Welcome to Home Health UK’s News page with all the health news stories we think you might be interested in from the month June 2006.

In this part of the site we aim to provide you with some of the latest health information regarding diagnosis of various illnesses and medical conditions. We will also aim to tell you about any developments in any of our current products and any future products we believe we may sell.

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We have 2 news stories that we hope you will be interested in. The first news story is about the rise in Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD's) and the second is about diabetes and the possible link to common infections.

STD's rise again

Experts are again warning about the rise in sexually transmitted infections and how young people are ignoring the risks of unprotected sex. More than 790,000 new diagnoses were made in Gum Clinics in 2005, thats up 3% on 2004 and almost 20% higher than in 2001. Cases of chlamydia, herpes, genital warts and syphilis reached new highs, with syphilis showing the biggest increase. These rises are despite a national government strategy introduced 5 years ago to tackle the rise.

Professor Peter Borriello, director of the centre of infections at the Health Protection Agency (HPA), said there was a tendency to treat std's as trivial. He said "The big deal is that chlamydia can make you sterile, syphilis can cause brain damage, human papilloma virus (genital warts) can cause cervical cancer and any infection can cause congenital malformations (birth defects).. We need to shatter the complacency."

Anne Weyman the chief executive of the Family Planning Association (FPA) said GUM clinics were still struggling to cope with more people coming forward to be tested. A target was set by the government saying that all patients should be seen at a GUM clinic within 48 hours. However, many clinics are way off this target, just 37% of patients are being seen within 48 hours in the North East.

For more information on our home chlamydia and gonorrhoea tests click here.

For more information on sexually transmitted diseases click here

Diabetes linked to common infection

A new study claims that the development of diabetes in children and young adults may be caused by common infections.

Researchers based at the Universities of Leeds and Newcastle analysed the patterns of type 1 diabetes diagnosis among individuals aged between 10 and 19 years in order to look for any possible cause of the condition.

They found that cases of type 1 diabetes seemed to occur in clusters - a typical pattern in diseases known to be caused by infections. These findings add further evidence that environmental factors can play a part in the development of type 1 diabetes although generic factors are still regarded as important.

Simon O'Neill, director of care and policy at Diabetes UK said " The fact that type 1 diabetes is rising by 3% each year cannot be explained by genetics alone. This research reinforces the idea that common infections and environmental factors also play a part."

However, Dr Richard McNally the lead researcher admitted that more research still needs to be carried out in order to understand the various causes of diabetes and to identify the infections so that preventative measure can be taken.

For more information on diabetes click here.

For more information on our home diabetes test click here.

NEWS HISTORY

2006

April-May 2006

Jan-March 2006

2005

Sept-Dec 2005