Publisher Health

New Edith Cowan University (ECU) research has identified a crucial link between arthritis and the risk of serious liver disease in people with Australia’s most common genetic condition.
An estimated 100,000 Australians carry the high-risk genotype for Hemochromatosis, a condition affecting people of northern European descent which sees the body accumulate too much iron.
It can lead to many complications, one of the most serious being advanced hepatic fibrosis, which affects the liver and can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer.
However, early detection of advanced hepatic fibrosis can assist clinicians in identifying those most at risk and reducing the impact or occurrence of future complications.
ECU researchers collaborating with colleagues at the QIMR Berghofer Institute for Medical Research have discovered arthritis is a strong predictor for development of clinically important liver problems in people with Hemochromatosis.
Published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, the research studied 112 people with Hemochromatosis.

Inhaled nanoparticles — human-made specks so minuscule they can’t be seen in conventional microscopes, found in thousands of common products — can cross a natural, protective barrier that normally protects fetuses, according to Rutgers University scientists studying factors that produce low-birth-weight babies.
The scientists reported in the medical journal Placenta they were able to track the movement of nanoparticles made of metal titanium dioxide through the bodies of pregnant rats. After the nanoparticles were inhaled into the lungs of the rodents, some of them escaped this initial barrier. From there, the particles flowed through the placentas, which generally filter out foreign substances to protect the fetus.
“The particles are small and really hard to find,” said Phoebe Stapleton, an author and an assistant professor at Rutgers Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy and a faculty member at Rutgers Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute. “But, using some specialized techniques, we found evidence that the particles can migrate from the lung to the placenta and possibly the fetal tissues after maternal exposure throughout pregnancy. The placenta does not act as a barrier to these particles. Nor do the lungs.”
Most nanoparticles are engineered, with few produced naturally. These particles are used in thousands of products, from sunscreens to pharmaceuticals to sports equipment. They are highly valued because they can enhance the effectiveness of drugs and produce sturdy-though-lightweight products.
Nanoparticles are so named because they are less than 100 nanometers wide, meaning they are tens of thousands of times smaller than the diameter of a single human hair. Despite their usefulness, nanoscale materials are poorly understood, with “very little known about the potential effects on human health and the environment,” according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
During the experiment, scientists were surprised to also detect titanium dioxide in the “control” group of rats that hadn’t been given nanoparticles to inhale. It turns out the food given to the animals contained titanium dioxide. As a result, the researchers were able to observe the path the metal took through a rat’s body.
The research emerged from investigations into the causes of low birth weight in human infants. Newborns weighing less than 5.5 pounds can suffer adverse health effects as infants and throughout their lives.
According to Stapleton, one theory is mothers who give birth to babies with low birth weights may have inhaled harmful particulates. The resulting inflammation may affect bodily systems, such as blood flow in the uterus, that could inhibit growth of the fetus.
“Now that we know that the nanoparticles migrate — from the mother’s lungs to the placenta and fetal tissues — we can work on answering other questions,” Stapleton said. “This detail of transfer will help inform future studies of exposure during pregnancy, fetal health, and the developmental onset of disease.”
Other Rutgers authors on the paper included Brian Buckley and Cathleen Doherty at the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, and Jeanine D’Errico and Jarett Reyes George at the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy.
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Materials provided by Rutgers University. Original written by Kitta MacPherson. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Mitochondria release chemical energy and influence metabolic pathways that keep our cells and tissues healthy. Damage to these multifunctional powerhouses promotes cell death and disease.
To prevent “mitochondrial meltdown,” our cells destroy defective mitochondria using a specialised recycling process termed “mitophagy.” Mitophagy is implicated in many diseases and is a major pharmaceutical target for neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.
Unexpected insights into metabolism, mitophagy and movement
An international team of researchers studied a therapeutic molecule used to promote high levels of mitophagy and found that many metabolic pathways involving lipids were rapidly “rewired” before mitochondrial recycling took place. The results are now published in the EMBO Journal.
“Surprisingly, the activity of a protein called DGAT1 is switched on to generate specialised structures known as lipid droplets, typically used to store fat. By impairing DGAT activity, we observed the disappearance of lipid droplets and reduced mitochondrial recycling, and cells were more vulnerable to stress and death,” says Assistant Professor Thomas McWilliams, who led the study.
Remarkably, when the DGAT1 gene was switched off in the brains of reporter flies, both mitophagy and motor function of the animals were severely impacted.
A discovery forged from iron
The study also makes unexpected insights into iron, an essential cofactor for life. The therapeutic molecule used to induce mitophagy is a chelator, a potent drug that depletes cellular iron and researchers found surprisingly rapid effects of its depletion on cellular metabolism. McWilliams says:
“Iron homeostasis represents an ancient function of the mitochondrial network, and iron depletion after many hours promotes mitochondrial recycling. Postdoctoral researcher Maeve Long performed a series of ambitious experiments in my lab, profiling human cells after mere minutes of deferiprone exposure. Our collaborators then mapped very dynamic changes in metabolism in advance of mitophagy. This led us to study lipid crosstalk in further detail, with our Cambridge collaborators highlighting the significance of this synergy in vivo.”
Little is known about the factors that regulate physiological mitophagy, and this work opens new avenues for targeting this process. Commenting further, McWilliams adds:
“Defective mitochondrial recycling is problematic for cell types that are very long-lived, such as nerve cells in the brain. Neurodegenerative pathology is often progressive, taking place over many years. When mitophagy is defective, it’s reasonable that cells might adapt and utilise additional strategies to stay alive. Much more work is needed, but this is an unexpected and exciting find.”
The study was led by Assistant Professor Thomas McWilliams at the University of Helsinki in collaboration with Academy Professor Elina Ikonen and researchers at the Swedish Metabolomics Centre (Umeå, SE), Dr Alex Whitworth at the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit (Cambridge, UK) and Dr Ian Ganley at the MRC Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit (Dundee, Scotland).
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Materials provided by University of Helsinki. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

The brain has the ability to modify the contacts between neurons. Among other things, that is how it prevents brain activity from getting out of control. Researchers from the University Hospital Bonn, together with a team from Australia, have identified a mechanism that plays an important role in this. In cultured cells, this mechanism alters the synaptic coupling of neurons and thus stimulus transmission and processing. If it is disrupted, disorders such as epilepsy, schizophrenia or autism may be the result. The findings are published in the journal Cell Reports.
Almost 100 billion nerve cells perform their service in the human brain. Each of these has an average of 1,000 contacts with other neurons. At these so-called synapses, information is passed on between the nerve cells.
However, synapses are much more than simple wiring. This can already be seen in their structure: They consist of a kind of transmitter device, the presynapse, and a receiver structure, the postsynapse. Between them lies the synaptic cleft. This is actually very narrow. Nevertheless, it prevents the electrical impulses from being easily transmitted. Instead, the neurons in a sense shout their information to each other across the gap.
For this purpose, the presynapse is triggered by incoming voltage pulses to release certain neurotransmitters. These cross the synaptic cleft and dock to specific “antennae” on the postsynaptic side. This causes them to also trigger electrical pulses in the receiver cell. “However, the amount of neurotransmitter released by the presynapse and the extent to which the postsynapse responds to it are strictly regulated in the brain,” explains Prof. Dr. Susanne Schoch McGovern of the Department of Neuropathology at University Hospital Bonn.
Sophisticated control mechanisms
For instance, certain synapses are strengthened during learning: Even a weak electrical stimulus from the transmitter neuron is then sufficient to trigger a strong response in the receiver cell. In contrast, little-used synapses atrophy. Furthermore, sophisticated control mechanisms prevent the electrical activity in the brain from spreading too far — or, conversely, from fading away too quickly. “We also speak of synaptic homeostasis,” explains Prof. Dr. Dirk Dietrich from the Department of Neurosurgery at the University Hospital. “It ensures that brain activity is always within a healthy range.”
However, the processes that maintain this balance are only partially understood. One mechanism by which the brain responds to long-lasting changes in neuronal activity is known as homeostatic plasticity. “We have now shown that a protein called RIM1 plays a key role in this process,” says Schoch McGovern. RIM1 is clustered in the so-called “active zone” of the presynapse — the area where neurotransmitters are released.

Most drugs used today have only one mechanism of action and it is both difficult and expensive to manufacture drugs with multiple functions. Researchers at Aarhus University have recently found a way to create more stable nanostructures that can assemble biomolecules with different functions, which in combination e.g., can provide more effective cancer medicine.
For millennia, DNA has played a central role in storing each cell’s genetic information and consists of strands with a specific sequence of four different building blocks. These DNA strands are copied by the cell at each cell division in an extremely well-orchestrated way, but amazingly, this sophisticated machinery is governed by very simple rules.
In recent years, it has been found to utilize these simple rules not only in the context of genetic engineering, but also to construct useful DNA nanostructures by designing DNA strands. These DNA nanostructures have been shown to have a number of useful biomedical functions such as to be able to transport cancer drugs to exact places in the body where they are needed. This can increase the effect of the medication as well as provide fewer side effects compared to conventional cancer treatment.
DNA nanostructures are also increasingly used as a tool to bind and assemble biomolecules, into multifunctional structures. One of these DNA nanostructures used forms a branched structure with four ends (see illustration), called 4-way junctions (4WJ), which are also found naturally.
With specially designed versions of these 4WJ structures, for example, Harvard Medical School in Boston has managed to bind and collect various antibodies, which in combination ensured that T cells attacked aggressive cancer cells more intensively and thus killed tumors.
Enhanced DNA nanostructures with artificial building blocks
Researchers who are part of the Center for Multifunctional Biomolecular Drug Design (CEMBID) at Aarhus University are also working on finding new ways to link different drugs to achieve more and more effective mechanisms of action. The research group, led by Professor Kurt Gothelf, has just published an article in the acclaimed journal Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed. with results involving above mentioned 4WJ structures, but in an improved version. The work was performed in collaboration with the groups of Jørgen Kjems and Ken Howard who are also part of CEMBID.

Following a Mediterranean-style diet during pregnancy was associated with a reduced risk of developing preeclampsia, and Black women appeared to have the greatest reduction of risk, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access, peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association.
Previous studies have found that following a Mediterranean diet, which consists primarily of vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, olive oil, whole grains, and fish, reduces heart disease risk in adults.
Preeclampsia, a condition during pregnancy characterized by severe high blood pressure and liver or kidney damage, is a major cause of complications and death for the mother and her unborn child. Preeclampsia also increases a woman’s risk of heart diseases, such as high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke or heart failure, by more than two times later in life. Women with preeclampsia have a higher risk of preterm delivery (giving birth before 37 weeks gestation) or low birth weight babies, and children born to mothers with preeclampsia are also at higher risk of developing high blood pressure and heart disease.
Black women are at higher risk of developing preeclampsia, yet research on potential treatments for high-risk women are limited, according to the study researchers. The researchers investigated the potential association of a Mediterranean-style diet among a large group of racially and ethnically diverse women who have a high risk of preeclampsia.
“The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries, and preeclampsia contributes to it,” said Anum S. Minhas, M.D., M.H.S., chief cardiology fellow and a cardio-obstetrics and advanced imaging fellow at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “Given these health hazards to both mothers and their children, it is important to identify modifiable factors to prevent the development of preeclampsia, especially among Black women who are at the highest risk of this serious pregnancy complication.”
This study included data for more than 8,500 women enrolled between 1998 and 2016 in the Boston Birth Cohort. Participants’ median age was 25 years old, and they were recruited from Boston Medical Center, which serves a predominantly urban, low-income, under-represented racial and ethnic population. Nearly half of the participants were Black women (47%), about a quarter were Hispanic women(28%) and the remaining were white women or “other” race, according to self-reported information on a postpartum questionnaire. Researchers created a Mediterranean-style diet score based on participants’ responses to food frequency interviews and questionnaires, which were conducted within three days of giving birth.
The analysis found: 10% of the study participants developed preeclampsia. Women who had any form of diabetes before pregnancy and pre-pregnancy obesity were twice as likely to develop preeclampsia compared to women without those conditions. The risk of preeclampsia was more than 20% lower among the women who followed a Mediterranean-style diet during pregnancy. Black women who had the lowest Mediterranean-style diet scores had the highest risk (78%) for preeclampsia compared to all other non-Black women who more closely adhered to the Mediterranean-style diet.”We were surprised that women who more frequently ate foods in the Mediterranean-style diet were significantly less likely to develop preeclampsia, with Black women experiencing the greatest reduction in risk,” Minhas said. “This is remarkable because there are very few interventions during pregnancy that are found to produce any meaningful benefit, and medical treatments during pregnancy must be approached cautiously to ensure the benefits outweigh the potential risks to the mother and the unborn child.”
Minhas added, “Women should be encouraged to follow a healthy lifestyle, including a nutritious diet and regular exercise, at all stages in life. Eating healthy foods regularly, including vegetables, fruits and legumes, is especially important for women during pregnancy. Their health during pregnancy affects their future cardiovascular health and also impacts their baby’s health.”
The study’s limitations are related to the food frequency interviews: they were conducted once after the pregnancy, and they relied on self-reported information about which foods were eaten and how frequently they were eaten.
Co-authors are Xiumei Hong, M.D., Ph.D.; Guoying Wang, M.D., Ph.D.; Dong Keun Rhee, R.D., M.S.P.H.; Tiange Liu, M.H.S., M.B.B.S.; Mingyu Zhang, M.H.S.; Erin D. Michos, M.D., M.H.S.; Xiaobin Wang, M.D., Sc.D.; and Noel T. Mueller, Ph.D. Authors’ disclosures are listed in the manuscript.
The Boston Birth Cohort Study was supported in part by the March of Dimes; the National Institutes of Health; and the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Additional funding to authors is listed in the manuscript.

Geoengineering the climate would have massive repercussions for the health of billions of people at risk of malaria who live in tropical countries, according to a new finding by scientists at Georgetown University Medical Center and colleagues. The study appeared April 20, 2022, in Nature Communications.
This is the first assessment of how geoengineering the climate could impact the burden of infectious diseases. The study focuses on solar radiation management (SRM), an intervention that hypothesizes emergency actions aimed at reducing dangerous impacts of climate change. One action that has been proposed is injecting aerosols into the stratosphere that reflect incoming sunlight, thereby temporarily “pausing” global warming. Though SRM is often discussed as a way to reduce climate injustice, its potential impacts on health have seldom been studied.
“The implications of the study for decision-making are significant,” says Colin Carlson, PhD, an assistant research professor at the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University Medical Center and lead author of the study. “Geoengineering might save lives, but the assumption that it will do so equally for everyone might leave some countries at a disadvantage when it comes time to make decisions. If geoengineering is about protecting populations on the frontlines of climate change, we should be able to add up the risks and benefits — especially in terms of neglected health burdens, such as mosquito-borne disease.”
A team of eight researchers from the United States, Bangladesh, South Africa, and Germany used climate models to simulate what malaria transmission could look like in two future scenarios, with medium or high levels of global warming, with and without geoengineering. The models identify which temperatures are most conducive for transmission by the Anopheles mosquito and identify how many people live in areas where transmission is possible.
In both medium- and high-warming scenarios, malaria risk was predicted to shift significantly between regions; but in the high warming scenario, simulations found that a billion extra people were at risk of malaria in the geoengineered world.
“On a planet that’s too hot for humans, it also gets too hot for the malaria parasite,” says Carlson. “Cooling the planet might be an emergency option to save lives, but it would also reverse course on those declines.”
The study follows a 2018 commentary in Nature Climate Change by Carlson and the study’s senior author, Christopher Trisos, PhD, a senior researcher at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. In the commentary, the researchers proposed a hypothesis now confirmed in the new study: because malaria transmission peaks at 25°C, cooling the tropics using geoengineering might ultimately increase malaria risk in some places relative to an alternative future, but might also increase risk in the present day.
“The potential for geoengineering to reduce risks from climate change remains poorly understood, and it could introduce a range of new risks to people and ecosystems,” says Trisos.
Carlson says that one of the most surprising findings was the scale of potential trade-offs between regions. For example, in both scenarios, the authors found that geoengineering might substantially reduce malaria risk in the Indian subcontinent even compared to the present day. However, that protective effect would be offset with an increase in risk in southeast Asia. For decision-makers, this might complicate the geopolitical reality of climate intervention.
“We’re so early in this process that the conversation is still about increasing Global South leadership in geoengineering research. Our study highlights that the frontlines of climate injustice aren’t one monolithic bloc, especially when it comes to health,” says Carlson.
Additional study authors also included collaborators from the University of Maryland, College Park; the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh; the University of Florida, Gainesville; the Cologne University of Applied Sciences, Germany; and Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
The authors report having no personal financial interests related to the study. Funding for the study was provided by the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative (SRMGI) Developing Country Impacts Modeling Analysis for Solar Radiation Management (DECIMALS) grant program.

Every few months, like clockwork, hundreds of videos promising tips and tricks to “hack” your gut flood TikTok. In March, influencers pushed shots of aloe vera juice: “My digestive system, like my gut health? Never been better,” one gushed in a video with one million likes while tapping on a purple bottle of the drink. Another, with the username “oliveoilqueen,” advocated drinking extra virgin olive oil every day in a video viewed more than 3.5 million times, claiming that doing so cleared her skin, made her periods less painful and fixed her frequent bloating. Videos tagged with #guttok have garnered nearly 400 million views. They’re crammed with suggestions for cucumber-ginger juices and boiled apples, bone broth in the morning and sludgy sweet potato soups at night.There’s not enough data to prove whether any of these supposed fixes improve digestive functions, gastrointestinal experts said. Some purported gut-health helpers, like coconut oil, have high fat content that can loosen stool and irritate your stomach, said Beth Czerwony, a registered dietitian with the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Human Nutrition. Others, such as aloe vera juice, may cause diarrhea in some people. And since the Food and Drug Administration largely does not regulate supplements, gastroenterologists are reluctant to recommend the pills, powders and products promoted by influencers.“If somebody is claiming to have something that will immediately turn gut health around, you should be skeptical of that,” said Justin Sonnenburg, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford. Instead, his research points to long-term lifestyle habits that can benefit the gut — ones that rarely go viral or make their way to social media acclaim.How gut health went mainstreamThe online obsession with gut health is just one example of self-transformation content, said Stephanie Alice Baker, a senior lecturer in sociology at the City, University of London who studies online wellness culture. “What you see is this trend of self-optimization,” Dr. Baker said. The most popular #guttok videos tend to feature before and after pictures — the swell of bloating under a crop top becomes toned abs. In a culture that sometimes bristles at mentions of dieting or weight loss, framing these changes around a topic like gut health might be more palatable to an influencer’s audience, she said.There’s also an inherent intimacy that comes with talking about the gut, Dr. Baker said. Authenticity attracts an audience — and it’s hard to get more personal than talking about bowel movements.“That’s what people are referring to when they say gut health,” said Dr. Rabia De Latour, a gastroenterologist at NYU Langone Health. “They want to stamp a nice, pretty name on it, but it’s about pooping.”How do you know if you have poor gut health?There’s evidence to suggest that gut-related health conditions, particularly irritable bowel syndrome, have spiked over the past few decades, said Dr. Sonnenburg, a surge he attributes to the rise of processed and packaged foods. A global survey published in 2021 of over 73,000 adults from 33 countries found that more than 40 percent of respondents had gastrointestinal disorders, like irritable bowel syndrome or constipation.Chronic, unexplained abdominal pain, constipation and diarrhea are all signs of poor gut health, experts said. People may also feel sluggish, or “blah.”If you’re concerned about your gut, pay attention to the consistency of your stool, Dr. De Latour said; you want them to be soft, smooth and sausage shaped. The Bristol Stool Chart, a medical classification of seven groups of poop, can help determine whether or not your stool is healthy.Gut health can have long-term health consequences, doctors said. The gut is linked to the immune system and heart health, and emerging research is examining the link between gut flora and neurological disorders like Parkinson’s disease, said Dr. Reezwana Chowdhury, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Medicine.Issues with your gut could point to a larger health problem, she added, and people experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms like abdominal pain or chronic diarrhea should consult a doctor.What can you do to improve your gut health?Eat more fiberTwo kinds of fiber can aid your gut: soluble fiber — the gummy fibers we get from foods like oatmeal and apple skins — and insoluble fiber, which serves as a laxative that helps push food through the digestive system. Nuts, whole grains, beans and legumes can be good sources of insoluble fiber, Ms. Czerwony said.Be careful not to introduce a lot of fiber too quickly, though. You want to ease into any dietary changes, experts said, and steadily increase the amount of fiber-rich foods you add to your meals over a period of weeks.Limit processed foodsEmulsifiers that help keep packaged foods shelf-stabilized can erode the mucus barrier in your gut, Dr. Sonnenburg said, and artificial sweeteners found in many processed foods can lead to unhealthy gut microbes. Bacteria in the gut may quickly convert simple sugars and starches into gas, he said, causing bloating. This means that fast foods and processed foods — which Dr. Sonnenburg defines as foods with ingredients “your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food,” like additive chemicals — can contribute to poor gut health. The gut microbiome is fairly resilient, though, he said; the occasional ice-cream binge or gas-station snack won’t wreak havoc on your gut health.Opt for fermented foodsDr. Sonnenburg published a study in August showing that fermented foods like yogurt, kimchi, kefir, sauerkraut and kombucha can increase the diversity of bacteria in the gut. His research found that people who ate six servings of fermented foods each day saw these benefits — the equivalent of consuming one cup of yogurt, one 16-ounce bottle of kombucha and one cup of kimchi in a day.Past research has linked high levels of diversity in your gut microbiome to lower rates of obesity, diabetes and other health conditions.Lower your stress levelsThere’s a strong connection between the gut and the brain, Ms. Czerwony said. “If you’re stressed, if you’re not sleeping well, you might have gastrointestinal symptoms and think it’s from your diet. It could be from your lifestyle,” she said. Adequate levels of sleep, hydration and exercise are also linked to gut health, she said.Even a small amount of physical activity can help with digestion. “If you’re feeling sluggish and bloated, go for a walk,” she said.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesHealth officials say they are now investigating unexplained cases of hepatitis in children in four European countries and the US.Cases of hepatitis, or liver inflammation, have been reported in Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and the US, health officials say.Last week UK health authorities said they had detected higher than usual cases of the illness among children.The cause of the illness is not yet known.The European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) did not specify how many cases have been found in the four European countries in total.But the World Health Organization (WHO) said less than five had been found in Ireland, and three had been found in Spain. It added that the detection of more cases in the coming days was likely.Investigations into the cause of the illness are ongoing in all of the European countries where cases have been reported, said the ECDC.In the US, Alabama’s public health department said nine cases have been found in children aged one to six years old, with two needing liver transplants.Investigations into similar cases in other states are taking place, it added. The UK is where the highest number of cases has been reported – with a total of 74 recorded so far.Last week the UK Health Security Agency said the usual viruses that cause infectious hepatitis (hepatitis A to E) have not been detected among the cases in the UK.As a result, investigators are looking at other possible causes, and believe that the common adenovirus could be the cause.Adenoviruses are a family of viruses that usually cause a range of mild illnesses such as colds, vomiting and diarrhoea.It did however say that other possible causes of the illness are also being investigated, and it had not ruled out Covid-19. It added that there is no apparent link with Covid-19 vaccines. What is hepatitis?It’s a broad term used to describe inflammation of the liver.Usually the result of a viral infection, it can also be caused by exposure to some chemicals, drinking too much alcohol, drugs and certain genetic disorders.There are five main types of hepatitis caused by specific viruses – known as A, B, C, D and E – but none of those appear to have caused the liver inflammation seen in these children so far.Some types of hepatitis can pass without any serious problems, while others can be long-lasting.UK health authorities said parents should be on the lookout for symptoms such as jaundice.Source: Hepatitis – NHSMore on this storyUK officials investigate 74 child hepatitis casesRise in childhood hepatitis – what we know so farCases of hepatitis in young children investigated

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty Images “How old are you”? It’s a simple question with a clear answer. But for those in South Korea, answering this question is anything but straightforward. In South Korea, when a baby is born they are considered a year old. Come New Year’s Day, they gain another year. This means a baby born in December would be considered to be two years old in just a few weeks. But this “Korean age” method may soon change as the country’s president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol is pushing for this centuries-old method of counting to be abolished. Lee Yong-ho, the chief of the president-elect’s transition committee, said the incoming administration was looking to standardise the way age is counted in order to bring South Korea in line with the rest of the world. He said the different age calculations had resulted in “persistent confusion” and “unnecessary social and economic costs”.The new proposal seems to have been widely embraced by some – but experts say they have doubts as to whether it will actually be implemented. One question, three answers There are three ways to count one’s age in Korea.Officially, the country has used the international counting system, using a person’s birth date, in most legal definitions and administrative processes since 1962.The country also has another official way to count age, in which babies are born at the age of 0, and gain a year every January 1. Under this, a baby born in December 2020 would be two years old by January 2022, even if they wouldn’t officially turn two until December of that year. This method is mainly used to define legal age for areas of law that affect a significant percentage of the population, including military service conscription or defining the age that juveniles that need to be protected against abuse. And then there’s the “Korean age” method, which is used more typically by everyone in society, where everyone is automatically a year old at birth, and become a year older on New Year’s Day regardless of their birth date. Under these methods, mega K-pop band BTS’s Kim Tae-hyung aka V, born on 30 December 1995, is 28 years old (Korean age), 26 years old (the international age) or 27 years old (another Korean official age). And to some, it may just be a number – but age is something taken very seriously in South Korea. “To South Koreans, figuring out if someone is older than them or not is more important than finding out somebody’s name in a social context. It is essential in choosing how to address that person and the honorific or title which is required. ” Shin Ji-young, professor at the Department of Korean Language and Literature in Korea University told the BBC. Image source, Getty ImagesThe Korean age-measuring tradition has its origins in China and different parts of Asia. But South Korea is believed to be the only country that still counts age in this way. “Globalisation has made Koreans more aware of the international age. This has an impact on young people as they feel that Koreans are being ridiculed for [these counting systems]”, according to Kim Eun-ju, professor at Law and Policy at Hansung University. But ridicule aside, the policies have also had real effects on South Koreans. Some parents for example, have tried to cheat the birth registration system because they are worried that their December babies will be at a disadvantage at school, and as a result, later on in life. During the pandemic, there were also calls for age to be standardised, after health authorities used the international age and Korean age interchangeably to set the age bracket for vaccine eligibility – leading to much confusion. Image source, Getty ImagesMr Lee had also earlier highlighted “unnecessary social and economic costs” brought about by the Korean age, referring to a legal case that went all the way to the Supreme Court because of confusion around age definition for extra wages and retirement. The ‘condescending old people’ of South Korea’s workforceSouth Korea’s population paradoxAbandoning tradition?This is not the first time South Korean officials have tried to come up with a unified age-counting method. In 2019 and 2021, two lawmakers proposed bills in a similar vein that subsequently failed to be signed into law at the Korean Assembly. Nevertheless, experts are divided on what the new measure means for Korean society, despite agreeing with the proposal from an administrative perspective. Jang Yoo-seung, a senior researcher at the Oriental Studies Research Centre in Dankook University told the BBC that the Korean age is a reflection of tradition. “Our society does not seem too concerned about abandoning tradition. Are we at risk of abandoning our own uniqueness and culture and becoming more monotonous?”But one thing they can all agree on is that even if the international age is adopted – it’s unlikely those in Korea – whether officially or unofficially – will stop using their “Korean age” anytime soon. This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.More on this storyWhy a ‘fake’ posh girl enraged South KoreaSwapping megacity isolation for village life