Publisher Health

Analysis found that more than 64,000 Palestinians may have been killed by traumatic injury in the first nine months of the war.Deaths from bombs and other traumatic injuries during the first nine months of the war in Gaza may have been underestimated by more than 40 percent, according to a new analysis published in The Lancet.The peer-reviewed statistical analysis, led by epidemiologists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, used modeling in an effort to provide an objective third-party estimate of casualties. The United Nations has relied on the figure from the Hamas-led Ministry of Health, which it says has been largely accurate, but which Israel criticizes as inflated.But the new analysis suggests the Hamas health ministry tally is a significant undercount. The researchers concluded that the death toll from Israel’s aerial bombardment and military ground operation in Gaza between October 2023 and the end of June 2024 was about 64,300, rather than the 37,900 reported by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.The estimate in the analysis corresponds to 2.9 percent of Gaza’s prewar population having been killed by traumatic injury, or one in 35 inhabitants. The analysis did not account for other war-related casualties such as deaths from malnutrition, water-borne illness or the breakdown of the health system as the conflict progressed.The study found that 59 percent of the dead were women, children and people over the age of 65. It did not establish what share of the reported dead were combatants.Mike Spagat, an expert on calculating casualties of war who was not involved in this research, said the new analysis convinced him that Gaza casualties were underestimated.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 second of two analyses intended to shape the upcoming U.S. Dietary Guidelines questions alcohol’s overall benefits.Among both men and women, drinking just one alcoholic beverage a day increases the risk of liver cirrhosis, esophageal cancer, oral cancer and various types of injuries, according to a federal analysis of alcohol’s health effects issued on Tuesday.Women face a higher risk of developing liver cancer at this level of drinking, but a lower risk of diabetes. And while one alcoholic drink daily also reduces the likelihood of strokes caused by blood clots among both men and women, the report found, even occasional heavy drinking negates the benefits.The report, prepared by an outside scientific review panel under the auspices of the Department of Health and Human Services, is one of two competing assessments that will be used to shape the influential U.S. Dietary Guidelines, which are to be updated this year.The government has for several decades recommended a limit of two standard alcoholic drinks per day for men and one for women.In December, a review of the data by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine supported this advice, finding that moderate drinking was linked to fewer heart attack and stroke deaths, and fewer deaths overall, compared with no drinking.But some experts fear that the harms of moderate drinking have been understated, particularly the risk of cancer, which is the leading cause of death among people under 85, according to the American Cancer Society.In 2020, the last time the dietary guidelines came up for review, scientific advisers suggested lowering the recommendation to one drink daily for both men and women. That advice did not appear in the final guidelines.The analysis from the National Academies tied moderate drinking in women to a small but significant increase in breast cancer, but said there was insufficient evidence to tie alcohol to other cancers.This month, however, the U.S. Surgeon General, citing mounting scientific evidence, called for labeling alcohol with cancer warnings similar to those that appear on cigarettes. The report issued on Tuesday found that the increased cancer risk comes with any amount of alcohol consumption and rises with higher levels of drinking.Drinking is linked to a higher risk of death for seven types of cancer, including breast cancer, colorectal cancer, liver cancer as well as cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx and larynx and esophagus.Men and women are both vulnerable to these health harms, but women are much more likely to develop a cancer linked to drinking, the report said.“Among the U.S. population, the risk of dying from alcohol use begins at low levels of average use,” the report said. “Higher levels of alcohol consumption are linked with progressively higher mortality risk.”Those who consume more than seven drinks per week have a one in 1,000 risk of dying from a condition related to alcohol. The risk increases to one in 100 if consumption is more than nine drinks a week.This article will be updated.

The Princess of Wales has made a personal visit to thank staff and support patients at the hospital where she was treated for cancer.

All 50-74-year-olds in England will now receive a home-testing kit for bowel cancer every two years.

Getty ImagesThere has been a rise in the proportion of women seeking abortions despite using “natural” methods to prevent pregnancy, like fertility tracking apps, a study in England and Wales suggests.

BBCNearly 400,000 private prescriptions for ADHD medication were issued last year as patients sought to bypass lengthy NHS waiting lists, with people spending millions of pounds on treatment.

Deepali Misra-SharpThis is the fifth feature in a six-part series that is looking at how AI is changing medical research and treatments.

Medical historians say that the phrase “Make America Healthy Again” obscures a past during which this country’s people ate, smoked and drank things that mostly left them unwell.“We will make Americans healthy again,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has declared. A political action committee that has promoted Mr. Kennedy, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for health and human services secretary, says his movement is “igniting a health revolution in America.”But the word “again” presumes a time in the country’s past when Americans were in better health. Was there ever really a time when America was healthier?For historians of medicine, there is a short answer.“No,” said Nancy Tomes, a historian at Stony Brook University.John Harley Warner, a historian at Yale, said, “It’s hard for me to think of a time when America, with all the real health disparities that characterize our system, was healthier.”Dr. Jeremy Greene, a historian at Johns Hopkins University, asked: “Which particular era does R.F.K. want to take us back to?”Probably not the 19th and early 20th century.Rich men smoked cigarettes and cigars, the poor chewed tobacco. Heavy drinking was the norm.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.

A man has been charged with attempted murder after a nurse was stabbed at a hospital and left with life-changing injuries.

By 2060, new dementia cases per year could double to one million because of the growing population of older Americans, a study predicts.The number of people in the United States who develop dementia each year will double over the next 35 years to about one million annually by 2060, a new study estimates, and the number of new cases per year among Black Americans will triple.The increase will primarily be due to the growing aging population, as many Americans are living longer than previous generations. By 2060, some of the youngest baby boomers will be in their 90s and many millennials will be in their 70s. Older age is the biggest risk factor for dementia. The study found that the vast majority of dementia risk occurred after age 75, increasing further as people reached age 95.The study, published Monday in Nature Medicine, found that adults over 55 had a 42 percent lifetime risk of developing dementia. That is considerably higher than previous lifetime risk estimates, a result the authors attributed to updated information about Americans’ health and longevity and the fact that their study population was more diverse than that of previous studies, which have had primarily white participants.Some experts said the new lifetime risk estimate and projected increase in yearly cases could be overly high, but they agreed that dementia cases would soar in the coming decades.“Even if the rate is significantly lower than that, we’re still going to have a big increase in the number of people and the family and societal burden of dementia because of just the growth in the number of older people, both in the United States and around the world,” said Dr. Kenneth Langa, a professor of medicine at the University of Michigan, who has researched dementia risk and was not involved in the new study.Dementia already takes an enormous toll on American families and the country’s health care system. More than six million Americans currently have dementia, nearly 10 percent of people 65 and older, research has found. Experts say that each year in the United States, dementia causes more than 100,000 deaths and accounts for more than $600 billion in caregiving and other costs.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.