation is on-going.

Liraglutide (Victoza) has a head start on the other GLP-1R antagonists having produced significant results including substantial weight loss in previous studies. We believe that Liraglutide is currently undergoing human trials as a weight loss treatment although it is not expected to be available to prescribe any time soon.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US has given the all clear for phase I trials of Antipotide(a potential new anti-obesity drug), having approved Arrowhead Research Corporation’s Investigational New Drug Application. Only recently did the journal Science Translational Medicine publish research about the success of the drug when administered to rhesus monkeys. This phase I trial will be carried out by researchers at the University of Texas and will commence shortly.

A phase I trial is the first human study of a particular drug and is carried out in order to gauge the metabolic and pharmacological action of the drug in human beings where only a small number of individuals are tested at first. Side effects and reactions to the increase in dose are observed along with how effective the drug is at Phase II of the process. Participants might be healthy or patients who require treatment although specific groups are usually excluded on safety grounds.

Antipotide works by targeting the blood vessels that supply blood to white fat tissue. In the animal study, substantial weight loss and a decrease in BMI and waist circumference were observed. It is very early days for Antoptide so do not expect this medication to get a license any time soon but we will keep you up to date with the drug’s progress.

However outrageous you might think the Dukan diet is, Pierre Dukan, the nutritionist responsible for this low carb diet, has thought up an even more unfathomable weight loss trick and it involves motivating young people to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight by bringing a weight loss marking system into the classroom! He sent his proposal to the 16 French presidential candidates on Tuesday and titled the short book, ‘An Open letter to the Future President’.

Dukan suggests that the French A- level equivalent, ‘le baccalaureat’, should incorporate an ‘ideal weight’ portion to these final examinations which would necessitate that the student maintained a healthy BMI of between 18 and 25 in order to earn extra points towards their final academic scores. With entrance to French universities entirely dependent on a points system, we can imagine that the pressure would definitely make a success of the proposal but we are not sure about how ethical the system would be if employed.

Dukan charitably suggests that teenagers who are double the healthy weight at the beginning of the two year course would score double the points for losing the weight by the time the marking commences. This is hardly fair on the naturally thin, academic swatters and what sort of bullying would this competitive fixation on weight loss promote at high school level? This sort of system could lead to students having a very dysfunctional relationship with food.

The nutritionist calls on the politicians for help as he fears the increasing obesity epidemic in France is no longer a health problem but a political concern. This we understand, but to take a political problem like this and to play it out in the classroom is irresponsible.

Recent findings show that approximately 61% of sexually active older women in their 60s through to their 80s were happy with their sex lives and this was also the case for those who did not have a partner or who were not at that time sexually active. 67% said they achieved orgasm most of the time or always. Is the concept of female sexual dysfunction therefore all a load of hype? Is it true then that it is a condition created by the pharmaceutical companies in order to make mega bucks? Or are older women just enjoying sex more with age? Conversely, only one five of these women reported having a high sex drive.

The study was carried out at the University of San Diego in order to assess sexual activity and levels of satisfaction among women over the age of 60. 806 women participated and they were an average age of 67 years. Both the youngest and oldest women showed the highest levels of satisfaction. The results of this study are published in the American Journal of Medicine.

The researchers explained that the satisfaction they experienced with their sex lives was based on their need to keep their relationships functioning. They also suggest that the older these women got, the more the feeling of closeness, of the emotional and physical kind, would suffice and help women become sexually satisfied. Furthermore, the study showed that some women who were in long-term relationships could be fully satisfied by a touch or caress.

Half of the women over the age of 80 reported that they experienced orgasm most of the time but rarely did they report sexual desire. This contrasts with the traditional scientific explanation that desire comes before sex according to those who carried out the research. Using evidence from the study and looking at this traditional model we can see that there are reasons beyond desire that spur on a woman’s choice to engage in sexual activity.

The study’s author also suggests that the emotional or physical closeness in a relationship can heavily outweigh the importance of having an orgasm. The author suggests that the study could indicate a need for a more positive approach to sexual wellbeing among women and the potential need to move away from the limiting focus on sexual activity and function on their own.

Two Australian researchers have stated in a Lancet article that nuns should take the contraceptive pill. What they are really saying is that women who do not have children, nuns being the most obvious example, should be taking the contraceptive pill and their reasoning for this is down to the observed phenomenon that women who do not have children or breastfeed are at a higher risk of cancer of the breast, womb and ovaries due to the fact that they have more periods throughout their lifetime. In accordance with the rules of the Catholic Church, nuns are not allowed to use any form of contraception, another reason that the researchers are focusing their research on this community.

Supporting the article is previous research and theory, including an Australian gynaecologist from the University of Adelaide, who has not contributed to the article, but explains that the female body is designed to, at some point, become pregnant and to lactate. He highlights that women having hundreds of menstruations in their lifetime is a relatively new trend that has been recognised over the years as a potential cause of tumours. Women now have up to 400 cycles in their lifetime whereas women living a century ago experienced on average 40 cycles because of the higher pregnancy rate back then.

The authors of the Lancet article claim that the general rate of mortality is decreased by 12% among those who take the pill compared with those who do not. Furthermore, the risk of breast, womb and ovarian cancer specifically is reduced by more than 50% among those who take the pill. The reason the pill is said to protect against cancers of the uterus is attributed to the dose of oestrogen and progesterone that causes a withdrawal period rather than a real period where the endometrial layer becomes much thicker.

There is not sufficient evidence available to absolutely prove these observations and there are even studies in existence claiming to show that the pill actually increases a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer and other complications. These claims have been contradicted by a 1996 meta-analysis of previous studies in which 9,200 women were questioned; the analysis totally refuted claim of any link between breast cancer and taking an oral contraceptive.

A 39 year study carried out in the University of Aberdeen in 1969 does however, according to New Scientist, show that the benefits of taking the pill outweigh the risks. 46,000 women were observed for this period of time and it was found that those who had developed cancer of the ovaries or uterus and died were more inclined not to have taken the contraceptive pill.

It will likely cause a controversy if it is ever approved by the necessary regulatory bodies but researchers at Cornell think their innovative, less toxic cigarette invention will be a resounding success on the market and a great benefit to those who cannot or find it tough to quit the habit of smoking. The research claiming that the composition of their cigarettes reduces the number of carcinogenic free radicals coming through the filter is published in the Journal of Visualised Experiments.

These carcinogenic free radicals have a huge impact on a smoker’s risk of cancer. The filters are thus composed of natural antioxidants, lycopene and grape seed extract, which the research shows to dramatically reduce the number of free radicals travelling through the cigarette filter.

For the New Year quitters who have already succumbed to their cravings, this is likely to be welcome news. However, over the month of January year in year out there are a multitude of support programmes and advice is plentiful. We recommend that patients make the effort to stop smoking and to consider approaches such as cessation drugs, nicotine patches or counselling. This less toxic cigarette might be a long time coming and will certainly never be ‘good’ for your health.