Andrew Gregory Health Editor

Exclusive: doctors and patients forced to make decisions in ‘vacuum of evidence’ as women under-represented in data

Health experts are calling for more UK clinical trials to focus on finding new treatments for women, as “concerning” data reveals they are severely under-represented, with 67% more male-only studies than female-only.

Details of thousands of studies were collected by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the University of Liverpool. The evidence shows the UK is a hub for pioneering research, with one in eight trials testing humans for the first time, and cutting-edge treatments such as gene therapies becoming a new growth area.

Exclusive: British team exposed live cells to toxic proteins to gather rare insight into how dementia develops

Scientists have used living human brain tissue to mimic the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, in a breakthrough that will accelerate the hunt for a cure.

In a world first, a British team successfully exposed healthy brain tissue from living NHS patients to a toxic form of a protein linked to Alzheimer’s – taken from patients who died from the disease – to show how it damages connections between brain cells in real time.

Maintaining a positive mood and eating more fruit may also help lower risk, researchers find

Drinking champagne, eating more fruit, staying slim and maintaining a positive outlook on life could help reduce the risk of a sudden cardiac arrest, the world’s first study of its kind suggests.

Millions of people worldwide die every year after experiencing a sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), when the heart stops pumping blood around the body without warning. They are caused by a dangerous abnormal heart rhythm, when the electrical system in the heart is not working properly. Without immediate treatment such as CPR, those affected will die.