Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Scientific interest in mindfulness has grown exponentially since the 1980s. Clinical researchers have been asking whether these practices—which are based on ancient Eastern (Buddhist) contemplative traditions—can be used as psychotherapeutic techniques to ameliorate depression, chronic pain, and addictive behaviour.
This year, professionals and researchers studying the esophagus will convene in Vienna for the 2018 World Congress of the International Society for Diseases of the Esophagus (ISDE 2018). Before the conference gets started, we’ve talked with Drs. Giovanni Zaninotto and Neil Gupta, co-editors-in-chief of the journal Diseases of the Esophagus, about their views on the field and the academic research in the journal.
PAINWeek, the largest US pain conference for frontline clinicians with an interest in pain management, takes place this year from 4th September to 8th September. The conference focuses on several different aspects of pain management, and indeed many different methods of pain management exist.
Whether it’s being left out of happy hour plans or being broken up with by a significant other, we can all relate to the pain of social rejection. Such “social pain” is consequential, undermining our physical and mental health. But how can we effectively cope with the distressing experience of being left out or ignored? Mindfulness may be an answer.
“Globesity” (the global pervasiveness of obesity) is an epidemic issue across both developed and developing countries. For many nations obesity is a major health issue, but especially the United States.
I became a parent around the time I started working in childhood mental health, providing music therapy to children with complex trauma histories. Through these experiences, I became aware both personally and professionally of the profound impact a child’s early environment has on their social and emotional development outcomes and later behavioral and academic ones.
Recently, the issue of single-use plastic and its impact on the environment has come to the fore, with many companies vowing to cut back their plastic use, and increased media coverage across the globe. It isn’t difficult to see why there is a growing passion for addressing the problem of plastic—its environmental significance is truly shocking—and in 2016 the Ellen MacArthur Foundation published a report that concluded there will be as much plastic in the ocean as fish by 2020.
How can medical professionals tell whether individuals have a disease? The simple answer is that body tissues are examined under the microscope, but the long answer involves reams of research and hours of study and intense examination.
Systems science is the study of how component parts of a system interact with each other. It may seem counterintuitive to consider that medical care and systems science are linked, but in fact the component parts of a care cycle are infinitely complex.
One of the more satisfying aspects of science is that an often fairly technical or obscure idea from one field can later turn out to be a key guiding principle in another, rather distant, field. One such example is a historical result from the theory of animal breeding that now provides critical insight into the way evolution structures genomes.
On the 5th of July 2018, the National Health Service (NHS) celebrated its 70th anniversary. Aneurin Bevan, the Minister for Health, founded the NHS in 1948 with the aim of bringing together hospitals, doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, and opticians under a single umbrella organisation for the first time.
“Ahhhhh” moans a 16-year-old girl, her face contorted in pain as she lies on a stretcher in a busy emergency room corridor. Her distress is elicited by gentle prods to her abdomen by a young surgeon summoned by the ER staff.
A scholarly consensus persists: across time, from the Plague of Athens to AIDS, epidemics provoke hate and blame of the ‘other’. As the Danish-German statesman and ancient historian, Barthold Georg Niebuhr proclaimed in 1816: “Times of plague are always those in which the bestial and diabolical side of human nature gains the upper hand.”
You use it every day; it’s a facial feature that everybody sees; and one that enables almost all animals to survive. We’re talking, of course, about the mouth.
A young man in my clinic avoids eye contact. Peaked cap pulled low, he directs his unfocused gaze into a corner of the room. Recently diagnosed with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, he doesn’t know whether to believe this news, how to process it, or what it means for his future.
Immunotherapy is a form of treatment to improve the natural ability of the immune system to fight diseases and infections, with immuno-oncology (IO) focusing on combatting cancer specifically. Novel immunotherapies are a possible solution for cancers that don’t respond to standard cancer treatments, either as standalone or in combination therapy.