Dr David Cox

For the past four decades, my family has grappled with a mystery – can midlife mental health problems actually precipitate the onset of dementia?
Back in the early 1960s, my grandfather suffered the sudden, unexpected loss of his twin brother, a deeply traumatic event from which he never fully recovered. Of course, at that time bereavement counselling or therapy did not really exist, and by all accounts, it left a marked change on his personality.
He began suffering from mood swings, unable t...

Growing evidence suggests that regular exposure to our pets’ microbes, particularly in early life, can help build a stronger immune system
Fergus Shanahan, founder of the APC Microbiome Ireland research centre in Cork, was intrigued when he came across a series of photographs of Irish Travellers in a 2016 National Geographic magazine.
Looking at the striking portraits, he was struck by the number of animals living amidst the Traveller families. It gave him an idea for a new study.
“There were...

A new clinical trial suggests there are still ongoing questions about the safety of even low doses of cannabidiol, even as CBD capsules, gummies, edibles, oils and lotions have become increasingly omnipresent in the United States in recent years.
Scientists from the Food and Drug Administration’s Division of Applied Regulatory Science carried out a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial last year to assess how low-dose CBD affects liver function in a group of healthy middle-aged men...

You might be frustrated by your recent run-in with a customer service bot but when it comes to healthcare, there’s good reason to suggest that a wave of new AI tools could represent hope for our creaking health service, slashing backlogs and catching diseases years or even decades earlier, lengthening lives in the process.
This doesn’t mean that your GP or consultant will soon be replaced by a silicon droid; the human element of healthcare will still be ver...

Assessing your body for lumps, unusual moles or unexplained bruising every three weeks might seem a little over zealous, but that’s what we should all be doing to spot cancer at its earliest and most treatable stage – and, crucially, to save lives.
According to a new NHS survey of 2,000 people, only 39 per cent of Brits examine our bodies regularly, with many of us far more likely to check our bank balance, the weather forecast and what’s coming up on TV during the same timeframe.
But complac...

Peak summer holiday season is just around the corner.
And while many of us are counting down the days until we can jump on a plane and jet off somewhere warm, let’s pause to consider the unique psychological and physiological adaptations that the body undergoes while spending time in the air.
We know the human body is not designed to be at 35,000ft, the typical cruising altitude of a commercial plane.
The changing air pressure and altered humidity levels can affect the ability to think clearl...

When I began my career as a junior doctor 40 years ago, the situation surrounding heart disease was terrible. People would come into hospital with a heart attack, and it was quite often a pre-terminal event. Not everyone expected to go home.
But in the subsequent decades, the landscape improved dramatically. Smoking rates started to come down, and we developed better treatments for blood pressure control, and statins for lowering cholesterol. New surgical procedures were developed for people ...

Living with animals is thought to have profound effects on our immunity – potentially reducing the risk of allergies, eczema and even autoimmune conditions.
Since they first emigrated from Central Europe to North America in the 18th Century, the Amish have become known for their unique lifestyle. Today they are reliant on the same practices of dairy cattle farming and horse-borne transportation that were followed by their ancestors for centuries.
The Amish have gripped the imaginations of Hol...

When it comes to weight loss, we’re all after a magic bullet, a simple, stress-free way of shedding the excess pounds. And so for millions around the world, the arrival of the so-called GLP-1 class of weight-loss drugs in 2021 seemed like a godsend, especially for anyone who’s struggled to stick with dieting advice, commit to an exercise regime or simply find a weight-loss solution that works.
Named after the GLP-1 hormone they mimic in the brain, the drugs help you stay full longer and reduc...

For future generations, it’s quite plausible that their most important 50th birthday present will be an Ozempic prescription from their GP, designed to slow down the ageing process and prolong their years of good health.
That’s the provocative suggestion of Gaetano Santulli, Associate Professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, one of the world’s foremost hubs of ageing research. He says evidence is increasingly pointing...

John Wiederspan is well aware of how things can go wrong in the high-pressure, high-stakes environment of an operating room.
“During situations such as trauma, or a patient doing poorly, there’s a real rush to try and get emergency drugs into the patient as fast as possible,” said Wiederspan, a nurse anesthetist at UW Medicine in Seattle. “And that’s when mistakes can occur, when you’re flustered, your adrenaline’s rushing, you’re drawing up drugs and you’re trying to push them.”
Despite ongo...

The miniature mouthfuls in front of me looked like any other small plates at an upmarket restaurant. First, a smoked chicken salad with raisins, pickles and celery on top of a brioche, followed by slices of grilled, glazed chicken breast on a bed of pomme purée, beetroot rings and cauliflower.
Each were flavoursome and utterly delectable, perhaps unsurprisingly as they had been dished up especially for me by a chef who once worked for Noma, the Copenhagen gastronomic mecca feted as one of the...

While 10,000 steps per day has become a standard target, even as few as 4,000 daily steps can offer significant health benefits for those with a sedentary lifestyle

Almost every smartphone, smartwatch, or wearable worth its salt now has a built-in step counter.
With experts warning that ‘sitting is the new smoking’, and organisations such as the Health Service Executive (HSE) and Sport Ireland devising campaigns to encourage the public to be more active, monitoring our total number of d...

Research indicates the number of people in sub-Saharan Africa with type 2 diabetes could surge by 2045.

Across the African continent, the focus on disease has long been on infectious killers such as HIV and tuberculosis. But in early February, around 700 policymakers, academics, and philanthropists convened in Kigali, Rwanda, to discuss the alarming rise of noncommunicable diseases in the region. Of particular concern: spiraling rates of type 2 diabe...

At last year’s British Society for Research on Ageing conference, an annual meeting to discuss the latest ideas for improving healthy ageing and lifespan, one theme kept cropping up – how best to rid the body of senescent cells?
They are often dubbed “zombie cells”, because instead of replicating and then dying off like most healthy cells in our body, senescent cells stop dividing and instead simply linger, refusing to disappear. They were first discovered in the 1960s but have attracted grow...