Conversation on assisted dying ends if bill voted down, says MP

If the bill to legalise assisted dying is thrown out by MPs later this month then “the conversation ends” on the subject, with dreadful consequences for many terminally ill people, the MP leading the process has said.Speaking at a press conference organised by supporters of the bill, which has its third reading on 25 April when MPs will vote on amendments, Kim Leadbeater said her colleagues in the Commons have a “duty as parliamentarians to change the law now”.The Labour MP dismissed the idea that if the bill was defeated, the subject could return as government legislation or a royal commission, noting the long gap between the last time assisted dying was debated in the Commons, in 2015, and her efforts.“What worries me is, if the bill doesn’t pass, the conversation ends, and that would be really dreadful for so many people, for so many reasons,” she said.A lengthy and sometimes gruelling committee stage in which a group of MPs considered amendments to the bill has already brought significant changes, including scrapping the requirement for a high court judge to scrutinise every case in favour of an expert panel

Don’t reinforce the idea that grown men don’t cry | Brief letters

Since the release of Adolescence on Netflix, there has been a lot of discussion about what it is to be male and toxic masculinity, which the Guardian has participated in. I was therefore particularly disappointed to see that the headline on your article about pigeon theft (1 April) began with “I cried like a little boy”. I appreciate that it comes from a quotation of an interviewee, but please don’t use subediting to reinforce ideas that grown men don’t cry. Surely we are all seeing the damage these nonsensical societal messages inflict on men, and all of us.Dr Imogen KearnsNHS clinical psychologist, London Ruth Ogden’s article is very insightful on the unsettling effect on humans of changing the clocks (Changing your clock? Scientists are only just beginning to understand what this does to us, 29 March)

Young women in England and Wales projected to have just one child by 35

Young women in England and Wales are likely to have just one child by the time they are 35, according to groundbreaking analysis of past and projected fertility trends by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).Girls who turn 18 this year are projected to have an average of one child each by the age of 35 – unlike their mothers’ generation who had an average of one child per woman by the time they reached 31.Projections from the ONS suggest that the birthrate in England and Wales will continue to drop, with women having smaller families after having babies later in life than previous generations.Young women turning 18 this year are projected to have most of their children after turning 30 years old, in contrast to previous generations who had had most of their children by that age. Women born in 1978 had about half their children by the age of 30, while their mothers (born in 1951) had had three-quarters of their children

Study finds strongest evidence yet that shingles vaccine helps cut dementia risk

Researchers who tracked cases of dementia in Welsh adults have uncovered the strongest evidence yet that the shingles vaccination reduces the risk of developing the devastating brain disease.Health records of more than 280,000 older adults revealed that those who received a largely discontinued shingles vaccine called Zostavax were 20% less likely to be diagnosed with dementia over the next seven years than those who went without.Pascal Geldsetzer, at Stanford University, said: “For the first time we are able to say much more confidently that the shingles vaccine causes a reduction in dementia risk. If this truly is a causal effect, we have a finding that’s of tremendous importance.”The researchers took advantage of a vaccination rollout that took place in Wales more than a decade ago

Patient satisfaction with NHS has hit record low of 21%, survey finds

Public satisfaction with the NHS is at a record low and dissatisfaction is at its highest, with the deepest discontent about A&E, GP and dental care.Just 21% of adults in Britain are satisfied with how the health service runs, down from 24% a year before, while 59% are dissatisfied, up from 52%, the latest annual survey of patients found.Satisfaction has fallen dramatically from the 70% recorded in 2010, the year the last Labour government left office, and the 60% found in 2019, the year before the Covid-19 pandemic.Mark Dayan, a policy analyst at the Nuffield Trust thinktank, which analysed the data alongside the King’s Fund, said the years since 2019 have seen “a startling collapse in NHS satisfaction.“It is by far the most dramatic loss of confidence in how the NHS runs that we have seen in 40 years of this survey

Lowering bad cholesterol may cut risk of dementia by 26%, study suggests

Lowering your levels of bad cholesterol could reduce the risk of dementia by 26%, a study suggests.People with low levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) in their blood have a lower overall risk of dementia, and a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease specifically, according to research published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.Taking statins also provided an “additional protective effect” against the condition for those people with low levels of bad cholesterol, researchers found.The number of people living with dementia worldwide is forecast to nearly triple to 153 million by 2050, but evidence suggests almost half of cases could be prevented or delayed.LDL-C is often referred to as bad cholesterol and can cause plaque to build in arteries, leading to cardiovascular disease, which can increase the risk of strokes, heart attacks and death