Twins should be delivered at 37 weeks' gestation to minimise stillbirths and newborn deaths, and there is no clear evidence to support routine delivery before 36 week's gestation, finds a large international study in The BMJ today.

It is well known that the risk of stillbirth is higher in twin pregnancies than in singleton pregnancies. Uncomplicated twin pregnancies are often delivered early in an attempt to prevent stillbirth, but the optimal gestational age for delivery that minimises risks to newborns is not known.

A review of studies investigating the 2008 recession in Europe show it was associated with adverse health outcomes, particularly for suicides and mental health problems, finds a study in The BMJ today.

However, the authors warn that most published studies on this topic had a substantial risk of bias and therefore results need to be cautiously interpreted.

In 2008, Europe entered a period of unprecedented financial crisis following a global economic downturn. Yet despite growing interest in the impact of the crisis on the health of populations, the evidence so far has been fragmented.

In the hard-hitting world of American football, injuries are an inherent risk of the game with players in the National Football League (NFL) experiencing a higher rate of injury than in any other professional sport. Orthopaedic surgeries are often required to manage player injuries, but until recently little information was available to assess the effect these procedures may have on players' future performance and career trajectory. To better understand surgery's impact, Northwestern Medicine researchers created the NFL Orthopaedic Surgery Outcomes Database (NO-SOD), a comprehensive injury database that compares return-to-play rates (RTP) and performance-based outcomes in NFL players who had orthopaedic surgery.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- A team of researchers, including several from the University of California, Riverside, have found that flowers are a hot spot of transmission of bacteria that end up in the microbiome of wild bees.

The research, which was just published in the journal Microbial Ecology, shows for the first time that multiple flower and wild bee species share several of the same types of bacteria. Bees therefore obtain both food and bacteria from flowers. These bacteria may play important roles in bee health.

A recent review on head lice treatments available in the United States described a marked decline in the effectiveness of permethrin/synergized pyrethrins (collectively pyrethroids), likely due to resistance arising from widespread and indiscriminate use over 30 years.

The review also noted that the potential toxicity of lindane, and the availability of safer and more effective alternatives, should limit its use. Prescription products that are safe and effective include malathion, benzyl alcohol, spinosad, and topical ivermectin.

Home remedies such as petroleum jelly, mayonnaise, and essential oils, have not been demonstrated as safe or effective and may cause adverse reactions.

People with the most common type of lung cancer whose disease has spread to the brain could be spared potentially harmful whole brain radiotherapy, according to new research published in The Lancet. The phase 3 randomized trial found that whole brain radiotherapy had no beneficial effect on length or quality of survival over treatment with steroids and other supportive care.

Despite its widespread use, until now there has been no robust evidence to determine whether whole brain radiotherapy, which can have substantial side effects (eg, fatigue, nausea, neurotoxicity), is better than best supportive care alone in terms of prolonging life or improving quality of life.