The Guardian Health

This is how seriously a patient’s skin colour can affect the quality of medical care they receive | Devi Sridhar

New reporting from the Guardian has shed further light on the ‘ethnicity pain gap’. This is what has to be done to close itRead more from the Guardian’s ethnicity pain gap seriesI always know someone is going to say something racist when they start a sentence with, “I’m not racist, but …” Nobody likes to think they would ever discriminate against someone based on the colour of their skin – and some people seem increasingly uncomfortable about acknowledging that such discrimination exists at all

health  Jul 3, 2026

The Guardian Health

Sitting for more than 30 minutes at a time linked to higher risk of cancer death

Study suggests even light activity such as ironing could reduce health risks linked to prolonged sedentary behaviourSitting for longer than half an hour at a time each day raises the risk of dying from cancer, a study suggests.Researchers who tracked more than 90,000 people over a decade found that sitting or lying down while awake for more than 30 minutes in one period each day was associated with an increased risk of cancer death. The risk increases for every additional hour of continuous inac

health  Jul 2, 2026

The Guardian Health

Plans must be put in place before heatwaves – not cobbled together during them | Letters

Health professionals across Europe are calling for an EU climate and health strategy, write Mark Wilson and Dr Paul De Raeve; plus a letter from Nadine HendersonYou report on hospitals declaring critical incidents as their systems fail in the heat (Hospitals in England declare critical incidents as machines and IT fail in heat, 25 June). This is a crisis that health professionals saw coming.It is not England’s alone. During June’s record-breaking European heatwave, France raised its health

health  Jul 2, 2026

The Guardian Health

229,000 excess deaths: the cost of US-UK trade deal? - The Latest

The NHS will divert billions of pounds from essential services to pay for new medicines, under the terms of the US-UK trade deal agreed in December, which could lead to more than 200,000 excess deaths, analysis has found.Ministers have defended the deal as a way of helping British drug exports avoid US tariffs and giving patients access to vital medication, but critics accuse the Labour party of caving into pressure from Donald Trump.Lucy Hough speaks to columnist Aditya Chakrabortty Continue re

health  Jul 2, 2026

WHO News

WHO adds first diagnostic test for Ebola Bundibugyo virus to its Emergency Use Listing

Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) has added the first molecular diagnostic test for Bundibugyo virus (BDBV) to its Emergency Use Listing (EUL). The test detects the virus by identifying its genetic material in blood samples, helping confirm infection rapidly and accurately.WHO’s EUL procedure assesses the quality, safety and performance of essential health products based on the available evidence, while ensuring they meet minimum international standards and address the needs of lo

health  Jul 2, 2026

The Guardian Health

Ethnicity pain gap: the epidural failed and no one believed me – I could feel everything

Women from minority backgrounds are less likely to receive adequate pain relief during childbirthWomen from minority backgrounds in UK less likely to get epidurals, study findsHow the ethnicity pain gap follows people from birth to deathJulie Hammond, a 35-year-old mother of three from Kent, believes that the “excruciating” pain she experienced during the birth of her second child was not well managed by the medical professionals caring for her.“It’s difficult to put into words just how traumati

health  Jul 2, 2026

The Guardian Health

Women from minority backgrounds in UK less likely to receive epidurals, research finds

Exclusive: Guardian analysis exposes evidence of racial inequalities in pain relief offered across healthcare‘The epidural failed and no one believed me’How the ethnicity pain gap follows people from birth to deathWomen from Black and Asian backgrounds are less likely than their white counterparts to receive an epidural while giving birth, research has revealed.The findings, based on data collected from more than 2.7 million births in the UK, prompted experts to raise the alarm about an “ethnici

health  Jul 2, 2026

The Guardian Health

From birth until death: how the ethnicity pain gap follows people through life

Patients from minority ethnic backgrounds often have to demonstrate higher levels of pain, only to receive less effective treatment‘The epidural failed and no one believed me’Women from minority backgrounds less likely to receive epidurals, study findsA growing body of global research has shown that patients from minority ethnic backgrounds are less likely to have their pain recognised, believed and adequately treated – with disparities experienced from childhood all the way through to end-of-li

health  Jul 2, 2026

WHO News

Patient enrolment begins in a scientific trial to identify the first effective treatments for Bundibugyo virus disease

In a major international effort to evaluate potential treatments for Ebola disease due to Bundibugyo virus (BVD), the PARTNERS clinical trial has opened enrolment today for patients in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

health  Jul 2, 2026

The Guardian Health

All the whey up! A dairy byproduct is now the star of the ‘proteinmaxxing’ boom – but is demand too high?

As GLP-1s drive the current protein craze, a supplement once only taken by powerlifters is now so popular US producers are struggling to keep upFor generations, the Meives family made cheese. Tony Meives’s grandfather, a Swiss immigrant, and his father both ran small cheese factories in Wisconsin, in the heart of America’s dairyland. “I worked in the cheese factory my whole life,” Meives says. “I have four world-class cheesemakers in my family.” But when it came time to inherit the family busine

health  Jul 2, 2026

The Guardian Health

Over-40s with obesity have normal-BMI cholesterol and blood pressure levels, study finds

Success of statins and blood-pressure drugs hailed as researchers find some people with obesity were ‘better off’Many adults who are obese have “indistinguishable” cholesterol and blood pressure levels compared with those with a healthy weight, largely because of the use of statins, according to a study.In some cases, people with obesity were “better off” than those of a healthy weight, researchers added. Continue reading...

health  Jul 2, 2026

The Guardian Health

Starmer’s goodbye gift to Britain: a US pharma deal that could be more lethal than Covid | Aditya Chakrabortty

This shadowy treaty on medicine imports will cost the NHS billions and take funding away from doctors, nurses, cancer scans and the restFor all the crowd noise and heavy-breathing match analysis, British democracy is a simple sport. We elect politicians to serve our interests. They direct the vital services that look after our families and communities, such as our healthcare and our schools. The entire political system rests on one basic premise: they work for us.Believe that, as I do, and this

health  Jul 2, 2026

The Guardian Health

‘It’s peak tick season!’ Should Charlie xcx really have been lolling around in long grass?

Harry Styles, Zoë Kravitz, Sarah Pidgeon … celebrities love stretching out on Britain’s lawns and meadows. But with the tick-borne Lyme disease on the rise, is it safe for any of us?Do we need to worry about ticks in the UK? How serious are the risks associated with the diseases they can carry? Should we avoid rolling around in long grass à la Charli xcx in the video for her latest single, Wink Wink?These are questions that have been circulating on social media this week, after the release of th

health  Jul 2, 2026

The Guardian Health

‘It is comforting to be haunted’: how attitudes to abortion have changed through the ages

The abortion debate – the language of life, choice and rights – severs women, and their pain, from history. I don’t want to forget my abortion and I don’t want to forget theirsThe physical fact of my abortion caught me off guard. I had been so accustomed to defending abortion as an abstract right – as a right to privacy, to healthcare, to autonomy – that when it came to having one, I was surprised by the brutality of it. Fasting for hours before. Clammy and light-headed, my hands freezing and da

health  Jul 2, 2026

The Guardian Health

A disease outbreak nearly cost this US poultry farmer everything. One more could wipe him out

As bird flu reshapes agriculture, small farms operate under strict rules. Just a single case could tank their businessJoshua Beebe often starts his day by cleaning the tires of trucks and cars entering his poultry farm.“We spray them off and scrub them with a brush. It’s a precaution; the goal is to eliminate as many potential avenues for a pathogen to enter as possible,” said the owner of Tardif Poultry Farm, located in the Connecticut countryside east of Hartford. Continue reading...

health  Jul 1, 2026

The Guardian Health

Author of England maternity care review ‘listened to wrong voices’, says adviser

Dr Bill Kirkup said section of Valerie Amos’s report criticising ‘normal birth ideology’ was removed before publicationThe author of a major inquiry into maternity care altered its final report to remove criticism of “normal birth ideology”, one of her expert advisers claims.Dr Bill Kirkup said Valerie Amos had “listened to the wrong voices” before a section outlining the potential risks of encouraging women to have a vaginal birth “disappeared” from the final version of her government-commissio

health  Jul 1, 2026

The Guardian Health

What’s really in a hotdog? Nutrition experts explain

Americans eat 50bn hotdogs every year, but experts say they’re also among the most highly processed foodsIn 1969, the late writer William Zinsser toured a hotdog factory and described his visit in Life magazine, opening with the lines: “I’ve often wondered what goes into a hotdog. Now I know and I wish I didn’t.”All these years later, his words still reflect our love/hate relationship with the humble wiener. We love eating them, but would rather not think about what’s in them. Continue reading..

health  Jul 1, 2026

The Guardian Health

When the right promotes heat-stress denial, ask yourself this: whose children’s lives is it willing to risk? | George Monbiot

The class politics of extreme heat are very real and very dangerous – but that doesn’t stop the billionaire press from peddling its agendaEvery time you think the idiocy has hit rock bottom, it discovers a new level. It turns out there’s an even deeper hole you can dig for yourself than climate-science denial: heat-stress denial. Across the billionaire press last week, columnists and leader writers minimised the health impacts of the heatwave, particularly in schools. Expect more of this next we

health  Jul 1, 2026

The Guardian Health

From the archive: Flour power: meet the bread heads baking a better loaf – podcast

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.This week, from 2019: The days of the mass-produced pappy white British supermarket loaf may be numbered. Meet the bread heads revolutionising the way we eatBy Wendell Steavenson. Read by Lucy Scott Continue reading...

health  Jul 1, 2026

The Guardian Health

UK poll highlights fears about access to emergency contraception

Doctors say survey shows need for morning-after pill to be available at corner shops, petrol stations and supermarketsAlmost half of the UK population believe it would be difficult to access emergency contraception on a Sunday, while nearly two-thirds think they would struggle after 10pm, according to a survey.The research, carried out by YouGov, found that only 7% of people believe it would be difficult to access emergency contraception during the daytime on a weekday. Continue reading...

health  Jun 30, 2026