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For health professionals in low and middle income countries independent, evidence-based, therapeutic information, is often not available or prohibitively expensive. One of CKN’s most widely used resources, Therapeutic Guidelines, is helping give back to countries throughout the region with their Therapeutic Guidelines Developing Countries Program.

Energy, calmness, empathy, maturity and intellectual curiosity may be protective, while impulsivity may harm the chances of longevity. Personality traits evident as early as the teenage years may be linked to a heightened or lessened risk of death around 50 years later, suggests observational research of ‘baby boomers’. 

How can a doctor predict the treatment outcome of an individual patient? Traditionally, the effectiveness of medical treatments is studied by randomised trials where patients are randomly divided into two groups: one of the groups is given treatment, and the other a placebo. However is this really the only reliable way to evaluate treatment effectiveness, or could something be done differently? How can the effectiveness of a treatment method be evaluated in practice? Could some patients benefit from a treatment that does not cause a response in others?

Nurses who work intermittent night shifts and lead an unhealthy lifestyle face an especially high risk of type 2 diabetes, according to a new study. The findings from the study are based on two long-term health studies on female nurses - Nurses’ Health Study (1988-2012) and Nurses’ Health Study II (1991-2013).

Newborn breastfed babies’ saliva combines with breastmilk to release antibacterial compounds that help to shape the bacterial communities (microbiota) in babies’ mouths, biomedical scientists have found.

Peer-led mentoring programs can help interns transition from university to the hospital environment but don’t address the underlying structural problems producing bullying, harassment, and mental health stigma.

Hypertension, smoking and diabetes increase heart attack risk in both sexes, but new research published in BMJ shows they have more impact in women than in men.

A study into postnatal depression (PND), found the odds of developing this condition increased by 79% when mothers had baby boys compared to baby girls.

Non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) is often fatal because most cases are not diagnosed until they are so advanced that surgical intervention is no longer possible. To improve outcomes researchers are developing a blood test to detect lung cancer earlier in the disease, when a surgical cure is still possible.

New research published in The Lancet has shown that rates of caesarean section births worldwide have nearly doubled to 21% between 2000 and 2015, with often life-saving surgery unavailable to many women in poor countries while often over-used in richer ones.