Around 5.4 million people currently receive treatment for asthma in the UK, of which 1.1 million are children.

To diagnose the condition doctors usually measure a person’s airflow lung capacity, however lung function tests can be inaccurate and do not reflect underlying changes associated with asthma. Other tests, such as blood, urine or sputum analysis can be distressing, particularly for younger patients.

The new test, developed in collaboration with Nottingham City Hospital, is completely painless and offers a one-stop diagnosis suitable for people of all ages.

The body’s smallest organ dictates your blood pressure. The size of a grain of rice, the carotid body, located between two major arteries that feed the brain with blood, has been found to control your blood pressure.

Patients’ evaluations of doctors’ interpersonal skills are used to assess quality of care. In both the UK and the US, certain minority ethnic groups report lower patient experience scores compared to the majority population. For example, the English General Practice Patient Survey found that South Asian groups report particularly low scores compared to the White British majority, with Bangladeshi and Pakistani groups providing the lowest scores.

Several potential explanations have been proposed for these lower ratings. These mainly relate to whether South Asian patients receive lower quality care, or whether they receive similar care, but rate this more negatively.

revious studies have largely assumed that the prevalence of mental disorders declines with old age. The results of a new large-scale study with innovative diagnostic methods conducted in six European countries reveal that, considering the previous year retrospectively, approximately one third of the respondents in the age group between 65 and 85 had suffered from a mental disorder, and roughly one quarter were mentally ill at the time of the interviews.

A study on human behavior has revealed that 90% of the population can be classified into four basic personality types: Optimistic, Pessimistic, Trusting and Envious. However, the latter of the four types, Envious, is the most common, with 30% compared to 20% for each of the other groups.

This is one of the main conclusions of a study recently published in the journal, Science Advances by researchers from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, together with colleagues from the universities of Barcelona, Rovira i Virgili and Zaragoza. The study analyzed the responses of 541 volunteers to hundreds of social dilemmas, with options leading to collaboration or conflict with others, based on individual or collective interests.

Scientists at the University of Glasgow have made a second significant breakthrough in the treatment of chronic myeloid leukaemia – using precision medicine to kill more than 90% of chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) stem cells. The results are published today in the high impact journal Cancer Discovery.

CML is a rare form of blood cancer. An individual gets CML when normal blood stem cells are turned into leukaemic stem cells, or CML stem cells. These CML stem cells then produce large numbers of leukaemic cells which, if left untreated, is fatal.