The discovery of "taste receptors" in the lungs rather than on the tongue could point the way to new medicines for asthma, it is suggested. Experiments in mice revealed that bombarding the receptors with bitter-tasting compounds helped open the airways, which could ease breathing. The University of Maryland study, published in Nature Medicine, may have implications for other lung diseases.
Heavy smokers with a 40-a-day habit face a much higher risk of two common forms of dementia, a large study shows. The risk of Alzheimer's is more than doubled in people smoking at least two packs of cigarettes a day in their mid-life. The risk of vascular dementia, linked to problems in blood vessels supplying the brain, also rose significantly. The US study, looking at over 21,000 people's records, is published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.
Hospital beds in England may fill up with the elderly and vulnerable because of cuts to local authority social care funding, a top NHS figure has warned. The claim came from the head of the NHS Confederation, Nigel Edwards, in a letter to the Daily Telegraph. Mr Edwards said people who needed medical treatment may be denied a hospital bed as a result of the cuts.
A TEESSIDE taxi driver has been fined after he refused to take a 24- year-old woman in a wheelchair home - even though his vehicle was wheelchair accessible. Rafiq Latif, of Cambridge Road, Middlesbrough, was working in his hackney carriage taxi in Corporation Road in the town on the night of Friday, February 5 ,this year.
A TEESSIDE taxi driver has been fined after he refused to take a 24- year-old woman in a wheelchair home - even though his vehicle was wheelchair accessible. Rafiq Latif, of Cambridge Road, Middlesbrough, was working in his hackney carriage taxi in Corporation Road in the town on the night of Friday, February 5 ,this year.
Disabled people will be hit with more than £9bn in welfare cuts over the next five years, a think tank has warned. Demos suggests the government's plans will see 3.6m disabled people and carers lose about £9.2bn by 2015. It said moving those on incapacity benefit who were reassessed as fit to work to jobseeker's allowance would account for half of the losses.