Publisher Health

Getty ImagesWhen you think of new year’s resolutions, a 75-day workout might not top the list.

BBCPlans for an upgraded NHS App to allow more patients in England to book treatments and appointments will be part of a package of measures unveiled by the government on Monday.

Dr. Vivek Murthy’s report cites studies linking alcoholic beverages to at least seven malignancies, including breast cancer. But to add warning labels, Congress would have to act.Alcohol is a leading cause of cancer, and alcoholic beverages should carry a warning label as packs of cigarettes do, the U.S. surgeon general said on Friday.It is the latest salvo in a fierce debate about the risks and benefits of moderate drinking as the influential U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans are about to be updated. For decades, moderate drinking was said to help prevent heart attacks and strokes. That perception is embedded in the dietary advice given to Americans. But growing research has linked drinking, sometimes even within the recommended limits, to various types of cancer. Labels currently affixed to bottles and cans of alcoholic beverages warn about drinking while pregnant or before driving and operating other machinery, and about general “health risks.”But alcohol directly contributes to 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 related deaths each year, the surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, said.He called for updating the labels to include a heightened risk of breast cancer, colon cancer and at least five other malignancies now linked by scientific studies to alcohol consumption.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.

The number of people with flu in hospital in England has risen sharply over Christmas, NHS chiefs warn.

The woman, a field geologist, was healthy and active, yet she would pass out at inopportune moments.The day was sweltering. The 61-year-old woman urged her donkey into a trot. She loved riding around the ring on the beautiful white beast — at a walk, then a trot, then a canter. Suddenly she noticed a tingling in her hands and feet spreading toward her torso. She recognized the sensation but willed herself to ignore it. It didn’t work. Her strength seemed to melt away, and before she could say or do anything, she felt herself slumping forward. As the world turned gray, the donkey stopped. Her arms, and then her body, slid down the animal’s sweaty neck and onto the ground. Then everything went black.She woke up looking at her donkey’s snow-white belly. He leaned down and nickered softly, then brayed at the approaching instructor. Are you OK? The instructor called out in alarm. Should I call an ambulance? She was fine, the woman assured the instructor. It was just that hot weather could really get to her. She allowed herself to be helped over to the cool darkness of the barn. As she lay on the damp concrete floor, warm tears made their way down her face. I can’t keep going like this, she thought.She first fainted maybe four years earlier. She was at the gym, finishing up a brisk walk on the treadmill, when she felt the odd tingling. Black dots swam in front of her eyes, and she heard the thump of her head hitting the wall of windows in front of her. Then the black took over. She awakened surrounded by worried faces. It was strange — she was an active person. Her job as a field geologist kept her hiking and climbing regularly.She went to her primary care provider, a nurse practitioner. She had high blood pressure, the N.P. said, but was otherwise healthy. The woman was sent to a local cardiologist. Yes, she told that doctor, she did get out of breath more easily than she used to. And yes, sometimes she did get more tired than she expected. But no, she never had chest pain or pressure. Mostly she felt fine. And she didn’t faint often: a few times a year, mostly in the summer when she was exerting herself in the heat. She had an exercise stress test and, when that was normal, a scan in which a radioactive dye outlined how effectively her heart was beating. It was also normal. So was an echocardiogram.So the woman’s N.P. focused on her blood pressure and improvements to her diet. But even when her blood pressure seemed to be perfect, every now and then she would find herself on the ground looking up at concerned faces.A Hard Look at Her HeartIt was after the fall from the donkey that the woman decided she needed a new set of eyes on her problem. She made an appointment with Dr. David Ramos, a cardiologist at a Columbia New York-Presbyterian office in Monroe, N.Y., near her home in the village of Piermont. It took months to get in. But when she finally met Ramos, he listened thoughtfully as she described her worsening sense of being out of breath, her increasing fatigue during even mild exertion, the repeated blacking out. An exam was unremarkable. Ramos reviewed her records. Fainting, known medically as syncope, is a common enough problem caused by diminished blood flow to the brain. Forty percent of us will faint at least once in our lives. And for most of us, it will be only once, triggered by a sudden change in either blood pressure or heart rate, often in reaction to a medication or some type of emotional or physical stress.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.

Meg HughesA mother is urging parents to get their children vaccinated after losing one of her baby twins to flu on Christmas Day.

Getty ImagesProposals on the long-term funding of adult social care in England are unlikely to be delivered before 2028 at the earliest, the government has confirmed.

The administration is committing an additional $306 million toward battling the virus, and will distribute the money before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office.The Biden administration, in a final push to shore up the nation’s pandemic preparedness infrastructure before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office, announced on Thursday that it is committing an additional $306 million toward efforts to ward off a potential outbreak of bird flu in humans.Federal health officials have been keeping a close eye on H5N1, a strain of avian influenza that is highly contagious and lethal to chickens, and has spread to cattle. The virus has not yet demonstrated that it can spread efficiently among people.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the current risk to humans remains low, and that pasteurized milk products remain safe to consume. But should human-to-human transmission become commonplace, experts fear a pandemic that could be far more deadly than Covid-19.The Biden administration has already spent about $1.8 billion battling bird flu since the spring of last year; $1.5 billion of that was spent by the federal Agriculture Department on fighting the virus among animals. The remainder has been spent by the Health and Human Services Department on efforts to protect people, according to federal officials.The additional $306 million will go toward improving hospital preparedness, early stage research on therapeutics, diagnostics and vaccines. About $103 million will help maintain state and local efforts to track and test people exposed to infected animals, and for outreach to livestock workers and others at high risk.The funds will be distributed in the next two weeks, Dr. Paul Friedrichs, the director of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, said in an interview Thursday.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.

PA MediaTemperatures have dropped as colder arctic air spreads across the UK, with amber cold weather health alerts in place ahead of a weekend of snow forecast for much of the country.

Stuart Woodward/BBCVisits have been severely restricted at a hospital battling a surge in flu cases.