Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Chloe Casey, Lecturer in Nutrition and Behaviour, Bournemouth University

Beer could come with a “surprising health benefit”, according to a new report from the BBC. This must be pleasing news for beer drinkers everywhere. But what did the new study the BBC report was based on actually say? And does it stand up to scrutiny?

The study, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, set out to assess the vitamin B6 content of alcohol-free and full-strength beers. Vitamin B6 is an essential nutrient with important roles in the body, but there are problems with how these findings are framed.

The numbers are technically true but misleading in context. Saying that a beer provides 15% of your daily vitamin B6 sounds impressive, but it ignores the wider dietary picture.

Most people in the UK are not deficient in vitamin B6. And the same amount, or more, can easily be obtained from a standard healthy diet. A number of foods, such as potatoes, chickpeas, fortified cereals, grains, meat and vegetables, provide vitamin B6 without the need for alcohol.

The paper also links vitamin B6 to important neurological functions, but does not provide evidence that beer consumption meaningfully improves brain health. It correctly states that vitamin B6 is involved in making the brain chemicals serotonin and dopamine, and confirms that beer contains measurable amounts of B6. However, the interpretation that beer is therefore “brain boosting” is problematic.

The study does not measure brain health outcomes of any kind (not cognition, mood or neurological effects), so such conclusions are not supported by the data. The B6 intake from beer is modest, and this narrative overlooks the well established harms associated with alcohol consumption.

The serving size framing is also concerning. The study refers to “a serving” and, in some cases, volumes of up to a litre. Drinking at those levels on a regular basis would clearly conflict with NHS guidance on alcohol consumption. A typical half-litre serving was reported to provide around 13–16% of daily vitamin B6 requirements. A beer would need to provide about one whole day’s worth of vitamin B6 in a standard pint to qualify for a health claim. None of the beers in the study came close to that.

The study also does not adequately emphasise alcohol’s downsides, including risks to the liver, brain and increased cancer incidence. In recognition of these harms, the World Health Organization states that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. Although this is acknowledged in the paper, highlighting a small vitamin content without properly weighing it against these risks is misleading.

When drinks brands latch on to studies like this to make their products seem good for you, they’re putting marketing ahead of public health. At worst, they’re nudging people to drink more.

A familiar story: the red wine myth

This is not the first time narratives about the health benefits of alcohol have found their way into the media. The idea that a glass of red wine a day is good for your heart is one of the most enduring examples. While this claim has some scientific roots, it is now heavily debated.

The belief largely traces back to the so-called “French paradox”, coined following observations that people in France appeared to have relatively low rates of heart disease despite diets rich in saturated fat and regular alcohol consumption. Red wine, in particular, has been suggested to offer some health benefits because it contains natural compounds called polyphenols – especially one called resveratrol – which can act as antioxidants and help protect the body’s cells.

Later studies, however, have raised serious concerns about these claims. Researchers pointed out that other factors – like people’s diet, how active they are and their access to healthcare – may have influenced the results. There has also been a wider rethink of alcohol’s effects, with growing evidence that it can increase the risk of harm, especially from certain types of cancer.

Taken together, these issues help explain a pattern known as the “healthy user effect”. At first glance, observational data suggest that moderate alcohol consumption may be protective. Some studies report lower rates of heart disease among moderate drinkers compared with non-drinkers. But observational data can only show correlations, not cause and effect.

In reality, moderate wine drinkers often differ from non-drinkers in important ways. They are, on average, more likely to eat healthier diets, be more physically active, be wealthier, have more friends, and see their doctor more often.

Each of these factors independently reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke. When they are not fully accounted for, alcohol itself can mistakenly appear to be the protective factor.

When the wider body of evidence is considered, particularly research linking alcohol to cancer, liver disease and mental health problems, most reviews conclude that any potential benefits are small and probably outweighed by the risks. The nutritional contributions of beer and wine do exist, but they are minor and unlikely to translate into meaningful health improvements.

Polyphenols, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals can all be obtained more safely and reliably from fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, olive oil and other whole foods, without the risks associated with alcohol.

Chloe Casey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Claim check: does your pint of beer really come with a ‘surprising health benefit’? – https://theconversation.com/claim-check-does-your-pint-of-beer-really-come-with-a-surprising-health-benefit-281399

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Simona Palladino, Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences, Liverpool Hope University

Just days before the Battle of Britain began in July 1940, more than 800 civilians were killed off the coast of Ireland when a German U-Boat sank a converted five-star cruise ship.

The people on board were German, Austrian and Italian internees – deemed enemy aliens by the UK government – who were being deported to Canada.

Why the Nazis sank a civilian ship has never been fully explained.

But the sinking of the Arandora Star remains one of the lesser known war crimes of the second world war.

My research has examined the oral histories of some of the Italian families, based in the UK, who remember the second world war. My latest project has looked into the long-term effects of Arandora Star sinking as it was experienced and transmitted across generations.

The attack

The Arandora Star was a first class cruise liner built in 1927 by the Cammell Laird Company Ltd, in Birkenhead, near Liverpool. It was one of the best-known ships in the world at the time.

When the war broke out, the Arandora, like many commercial ships, was placed at the disposal of the British government. Under the command of Captain E.W. Moulton, the Arandora was ordered to carry German, Austrian and Italian internees from Liverpool to Canada.

More than 1,600 men were forced onto the ship which was actually designed to carry 500. Internees were crammed below decks and the exits were guarded by barbed wire.

On July 2 1940 – the morning after it embarked on its voyage – the Arandora was torpedoed by a German U-boat, 100 miles northwest of Ireland.

Around 805 men, over 50 percent of the total number drowned, were Italian. About 100 British soldiers and crew members also lost their life, including the ship’s captain.

One British sailor told the press in 1940 that the Arandora Star turned half over on her side and sank, carrying down the occupants of several life rafts. “When the ship disappeared,” the sailor said, “there were hundreds of men on her decks … A cloud of steam rose a hundred feet in the air, and the suction dragged rafts and men underneath with her”.

But the ship’s traumatic final moments were just the start of the story for the families of those involved.

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Read more:
From World War II ‘enemy’ internment to Windrush: Britain quickly forgets its gratitude to economic migrants

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Part of my study involved making a 15-minute documentary, entitled The Arandora Star Sinking, to raise awareness about the xenophobia and discrimination faced by the people and communities who were left behind.

The film captures memories of the incident from the perspective of one of the descendants.

Vincenzo Margiotta

Vincenzo Margiotta is a third generation Italian based in Liverpool, whose grandfather was interned and died on the Arandora Star.

Margiotta’s family migrated to Scotland at the beginning of the 20th century, from Picinisco, Lazio, and established businesses in catering.

“Things were great. Life was good,” he said – until the outbreak of the second world war. Following Benito Mussolini’s declaration of war, on June 10 1940, anti-Italian feeling erupted among British citizens.

Around 4,500 Italian men between the ages of 16 and 70 with less than 20 years’ residence in Britain were ordered to be interned, including Margiotta’s grandfather.

Research has shown how Italian internees were regarded as the most “dangerous characters”. They were deported even though their degree of loyalty to the fascists had not been assessed.

Public opinion in the UK was initially in favour of the internment of “enemy aliens”. However, after the tragedy of the Arandora Star – and as a result of campaigns by various members of parliament – opinion changed and supported the release of “loyal” internees. Eventually internees were able to apply for release and many of them served in the armed forces.

Information vacuum

Over the years, Margiotta heard many stories about what happened to his grandfather.

One reason for this is because the official history was unclear. Why, for example, were none of the deportation transport ships marked as carrying prisoners of war? Instead, they set sail unaccompanied, equipped with anti-submarine guns, and employing a zigzag pattern in their movements – making the ships obvious targets for German U-boats.

Research has also shown that next of kin of internees were not informed about the Arandora disaster for weeks and only some families received a notification of “missing presumed drowned”, in April 1941, when the Home Office missing list was finalised.

Consequently, memories transmitted via word of mouth among family and community members were the main sources this group had available to them.

Margiotta said: “My knowledge of the incident was hearing stories around the table from other families”, adding:

Somebody pushed my grandfather off the ship, and told him to jump into the water … he was frightened, as he couldn’t swim – screaming in disbelief at what was happening around him … and then was never seen again.

This spoken mode of transmission of memories might have contributed to speculation and intrigue. The sinking has been subject to divergent tales and invention.

Gold bullion?

Margiotta said conspiracy theories included, “stories of it carrying gold bullion to take to Canada to fund the war chest for the UK … it was carrying soldiers; lots of stories. All have been unfounded. But I guess there is a story somewhere that needs to come out”.

It is evident how the lack of official information and records caused a sense of injustice for the loss of civilians. As Margiotta told me at the end of our interview:

…Why would the enemy wish to torpedo a ship like that? Why was a converted five-star cruise ship … torpedoed? There’s a lot of unanswered questions.

Margiotta represents just one of the many victims’ relatives who expressed the need to find answers to these basic questions.

In my previous research I spoke to Anglo-Italian families in the north-east of England who all shared the same pain and frustration. It’s time these questions were answered.

Simona Palladino does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Arandora Star sinking: a lesser known Nazi war crime that spawned generations of conspiracy theories – https://theconversation.com/arandora-star-sinking-a-lesser-known-nazi-war-crime-that-spawned-generations-of-conspiracy-theories-281069

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kristina Shea, PhD Candidate, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences

You will probably recognise toxic leaders when you encounter them. They are the ones whose presence shifts the atmosphere, whose emails create unease, or whose behaviour limits the thinking of others. They often interrupt, frequently overlook contributions and hamper other people’s growth. While this behaviour is often seen as unfortunate but acceptable, the impact on employee wellbeing is corrosive.

Leadership shapes not only what people do, but how they experience their work and how they see themselves. In other words, leaders are responsible for the psychological environments they create. Research has highlighted leadership as a central influence on employee wellbeing.

Unfortunately, most employees report having experienced at least one toxic manager at some point. Even well-intentioned leaders may, at times, engage in toxic behaviour that diminishes others.

Our new research shows consistent declines across all dimensions of the wellbeing of employees who report to toxic leaders. Results from 273 employees highlighted negative impacts on emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment. The most pronounced effects showed up in their mindset and physical health, and affected employees said they experienced less enjoyment in their work and less sense of purpose.

From a psychological perspective, our findings are concerning. Positive emotions, engagement, healthy relationships, meaning and accomplishment are central to humans’ ability to thrive. Without these, work becomes something to endure rather than a context for growth.

These experiences rarely remain confined to the workplace; they tend to influence broader aspects of life. The happiness of employees has been found to have an impact on an employer’s bottom line – employees who experienced joy at work achieved 25% higher sales per hour, according to one analysis.

In fact, research has found that having emotional needs met, feeling valued and doing meaningful work could even be stronger predictors of performance than pay.

How toxic energy spreads

Leaders contribute to the energy of a workplace through their everyday interactions in what is known as “emotional contagion”. This is the process by which emotions and moods transfer between people through everyday interaction. When that energy is toxic, it can spread through teams and organisations, shaping how people feel and relate to one another.

The good news is that emotional contagion works both ways. Our research also looked at something known as “positively energising leadership” (PEL). This offers a way of understanding leadership as a force that enhances the capacity of others. Positively energising leaders are capable of producing extraordinary results and can drive positive outcomes in the workplace.

These leaders can be defined by two dimensions. The first is relational energy – the kind of energy that arises through interaction. For example, a manager who greets team members by asking about their weekend, listens to the answers and remembers them the next week can generate more relational energy in three minutes than a leader who sends dozens of emails over the course of a day.

Unlike physical energy, relational energy can be created and shared through attention, connection and presence.

The second is virtuous behaviour. This includes expressing gratitude, demonstrating integrity, offering support and treating others with respect. Taking time to listen to colleagues is a powerful way of building connection and strengthening relationships.

For leaders, there are three key practical implications. The first is to approach interactions thinking about how you might help the other person feel capable and valued. The second is to attend to your own wellbeing. The third is to invite feedback on your impact, asking employees how you can be a better leader and enhance their wellbeing. This information allows you to refine and enhance your leadership skills.

For employees working under a toxic leader, the situation is more difficult. However, there are a few things that you can do. Where possible, seek out positive relational energy from other sources: supportive peers or colleagues in other teams. This can buffer the negative effects of a toxic leader.

It is also helpful to allocate time for recovery and small wellbeing practices outside the work context. Finally, consider raising your concerns through trusted people like coaches, mentors or HR colleagues. It is important to reflect honestly on whether you will be able to sustain your performance and wellbeing under a toxic leader.

Leadership is expressed through everyday moments. In every interaction, leaders contribute to an environment in which people can thrive or one in which they feel diminished. These moments shape whether workplaces become spaces where people realise their potential or just places they must endure.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The cost of toxic leadership in the workplace – and how to avoid it – https://theconversation.com/the-cost-of-toxic-leadership-in-the-workplace-and-how-to-avoid-it-280761

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Richard Jones, Director of Journalism, Politics and Contemporary History, University of Salford

The BBC has announced the end of one of its longest-running programmes, Football Focus.

It’s been a fixture of Saturday lunchtimes since 1974. But the final whistle will blow when this season finishes. The BBC has blamed a decline in audience for the BBC One broadcast as fans now get their pre-match news and views from a wider range of sources.

This isn’t a sign that the BBC is moving away from football. Research in my forthcoming book Sports Journalism in the UK, shows that 60% of the content on the BBC Sport X account is now about football, compared to 39% in its traditional sports bulletins on Radio 5 Live.

The BBC is also transforming its previously cautious approach to YouTube, with new video-first sports podcasts and channels, as it seeks to meet younger audiences on their favourite platforms. The old Football Focus slot will be going to Kelly Somers’ The Football Interview, a more in-depth weekly conversation on iPlayer that you’re already as likely to watch on your phone as the TV.

Another venerable BBC football programme, Match of the Day, suffered a similar drop in ratings in its traditional Saturday night slot. The BBC responded by making its valuable clips of Premier League highlights available online earlier. But one effect of the expansion of the Match of the Day brand has been to make Football Focus a less visible part of the BBC’s extensive football coverage.

Some online commentary has blamed declining ratings on a so-called “woke” takeover of Football Focus, pointing to the appointment in 2021 of its first regular female host Alex Scott and the introduction of more items about women’s football. Some male critics have argued the BBC is part of a conspiracy to give the women’s game a prominence it doesn’t deserve.

Yet the BBC and others have argued that women’s football drives audiences and engagement. The public broadcaster’s coverage of women’s football has been rewarded with rising viewing figures of England’s success at major tournaments. In the year to 2024, the government’s participation survey found women’s football was the second most watched sport on British television, behind only men’s football.

In the era of pay TV networks, which outbid terrestrial broadcasters for the rights to many of the major sports leagues, tournaments and events, sport tended to be pushed to the margins of free-to-air television, relegated to weekend afternoons and nighttime highlights. But this is not to say it is not still an important part of the free-to-air offer: by 2024, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, spent £700 million between them on sport, more than any other genre of new, original programming. Yet it is live sport, not related shows such as Football Focus, which we’re mainly tuning in for.

The BBC faces a difficult broader context. It is under pressure to limit spending and BBC Sport is no exception. The BBC is not showing this summer’s Commonwealth Games live from Glasgow on television, a decision that would have been unthinkable in the past. All broadcasters now regularly have their commentators sitting in studios or at home describing the action from television pictures, to cut production costs.

The legacy of Football Focus

While it may now look like a holdover from a bygone age, Football Focus will go down as an important programme in British sports media history. An earlier version, Football Preview, began in September 1967 as part of the BBC’s old multi-sport magazine show, Grandstand. It was an innovative development, bringing regular football discussion and analysis from the pages of newspapers onto the screen.

Extended and relaunched seven years later with host Bob Wilson, Football Focus was often directly up against ITV rivals On The Ball (1965-1985, then 1998-2004) and Saint & Greavsie (1985-1992). These shows helped pioneer the now familiar diet of football previews, interviews and punditry. Each enjoyed the sort of pre-match access to players and managers now often restricted by clubs and leagues keen to keep their best material for themselves.

When the BBC briefly lost the rights to Premier League highlights in 2001, both Football Focus and results show Final Score were spun out as separate programmes to help maintain the prominence of football on the BBC. It worked: Football Focus lasted almost two decades after its mothership Grandstand finally came off the air in 2007. The falling number of top flight 3pm kick offs certainly didn’t help though, and that trend might in time make it harder for even Final Score to endure, too.

Intense competition in a sport environment saturated by media, meant Football Focus struggled to remain distinctive. Fans can now get everything from detailed tactical analysis to outrageous hot takes from content creators large and small. These offer the sort of depth and partisan approach the BBC, constrained by limitations of time, resources and objectivity, cannot.

Ghosts of the past have come back to haunt the BBC. That Peter Crouch Podcast, launched by the BBC, is the UK’s most popular football podcast, according to Edison Research. The only problem is that it’s been on commercial platform Acast since 2022. Meanwhile, ex-Football Focus host Gary Lineker’s Goalhanger stable includes three of the UK’s top six podcasts overall, including his own The Rest is Football, coming soon to Netflix.

Then there’s the sometime Dragon’s Den star, Gary Neville. The footballer turned entrepreneur recently signed Mark Goldbridge to his expanding media network, The Overlap. As the face of YouTube channel The United Stand, Goldbridge has become arguably the most successful exponent yet of fan media, delivering unfiltered opinions on Manchester United from his home studio rather than the stadium. In true football transfer style, the deal was for an “undisclosed” fee.

All this adds up to a much busier football media market than the one Football Focus first entered. BBC Sport’s focus remains on football, perhaps increasingly so. But on Saturday lunchtimes at least, it’s going to be taking a different form.

Richard Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The BBC is axing Football Focus – here’s what it means for sports broadcasting – https://theconversation.com/the-bbc-is-axing-football-focus-heres-what-it-means-for-sports-broadcasting-281472

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Philip Broadbent, Wellcome Multimorbidity PhD Fellow & Public Health Registrar, University of Glasgow

Healthy life expectancy in the UK – the years we can expect to live in good health – has fallen by more than two years over the past decade, according to a new Health Foundation analysis published.

The decline has been larger for women than for men – a finding the report says raises “concerns about the worsening trend of women’s health”. Of 21 high-income countries, the UK has fallen from 14th to 20th on this measure over the same period; only the US now ranks lower.

The aggregate matters, but so does the distribution. The gap in healthy life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas of England is now 20.3 years for women.

A girl born today in Hartlepool can expect to live just 51.2 years of good health; in Richmond-upon-Thames, 70.3. Translate that into time spent unwell and women in the poorest areas can expect roughly three decades of life in poor health, against around 13 years for the most affluent. In Wales, female healthy life expectancy fell by 3.7 years over the decade alone.

Why women in particular?

Men in deprived areas suffer too, but not in the same way and not for the same reasons. Three factors compound disproportionately for women.

The first is unpaid care. Women are 29% more likely than men to be unpaid carers, and almost twice as likely to provide 35 hours or more of unpaid care per week. Forty-two per cent of carers say their physical health has suffered as a consequence of providing care, and 74% report stress and anxiety. Caring falls disproportionately on the same low-income women whose paid work is already physically demanding.

That leads to the second reason: the labour market. Some 78% of social care staff are women; women make up around 59% of minimum-wage workers, concentrated in care, cleaning, hospitality and retail. These are the sectors most likely to involve shift work, zero-hour contracts, physically demanding work and exposure to violence, and least likely to offer sick pay or flexibility when long-term illness inevitably arrives.

The third is diagnostic delay and dismissal. Women in the UK now wait an average of nine years for an endometriosis diagnosis, and the waiting list for a gynaecology appointment is now close to a quarter of a million.

Women’s pain is more likely to be reframed as anxiety than properly worked up, and just 2% of UK health research funding goes to reproductive health and childbirth, despite maternal mortality sitting at its highest level in 20 years.

A strategy that doesn’t match the scale

This is the context in which health secretary Wes Streeting’s renewed women’s health strategy lands. Launched on April 15 with a pledge to end “medical misogyny” and the “gaslighting” of women, it has been welcomed in principle. But it contains £5 million of additional investment, against the £8 million in the men’s health strategy unveiled in November.

Look closer and the women’s headline figures shrink fast. The £1 million for menstrual education in schools works out at roughly £300 per state secondary, or about two hours of workshops per school year.

The £5 million for a maternity care bundle averages around £42,000 per trust (or the equivalent of one midwife’s annual salary). The £2.6 million for osteoporosis scanners buys roughly 33 machines, two-thirds of them replacing outdated ones. There is no ring-fenced funding for gynaecology, despite the unprecedented backlog.

Funding is not evidence, but it is the clearest policy signal of political priority. It is difficult to see how a 20-year healthy life expectancy gap for women in deprived areas closes on a per-school spend that wouldn’t cover a supply teacher.

What should be done?

Healthy life expectancy is not a measure of behaviour or individual lifestyle choices. It is the measurable end product of the cumulative conditions in which women grow up, work, give birth and grow old. The decline since 2012 maps, with depressing predictability, onto a decade of austerity, rising child poverty and stagnant real wages – pressures that fall hardest on the women already doing most of the unpaid work to hold their households together.

A serious response would ring-fence women’s health funding, match rhetoric on medical misogyny with sustained investment in gynaecology, maternity and reproductive research and recognise, as has been argued for more than 15 years, that the “causes of the causes” sit upstream of the NHS.

The Health Foundation has called this report a watershed. It will only become one if the policy response is built to the scale of the problem.

Philip Broadbent receives funding from The Wellcome Trust 223499/Z/21/Z

– ref. Healthy life expectancy falls in the UK – and the decline is worse among women – https://theconversation.com/healthy-life-expectancy-falls-in-the-uk-and-the-decline-is-worse-among-women-281563

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tracy Hussell, Director of the Lydia Becker Institute of Immunology and Inflammation, University of Manchester

The reliable supply of drugs is fundamental to any healthcare system, yet shortages remain a persistent problem.

Disruptions arise from a range of causes: manufacturing failures, fluctuating demand, regulatory changes and wars. Around 60% of drug shortages are linked to manufacturing bottlenecks, while insufficient reserves of both finished products and raw ingredients continue to leave health systems like the NHS exposed.

The seriousness of the issue has prompted intervention at the highest levels. In the UK, a recent House of Lords report called for more strategic leadership on medicine supply, warning of inadequate oversight and a failure to treat shortages as a matter of national security, despite the clear risks to public health.

Existing government measures – including the National Supply Disruption Response protocol
– aim to mitigate the effect of these drug shortages. Pharmacists and GPs are allowed to dispense alternative medicines where appropriate, and doctors may avoid initiating new patients on drugs in short supply. These measures, however, manage scarcity rather than prevent it.

Compounding the problem is the reality that many patients remain on prescriptions they may no longer need. Under pressure, NHS services often lack the capacity to review and safely reduce medications. Such “de-prescribing” must be gradual to avoid withdrawal effects, meaning this potential reserve of medicines cannot be mobilised quickly enough to address shortages.

The UK’s reliance on overseas manufacturing, adds a further layer of vulnerability. A significant proportion of essential medicines are made abroad, often concentrated in a handful of countries such as India, Israel and Ireland. This lack of diversity leaves supply chains fragile, particularly in times of global disruption.

Recent shortages have affected a wide range of treatments, including Ritalin (methylphenidate), used to treat ADHD, propranolol used to treat angina, heart arrhythmia, high blood pressure and anxiety, and medicines used in hormone replacement therapy, diabetes and epilepsy. There are about 120 drugs in short supply in the UK today.

Using equivalent drugs is not straightforward

GPs and pharmacists are empowered to use alternative medicines in a shortage. Some are structurally similar to the missing version. However, differences in how they are produced and how they are delivered in the body mean they aren’t necessarily equivalent.

For example, immediate-release versions of drugs produce sharper peaks and are cleared quickly by the body, leading to a rapid decrease in drug concentration levels in the blood. This creates gaps in symptom control, particularly overnight.

Extended-release versions, by contrast, provide more stable and consistent coverage. Although the total dose may be similar, differences in how the drug is absorbed can affect both how well the drug works and side-effects.

Patients are often on medicines for a long time – sometimes for life – and adapt to them specifically. Adding even a slightly different version is not necessarily tolerated and the patient may be faced with withdrawal or side-effects.

GPs and pharmacists need better information about which medicines can be used when supplies run short. They should discuss these options with patients so they understand what to expect.

Side-effects are easier to manage when patients know they are caused by the medicine, not by their condition getting worse or a new illness. Ideally, patients would receive an identical replacement, but this is not always possible.

Fixing drug shortages will take sustained investment in domestic manufacturing and genuine political will to treat the problem as a long-term priority. Where UK production isn’t viable, the NHS must urgently diversify their overseas suppliers.

In the meantime, frontline staff need the resources to navigate shortages confidently – and patients deserve clear, honest information about any changes to medication.

Tracy Hussell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Shortages, substitutes and uncertainty: the new reality of drugs supplies – https://theconversation.com/shortages-substitutes-and-uncertainty-the-new-reality-of-drugs-supplies-281192

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Oula Kadhum, Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies, SOAS, University of London

You could be forgiven for thinking everyone in Russia either supports the war in Ukraine or is too scared to do anything about it. A dominant narrative is that Russian civil society is passive, complicit or has been quashed to the point of being neutralised.

Some elements of this may be true. Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian citizens criticising the war or expressing an anti-war position have faced severe prison sentences. These fall under expanded war censorship laws that target the spread of alleged “false information” or the “discrediting of the army”. But this is not the full picture.

For the past two years, I have been researching Russian anti-war resistance. This has involved conducting interviews with activists and other people who left Russia following the outbreak of war and are now scattered across the world. Instead of disappearing into exile, many of these people are mobilising to voice their opposition to the war and resist the regime in Moscow.

Some exiled Russians are sending money and letters of solidarity to political prisoners in Russia and their families. Others have coordinated legal aid to support anti-war defendants inside Russia and are lobbying western governments to distinguish between the Kremlin and Russian civil society.

At the same time, elite exiled Russian opposition figures including Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Vladimir Kara-Murza, have worked to form the Platform for Dialogue with Russian Democratic Forces. This is a consultative body in the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe that, established in 2026, aims to give Russia’s opposition an international voice.

During my research, I have also come across exiled Russians who have been running independent Russian-language media through Telegram channels and YouTube. Though in recent months, Russia’s telecommunications regulator, Roskomnadzor, has severely restricted access to these platforms. It has done so in an attempt to censor outside information and force Russians to adopt the state-controlled Max app.

I have encountered instances of anti-war Russians abroad helping people inside the country escape mobilisation by offering shelter and safe routes out of Russia. One of my interviewees, a 22-year-old Russian now living abroad, had even established transnational networks across Europe, the Caucasus and Russia to help criminally prosecuted anti-war Russians flee the country before standing trial.

Indigenous diaspora networks have also informed local communities in regions of Russia where there are large ethnic minority populations such as Tuva, Tatarstan, Buriyatia and Chelyabinsk about the realities of the war. These include the use of underage soldiers and heavy recruitment from ethnic minority regions.

But they also include the extent of Russian and Ukrainian casualties, which Russia’s government has provided almost no official data on. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, an American thinktank, said in early 2026 that Russian forces had suffered nearly 1.2 million casualties since the start of the war.

These Indigenous networks have posted videos on platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, as well as messages on Telegram and Signal, to counter official state narratives about the war. Moscow has justified its war in Ukraine by saying it is protecting Russian-speaking citizens there, standing up to western expansionism and returning Russia to its former great power glory.

Meanwhile, anti-LGBTQ+ laws introduced in December 2022 have prohibited any perceived propaganda about non-traditional relationships in Russia. This was followed by a Russian supreme court decision in 2023 to designate the “international LGBT movement” as an extremist organisation. This ruling has made any association or support for LGBTQ+ communities a criminal offence.

In response to this clampdown, exiled Russians have stood in solidarity with LGBTQ+ compatriots inside the country who have faced discrimination. My research has uncovered cases of people providing shelter and safe routes out of the country, creating digital safe spaces for Russian LGBTQ+ communities and lobbying for the protection of these communities in European countries.

Russian resistance

Russians do not fall into a single, neat, complicit mass. Since the start of the war, a diverse resistance movement has worked to counter the Kremlin’s authoritarian practices and propaganda. It reflects a broader variety of voices, values and stances than is currently possible in Russia, offering a crucial insight into the future political aspirations and hopes of ordinary Russians.

This movement will not overthrow the Russian government. But the ability to deliver regime change should not be the only measure of resistance. The movement is challenging the narrative that all Russians support the war, while also helping keep democratic political ideas alive for Russians inside the country for when change becomes possible.

As one of my respondents told me: “We have to stay in touch with supporters in Russia and plan for transition. There will be no time to strategise, so the plan has to happen now. We try to do as much as possible to be prepared.”

The resistance of exiled Russian dissidents matters not just for understanding Russia today. It also tells us how opposition survives in authoritarian regimes more broadly, highlighting the role that diasporas can play in sustaining democratic civil society transnationally.

Dissent does not disappear when it is crushed at home. It relocates, adapts and reconfigures across borders.

Oula Kadhum receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust

– ref. The Russian resistance no one is talking about – https://theconversation.com/the-russian-resistance-no-one-is-talking-about-257501

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Renaud Foucart, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University

With oil prices skyrocketing following the US and Israel’s bombing of Iran, and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, motorists around the world have been looking for ways to save money.

Improvements in electric vehicle (EV) technology, combined with the high price of oil, mean that the tipping point at which most consumers start ditching their petrol cars for electric ones may well have been reached.

Given the nature of that market where more EV users means better infrastructure to support them, there will be no turning back. As it becomes easier to charge a car than to find petrol stations, and as battery technology continues to improve, the relative advantages of EVs will become impossible to match.

For countries like the UK, where renewable sources are producing more electricity, mass adoption of EVs cannot come fast enough. And this is not just for the obvious reasons of improving air quality or reducing reliance on dictators and US foreign policy.

While the oil price shock may be what finally tips consumers towards EVs, adoption provides part of the answer to a different and lasting problem: the cost of electricity in the UK and other countries where investment in wind and solar has so far failed to bring prices down.

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Read more:
The Strait of Hormuz shows how everything is now about leverage

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The UK pays more for electricity than most comparable countries. Gas sets the price of electricity too often. And a relative lack of sun means the UK misses out on the full benefits of solar – the renewable technology that has become cheapest.

What’s more, demand for electricity has been falling as machinery and appliances become more efficient, and as the country moved away from industry and towards services. This means that all the fixed costs of maintaining the energy grid must be shared between fewer users.

How EVs can help

On sunshine, there is not much to be done – the UK will not become Spain. But on the other two problems, the case is strong.

Take gas first. The reason gas sets the price of electricity so often is not that the UK lacks renewable capacity. The country builds plenty of wind farms. The problem is that it cannot always use the energy produced – a lot of it is wasted because there is nowhere to store it. So the fallback is gas whenever there is a need for a lot of electricity, or when there is no wind or sun.

But electric cars can be connected to the electricity grid. When you are not driving and do not need a full battery, intelligent systems can sell electricity back to the market when demand is high or supply is low, and buy it back when it is cheap. The supplier Octopus already offers this in the UK to drivers of certain cars, promising hundreds of pounds of annual savings while giving consumers a choice of when they need to refill their battery.

The scale is striking. Energy regulator Ofgem estimates that putting half of projected EVs on this vehicle-to-grid system by 2030 could provide around 16GW of flexible capacity to the grid. Average demand in Great Britain is around 30GW.

This means that discharging all batteries to the grid at the same time would produce the same flow of electricity as if all offshore wind turbines ran at full capacity simultaneously. Or five times what the new nuclear power plant Hinkley Point C – which is projected to start producing electricity in 2030 – will produce.

But crucially, it would be available on demand and not just when the wind blows.

At the European level, researchers estimate that the same 50% vehicle-to-grid penetration could fully cover EU stationary storage needs (the capacity to store surplus electricity and release it when demand peaks) by 2040. The intermittency problem, which underpins most of what makes electricity expensive and difficult to manage as countries wean themselves off fossil fuels, largely goes away when storage is not a problem.

In terms of demand, EVs will help simply by increasing it. The problem is not that the UK cannot produce electricity. The issue is intermittency, and the failure to invest in managing it.

EVs, like heat pumps, are far more energy-efficient than the systems they replace. Heat pumps are three to five times more efficient than gas boilers. Demanding more electricity means demanding less gas – even accounting for the gas used to generate some of that electricity. It also means spreading fixed costs across more users, and making households less exposed to the next energy shock.

The UK has cut its emissions by 54% since 1990, but the politics of net zero have become somewhat toxic. High electricity prices feed the narrative that going green means getting poorer. However, transport – the sector where emissions have barely moved – is also where the next wave of decarbonisation will lower bills.

Unlike authoritarian countries like China, which can simply impose the change on citizens, democracies depend on people actually wanting to switch. This has been harder than it should be. If you bought an electric car expecting everyone to follow in the next five years, every time car lobbies negotiated to keep producing petrol vehicles, it probably felt like a betrayal.

People will not buy an EV to fix the electricity market. They will buy one because petrol has become unaffordable and because this alternative is cheap and convenient.

The oil price spike may very well be remembered as the moment when most drivers finally made the switch. But its lasting legacy may be something less obvious: that by filling driveways with connected batteries, drivers quietly helped to solve a problem that had been making electricity bills unnecessarily high for years.

Renaud Foucart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. High petrol prices are fuelling interest in EVs. Here’s how this could bring down electricity bills – https://theconversation.com/high-petrol-prices-are-fuelling-interest-in-evs-heres-how-this-could-bring-down-electricity-bills-280954

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Eerke Boiten, Professor of Cybersecurity, Head of School of Computer Science and Informatics, De Montfort University

Palantir, a US data analytics company backed in its early years by In-Q-Tel, now plays a central role in the NHS’s £330 million Federated Data Platform. Supporters say it could improve planning and efficiency, while critics have raised questions about governance, transparency and trust. Here’s what you need to know.

1. What is Palantir and what does it do?

Palantir is a large American technology company, specialising in storing large data collections and providing tools to manage the data, in particular artificial intelligence (AI) to ask questions of it. It provides decision-making platforms, such as Foundry, which government organisations and businesses use to uncover patterns, manage operations, and support planning and decision-making.

The company’s chairman, Peter Thiel, is known for his controversial views. At the Oxford Union in 2023, he said that the NHS makes people ill and should be privatised.

2. Why is a private American company involved in managing NHS medical records?

That’s not how Palantir views it. It sees itself as providing a platform on which the NHS can store and analyse NHS medical records. And that wouldn’t be exceptional. A large amount of data from across society is stored on cloud platforms provided by American companies.

Some of the discussion is about whether Palantir is really less trustworthy than, say, Microsoft, Google or Amazon.

3. Who gave Palantir this contract, and was it put out to open tender?

The governments of Boris Johnson (2020) and Rishi Sunak (2023) awarded Palantir the contracts.

Palantir had been lobbying to get access to NHS data for a while when it offered to build a COVID data store for £1 in early 2020; there was no open competition under emergency COVID procurement rules. The data store combined patient-level data from many sources, as well as operational data from hospitals and other sources.

The initial three-month contract was only made public under legal pressure, and the deal was then renewed for £23 million, again without evidence of competition.

The latest version of this deal, the Federated Data Platform, was awarded competitively in December 2023 to a Palantir-led consortium. Having had the deal previously will have been a big advantage for Palantir – a phenomenon known as “vendor lock-in”.

4. Can Palantir use my data for its own commercial purposes or share it with the US government?

Palantir’s role is as a “data processor”, which means it is not legally allowed to make its own decisions about what to do with the data – only the “data controllers” (NHS organisations) can.

There is some grey area on what Palantir is allowed to do with the data that is “necessary to provide products or services … under the Agreement”. It has been claimed that this includes using NHS data for AI models, but the original contract does not really suggest this. Unhelpfully, in the publicly available version of the latest contract, nearly all the data protection text (three pages) is redacted.

So it is not legally allowed to use NHS data for their own purposes. And although UK regulators, such as the Information Commissioner’s Office, have oversight powers, some critics question how effectively large multinational technology providers can be audited in practice.

Trust plays an important role, particularly at a time when we have seen US government appropriating databases relating, for example, to health, mobile phone location and car number plates, for immigration enforcement. Under the US Cloud Act, American authorities can, under certain legal conditions, request data from US-based companies, which has raised concerns among privacy advocates about potential cross-border access.

5. What is the Federated Data Platform, and what is it supposed to do for the NHS?

There has long been an NHS England ambition to have a central place to store “all” NHS data. The core of this was effectively realised quickly during COVID, under special legislation, in two forms with slightly different targets.

The first was the NHS COVID-19 Data Store, which has grown into the Federated Data Platform, and is targeted more towards planning. The second is OpenSafely, which provides research access to unified NHS datasets using strong privacy protections.

6. Has the system improved NHS care, and is the taxpayer getting value for money?

The UK government has already made claims of significant improvements due to Palantir. But researchers have raised doubts both about the research methods used to quantify such successes and about the personal connections of the people involved in these.

7. What is Palantir’s track record — who else does it work for, and should that concern me?

Palantir was initially funded by In-Q-Tel, the non-profit venture capital arm of the CIA, and has been working with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has been criticised by civil liberties groups.

It works with several other UK government organisations, including the army. The Israeli army reportedly used Palantir for AI-based targeting in the war in Gaza, which is a main reason Amnesty International campaigned against Palantir within the NHS.

8. Can I opt my data out? If so, how?

You can opt out of your GP practice sharing your health data, or separately out of NHS England and others sharing it for research and planning.

Unfortunately, this would affect beneficial uses of your health data too, including by making the overall dataset less comprehensive and representative. This is part of why the medical community worries about the Palantir effect.

9. Why are so many doctors, nurses and campaigners opposed to this — and should I be worried too?

There is a wide range of concerns. Palantir’s political positioning, including opposing the NHS in its current form, as well as the more controversial political views expressed by some of its leaders, means many people don’t trust it with their health data.

There is a technological concern over concentrating NHS data processing with a single supplier, possibly replacing working solutions with inferior ones. For some people, Palantir’s activity with ICE and allegedly in Gaza makes them morally unacceptable.

10. Could the government cancel the contract, and what would happen to the data Palantir already holds if it did?

There is a break clause in the current contract coming up, so yes, it can. The contract says Palantir needs to lose all access to the data when the contract ends.

Responding to Conservative MP Wendy Morton’s call for more scrutiny of Palantir’s ability to protect data, Louis Mosley, Palantir UK’s executive vice-chair, told the BBC that he welcomed scrutiny and was confident the firm was delivering value for money for NHS patients.

Mosley went on to say that Palantir has no interest in patient data in the UK. “It’s not our business model,” he said. “It’s not the legal basis on which we operate, in the same way that Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word or email is used in the NHS and again that is NHS data, Microsoft doesn’t have access to it, nor do we to NHS data.”

Eerke Boiten has previously received funding from several research funding organisations, including for research on privacy preserving data processing, but none of this directly related to this article.

– ref. Palantir and the NHS – 10 things you need to know – https://theconversation.com/palantir-and-the-nhs-10-things-you-need-to-know-281165

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michelle Spear, Professor of Anatomy, University of Bristol

My husband was recently describing something that happened on a past holiday. It wasn’t a significant event, but it sounded pleasant. I, however, had no recollection of what he was telling me. He couldn’t quite believe it.

We know that “recollections may differ”, but how can it be so different? And why do I not have this memory? I’m busy at work – have I simply run out of space?

It’s a tempting explanation. We talk about “full heads”, “information overload”, and “too much to take in” as though the brain were a container that eventually reaches capacity. But the brain does not fill up. Instead, it filters.

At any given moment, far more information is available to us than we could ever realistically store. The sights, sounds and conversations of even a single day would overwhelm any system that attempted to record them in full. Instead, the brain relies on selection. Attention determines what is noticed. Emotion helps determine what matters. Then, structures such as the hippocampus decide what is worth committing to longer-term memory.

If your attention is elsewhere, the process falters at the first step.

On that holiday, my husband may have paused long enough to register the moment. I may have been thinking about where we were going next, checking timings, or simply moving through the day without stopping to take it in. The difference is subtle, but it matters. Without focused attention, experiences are only weakly encoded, if at all. In that sense, the memory was not lost. It was never fully formed.

Even when memories are successfully encoded, they are not stored as fixed records. Each time we recall an event, we reconstruct it, drawing on fragments of sensory detail, prior knowledge and expectation. With repetition – through conversation, reflection or retelling – those reconstructions become stronger and more coherent. Over time, they can feel increasingly vivid and certain.

This helps explain why shared experiences can diverge so dramatically. We assume that living through the same moment should produce the same memory, but the brain does not work that way. It does not passively record experience. It actively selects, prioritises and, just as importantly, discards.

The feeling that our brains are “full” arises not because we have run out of storage, but because we have reached the limits of what we can process at once. Attention is finite. Working memory – the small amount of information we can actively hold in mind – is even more limited. When these systems are saturated, new information struggles to gain a foothold. This is the mental equivalent of too many tabs open: nothing has been permanently lost, but everything becomes harder to manage.

Where the computer analogy breaks down

Computing analogies are useful up to a point. If working memory resembles RAM – fast, temporary, limited – then long-term memory is often compared to a hard drive. But this is where the parallel breaks down. A hard drive stores files in fixed locations, retrievable in exactly the same form in which they were saved. The brain does not work this way.

Memories are not stored as discrete files. They are distributed across networks of neurons, overlapping, reshaped, and reassembled each time they are recalled. New experiences do not simply add to what is already there – they interact with it, altering both the new and the old.

Attempts have been made to estimate how much the brain could theoretically hold. One widely cited figure from the Salk Institute puts it at around a petabyte – roughly equivalent to hundreds of years of continuous video. It is an impressive number, but also a somewhat misleading one. It implies a storage system that fills up over time, when in reality the brain is constantly reorganising itself. Capacity is not fixed, and information is not stored in isolation. It is integrated, modified, and, when no longer useful, allowed to fade.

Which raises a slightly uncomfortable question: what happens to the memories we would like to keep?

Some of them will fade – not because the brain has run out of space, but because they are not continually reinforced. Memory is not preserved simply because it matters to us. It is preserved when it is revisited, retold, or reconnected to other experiences. Without that reinforcement, even meaningful moments can become harder to access over time.

What is lost, in most cases, is not the memory itself but our ability to retrieve it. A familiar smell, a piece of music, or an unexpected detail can bring something back that seemed entirely gone. The trace remains, but it has slipped out of reach. And the absence of a memory is rarely evidence of a system at capacity – more often, it is the trace of a moment that was never fully stored, or one that has simply not been called upon.

Michelle Spear does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Headspace: can our brains get full? – https://theconversation.com/headspace-can-our-brains-get-full-279173