Disability Sanctuary Community

“Good cholesterol” doesn’t lower heart attack risk, the Daily Mail has reported.
A great deal of research has previously suggested that higher levels of “good” HDL cholesterol reduce your risk coronary heart disease, while higher levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol increase your risk of a heart attack. However, it has been hard to tell whether HDL cholesterol directly reduces coronary heart disease risk as other medical, biological or lifestyle factors could be involved. To get round this, researchers have conducted a complex study identifying genes that raise levels HDL cholesterol, and then in turn looking at whether carrying these genes influences heart disease risk.
Researchers first identified genetic variants associated with high HDL levels and tested for them in several thousand people, including some who had had a heart attack. They found that carrying these ‘HDL cholesterol genes’ had no effect on the risk of a heart attack. From this, the researchers concluded that there is no...

Every three minutes someone in the UK is diagnosed with diabetes - but there are thousands of people who do not know they have it.

Type 2 diabetes accounts for 90% of all cases in the UK, with people from South Asian backgrounds up to six times more likely to develop this form than white people.

Now, after a successful project which started in London, the charity Diabetes UK is recruiting community champions from ethnic minority backgrounds all over the UK to raise awareness of the condition.

Type 1 diabetes develops when the body's immune system attacks and destroys the cells that produce insulin, which is needed to regulate blood glucose levels.
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Dressed in black and moving slowly but purposefully across the stage, the Black Widows dance company, is making a dramatic impact on the local health service.

Aged between 85 and 102, the silver haired women, all have various degrees of dementia.

Instead of taking a back seat, the group is taking part in the Arts Care 21st anniversary international conference being hosted in Belfast this week.

Arts Care is all about bringing art into a diverse range of healthcare services - including dementia.

Movement...

A woman has claimed her husband, who had dementia, was given 106 different carers in a single year.

Jeanette Maitland said the constant stream of different faces sent by agencies working for Aberdeen's social work department contravened her husband Ken's basic human right to dignity.

Mr Maitland died from a dementia-related illness last week.

Aberdeen City Council has pledged to look into the concerns his wife has raised.

Mrs Maitland told BBC Scotland she initially wrote down the names of her husband's carers so that she could get to know them.
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