Mind & body, in brief

People from Black, Asian and mixed backgrounds in England, and people from poorer areas, were up to 33% less likely to have breast cancer found by routine screening. [1]

The same groups were up to 31% more likely to have it found through an urgent referral from a family doctor, and up to 37% more likely through an emergency. [1]

Researchers at the University of Surrey studied the records of 86,564 adults diagnosed in England between 2009 and 2019, in work paid for by the charity Breast Cancer Now. [1]

People with a learning disability waited 18% longer for a diagnosis, and 10% longer to start treatment. [1]

The NHS in England invites women aged 50 to 70 for a mammogram, a breast X-ray, every three years, to find cancers before they cause symptoms. [2]

About 70% of invited women in England go, against 63% across London and about 54% at the units serving Tower Hamlets, the City of London and Waltham Forest. [2]

Invitations are sent to the address a family doctor holds, so people who move without telling their doctor miss them, an NHS England screening lead told the London Assembly. [3]

In an NHS test of letters to 17,965 women in 2023, giving a set appointment time raised attendance in the poorest areas from 41.1% to 63.3%, against asking women to book. [5]

In focus groups with 47 Black women, fear, other demands on their time and trouble getting to appointments were among the reasons given for missing screening. [4]

An earlier analysis found one in three people from ethnic minority backgrounds needed three or more family doctor visits before a cancer diagnosis, against one in five overall. [1]

In a 2024 survey of UK adults, 93% thought routine screening is almost always good, while 51% knew some cancers grow so slowly they may never cause harm. [6]

Worldwide, about 2.4 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2024 and 694,000 people died of it, the World Health Organization estimates. [7]

Why it matters. The study shows who screening misses, not why; the next sign is whether uptake rises in the groups it names now that NHS England's invitations draw on the 2023 letter test. [1][5]

The lawyer assisting an inquest in Victoria, Australia, told the coroner on Monday that birthkeeper Emily Lal could be referred to prosecutors for perjury, which means lying under oath. [8] Stacey Warnecke, 30, died in September 2025 after bleeding heavily following a home birth with no midwife. [8][9] Birthkeepers have no medical training. [8] Messages on Warnecke's phone showed Lal coaching women to resist going to hospital, counsel said, against Lal's June evidence that she was only a supportive friend. [8][22]

Why it matters. Counsel told the coroner Warnecke would have survived in hospital, or at home with a registered midwife, because heavy bleeding after birth is treatable when spotted at once. [8] Researchers say no data is collected that compares the risks of births without a midwife with home births that have one. [10]

Bird flu has spread for two months at a mink fur farm about an hour from Salt Lake City, in the US state of Utah, the Guardian reported, following ProPublica. [23] The US agriculture department told the state vet it does not regulate mink. [23] Officials reportedly did not check the farm's workers for symptoms, despite US health agency advice. [23] The owner said the state did not advise testing a worker with a red eye, a symptom the agency says to test. [23] In other countries, governments have ordered such farms to kill their mink. [23]

Why it matters. An epidemiologist at Brown University said the risk to the public is low but is greatest for people near sick animals. [23] She said other countries protect such workers with a vaccine. [23]

Almost two-thirds of Australians, 63%, now pay nothing for all their family doctor visits, up from 56% in 2024 and 2025, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners found. [11] Since November, practices that charge no patient at all get an extra 12.5% payment from Medicare, the public health scheme. [11] The share of GPs charging nobody rose from 12% to 26%. [11] People putting off a visit because of cost fell from 8.8% to 7.7%. [11]

Why it matters. A health economist warned the survey covers about 7% of GPs and may not be typical. [11] Medicare's own data counts visits, not people, and shows 81% of visits free in 2025-26. [11]

An inquiry by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Endometriosis, a group of UK MPs, found 47% of women with the condition had lost income and 28% had left a job. [12] Endometriosis is tissue like the womb lining growing outside the womb, and it affects one in 10 women. [12] Of more than 6,000 women heard, 97% had worked in severe pain and half got no changes at work. [12] Of 250 employers surveyed, 72% gave no training on women's health. [12]

Why it matters. Hayley Locksley, a school teaching assistant, had pain from age 11, was diagnosed at 24, and lost her job last October after her sick days rose. [12] The UK government says it is working with employers. [12]

Fathers filed 51% of claims for paid leave to care for a new baby in California in 2025, more than mothers for the first time. [13] When the state scheme began in 2004, men filed about 18% of claims. [13] It pays up to eight weeks, can replace as much as 90% of a salary since 2025, and workers fund it from their own pay. [13] A Pew Research Center report found 74% of US mothers with children under 18 worked or looked for work in 2025, against 94% of fathers. [14]

Why it matters. California's job agency says it cannot say why more fathers now claim. [13] The US has no national paid leave for parents, and only 14 states and Washington DC run their own schemes. [13]

The Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran, Wales, had more than 90 patients in its emergency department during a BBC visit, with the longest wait about 18 hours. [15] The 350-million-pound hospital opened in 2020 and has been called dangerous on social media. [15] Its bosses say its death rates are among the best in Wales once patients' illness is taken into account. [15] Ambulances were handed over within 45 minutes 67% of the time over 30 days, but 33% on the day of the visit. [15]

Why it matters. Its health board, Aneurin Bevan, is still under the Welsh government's second-highest level of oversight for urgent care. [15] Its bosses are urging seriously ill people not to be put off coming in. [15]

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, which runs the NHS in north Wales, is due to pay Bangor University 110,686 pounds this year for two mental health researchers. [16] An internal NHS report in January said that by September 2025 more than 4 million pounds had been paid, with no value the board could show. [16] The deal began in 2012 as a five-year contract and was never reviewed. [16] The board has commissioned an outside review. [16]

Why it matters. Llais, the Welsh health watchdog, says the concerns are not being acted on fast enough. [16] Both the board and the university say there is no evidence of fraud. [16]

The World Health Organization opens a three-day obesity summit in Madrid on Monday, to check progress on its 2022-2030 plan to stop obesity. [17] It ends on 28 October with a call for countries to raise their promises for 2026 to 2030. [17] Earlier this month the WHO issued its first guidelines on obesity in children and teenagers. [18] It says 170 million people aged 5 to 19 lived with obesity in 2024, up from 2% of that age group in 1990 to 8%. [18]

Why it matters. The guidelines advise against weight-loss medicines, surgery or devices for children up to age 9. [18] For teenagers, medicines may be considered only after a supervised diet and exercise programme has failed. [18]

A doctor who advises several Trump cabinet members on diet praised having urine the colour of Mountain Dew this summer, crediting a diet of meat and fermented foods. [19] Kidney doctors told the Guardian that B vitamins such as riboflavin can turn urine bright yellow, because the body passes out what it does not need. [19] Urine colour charts are imprecise, said a kidney doctor at the University of Washington. [19]

Why it matters. Most kidney disease shows no sign: 37 million US adults have chronic kidney disease, and only one in 10 of them knows. [19] A kidney doctor at Indiana University said a meat-only diet is not a healthy diet. [19]

A study read the active genes in 33,293 cell nuclei from the substantia nigra, the small brain area where Parkinson's disease kills dopamine-making cells. [20] It used brains donated by Korean people with no disease, with early hidden disease and with advanced disease. [20] Clumps of a protein called alpha-synuclein built up first in one part of the area, and some kinds of dopamine cells were lost before others. [20]

Why it matters. Movement symptoms of Parkinson's usually appear only after many dopamine cells are already gone, which makes it hard to find early, the authors write. [20] Brains from East Asian donors have rarely been studied this way. [20]

Sarcopenia is the loss of muscle size and strength with age. [21] Under new 2025 Asian rules for diagnosing it, a study of 779 surgery patients found about the same share had it as under the 2019 rules, roughly 23%. [21] But 43.7% of patients without it were now flagged for weak muscles. [21] They were 2.23 times as likely to leave hospital for a community hospital instead of going home. [21]

Why it matters. Weak muscles of normal size marked out patients who needed more help after surgery, the authors say. [21] They advise a version of the rules adjusted for body weight. [21]

Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, set up six made-up users on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok and logged 80,000 posts over nearly four months. [24] Among the 13,000 posts it could date, it found dozens of alarming security videos shown again weeks after they first appeared, often with no visible date. [24] One army video announcing an Iranian missile attack on 7 June kept reappearing for 90 days. [24] Each made-up user was shown about two alarming old videos a week. [24]

Why it matters. A psychologist at Ben-Gurion University said such alerts put the body on high alert, and adrenaline, a stress chemical, cannot be switched off again at once. [24] TikTok called the method flawed, and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, did not answer this finding. [24]

Protein drinks and bars are being sold to young people, and Germany's fitness protein market grew about 25% in the year to March 2025, DW reported, citing Statista. [25] In a 2024 University of Michigan survey of nearly 1,000 parents, just under half said their 13- to 17-year-olds had used protein products in the past year. [25] The German Nutrition Society says teenagers need about 0.9 grams of protein per kilo of body weight a day, which ordinary meals can supply. [25]

Why it matters. A German study from 2015 to 2017 found about half of 6- to 17-year-olds already ate more than double the protein they need. [25] The society says there is no scientific evidence that the body needs protein supplements, even under heavy training. [25]