The state’s life expectancy was lower in 2024 than in 2019, according to an analysis, but primarily as a result of causes of death other than Covid.If the nation’s largest state is any gauge, American life expectancy in the post-Covid era has not bounced back.A new analysis published on Wednesday in the medical journal JAMA found that life expectancy in California not only decreased sharply in the peak pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, it remained lower in 2024 than it was in 2019, primarily as a result of causes other than Covid.Drug overdoses and cardiovascular disease, for example, accounted for a larger proportion of the deficit than Covid as time went on.“I have to say, I was quite disappointed by our findings,” said Hannes Schwandt, a health economist and economic demographer at Northwestern University, who led the study.After a pandemic, he said, researchers often expect to see the depressed life expectancy numbers shoot back up and “usually even overshoot for a few years.” That is because the viruses tend to kill the population’s older, sicker people who might have otherwise died in later years.“Four years after the beginning of the pandemic, for the largest state in the country to still have a deficit — that’s mind-blowing,” he said. “Really quite a tragedy.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Warnings about withdrawal from antidepressants have rippled through society in recent years. A new study claims they are overblown.Few practices in mental health are debated more than the long-term use of antidepressant medications, which are prescribed to roughly one in nine adults in the United States, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.A reassessment began in 2019, when two British researchers published a study that found that 56 percent of patients suffered from withdrawal symptoms when they stopped antidepressant medications and that 46 percent of those described their symptoms as severe.The findings made headlines in Britain and had a powerful ripple effect, forcing changes to psychiatric training and prescribing guidelines. And they fed a growing grass-roots movement calling to rein in the prescription of psychotropic drugs that has, in recent months, gained new influence in the United States with the rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary.A new study, published on Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, makes the case that these warnings were overblown. The authors of the new paper found that a week after quitting antidepressants, patients reported symptoms like dizziness, nausea and vertigo, but that they remained, on average, “below the threshold for clinically significant” withdrawal.Dr. Sameer Jauhar, one of the authors, said the new analysis should reassure both patients and prescribers.“The messaging that came out in 2019 was all antidepressants can cause this and this can happen in this proportion of people, and that just doesn’t survive any scientific scrutiny,” said Dr. Jauhar, a professor of psychiatry at Imperial College London.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

In a new genetic study, scientists have charted the rise of 214 human diseases across ancient Europe and Asia.To prepare for future pandemics, scientists look to the past for clues. Over the last century, a series of new pathogens have swept the world, including H.I.V., Zika virus and SARS-CoV-2.But the further back researchers look, the fuzzier that history becomes. Thucydides chronicled the plague of Athens, a disease that ravaged the city-state around 430 B.C. Despite all his gory details — “the inward parts, such as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and fetid breath” — today’s historians and scientists still don’t know which pathogen was responsible for it.Three decades ago, geneticists conducting historical investigations started adding new clues like the bits of DNA that some pathogens leave behind in human skeletons. In recent years, the search for ancient disease genes has accelerated. On Wednesday, a team of scientists unveiled a new genetic chronicle, documenting the rise of 214 diseases across Europe and Asia over the past 37,000 years.“The paper is large and sweeping and overall pretty cool,” said Hendrik Poinar, an expert on ancient DNA at McMaster University in Canada who was not involved in the study.The researchers examined the remains of 1,313 ancient individuals for the project. The large scale enabled the researchers to do more than just push back the earliest known occurrence of different diseases. They could also track the rise and fall of epidemics across centuries.The oldest remains the researchers studied belonged to hunter-gatherers. Their bones and teeth contained a host of pathogens, such as hepatitis B, herpes virus and Helicobacter pylori, a stomach-dwelling bacterium.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Resident doctors in England have said they will strike for five days from 25 July after voting in favour of fresh action over pay.Previously known as junior doctors, the medics will stage a walkout from 07:00 on 25 July until 07:00 on 30 July – giving ministers two weeks to agree to negotiate their pay instead.The British Medical Association (BMA) said it had met with the health secretary to try and “avoid strike action” on Tuesday, but that the government had “stated that it will not negotiate on pay”.Health Secretary Wes Streeting called the move “unnecessary and unreasonable” and added: “The NHS is hanging by a thread – why on earth are they threatening to pull it?”He said the strike was “without historic precedent” given the medics had received a 28.9% pay increase over the last three years, and were not in the interest of patients or staff.The government was “ready and willing to work with them to avert strike action” he said, and “instead of responding positively they’ve responded with five days of strike action”.He had earlier told the Times newspaper the walkouts would be “a disaster for their members and a disaster for patients” – and the public would “not forgive” them.Resident doctors have been awarded a 5.4% pay rise for this financial year – which will go into pay packets from August – following a 22% increase over the previous two years.But the BMA says wages are still around 20% lower in real terms than in 2008.Its resident doctors committee co-chairs, Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, said they had “made every attempt to avoid strike action by opening negotiations for pay restoration” in talks with the government on Tuesday.But they said the government had wanted to “focus on non-pay elements without suggesting what these might be”.They said they had “no choice” but to strike without a “credible offer to keep us on the path to restore our pay”.”No doctor wants to strike, and these strikes don’t have to go ahead. “If Mr Streeting can seriously come to the table in the next two weeks we can ensure that no disruption is caused. The government knows what is needed to avert strikes. The choice is theirs.”The government said on Tuesday that it would not reopen pay negotiations and that it could not “be more generous than we already have”.A Downing Street spokesperson added that the medics had “received the highest pay award across the public sector for two years in a row”.Danny Mortimer, chief executive NHS Employers, the body which manages the relationship between the secretary of state for health and the trade unions, said it would be “patients who will bear the brunt of this decision” to strike, adding that they would be “left waiting longer for treatments”.Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused the prime minister of having “boasted that he solved the doctors’ strike” only for them to take further action.Addressing Sir Keir Starmer during Prime Minister’s Questions, she said he had been “weak” in dealing with the medics.Sir Keir defended his government’s handling of the NHS, saying it was “responsible for four million extra appointments” and a 10-year plan for the health service after the Conservatives “broke it”.Resident doctors’ basic salaries in England range from £37,000 to £70,000 a year for a 40-hour week, depending on experience, with extra payments for working nightshifts and weekends.That does not include the latest 5.4% average pay award for this year which will start to be paid into wage packets from August.Resident doctors took part in 11 separate strikes during 2023 and 2024.The action in England will not affect resident doctors in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, who negotiate directly with their devolved governments on pay.

Finding motivation to exercise can be the greatest challenge in working out. This might be part of the reason why less than a quarter of people achieve the activity goals recommended by the World Health Organization.
But what if working out could be more enjoyable? One way of achieving this could be opting for types of exercise that fit our personalities. To this end, researchers in the UK now have examined how personality affects what types of exercise we prefer, and our commitment and engagement to them. The results were published in Frontiers in Psychology.
“We found that our personality can influence how we engage with exercise, and particularly which forms of exercise we enjoy the most,” said first author Dr Flaminia Ronca from University College London’s (UCL) Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health.
“Understanding personality factors in designing and recommending physical activity programs is likely to be very important in determining how successful a program is, and whether people will stick with it and become fitter,” added senior author Prof Paul Burgess from the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience.
Different sports for different people
The researchers recruited participants that attended lab testing for baseline fitness. They then split them into two groups; the first group was provided with an eight-week home-based fitness plan made up of cycling and strength training (intervention group), the other group continued their usual lifestyle (control group). During lab testing, the first intervention week, and after the intervention, all participants completed a questionnaire on how much they’d enjoyed each training session. The personality traits examined in the study included extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, and openness.
“Our brains are wired in different ways, which drives our behaviors and how we interact with our environment,” Ronca explained. “So it’s not surprising that personality would also influence how we respond to different intensities of exercise.”
For example, people scoring high on extraversion enjoyed high intensity sessions with others around, including team sports. Contrary, people scoring high on neuroticism preferred private workouts. While they are fine with high intensity, they need short breaks in between. Others, scoring high on consciousness and openness were found to engage in exercise regardless of whether they particularly enjoyed it or were driven by curiosity, respectively.

Stress less
What was particularly interesting was the relationship between personality, change in fitness, and stress, the researchers said. Before the intervention, the stress levels of both groups were similar. After the intervention, however, especially people who scored high in neuroticism showed a strong reduction in stress. “It’s fantastic news, as it highlights that those who benefit the most from a reduction in stress respond very well to exercise,” Ronca said.
The researchers pointed out that the most important part about exercising is finding something we enjoy and not to be discouraged if we don’t immediately find it. “It’s ok if we don’t enjoy a particular session,” Ronca said. “We can try something else.”
“We hope that if people can find physical activities that they enjoy they will more readily choose to do them,” Burgess concluded. “After all, we don’t have to nag dogs to go for a walk: being so physically inactive that we start to feel miserable might be a peculiarly human thing to do. In effect, our body punishes us by making us miserable. But for some reason, many of us humans seem poor at picking up on these messages it is sending to our brain.”

During the menopause transition, only 1 in 5 women have optimal scores using the American Heart Association’s health-assessment tool, known as Life’s Essential 8 (LE8). Among the tool’s eight components, four of them — blood glucose, blood pressure, sleep quality and nicotine use — are key in driving future cardiovascular risks, with sleep being particularly crucial for long-term cardiovascular health.
The findings – published on July 8 in Menopause – were made by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Baylor University.
“Previously we’ve shown that the menopause transition is a time of accelerating cardiovascular risk,” said senior author Samar R. El Khoudary, Ph.D., M.P.H., professor of epidemiology at Pitt’s School of Public Health. “This study underscores that it’s also an opportunity for women to take the reins on their heart health.”
The team analyzed health data collected from about 3,000 women who participated in the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), an ongoing, longitudinal, multi-site, multi-ethnic study of midlife women that began in 1996. The researchers compared the women’s LE8 scores at baseline, around age 46, to their evolving health trajectories over time, from subclinical cardiovascular disease measures, such as increased carotid-artery thickness, to cardiovascular events, including heart attacks and strokes, to mortality of all causes. The team also examined impacts of each of the individual LE8 components: nutrition, physical activity, smoking abstinence, sleep, body mass index, blood lipids, blood sugar and blood pressure.
The analysis showed that four LE8 components — blood glucose, blood pressure, sleep quality and nicotine use — were the most important factors driving the study participants’ future cardiovascular risks.
Above all, sleep emerged as a potential predictor for long-term effects of cardiovascular disease events and all-cause mortality, though it was not linked to the shorter-term effects of carotid-artery thickening. The team found that at midlife, meeting the bar for healthy sleep, defined in Life’s Essential 8 as seven to nine hours on average for most adults, may contribute to women’s heart health and longevity, a hypothesis that should be tested in a future clinical trial, said Ziyuan Wang, Ph.D. candidate at Pitt Public Health and first author.
Low total LE8 scores correlated with increased cardiovascular risk, as expected — however, only 21% of the midlife women studied had an ideal LE8 score.
“With heart disease being the leading cause of death in women, these findings point to the need for lifestyle and medical interventions to improve heart health during and after menopause among midlife women,” said El Khoudary.
Other authors on the study were Ziyuan Wang, M.S., Emma Barinas-Mitchell, Ph.D., Maria M. Brooks, Ph.D., Jared W. Magnani, M.D., M.Sc., and Rebecca C. Thurston, Ph.D., all of Pitt; Carol A. Derby, Ph.D., of Albert Einstein College of Medicine; and Kelly R. Ylitalo, Ph.D., of Baylor University.

11 minutes agoShareSaveJim ReedHealth ReporterShareSavePAThousands of victims of the infected blood scandal are being “harmed further” by long waits for compensation, the chair of the public inquiry into the disaster has said.In a hard-hitting report, Sir Brian Langstaff said there were “obvious injustices” in the way the scheme had been devised.It is thought 30,000 people were infected with HIV and hepatitis B or C in the 1970s and 80s after being given contaminated blood products on the NHS.The government has set aside £11.8bn to pay compensation and has said it is cutting red tape to speed up payments to victims.The inquiry’s main report into the scandal, published last year, found that the disaster could largely have been avoided if different decisions had been taken by the health authorities at the time.It said too little was done to stop the importing of contaminated blood products from abroad in the 1970s and 80s, and there was evidence that elements of the scandal had been covered up.In May of this year, Sir Brian took the unusual step of ordering two days of extra hearings after he received “letter after letter, email after email” expressing concerns about the way the government’s compensation scheme for victims had been managed.His extra 200-page report, published on Wednesday, was based on that evidence, and found that victims had been “harmed further” by the way they had been treated over the last 12 months.The latest figures from the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA), which was set up by the government to administer payments, show that 2,043 people have been asked to start their claims so far and 460 have received full compensation.The scheme is open to those who were infected and also their family members, including parents, children and siblings, who can claim compensation in their own right as someone affected by the scandal.Sir Brian’s new report found victims had been “harmed further” by the way they had been treated over the last 12 months.”The UK government has known for years that compensation for thousands of people was inevitable and had identified many of those who should have it,” he said.”But only 460 have received compensation so far and many, many more have not even been allowed to begin the process.”Kate Burt, chief executive of the Haemophilia Society, said: “Government’s failure to listen to those at the heart of the contaminated blood scandal has shamefully been exposed by the infected blood inquiry yet again.”This failure is exhausting, damaging and is stripping this community of its dignity.”She called for “urgent action” on a “fair and fast” compensation settlement, adding: “Only then can they move on from the past and finally focus on what remains of their future.”The inquiry’s new report makes a series of recommendations including:Victims should be allowed to apply for compensation, rather than waiting to be invitedVictims and family members who are seriously ill, older, or who have never received compensation should get priorityA series of “injustices” needed to be addressed by, for example, allowing some victims infected with HIV before 1982 to apply for compensationNHS patients who were the victims of medical experimentation should receive extra paymentsThe system as a whole needs to be more transparent with more involvement of those infected and their familiesSpeaking in Westminster Chapel to survivors and their families after his report was published, Sir Brian said a significant cause of the blood scandal was the belief that authorities knew best and people did not need to be consulted.He said: “Decisions were made behind closed doors and when things went wrong people weren’t listening.”It has happened again in the design of the compensation scheme. It will be a travesty to keep repeating these mistakes. People should not be kept at arms’ length.”Earlier, Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds denied the government was “dragging its heels” over compensation.He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he did not want to impose any further delays after “decades of injustice”.”We’ve paid out over £488m,” he said, adding that he had been “very open that there are areas that I am willing to look at, listening to the voice of victims”.The government also said last weekend that it was cutting red tape and taking other action to speed up compensation to victims and their families.

51 minutes agoShareSaveJennifer ClarkeBBC NewsShareSaveGetty ImagesYellow heat health alerts are in effect for London, the South East, South West, East Midlands, West Midlands and East of England. The alerts – which mean high temperatures pose a potential health risk to vulnerable people – will remain in place until 10:00 BST on Tuesday 15 July. How does the weather health alert system work?The weather alert service warns the public in England when high or low temperatures could damage their health.The system is run by the UK Health Security Agency and the Met Office.It includes both heat health and cold health alertsHeat health alerts are issued between 1 June and 30 September, and cold health alerts are published between 1 November and 30 March. As well as warning the public, the system sends guidance directly to NHS England, the government and healthcare professionals during periods of adverse weather.Alerts are categorised according to severity and include:headline weather conditions expected in the coming daysdetails of how weather conditions will affect each regionlinks to additional information, advice and guidanceThe system was designed to help reduce illness and deaths during periods of extreme weather.What do the alert levels mean?The level of alert is based on Met Office forecasts and data.There are four levels ranging from green (least severe) to red (most severe):GreenGreen is the normal level, when advice is given on how people should prepare to respond if temperatures rise or fall.YellowYellow alerts are issued during periods of hot or cold weather that are only likely to affect those who are particularly vulnerable, for example the elderly, or those with existing health conditions.AmberAmber alerts are issued in situations that could potentially put the whole population at risk. The NHS may see increased demand on GPs and ambulances, for example.Travel disruption is also likely.RedA red alert is the most severe.It is issued in situations when hot or cold weather would be a significant risk to life, even for the healthy population, and could lead to failures of critical national infrastructure, such as power outages or roads and rail lines being closed.What does hot weather do to the body?As the body gets hotter, blood vessels open up. This leads to lower blood pressure, and makes the heart work harder to push the blood around the body.This can cause mild symptoms such as an itchy heat rash or swollen feet, as blood vessels become leaky.At the same time, sweating leads to the loss of fluids and salt and, crucially, the balance between them in the body changes.This, combined with the lowered blood pressure, can lead to heat exhaustion and heatstroke. Symptoms include:dizzinessnauseafaintingconfusionmuscle crampsheadachesheavy sweatingtirednessIf blood pressure drops too far, the risk of heart attacks rises.

An Instagram post by TV personality Gemma Collins which advertised a weight-loss drug and app has been banned.The star posted: “I’m starting this year two sizes down, thanks to Yazen’s weight loss app and medication”.It is illegal to advertise prescription-only weight loss drugs and Ms Collins’ was one of nine adverts banned in a crackdown by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).Ms Collins told the ASA’s investigation she accepted her posts had promoted the Yazen weight-loss service and app and she would follow guidance in future.Yazen is a Swedish digital healthcare brand that offers users a doctor-supervised weight-loss programme combining prescription medications with lifestyle coaching.Ms Collins posted a video advert for the brand to her Instagram on 6 January this year.In the now-banned advert, Ms Collins describes how Yazen has helped her and stated: “I’m not telling anyone to go on this medication, but it is prescribed on the NHS.”Although the advert didn’t name a specific weight-loss medication, the ASA said it made references that breached its code.The ASA said it sought advice from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which expressed concern that consumers were likely to be led to request a prescription weight-loss medication.Therefore, the advert was deemed as promoting those medications to the public, breaching ASA rules.The eight other adverts banned for promoting prescription only weight-loss medications to the public were:A paid-for Meta ad for CheqUp Health, which stated “Take the first step to sustainable weight loss with CheqUp”.A paid-for Meta ad for HealthExpress.co.uk, which included an image of a partially visible injection pen and code breaching textA paid-for Google search ad for Juniper UK, which stated “GLP-1 Weekly Weight Loss Injection” and featured an image of an injection pen.A paid-for Google search ad for Phlo Clinic, including text that stated, “Get 35% off Weight Loss Order Weight Loss Treatments Online”.A paid-for Google ad for SemaPen, which stated “SemaPen Makes Weight Loss Easier.”A paid-for Meta ad for Cloud Pharmacy featuring texts messages between two friends discussing new weight-loss medications you can order online.A paid-for Google search ad for pharmacyonline.co.uk, which featured text stating “Obesity Treatment Jab” and an image of a box containing a vial of liquid.A paid-for Google search ad for Phlo Clinic, seen on 2 December 2024, which included text that stated “Weight loss Injections”.The ASA has ruled that none of these adverts can appear again in their current form.

What are the ingredients in lip balm?Some lip balm ingredients are manufactured, such as petroleum jelly. Others are natural, such as beeswax. There has been some debate over which is better for you.Dr Emma Craythorne, a consultant dermatologistcloseDermatologistA doctor who specialises in diseases and conditions of the skin. and surgeon, who uses petroleum jelly as a lip balm, told the Sliced Bread podcast: “Sometimes if you’re creating something syntheticallycloseSyntheticA substance manufactured by humans rather than one which is made naturally. A synthetic substance can also mimic a natural substance., you’re making it in a more pure form, whereas if you have it from a natural source, it may be contaminated with other things. Natural ingredients are wonderful, but some natural ingredients are really, really harmful, so I wouldn’t say natural was better.”