Why China is making hospitals offer women pain relief for childbirth
The initiative aims to create a more "friendly childbearing environment" amid declining birth rates in China.
Currently, only about 30% of pregnant women in China receive anesthesia for pain relief during childbirth, compared to over 70% in some developed countries.
The World Health Organisation recommends epidurals for healthy pregnant women, and they are widely used in countries like France, the United States, and Canada.
To encourage more women to have children, an increasing number of provinces in China are including childbirth anesthesia costs in medical insurance schemes, and some provinces are extending marriage and maternity leave.
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Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
China ‘to triple number of Uyghur organ-harvesting centres'
China is to triple the number of facilities it uses to forcibly harvest the organs of detained Uyghur people, it has been claimed. Experts have raised the alarm after it emerged that the Xinjiang Health Commission, a branch of China's national health authority, plans to build six new medical centres by 2030, bringing the total in the region to nine – more than any other province in the country. The expansion has heightened concerns over China's treatment of Uyghur people, against whom the government already stands accused of genocide. Beijing has also been accused of forcibly harvesting the organs of prisoners from minority groups and, in some cases, selling them to wealthy recipients willing to pay the equivalent of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of pounds. An international tribunal, conducted in the UK in 2019, found that as many as 100,000 organ transplants had been carried out in China annually – nearly three times the number that its government reported to the international register. Sayragul Sauytbay, a Kazakh doctor who was previously detained in Xinjiang, has spoken publicly about camp-wide 'health checks' where detainees had their blood tested and, depending on their results, were then sorted into groups. She began to notice that those who were given a pink check mark would soon disappear, concluding it was because of 'organ harvesting'. While the decision to build the new facilities was made in December last year, the plans have only recently been made public by End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC), an Australia-based campaign group. Targeting Uyghurs The 2019 tribunal determined that the organs of marginalised detainees in China were being forcefully harvested, sometimes when the patients were still alive, to serve a transplant trade worth over $1 billion (£733 million). While China has a voluntary organ donation scheme, Wendy Rogers, the chairman of ETAC's advisory board, told The Telegraph that in many cases they were harvested forcefully, including from otherwise healthy prisoners against their will and who are slowly killed as their organs are removed. Earlier this year, it was estimated that at least half a million Uyghurs were in prisons or detention centres. They have also faced decades of persecution by the Chinese government, including mass detention and forced sterilisation. Given the history of abuse against the Uyghurs, of whom there are 10 million in Xinjiang, there is concern that the new transplant facilities will result in more forced organ harvesting among the population. Xinjiang has a much smaller population and lower organ donation rate than other provinces in China, which makes the decision to expand facilities in the region suspicious. The new centres would provide Xinjiang with nine organ transplant facilities for a population of only 26 million people. By contrast, Guizhou province has only three facilities for its much larger population of 39 million people. Xinjiang's official donation rate is also much lower than that of other parts of the country. It has only 0.69 donors per million people, compared to the national average of 4.6. 'The concept of informed, voluntary consent is meaningless in Xinjiang's carceral environment,' said David Matas, an international human rights lawyer who has previously investigated organ harvesting in China. 'Given the systemic repression, any claim that donations are voluntary should be treated with the utmost scepticism.' Even before the new facilities were announced, Xinjiang was known as a hub for organ transplants. In the province's capital Urumqi, its airport has green arrows on the ground – known as 'Green Passage' lanes – to fast-track the transit of those transporting organs. The new facilities, four of which will be built in Urumqi, will add to the types of transplants that can be carried out by increasing the province's capacity to harvest hearts, kidneys, livers, small intestines and lungs. Dr Rogers told The Telegraph that the new facilities would likely allow for the 'donation' and implantation of organs to happen at the same place. 'It would be more cost-effective to bring the recipients to Xinjiang for their operations rather than send the organs out because it shortens the time in between taking the organ out of the person who's killed and putting it into the recipient,' said Dr Rogers. 'If you have to fly a heart for six hours across China, it's not going to be in such a good condition as a six-minute walk down the corridor.' Wealthy recipients The recipients are usually wealthy individuals who pay huge sums of money for organs that they would normally have to wait much longer for elsewhere. According to the 2019 tribunal, individuals will pay tens of thousands of pounds to get on a waiting list, then the organ itself can cost another tens of thousands, plus separate fees charged by the doctor and anaesthetist. One kidney transplant patient who spoke at the tribunal explained that he paid RMB350,000 (£35,600) for the organ, then RMB86,000 (£8,760) for the surgery, as well as RMB50,000 (£5,100) as a 'bonus' to the doctor, which came to a total of RMB486,000 (£49,500). Kidneys are not even among the most expensive organs. 'The most valuable are the heart and the liver because you can't live without a heart or with liver failure,' said Dr Rogers. 'So these are the most expensive organs.' Some of the transplants can cost as much as $100,000 (£72,000), she added. Additional bribes are also given to blood banks and doctors to ensure recipients are given 'high-quality' organs, sources told the tribunal. While some of the recipients are wealthy Chinese nationals, there is also an international market. Dr Rogers said that there seemed to be a demand in the Middle East, and, every so often, there are advertisements in Arab-language media about travelling to China for an organ transplant. Long-running industry Earlier victims of China's organ harvesting were practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that is banned in China, though the tribunal said that Uyghurs had also been targeted. Falun Gong followers were believed to be ideal donors because they do not smoke or drink and live relatively healthy lives. Dr Rogers noted that, as practising Muslims, most Uyghurs also do not drink. The tribunal found that, 'beyond a reasonable doubt', China had killed prisoners of conscience to extract their organs, which amounted to crimes against humanity. Cheng Pei Ming, a Falun Gong practitioner, spoke to The Telegraph last year about how parts of his lung and liver were forcibly removed. He explained that in 2004, he was dragged into a hospital against his will, where he was drugged. He woke up three days later, shackled to a bed, with an incision in his chest. Congressman Chris Smith, who authored the Bill, said that the practice was 'murder masquerading as medicine' and pushed forward the legislation, which would impose sanctions on anyone involved in the trade. In 2015, China also said it would stop sourcing organs from executed prisoners. However, there is no sign that the actual law has been changed. 'Without meaningful oversight and accountability, this expansion risks becoming a front for continued crimes against humanity and genocide,' said Ramila Chanisheff, the president of the Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women's Association.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Deaf people are regaining their hearing thanks to groundbreaking new treatment
A new gene therapy could restore hearing in deaf children and adults, a groundbreaking study suggests. Researchers from several Chinese hospitals looked at 10 patients who were either born deaf or developed severe hearing loss due to a genetic mutation. All of them, who ranged from infants to young adults, were injected one time with modified version of adeno-associated viruses (AAV). The viruses are not meant to spread disease but instead help deliver gene therapies to cells. The researchers found the treatment improved hearing in all 10 participants within a year, and most noticed a difference in just one month. On average, sounds only needed to be half as loud as previously played for participants to pick them up. Young children had the most significant improvements. One seven-year-old deaf girl was able to hold a conversation with her mother four months after treatment. The shot is thought to help restore functional copies of the OTOF gene, which helps transmit sound and was mutated in all of the participants. The team suspects the study 'is just the beginning' in developing treatments for the 200,000 deaf people worldwide who have a mutation in their OTOF gene. Maoli Duan, study author and consultant docent at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, said: 'This is a huge step forward in the genetic treatment of deafness, one that can be life-changing for children and adults.' The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature Medicine, included 10 people ages one to 24 with either congenital deafness - meaning they were born with it - or severe hearing impairment. All participants had mutations of their OTOF gene, which provides instructions for making the protein otoferlin. Otoferlin helps transmit sound from the inner ear to the auditory nerve. Each participant received hearing and genetic testing prior to the experiment. All of the participants received injections containing two AAV viruses in the cochlea of each of their ears. The cochlea is a fluid-filled cavity in the inner ear that converts auditory vibrations into electrical signals, which the brain interprets as sound. Before treatment, participants on average could only hear sounds at least 106 decibels, about the volume of a motorcycle, car horn or sporting event. After a year, they were able to hear sounds 52 decibels or louder, the same as a normal conversation. The seven-year-old girl in the study went from only being able to hear 101 decibels to 40 after only two weeks. Within two months, she could detect sounds above 25 decibels, about the volume as a whisper. After four months, the girl could have daily conversations with her mom with no assistive hearing devices. Only one participant was an adult, about 24 years old. The treatment allowed him to identify certain spoken words and the sound of hands clapping after several months. Dr Duan said: 'Smaller studies in China have previously shown positive results in children, but this is the first time that the method has been tested in teenagers and adults, too. 'Hearing was greatly improved in many of the participants, which can have a profound effect on their life quality. We will now be following these patients to see how lasting the effect is.' There were also no severe adverse reactions to the injections. Experts believe the injections may have helped provide the bodies of participants with functional copies of mutated genes, which may have helped their OTOF genes produce more otoferlin needed for hearing. OTOF mutations account for about two to eight percent of genetic deafness cases. Dr Duan said the new treatment 'is just the beginning.' She added: 'We and other researchers are expanding our work to other, more common genes that cause deafness, such as GJB2 and TMC1. These are more complicated to treat, but animal studies have so far returned promising results. 'We are confident that patients with different kinds of genetic deafness will one day be able to receive treatment.'
Medical News Today
13 hours ago
- Medical News Today
150 minutes of exercise per week could help reverse prediabetes
The number of people with type 2 diabetes, a condition where a person's body is no longer able to control blood glucose (sugar) levels, is increasing type 2 diabetes is not adequately managed, the condition can lead to heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, amputations, and which often progresses to type 2 diabetes, occurs when blood glucose levels are higher than advisable but not as high as in type 2 a new study has suggested that by exercising for just 150 minutes a week, people with prediabetes can prevent their condition from progressing and even bring their blood glucose back to healthy increasing numbers of people with type 2 diabetes is a major healthcare concern worldwide. Currently, more than 6% of the adult population lives with the condition, and that is projected to rise to around 7% by to the World Health Organization (WHO), type 2 diabetes is often preventable. Maintaining a healthy weight and getting sufficient exercise are effective ways to help prevent prediabetes — higher than advisable blood glucose levels when the body has become resistant to insulin — developing into type 2 a new study has provided further evidence that exercise can reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The study, which appears in Cardiovascular Diabetology – Endocrinology Reports, suggests that by exercising for just over 2 hours a week, people with prediabetes can reverse that condition, and prevent its progression to type 2 Cutler, MD, a board-certified family medicine physician at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, CA, no involved in this study, explained for Medical News Today that:'The health impact of having diabetes is profound. There is increased risk of almost every category of disease: heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, vascular disease, blindness, and infection. These ailments lead to earlier death and markedly impaired quality of life prior to death for diabetics. While prediabetes carries little of these increased risks, it is a warning because we know that 25–50% of prediabetics will develop diabetes. So, the smart thing to do is prevent prediabetes or reverse it if it is already present.'Exercise reversed prediabetes in over 20% of participants within the yearThe researchers analyzed data from 130 people enrolled in a cardiovascular risk program at a referral center in Cali, Colombia, between 2019 and 2023. Participants were all aged over 18 with a mean age of 69.5 years, and just over half were women. Almost half had overweight or obesity (mean BMI 26.7), and four-fifths had high blood pressure (hypertension). A total of 57.7% of the cohort reported exercising for 150 minutes or more per the start of the 1-year follow-up, all participants had prediabetes, with a median glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c — a measure of glucose control) of 5.9% (healthy levels are below 5.7%; type 2 diabetes is 6.5% or above).HbA1c is a marker of glucose control over the 3 months preceding the test, so is a better predictor of cardiometabolic risk than fasting blood glucose participants were assessed regularly by specialists in internal medicine, nutrition, psychology, and physiotherapy. Specialists also used the glucose/triglyceride index to measure their insulin resistance — a factor in follow-up, 21.5% of the participants returned to normal blood glucose levels, 13.8% progressed to type 2 diabetes, and 64.6% remained prediabetic.150 minutes of exercise per week most effective at reversing prediabetesPhysical activity for more than 150 minutes per week had a statistically significant effect on the likelihood of reversing prediabetes, quadrupling the likelihood of reverting to normal blood glucose levels.'The study clearly reinforces what physicians have been telling patients for a long time: Diet, weight control and exercise are the key ingredients to a long and healthy life. And now you can have a concrete target to shoot for, 150 minutes of exercise per week.'– David Cutler, MDAfter researchers adjusted for possible biases, they identified the following factors that decreased the likelihood of reversing prediabetes:having a BMI greater than 25 (overweight or obesity), which as associated with a 76% lower likelihood of reversing prediabeteshaving HbA1c levels higher than 6%, which was associated with a 74% lower likelihood to reverse prediabetes compared with having HbA1c of less than 6%.Cutler told MNT that 'common everyday medical practice emphasizes three approaches to control or reverse prediabetes: a low glycemic diet to lower blood sugar, [then] weight loss through calorie restriction, diet modification or medication, and [finally] exercise.''[This] recent study of 130 pre-diabetic adults in Cali, Colombia, confirmed these assumptions. Moreover, it highlighted the marked impact that even a modest amount of exercise could have,' he Cutler also pointed out, 'it is sobering that even in this controlled study providing state-of-the-art diet, weight loss and exercise resources, only 21.5% of the subjects got their prediabetes into remission. Furthermore, while 64.6% remained prediabetics, [and] 13.8% went on to develop full-blown type 2 diabetes.'Prediabetes: 'Still time to make a U-turn'Alongside exercising for 150 minutes or more each week, keeping HbA1c levels below 6.0% was the most important factor the researchers identified in increasing the likelihood of reversing is linked to levels of insulin resistance, which the researchers measured using the glucose/triglyceride reversal was less likely in those with a higher glucose/triglyceride index, so the researchers suggest that measuring glucose/triglyceride index could be a cost-effective way of predicting risk of prediabetes and type 2 Chambers, Head of Research Impact and Communications at Diabetes UK, who was not involved in the study, sounded an optimistic note, telling MNT:'Prediabetes can feel like you're on the road towards type 2 diabetes, but there's still time to make a U-turn. While some risk factors like age, genetics or ethnicity can't be changed, research has consistently shown that increasing physical activity, improving your diet and managing your weight can halve your risk of type 2 diabetes. If you have prediabetes, your healthcare team can support you to make small, sustainable changes that will have long-lasting benefits to your health.'
