Health

Thousands of unpaid carers will have their cases reassessed after an official review found they had been left with huge debts caused by systemic failures. Former charity boss Liz Sayce found confusing guidance on Carer’s Allowance – given to those providing 35 hours of unpaid care a week – had left thousands with fines and…

Getty Images Milkshakes, coffee drinks and milk substitutes are to be included in the government’s sugar tax scheme for the first time in the UK in a renewed attempt to help tackle obesity. The sugar tax, known formally as the soft drinks industry levy (SDIL), is a tax on pre-packaged drinks such as those sold…

Lucy HookerBusiness reporter Getty Images Pre-packaged milkshakes and coffees that are high in sugar will be hit with an extra tax from 2028, after the health secretary announced he was extending the tax on fizzy drinks to include milk-based products. Wes Streeting told Parliament he was also lowering the threshold at which the tax applies…

James GallagherHealth and science correspondent Monty Rakusen/Getty The brain goes through five distinct phases in life, with key turning points at ages nine, 32, 66 and 83, scientists have revealed. Around 4,000 people up to the age of 90 had scans to reveal the connections between their brain cells. Researchers at the University of Cambridge…

Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of former US President John F Kennedy, moved many Americans over the weekend with her emotional essay about being diagnosed with terminal cancer shortly after giving birth to her second child. In the New Yorker, the 35-year-old stunned readers, writing that she was battling acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), an aggressive blood cancer,…

Drug maker Novo Nordisk says semaglutide, the active ingredient for the weight loss jab Wegovy, does not slow Alzheimer’s – despite initial hopes that it might help against dementia. Researchers began two large trials involving more than 3,800 people after reports the medicine was having an impact in the real world. But the studies showed…

Three-year-old Oliver Chu has amazed doctors and his parents after he became the world’s first patient of a pioneering gene therapy to treat Hunter syndrome. Hunter syndrome – or MPSII – is a rare, inherited condition that causes progressive damage to the body and brain. The effects are sometimes described as a type of childhood…

Mark NormanSouth East health correspondent Mark Norman/BBC Jules Fielder was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer aged 37 A non-smoker who was diagnosed with lung cancer at the age of 37 is campaigning for better awareness of the condition in young women. Jules Fielder, from Hastings, East Sussex, has secured a meeting with Health Secretary Wes…

Former cabinet minister Lord Michael Gove has apologised on behalf of the then-government and Conservative Party for “mistakes made” during the coronavirus pandemic. In her long-awaited report published, Baroness Hallett says Boris Johnson, the prime minister at the time, oversaw a “toxic and chaotic” culture in No 10 during Covid. Lord Gove told the BBC’s…