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Placebos – the inert substances taken by control groups in clinical trials – are often assumed to be harmless sugar pills or something along those lines. New research has found that actually it’s impossible to know what’s in placebos because there’s precious little documentation of what exactly is used in clinical trials. Out of 176 [...]
City wide programmes that promote cycling – such as London’s new bike hire scheme – seem a great way to get the public active and tackle the obesity epidemic. But new research published in the BMJ suggests that interventions to promote cycling don’t have much discernible effect after all. Public health programmes that specifically aimed [...]
A small study from the United States has suggested that getting too little sleep might prevent dieters from losing as much body fat as they would have had they slept properly. When individuals slept for five and a half hours a night, they lost half as much body fat as when they were allowed to [...]
Commercially available home tests for chlamydia could be failing to identify between 75% and 83% of people infected when compared with the “gold standard” biochemical lab test, according to new research from the Netherlands. The study of 772 women found that three “point of care” tests available on the internet and in pharmacies only correctly [...]