In a new study, a Johns Hopkins Medicine-led research team reports that social stress during adolescence in female mice later results in prolonged elevation of the hormone cortisol after they give birth. The researchers say this corresponds to the equivalent hormonal changes in postpartum women who were exposed to adverse early life experiences — suggesting that early life stress may underlie a pathophysiological exacerbation of postpartum depression (PPD).
The team’s findings, first published online Apr. 11, 2024, in Nature Mental Health, also suggest that current drug treatments for PPD in people may, in some cases, be less effective at targeting the relevant chemical imbalances in the brain, and that alternative methods may be more beneficial.
According to previous studies, an estimated one-third of psychiatric conditions fail to respond to current therapies, and “PPD is difficult to treat,” says study senior author Akira Sawa, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Schizophrenia Center and professor of psychiatry, neuroscience, biomedical engineering, genetic medicine and pharmacology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “The new study results add to evidence that patients with PPD are not all the same, and more individualized diagnosis and treatment — a precision medicine approach — is needed.”
PPD, states the federal government’s Office on Women’s Health, is estimated to occur in 7% to 20% of all women, most commonly within six weeks of giving birth. Symptoms include feelings of sadness, anxiety, and fatigue, and can make it difficult to complete basic self-care tasks and care for the new baby.
The current first-line treatment for PPD is the use of a class of anti-depressant pills called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), but these are only effective in approximately half of all patients. SSRIs boost the effects of the natural brain chemical serotonin, one of many hormone-like substances that help control mood. Some patients also are treated with IV infusions of a different class of drugs that target GABAA, a brain chemical linked to nerve hyperactivity.
However, the calming infusions are costly (more than $30,000 for a single course of one such drug) and often require hospitalization. They are generally reserved for the most severe and resistant cases of PPD.
In the new study, the Johns Hopkins-led research team aimed to build on evidence that adverse life events may affect the likelihood and severity of PPD. Previous studies have shown that PPD is more prevalent in teens, and in urban populations.

Working with mice, the researchers first created four test groups: unstressed virgins, stressed virgins, unstressed mothers and stressed mothers. The stressed mice were subjected to social isolation in their adolescence, and all groups were tested for stress. At seven days postpartum, the stressed mothers showed decreased mobility and a decrease in sugar preference, both of which are considered markers for depression. This persisted for at least three weeks after delivery.
As the second and most critical step, the researchers tested plasma levels of several hormones and found the level of cortisol was increased in mothers both with and without adverse early life experiences. However, cortisol levels in unstressed mothers decreased to normal levels after delivery, while the levels in mothers with adverse early life experiences remained high for one to three weeks after birth. This finding, Sawa says, suggests a correlation between prolonged post-delivery elevation of cortisol and behavioral changes in postpartum mice who experienced social isolation in adolescence.
If these findings translate to humans, it could mean that a different kind of antidepressant, a glucocorticoid receptor (GR) antagonist, which blocks the effects of elevated cortisol, could be a novel treatment option for PPD. Mifepristone may be one such drug.
“Unfortunately, everyone knows someone who has suffered or currently suffers from PPD, and it has such a huge impact on both mother and baby,” says Sawa. “The alternative line of treatment suggested by the mouse study — where the findings are consistent with those from our observational study in humans — might enable mothers to be treated at home and avoid separation from their babies, and target a different mechanism for depression that may be specific to PPD.”
Plans are underway, Sawa says, to collect precise data on cortisol levels in people with PPD to determine if GR antagonists would be more beneficial than current treatments for some, and later, to conduct clinical trials with alternatives to SSRIs.
Along with Sawa, members of the study team from Johns Hopkins Medicine are Sedona Lockhart, Jennifer Payne, Gary Wand, Daniel Wood and Kun Yang. Team members from the University of Alabama at Birmingham Heersink School of Medicine are study lead author Minae Niwa, Adeel Ahmed, Shin-ichi Kano, Kyohei Kin and Jose Francis-Oliveira.
Funding for this research was provided by National Institutes of Health grants MH-092443, MH-094268, K99MH-094408, MH-105660, MH-107730, DA-040127, and MH-116869; the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (formerly the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression); and other sources.

A new study from Van Andel Institute scientists offers a first look into the complex molecular changes that occur in brain cells with Lewy bodies, which are key pathological hallmarks of Parkinson’s disease and some dementias.
The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, reveal that brain cells with Lewy bodies exhibit a specific gene expression pattern akin to a disease-related fingerprint.
“We’ve long known that Lewy bodies play a role in Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases but there are still many unanswered questions. Why are some cells more susceptible to Lewy bodies than others? How do Lewy bodies actually affect cells?” said VAI Assistant Professor Michael Henderson, Ph.D., the study’s corresponding author. “Our findings are an important starting point for better understanding how cells respond to Lewy bodies, which is an area of great potential for informing new therapies.”
Lewy bodies are clumps of misshapen proteins that are believed to disrupt healthy cellular function and contribute to cell death in neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s and Lewy body dementia. Loss of these vital cells contributes to disease symptoms.
Thanks to recent technological advances, in particular a new technique called spatial transcriptomics, Henderson and his team were able to compare brain cells with Lewy bodies to brain cells without Lewy bodies in deep detail. The pattern they identified includes genes that affect many critical processes required for brain health, including cellular communication, energy regulation, cellular trash removal, and inflammation. The study included preclinical models and cells from people with Parkinson’s.
“Our findings support the idea that cells with Lewy bodies affect other cells and processes in the brain,” Henderson said. “Moving forward, we plan to explore the molecular pathways disrupted by Lewy bodies to identify mechanisms that may be protective.”
Authors include Thomas M. Goralski, M.S., Lindsay Meyerdirk, M.S., Libby Breton, M.S., Laura Brasseur, Kevin Kurgat, Daniella DeWeerd, Lisa Turner, Katelyn Becker, M.S., and Marie Adams, M.S., of VAI; and Daniel Newhouse, Ph.D., of NanoString Technologies. VAI’s Bioinformatics and Biostatistics Core, Genomics Core, Optical Imaging Core, Pathology and Biorepository Core, and Vivarium Core contributed to this research. This work would not have been possible without the individuals and families who donated tissue. Brain tissue was provided through Banner Sun Health Research Institute Brain and Body Donation Program.

Federal regulation capping toxic airborne silica has been decades in the making. The delay has cost miners dearly.Federal regulators on Tuesday will issue new protections for miners against a type of dust long known to cause deadly lung ailments — changes recommended by government researchers a half-century ago.Mining companies will have to limit concentrations of airborne silica, a mineral commonly found in rock that can be lethal when ground up and inhaled. The new requirements will affect more than 250,000 miners extracting coal, a variety of metals, and minerals used in products like cement and smartphones. Tuesday’s announcement is the culmination of a tortuous regulatory process that has spanned four presidential administrations.Miners have paid dearly for the delay. As progress on the rule stalled, government researchers documented with growing alarm a resurgence of severe black lung afflicting younger coal miners, and studies implicated poorly controlled silica as the likely cause.“It should shock the conscience to know that there’s people in this country that do incredibly hard work that we all benefit from that are already disabled before they reach the age of 40,” said Chris Williamson, head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, which is issuing the rule. “We knew that the existing standard was not protective enough.”The new requirements are to be announced by Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su at an event in Pennsylvania Tuesday morning. They come eight years after a sister agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, issued similar protections for workers in other industries, such as construction, countertop manufacturing and fracking.Both mine safety advocates and industry groups generally support the rule’s central change: halving the allowed concentration of silica dust. But their views on the rule, proposed last July, diverge sharply over enforcement, with mining trade groups arguing that the requirements are unnecessarily broad and costly, and miners’ advocates cautioning that companies are largely left to police themselves.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.

Published9 minutes agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesBy Philippa RoxbyHealth reporterFootball commentator Martin Tyler’s voice is his stock in trade.It has given him a career that has lasted 50 years and been the soundtrack to some of the game’s most dramatic moments – remember “Agüeroooo!” when Manchester City won the Premier League title in 2012?So when Tyler overused his voice at the 2022 World Cup finals, in Qatar, and doctors realised his vocal chords could have been permanently damaged, it was “frightening”.But after two operations at St George’s Hospital, in south-west London, and a course of “amazing” speech therapy, the most recognisable voice in football is back – and on television again.This is the first time the former Sky Sports commentator has talked about nearly losing his voice.And he pays tribute to the “wonderful people in the NHS” who helped him regain it.’Serious help'”My voice is my identity – it’s the hub of my life,” Tyler, 78, says. “It didn’t mean anything to me before – but it now means not taking my voice for granted.” Six weeks after returning from Qatar, Tyler noticed his voice “wasn’t quite right and had lost a bit of power”. The dry climate and air conditioning could have contributed, he says, and he concedes he was also commentating on a lot of matches on his own, rather than with a colleague.Hoping it was just the effects of hay fever, Tyler hid the issue and waited for his voice to recover. On some occasions before commentating, he confesses he would stay silent in the lead up to the match and then shout his way through the 90 minutes.But a few months later, in spring 2023, he realised he needed “serious help”.Image source, St George’s HospitalIn an exploratory operation, doctors at St George’s found keratosis – lesions or white patches on the vocal chords in Tyler’s throat – due to the growth of the protein keratin, usually found in skin and hair.A second operation, to treat the issue, was successful – but he needed speech therapy to return his voice to normal.”I couldn’t answer the phone, couldn’t talk for a sentence,” Tyler says.”It was a slow process to recover from the operation,” although he was never in pain.The thought of not being able to talk to friends and family scared Tyler the most.And he credits NHS speech therapist Elissa Finn for giving him confidence and reassurance when he was at his lowest.”She had me blowing bubbles in water and making all sort of strange noises in her sessions,” Tyler says.Image source, St George’s Hospital”I couldn’t have asked for more from Elissa and from everyone else.” Ms Finn says losing your voice can be a “scary thing”. She regularly provides counselling and voice therapy to those, such as teachers, singers and barristers, who use their voice in their professional careers. In Tyler’s case, this started soon after surgery, with breathing and projection exercises over a few months, to help the healing process. This focuses on the vocal folds at the top of the airway which vibrate to create sound.Ms Finn also advised him to drink plenty of water, little and often, inhale steam and take “voice naps”.There are lots of reasons why someone can lose their voice, she says. Dry climates, allergies, long flights can all cause dryness and irritation – and some people are more susceptible.Since returning to the commentary box in October, with Premier League Productions, Tyler has completed 45 games, going from one a month to two in two days.He says they stood by him when he wasn’t able to do his job and were happy to wait until he’d properly recovered.It is late after Chelsea’s 6-0 win over Everton – and Tyler is already thinking of how he will protect his voice when he gets home. He says he’ll drink lots of water and then do chanting number routines in the morning, before commentating on Barcelona and Paris Saint Germain’s Champions League game this evening.So how long can he continue? “It won’t be the voice that stops me,” Tyler says. “I’ve been very lucky.”

Published15 minutes agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesThe Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to effectively ban smoking in the UK.On Tuesday, MPs are debating the government’s plans to create a “smoke-free generation”, and avoid almost half a million deaths by the end of the century.What is the smoking ban?The restrictions will apply to the sale of cigarettes in the UK rather than the act of smoking itself. Under the new law, each year the legal age for cigarette sales – currently 18 – will increase by one year. It means that people born in or after 2009 will never be able to legally buy cigarettes, leading to an effective ban.The law will not affect those who are allowed to buy cigarettes now.To crack down on underage sales, the government says it will introduce £100 on-the-spot fines for shops in England and Wales which sell tobacco and vapes to underage people. Local authorities would retain the proceeds to reinvest into enforcement of the law. This would be on top of £2,500 fines which local councils can already impose.The government says it will spend £30m on enforcement, which will include tackling the availability of cigarettes on the black market.They new rules will apply in all duty free shops in the UK, but anyone buying cigarettes abroad would be able to bring them back to the UK as long as they were legally acquired elsewhere.The government aims to have the new system in force by 2027.Mr Sunak wants to work with the governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to introduce the legislation across the UK. How bad is smoking, and how many deaths does it lead to?Cigarettes release thousands of different chemicals when they burn, including carbon monoxide, lead, and ammonia.Many components of tobacco are poisonous, and up to 70 cause cancer.Smoking is also linked to other serious illnesses, including lung disease, heart disease and strokes.The government says it is still the number one preventable cause of death, disability and ill health, causing around 80,000 deaths per year across the UK, and costing the NHS and the economy an estimated £17bn every year, According to the government, creating a “smoke-free generation” could prevent more than 470,000 cases of heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and other diseases by the end of the century.Image source, Getty ImagesThe Tobacco and Vapes Bill also restricts vaping. Vaping is less harmful than smoking cigarettes but is not risk-free. Health experts agree that anyone who doesn’t already smoke should not start vaping.Children’s doctors warn vaping may cause long-term damage to young people’s lungs, hearts and brains.Vaping is too recent an activity for any long-term effects to have become clear, but the NHS says it “unlikely to be totally harmless”.The government has already announced plans to ban disposable vapes in England as soon as April 2025, and hopes to extend this ban across the UK as well. The contents, flavours and packaging of nicotine vapes will also be restricted in order to make them less attractive to children. A new tax on vaping will be introduced from October 2026. Vaping alternatives – such as nicotine pouches – will also be outlawed for children.What is a the disposable vape ban and the vaping tax?Never start vaping, says girl with lung damageWhat is happening to smoking rates in the UK?Smoking rates in older teens remain high – more than 12% of 16- to 17-year-olds smoke in England.Although the number of 11-17 year olds who smoke cigarettes has gone down in the last decade, the popularity of vaping has increased in this age group, with disposable vapes being the most popular type.According the Office for National Statistics (ONS),12.9% of people aged 18 years and over in the UK – or around 6.4 million people – smoked cigarettes in 2022. This is the lowest proportion of current smokers since records began in 2011.The 25-34 age group has the highest proportion of smokers, while the lowest was among those aged 65 and over.Of the UK nations, England has the lowest proportion of current smokers and Wales had the highest.Smokers increasingly overestimate vaping risk, study suggestsSmoking decline stalls since Covid pandemic, study findsAre other countries banning smoking? The UK’s approach is thought to have been inspired by a policy in New Zealand.The country’s previous government planned to ban anyone born after 2008 from buying cigarettes or tobacco products in their lifetime. But, in November 2023, the current government said it will scrap the law to help fund tax cuts.Mexico has some of the strictest anti-smoking laws in the world, including smoking bans at beaches, parks and in some cases private homes. Portugal aims to have a “smoke-free generation” by 2040, and wants to pass a law that would stop bars, cafes and petrol stations from selling tobacco products. Canada is hoping to reduce tobacco use to less than 5% by 2035 and earlier this year, became the first country to rule that health warnings should be printed on individual cigarettes.Guide to smoking bans around the world

In the year after a pandemic-era policy preserving Medicaid coverage lapsed, more than 20 million people were dropped from the program at some point.Lindsey McNeil and her 7-year-old daughter, Noelle, who suffers from cerebral palsy and epilepsy, were jolted by an alert they received from Florida’s Department of Children and Families late last month that Noelle would be losing her Medicaid coverage 10 days later.Their lives have since begun to unravel, Ms. McNeil said. Noelle has stopped seeing the four therapists she visits each week and is running low on medications she needs to prevent her seizures from flaring up. Monday brought a measure of relief: Ms. McNeil learned that Noelle’s coverage had been temporarily reinstated as they wait for a resolution to an appeal filed with the state.“We’ve worked really hard to grow our family and our life and a home for this child,” Ms. McNeil said. “It’s a little daunting to think about what she may lose, and what we may not be able to provide for her.”Noelle was one of the most recent casualties of the unwinding of a pandemic-era federal policy that required states to keep people on Medicaid, the health insurance program that covers low-income Americans, in exchange for more federal funding. While the policy was in place, enrollees were spared regular eligibility checks. Enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program swelled to a record of more than 90 million, and the nation’s uninsured rate dropped to record lows.But the policy lapsed at the start of April last year, allowing states to resume trimming their rolls, and the so-called unwinding process that ensued has had far-reaching effects. More than 20 million Americans lost Medicaid at some point in the past year, according to KFF, a nonprofit health policy research group — an unprecedented event in the joint federal-state program’s nearly 60-year history.Noelle was one of the most recent casualties of the unwinding of a pandemic-era federal policy that required states to keep people on Medicaid in exchange for more federal funding.Thomas Simonetti for The New York TimesWe 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.

Published2 days agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesBy Jennifer ClarkeBBC NewsA spring Covid booster is being offered to those most at risk from the virus across the UK. Some pharmacies have also started selling the jab privately. Who can have a spring Covid booster?Fewer people are entitled to a spring booster than were offered a jab during the autumn campaign. The eligible groups are:adults who will be aged 75 years and over by 30 June 2024people in care homes for older adultsindividuals aged six months and over who are immunosuppressedVaccines will be available at pharmacies, GP practices and some drop-in vaccination centres. How do I book a spring booster? The NHS is sending texts, emails, NHS App messages or letters to those who are eligible but you do not have to wait for the invite.Those who qualify can book an appointment via the NHS App, the NHS website, by calling 119, or by visiting a drop-in clinic. Those at highest risk are being invited first.You will generally be invited to have your booster around six months after your last dose but you can have it after three months. Spring vaccinations will be available until 30 June. NHS England: Covid vaccinationNHS Scotland: Covid vaccinationPublic Health Wales: Covid vaccinationNI Direct: Covid vaccinationWhich vaccine will people get?Vaccines from four different companies are in use across the UK: Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Sanofi/GSK and Novavax. Those getting the spring booster will be given an mRNA vaccine made by either Pfizer or Moderna. Both have been updated to help protect against more recent strains of Covid. People are advised to take whichever they are offered, as all provide protection against severe illness or death.Covid vaccine safety – What we knowWhat if I have not had a Covid jab before?If you meet the criteria for a booster but have not had either of the first two doses of the vaccine – or a third dose for those with a weakened immune system – the government recommends getting a jab during the 2024 spring campaign.Similarly, if you qualify but missed an earlier booster dose, you can have another jab this spring to catch up. If you have a severely weakened immune system, your doctor may advise you to have an extra dose three months after the spring booster.Covid jab skipped by 44%, entire UK study findsImage source, Getty ImagesCan I buy a Covid vaccine? A number of high street chemists and private clinics have started selling and administering the Pfizer Covid vaccine directly to the public. They range in price from around £45 to £99. You need to be aged 12 or above, and have not had a Covid vaccine in the previous three months. You also need to talk to a health professional to check that it is suitable. A protein-based booster vaccine made by Novavax, which works differently to the Pfizer and Moderna jabs, should also be available to buy soon. Moderna is also hoping to launch a combined flu and Covid vaccine in 2025.How long after having Covid can I have a jab?If you have Covid, or think you might, NHS advice is to delay vaccination until you feel better.It also recommends waiting if you have a high temperature or feel otherwise unwell with any illness. But there is no need to wait if you have recently recovered from Covid and feel well. The vaccines do not infect people with Covid and cannot cause positive test results. What to do if you have CovidWhy Covid is still flooring some peopleWhat are the side effects of the Covid vaccine?For most people, side effects are mild. The most common include a sore arm, headache, chills, fatigue and nausea.They are part of the body’s normal immune response to vaccination and tend to resolve within a day or two.This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.Very rarely myocarditis – inflammation of the heart muscle – has been linked to the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.It has also been listed as a rare possible side effect of the Novavax vaccine, after a very small number of cases were reported during clinical trials.There have also been extremely rare, but occasionally fatal, cases of people developing blood clots after taking the AstraZeneca vaccine.A very small number of people have experienced a severe allergic reaction after the Pfizer vaccine.Patients with serious allergies should talk to their healthcare professional before being vaccinated. German patient vaccinated against Covid 217 times

Published1 hour agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesBy Jennifer McKiernan & Helen CattBBC PoliticsMPs are to debate plans for some of the world’s toughest anti-tobacco laws.Rishi Sunak wants to make Generation Alpha, born since 2009, the UK’s first smoke-free generation in a major public health intervention.Anyone turning 15 from this year would be banned from ever buying cigarettes under the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which also makes vapes less appealing to children.A number of Tory MPs have told the BBC they won’t back the bill.Conservative MPs will get a free vote on it so they won’t be ordered to vote with the government, but the bill is likely to pass as it has Labour and Lib Dem support.The bill would make the sale of tobacco products, rather than the act of smoking, illegal.Tobacco use is the UK’s single biggest preventable cause of death, killing two-thirds of long-term users and causing 80,000 deaths every year.On top of that, a patient is admitted to hospital with a smoking-related condition, such as heart disease, strokes and lung cancer, almost every minute in England.A quick guide to smoking bans across the worldWill Rishi Sunak’s plan to ban smoking in UK work?How dangerous is vaping and how will the disposable vape ban work?Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said the bill would save thousands of lives and “ease the strain” on the NHS.She said: “Too many people know someone whose life has been tragically cut short or irreversibly changed because of smoking, which despite significant progress remains the UK’s biggest preventable killer.”The truth is that there is no safe level of tobacco consumption. It is uniquely harmful and that is why we are taking this important action today to protect the next generation.”Under the plans, trading standards officers would get new powers to issue on-the-spot £100 fines to shops selling tobacco or vapes to children, with all the money raised going towards further enforcement.There would also be new restrictions on flavours, packaging and the sale of vapes to make them less appealing to children.Figures show that one in five children has tried vaping despite it being illegal for under-18s, while the number of children using vapes has tripled in the past three years.’A game-changer’The bill is being given its second reading on Tuesday, which is the first opportunity for MPs to debate and vote on the broad issue, before more detailed scrutiny takes place in further stages.With Labour and the Liberal Democrats backing the bill, it’s almost certain to become law later this year.Speaking to BBC Breakfast, the Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said: ‘I’ve seen the health impacts of smoking tobacco, there’s no good outcome, it’s always bad, it’s the leading cause of preventable death in our country.”Some Tory MPs object to the plan because they believe it is unworkable, others because they say it’s un-Conservative. Some MPs intend to try to amend the legislation further along in the process. Opponents include former prime ministers Boris Johnson, who has called the plans “barmy”, and Liz Truss, who is expected to warn against “banning things” in the Commons debate.Ms Truss told the BBC’s Political Editor Chris Mason that plans to phase out smoking over time were “unconservative”.She said “we should absolutely protect children from damage and danger while they are developing decision-making capabilities”, but added: “We’re a free country. “We shouldn’t be telling people not to smoke and I worry about where it will lead.”As this would be a free vote, Tory MPs voting against the bill or abstaining would not be considered as rebelling. But it would still be embarrassing – and potentially problematic – for Mr Sunak if a sizeable chunk of his party chose not to back his policy.Another Tory MP who opposes the bill is Sir Simon Clarke, an ally of Ms Truss who served in her cabinet in 2022. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme it was far better to focus on education and the tax system to deter young people from smoking, rather than enforcing an outright ban.”[An outright ban] risks making smoking cooler, it certainly risks creating a black market, and it also risks creating an unmanageable problem for the authorities,” he said.But Luke Tryl, director of research organisation More in Common UK, told the same programme there was widespread public support for the bill, particularly among 2019 Conservative voters. “People like the government taking tough measures, particularly on public health and things that affect children and young people,” he said.Health organisations and charities have lined up to urge MPs to support the bill, including Dr Charmaine Griffiths, British Heart Foundation chief executive, who said the law would be a “game-changer”. She added: “Decisive action is needed to end this ongoing public health tragedy – we urge every MP to vote for this landmark legislation.”Professor Steve Turner, president of the Royal College for Paediatrics and Child Health, said the change would undoubtedly save lives.He said: “By stopping children and young people from becoming addicted to nicotine and tobacco we decrease their chances of developing preventable diseases later in life, and will protect children from the harms of nicotine addiction.”More on this storyDisposable bans will not work, says vape bossPublished26 MarchSmoking ban for those born after 2009 moves aheadPublished20 MarchSunak’s smoking ban is nuts, says Boris JohnsonPublished4 days agoRelated Internet LinksTobacco and Vapes Bill- smokefree generation factsheet – GOV.UKThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

A new USC-led study on rats that feasted on a high-fat, sugary diet raises the possibility that a junk food-filled diet in teens may disrupt their brains’ memory ability for a long time.
“What we see not just in this paper, but in some of our other recent work, is that if these rats grew up on this junk food diet, then they have these memory impairments that don’t go away,” said Scott Kanoski, a professor of biological sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “If you just simply put them on a healthy diet, these effects unfortunately last well into adulthood.”
The study appears in the May issue of the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.
In developing the study, Kanoski and lead author and postdoctoral research fellow Anna Hayes considered that prior research has shown a link between poor diet and Alzheimer’s disease. People who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease tend to have lower levels of a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine in the brain that is essential for memory and functions such as learning, attention, arousal and involuntary muscle movement.
The team wondered what this could mean for younger people who may be on a similar fat-filled, sugary Western diet, particularly during adolescence when their brain is undergoing significant development. By tracking the impact of the diet on the rats’ levels of acetylcholine, and running the rats through some memory testing, they could learn more about the important relationship between diet and memory.
The researchers tracked the acetylcholine levels of a group of rats on a fatty, sugary diet and in a control group of rats by analyzing their brain responses to certain tasks designed to test their memory. The team examined the rats’ brains post-mortem for signs of disrupted acetylcholine levels.
The memory test involved letting the rats explore new objects in different locations. Days later, the researchers reintroduced the rats to the scene that was nearly identical except for the addition of one new object. Rats on the junk food diet showed signs they could not remember which object they had previously seen, and where, while those in the control group showed familiarity.

“Acetylcholine signaling is a mechanism to help them encode and remember those events, analogous to ‘episodic memory’ in humans that allows us to remember events from our past,” lead author Hayes explained. “That signal appears to not be happening in the animals that grew up eating the fatty, sugary diet.”
Kanoski emphasized that adolescence is a very sensitive period for the brain when important changes are occurring in development. “I don’t know how to say this without sounding like Cassandra and doom and gloom,” he said, “but unfortunately, some things that may be more easily reversible during adulthood are less reversible when they are occurring during childhood.”
There is at least some hope for intervention. Kanoski said that in another round of the study, the research team examined whether the memory damage in rats raised on the junk food diet could be reversed with medication that induces the release of acetylcholine. They used two drugs, PNU-282987 and carbachol, and found that with those treatments given directly to the hippocampus, a brain region that controls memory and is disrupted in Alzheimer’s disease, the rats’ memory ability was restored.
But without that special medical intervention, Kanoski said more research is needed to know how memory problems from a junk food diet during adolescence can be reversed.
In addition to Kanoski and Hayes, the team included other USC Dornsife researchers Logan Tierno Lauer, Alicia E. Kao, Molly E. Klug, Linda Tsan, Jessica J. Rea, Keshav S. Subramanian, Cindy Gu, Arun Ahuja, Kristen N. Donohue and Léa Décarie-Spain; Natalie Tanios of Keck School of Medicine of USC; as well as Anthony A. Fodor, Shan Sun of University of North Carolina-Charlotte.
The work was supported by the following: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases grant DK123423 (SEK, AF), National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases grant DK104897 (SEK), Postdoctoral Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institute on Aging F32AG077932 (AMRH), National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships (separate awards to LT and KSS), Quebec Research Funds postdoctoral fellowship 315201 (LDS) and the Alzheimer’s Association Research Fellowship to Promote Diversity AARFD-22-972811 (LDS).

People who as teenagers felt pressure to lose weight from family or from the media, females, people who are not heterosexual, and people experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage, are most at risk of ‘internalised’ weight stigma, new research led by the University of Bristol has found. The study is published in The Lancet Regional Health Europe today [15 April].
‘Internalised’ weight stigma, is when people apply negative obesity-related stereotypes to themselves, such as thinking they are less attractive, less competent, or less valuable as a person because of their weight. This is the first time a study has used a large UK sample to examine who is most at risk.
In England, around one in four people are living with obesity, but it is highly stigmatised. Negative obesity-related stereotypes and weight-related discrimination are widespread in society. Experience of weight stigma is a major public health issue: people affected by weight stigma are more likely to have poor mental health, eating disorders and may delay seeking medical treatment. However, little is known about which population groups are at higher risk of internalised weight stigma, because previous research has used small, nonrepresentative samples.
Using data from Bristol’s Children of the 90s (also known as the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children), this new study examined differences in internalised weight stigma in over 4,000 people aged 31 years by sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic factors, sexual orientation, and family and wider social influences in childhood and adolescence.
The research found that feeling pressure from family to lose weight, weight-related teasing by family members, and feeling pressure from the media to lose weight as a teenager were all linked to higher levels of internalised weight stigma at age 31, and this was not explained by differences in body mass index (BMI). Being bullied in adolescence (at age 17 years) and adulthood (at age 23 years) were also independently linked to internalised weight stigma at age 31.
The study also found there are clear differences in internalised weight stigma between other groups of the population, which were also not explained by differences in BMI. Females and people who did not identify as heterosexual are at greater risk of internalized weight stigma. People who had spent more of their 20’s as NEETs (not in education, employment or training), or whose mothers had fewer educational qualifications, are also more at risk of internalised weight stigma.
Dr Amanda Hughes, Research Fellow in the Bristol Medical School: Population Health Sciences (PHS) and corresponding author, said: “The family environment in adolescence, bullying, and pressure to lose weight from the media may have long-lasting impacts on how people value themselves based on their weight as adults.
“We have an opportunity to reduce weight stigma and its consequences by changing how we discuss weight in the media, in public spaces and in families, and how we respond to bullying in schools, workplaces, and other settings.
“This is crucial considering how common pressure to lose weight and weight-related bullying, stigma and discrimination are in many cultures around the world.”
The researchers now plan to explore in detail the psychological processes by which these social factors may influence internalised weight stigma.