Alcohol deaths have reached a record high in the UK, but the increase has been significantly slower in Scotland. There were 10,048 alcohol-specific deaths in the UK in 2022 - up 33% from 7,565 in 2019. The rise was 37% for women and 31% for men.
Scientists from Stirling have warned over the risk of new pandemics after they discovered chimps eating bat faeces contaminated with a form of coronavirus. The study led by the University of Stirling jointly with the University of Wisconsin-Madison was prompted when animal behaviour researcher, Dr Pawel Fedurek, observed wild chimpanzees consume bat droppings - known as "guano" - from a tree hollow in Budongo Forest in Uganda.
Nearly half of people living with multiple sclerosis have felt too embarrassed by their symptoms to seek medical help, according to a new survey. More than 250 patients in Scotland were asked about their experiences with the incurable neurological condition ahead of MS Awareness Week, which begins today.
There was a time where Katie* used to eat until she passed out. Yet to the outside world she appeared "normal". Her weight yo-yoed up and down as she swung between periods of calorie restriction and extreme exercise and food binges which gradually took over her life.
It is "very clear that mental suffering and physical suffering have equivalency". In an era when there has been a push to grant mental health "parity of esteem" in healthcare - meaning that it must be given equal priority to physical conditions - this hardly seems like a controversial statement.
Sepsis is the number one cause of preventable death in the world. It claims more lives in the UK every year than breast, bowel, and prostate cancer combined, and strikes indiscriminately.
A father-of-two who lost his limbs to sepsis is unable to return to his family home 16 months on from his life-threatening ordeal because they cannot afford the £20,000 refurb needed to make it wheelchair-ready. Fiona McQuade said she and her husband Scott, 50, from Bishopton in Renfrewshire, have been left facing a "total nightmare" after the council said they were ineligible for grants.
The prescribing of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to under-18s with gender dysphoria has been paused in Scotland for all new patients. In a joint statement, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian - which oversee Scotland's Young Person Gender Service - said the treatments were being suspended as a result of the Cass Review, which criticised the "remarkably weak" evidence base.
Consultant vacancies in NHS Scotland are more than twice as high as official statistics suggest.
Are locum doctors an untapped resource or a patient safety risk? As the NHS spends increasing sums on 'freelance' medics, it is becoming increasingly important to look at how they are being used, and where improvements are needed.
