Articles about 'global health'

The babies of obese women who develop gestational diabetes are five times as likely to be excessively large by six months of pregnancy, according to new research led by the University of Cambridge. The study, which shows that excessive fetal growth begins weeks before at-risk women are screened for gestational diabetes, suggests that current screening programmes may take place too late during pregnancy to prevent lasting health impacts on the offspring.

Smoking increases an individual’s risk of developing tuberculosis (TB) – and makes the infection worse – because it causes vital immune cells to become clogged up, slowing their movement and impeding their ability to fight infection, according to new research published in the journal Cell.

Some people with high levels of ‘good’ high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) are at increased risk of coronary heart disease, contrary to earlier evidence that people with more HDL-C are usually at lower heart disease risk. This finding comes from an international study involving researchers at the University of Cambridge, funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF).

Almost all of our genes may be influenced by the food we eat, according to new research published in the journal Nature Microbiology. The study, carried out in yeast – which can be used to model some of the body’s fundamental processes – shows that while the activity of our genes influences our metabolism, the opposite is also true and the nutrients available to cells influence our genes.

Samples from the recently confirmed case of Ebola in Sierra Leone have been analysed at a new infectious diseases laboratory in the country, set up in partnership with the University of Cambridge in the wake of the epidemic.

Worried you might be at risk from diabetes? Check your phone: it might help stop you getting the disease. And if you already have diabetes? Your phone might even help you monitor your condition at home.

A major research collaboration is looking at how small towns in the hills of India and Nepal are coping with increasing demand for water: who wins and who loses when resources get scarce?

Graham Ladds, lecturer in pharmacology, discusses the controversy around a group of drugs used to treat Type 2 diabetes.

Patients with the most dangerous type of high blood pressure will be able to receive far more effective treatment after Cambridge-led research reveals the powers of a "wonder drug" that has lain under the noses of doctors for 50 years.

Scientists have found that some drugs from a group of anti-diabetic treatments may, in certain circumstances, act on glucagon receptors in the body, meaning that they could also potentially enable the release of sugar into the bloodstream.