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Workers may be unknowingly spreading 'deadly hospital superbugs' with common habit

Workers may be unknowingly spreading 'deadly hospital superbugs' with common habit

Yahoo01-05-2025
Nurses and doctors may be unknowingly worsening the spread of deadly hospital superbugs with a common habit practice outside of work, a new study has warned.
According to British researchers, washing uniforms at home after work could fail to remove antibiotic-resistant bacteria from clothes.
In a new study by scientists at De Montfort University in Leicester, they found that washing machine biofilms may harbour pathogens and antibiotic resistance genes, which could be potential sources of bacterial contamination.
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Study leader Professor Katie Laird, of De Montfort University said: "Our research shows that domestic washing machines often fail to disinfect textiles, allowing antibiotic-resistant bacteria to survive.
"If we're serious about transmission of infectious disease via textiles and tackling antimicrobial resistance, we must rethink how we launder what our healthcare workers wear."
Antibiotic resistance is believed to be one of the biggest threats to global public health. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) says there were an estimated 66,730 serious antibiotic-resistant infections in 2023 – a jump from 62,314 seen in 2019.
It warns that bacteria's growing resistance to antibiotics, which caused 1.14 million deaths across the globe in 2021 alone, could claim an additional 39 million lives in the next 25 years.
Existing research shows that bacteria can be transmitted through clothing. Hospital-acquired infections are a major health threat because they often involve antibiotic resistant bacteria, which are significantly harder to treat.
The authors of the study have warned that washing healthcare workers' uniforms at home in standard washing machines could be fuelling this threat.
Prof Laird said: "Together, the findings suggest that many home washing machines may be insufficient for decontaminating healthcare worker uniforms, and may be contributing to the spread of hospital-acquired infections and antibiotic resistance."
The latest study evaluated whether six models of home washing machine successfully decontaminated healthcare worker uniforms. It found that half of the machines did not disinfect the clothing during a rapid cycle, while a third failed to clean sufficiently during the standard cycle.
The team also analysed the biofilms – sticky bacterial growth on washing machine surfaces – of 12 machines and found the presence of potentially pathogenic bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes.
The research also showed that bacteria can develop resistance to domestic detergent, increasing their resistance to certain antibiotics.
The researchers have called for a revision of laundering guidelines given to healthcare workers.
Prof Laird added: "Alternatively, healthcare facilities could use on-site industrial machines to launder uniforms to improve patient safety and control the spread of antibiotic-resistant pathogens."
The study was published in the journal PLOS One.
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‘Too many men are dying from prostate cancer needlessly – earlier detection can save lives'
‘Too many men are dying from prostate cancer needlessly – earlier detection can save lives'

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time6 hours ago

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‘Too many men are dying from prostate cancer needlessly – earlier detection can save lives'

David James is director of patient projects and influencing at Prostate Cancer Research, a leading British charity advancing prostate cancer treatment Prostate cancer is the most common cancer currently affecting men in the UK. Last year, more than 55,000 men were diagnosed in England (where we have the most recent data). It's also the second most common cause of death by cancer, with more than 12,000 men in the UK dying from the disease every year. Sadly, projections suggest this figure will only increase during the next 15 years. My motivation for getting involved in this area is actually three-fold. At a very young age, my mother died of brain cancer. I saw the impact of that being caught late and the implications for my life and our family's life. I have an uncle who developed prostate cancer (he's fine now) and also my father was recently diagnosed, quite early, so it's being monitored. Currently, we have the Informed Choice system, which, technically, is the Prostate Cancer Risk Management Programme. What that means is, if you have no symptoms, but are over the age of 50, you can request a PSA blood test from your GP (this measures a substance that occurs naturally in the prostate – a high score can be an indicator of cancer but can also be unrelated). Younger men should be able request a test if they are in a high-risk category, too. You are supposed to be given the test once you have been counselled about the pros and cons. The problem with this approach is really the guidance, which is pretty poorly understood both by members of the public and clinicians. The guidance leads to huge inequalities in the system. There are examples of men being turned away time and time again, sometimes men with cancer that could have been caught early. Why are men not getting tested? I was speaking to a man in his late 40s the other day. His name is Mark, he has three kids and has been diagnosed at an advanced stage. He'd been trying to get a test and was turned away. This is because of the confusion around these guidelines. Although he was under 50, he was in a high-risk group because he has a family history of the disease. If members of your family have had prostate cancer, you are high risk. If you are black you are about twice as likely to have the illness. There are also certain gene mutations that increase risk. We have polled GPs, and many don't know about the higher-risk categories, so there is an inconsistency in the way the guidelines are being implemented. Doctors are supposed to counsel patients about potential harms and benefits of different treatments and the limitations of the PSA blood test. Like any other health problem, it should be up to the individual to make an informed choice – that's what the system is designed for. But a GP may not be up to date with the latest diagnostic and treatment techniques or have some historical objection to screening. If a man has plucked up the courage to ask his GP for a test and is told to go away, that undermines their attempts to be proactive about their health. Prostate cancer in its early stages is usually symptomless. If we don't want to see people dying from late-stage disease, the key is to catch it before symptoms appear. People who are more affluent and health-educated will actively seek out the test and be persistent until they get it because they know their rights (or they have already tested positive privately). Men from areas of socio-economic deprivation are 29 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with late-stage, incurable prostate cancer. Being invited for a test as part of a screening programme is quite different to going along and asking for one yourself. We've spoken to a lot of people. I think receiving an official letter from the NHS, or your doctor saying this is a risk we want to keep an eye on will make you feel emboldened to go. Having something official drop through your letterbox takes away the fear of needlessly troubling a busy GP, for example. Since 2019, UK guidance has been that if a patient has a raised PSA level, then he should go for an MRI scan. And that MRI scan has been a massive game changer, because the MRI is really good at filtering out people who don't have the illness. This avoids sending patients for unnecessary biopsies. No test is perfect, though. No test is accurate at picking up everyone who has the disease, but it is certainly better than not doing anything and we think the evidence shows significant reduction in harm and the benefits of screening. Next-generation testing There has been a fear of over-treatment as screening exposes people with low-risk cancers. We now see that more than 90 per cent of those people are going onto active surveillance, where they are being given a follow-up PSA and MRI every six to 12 months. If you have a slow-growing cancer, you could well live out your life healthily with no problematic symptoms and die in your sleep of old age. But if it does start to grow and become problematic, then you're in the system. We can catch it early and treat it before it spreads and becomes incurable. Our research showed that screening people in high-risk groups is cost-effective. Treating advanced cancer is 10 times more costly than treating it at stage one. We're calling for a targeted prostate cancer screening programme for high-risk groups. The NHS cost of a PSA test is around £33, so we could implement this fairly quickly and start catching prostate cancer earlier in these groups – then, for the general population of men over 50, let's invest in some real-world evidence gathering. We should carry out pilots on the next generation of tests. When we're confident the new tests are effective, we can roll out universal testing to all men over 50. Too many men are dying from a disease needlessly when we know that testing and earlier detection can save lives. The NHS is working with the target of catching 75 per cent of all cancers early. At the moment, only about half of prostate cancers are diagnosed at stages one and two. So, if the NHS is to meet its target, given how significant prostate cancer is, that target is going to be impossible to reach unless we break the back of late diagnosis. The decision is being reviewed by the Government's screening committee right now and they are due to report back this year. This is something that's also being looked at in Europe and the US. The world is watching us right now. I'm really hopeful the UK can be a leader. As told to Phil Hilton Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. 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'Significant evidence' ties air pollution with dementia, study finds
'Significant evidence' ties air pollution with dementia, study finds

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timea day ago

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'Significant evidence' ties air pollution with dementia, study finds

ST. PAUL, Minn., July 24 (UPI) -- British researchers said Thursday they've found "significant evidence" of a long-suspected link between air pollution and dementia after studying data from nearly 30 million people across four continents. The authors of a paper published in The Lancet Planetary Health reviewed data compiled from 32 studies that involved more than 29 million participants, mostly from high-income countries in Europe, North America and Asia, as well as Australia, to "provide more robust overarching conclusions" about the suspected connection. After crunching the numbers from those studies, University of Cambridge researchers said they had identified a "positive and statistically significant association" between dementia and long-term exposure to three types of air pollutants: fine particulate matter with diameters of 2.5 microns or less, nitrogen dioxide, and soot from sources such as vehicle exhaust emissions and burning wood. They also concluded the risks of dementia go up as the levels of exposure increase, especially for the tiny particulate matter, which is so small it can be inhaled deeply into the lungs. For such "PM2.5," every 10 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m³) of long-term exposure increases an individual's relative risk of dementia by 17%, they found. To put that into perspective, they noted the average roadside measurement for PM2.5 in central London in 2023 was 10 μg/m³. Similarly, for every 10 μg/m³ of long-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide, the relative risk of dementia increased by 3%, while the dementia risk jumped by 13% for each 1 μg/m³ of soot exposure. The study, which was funded by the European Union's scientific research arm, also noted that while traffic-related air pollution is common in cities in high-income countries, "marginalized groups" from low- and middle-income nations and communities not included in the analysis tend to have higher exposures to air pollution and are likely at even greater risk. Senior author Dr. Haneen Khreis of Cambridge's MRC Epidemiology Unit said the findings provide "further evidence to support the observation that long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution is a risk factor for the onset of dementia in previously healthy adults." She added that the mounting evidence makes the case for cleaner air even stronger -- not only for the sake of human health but also for the ability of care systems to cope with the exploding numbers of Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia. The 57 million people already affected worldwide are expected to almost triple to 153 million cases by 2050, and reducing that avalanche of future illness will require "less burning of fossil fuels, a move to renewable clean energy, a move to clean transportation options, such as walking and cycling, and enacting climate change mitigation strategies," Khreis told UPI in emailed comments. "A coordinated effort would be a multisector, systems-level response -- not unlike how we've approached other public health crises." She and her Cambridge colleagues two years ago created an interactive "evidence map" of hundreds of possible urban policy interventions available by geography to reduce traffic-related emissions and air pollution, which they set up as an aid for planners to become aware of options of which they may not have been previously aware. "There are indeed many options available," Khreis said. "But in short, we need a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach that views air pollution mitigation as an upstream intervention for brain health, and so many other outcomes that are now convincingly linked to air pollution. We need political will and courage to address this health hazard." Suspected in brain inflammation Scientists has been seeking to establish a definitive link between air pollution and dementia for a decade, as several previous studies have suggested such a connection. For instance, the British government's Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants reviewed nearly 70 studies in human populations and reported in 2022 that "it is likely that air pollution does contribute" to a decline in mental ability and dementia in older people, although they qualified that more research is needed before recommendations could be issued "with confidence." The 2024 Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention and care, meanwhile, identified air pollution as one of 14 modifiable risk factors for dementia. Most theories about the link center around how air pollution can trigger inflammation in the brain and "excessive oxidative stress," in which the body's ability to combat free radicals with antioxidants is overwhelmed. There is "a wealth of expanding literature that investigates this question," Khreis said, noting that some research indicates the ultrafine particles may be able to bypass the blood-brain barrier and enter the brain directly via the olfactory nerve, thus triggering inflammation. Indirectly, these inhaled pollutants can trigger systemic inflammation and immune responses, such as when they enter the circulatory system and travel to solid organs. The particles can cross into the brain and disrupt microglial function and promote amyloid-β plaque formation, which is associated with dementia, she said. Experts comment Experts and other researchers who have looked at the possible link between air pollution and dementia, but were not connected to the current study, weighed on its findings when contacted by UPI. Dr. Isolde Radford, senior policy manager at the British charitable group Alzheimer's Research U.K., agreed that air pollution "is not just an environmental issue -- it's a serious and growing threat to our brain health. If no one were exposed to air pollution, there would be three fewer cases of dementia for every 100 people who develop it now." She called the current study a "rigorous review [that] adds to mounting evidence that exposure to air pollution -- from traffic fumes to wood burners -- increases the risk of developing dementia," and specifically noted marginalized groups are often exposed to higher levels of pollution, yet remain underrepresented in research. "Future studies must reflect the full diversity of society -- because those most at risk could stand to benefit the most from action," Radford added, calling on the British government to institute a "bold, cross-government approach to health prevention -- one that brings together departments beyond health ... to take coordinated action on the drivers of dementia risk" and move up existing timelines to produce cleaner air. Dr. Hao Chen, a researcher at Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital in China and author of a recent study linking atmospheric pollutants with the progression of cardiometabolic disorders and subsequent dementia, called the Cambridge paper an important document. "This is a landmark study that significantly advances our understanding of the link between air pollution and dementia," he told UPI in emailed comments, noting it is "the largest and most comprehensive meta-analysis to date, significantly advancing previous reviews by including new pollutants and rigorous bias/certainty assessments." It reinforces the findings of the 2024 Lancet Commission, he said, adding, "The public health implications are profound. The findings suggest that efforts to reduce air pollution -- particularly from traffic and industrial sources -- could play a crucial role in lowering the global burden of dementia. "Investing in cleaner air is not only beneficial for respiratory and cardiovascular health; it is a critical investment in protecting our brain health and cognitive longevity. This research provides a compelling, evidence-based mandate for policymakers worldwide to implement stricter air quality standards as an urgent dementia prevention strategy," Chen said. Victoria Williams, an assistant professor of geriatrics and gerontology, and noted Alzheimer's disease researcher at the University of Wisconsin, said the findings suggest "a moderate level of certainty that outdoor air pollution exposure increases risk for dementia, with the studies included considered to be at minimal risk for bias." Since there is currently no cure for dementia, "prevention is key to reducing its overall incidence in our society," she added. "Thus, minimizing exposure to air pollution does reflect a promising strategy in reducing the overall burden of dementia," and unlike other known risk factors linked to lifestyle choices such as smoking and a poor diet, societal action could make a difference. "Limiting exposure to ambient air pollution is well adept to being addressed at a policy level where reductions can offer broad protective effects to a society as a whole," Williams said.

European Space Agency Is Building A Hypersonic Spaceplane
European Space Agency Is Building A Hypersonic Spaceplane

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timea day ago

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European Space Agency Is Building A Hypersonic Spaceplane

The European Space Agency is throwing its weight behind a design effort for a hypersonic spaceplane, with hopes of getting the final idea airborne (and spaceborne) by 2031. The ESA is putting up funding for the Invictus research program, which wants to achieve one of the space industry's most coveted breakthroughs: The ability for a spacecraft to launch horizontally off a runway, like a normal plane, and then land back there all in one piece. There have been several attempts over the decades to build a so-called Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) vehicle, but thus far, none have succeeded. Invictus (Latin for "invincible") is hoping to solve the engineering puzzle, which would make spaceflight radically cheaper and simpler than it is today. The program is headed by Frazer-Nash Consultancy, with support from Spirit AeroSystems, Cranfield University, and a few smaller companies. Critically, the project has hired a bunch of staff from Reaction Engines Ltd, a British company that had been working on spaceplane engines for decades before going bankrupt last year. Reaction's core innovation was pre-cooling technology, which it always said was the key to unlocking hypersonic and orbital travel. While the company itself didn't live long enough to find out, with the ESA's money, Invictus is going to try to find out for sure. Read more: These Cars Are Police Magnets Pre-Cooling Air Before It Hits The Engine Going to space is expensive. You need a big rocket that launches vertically, which requires a launch pad and launch tower. Rockets are usually multi-stage, and most (if not all) of those stages are discarded during the flight. SpaceX is developing ways to make those stages fly home for later reuse, but it's still a massively complex endeavor. Spaceplanes are a much simpler and theoretically cheaper idea — just take off and land like a plane! — but the trick is building cost-effective engines that can power both air and space flight. Ordinary jet engines need oxygen to burn, which they pull out of the air. But to reach the speeds needed to break orbit, hypersonic speeds of Mach 5+, the sheer heat of air friction hitting the engine would actually melt it. Pretty bad! Reaction's purpose in life was more or less to figure out a way to get the air temperature down before it hit the engine, a process called pre-cooling. With that system installed, even traditional jet engines should, theoretically, be able to reach speeds over 15,000 mph, enough to get anywhere in the world in just a few hours. Then, if the craft goes up past the atmosphere and into space, the engines would switch over to onboard oxygen tanks. If it all works, it should be able to ferry cargo to space for radically less than current systems and to other places on Earth at much faster speed. The Spaceplane Race The ESA, it should be clear, is only putting €7 million of its money into Invictus, which won't exactly build a working plane. This investment is to see if the Invictus team can come up with a workable design within 12 months. If not, well, game over again. If they can, however, then humanity has an exciting future ahead of it. Meanwhile, there are a number of other projects around the world trying to get their own spaceplanes off the ground. Startup company Sierra Space has been working on its Dream Chaser design since 2015, which is getting close to being able to fly to the ISS. China has flown the Shenlong a few times since 2023. The U.S. Space Force has been flying the remotely operated X-37B since 2010, a program that just got a $1 billion from the Big Beautiful Bill. All of these are experimental and not in any kind of active use just yet. If any of them get ready for showtime, then the days of the massive rocket on a launchpad may be numbered. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.

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