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Designer vagina, 1 in 4 cancers ‘missed’ by GPs and how education beats hypertension

By Laura Passi

Our roundup of the health news headlines on Monday 28 February.

The Daily Telegraph reports on the row between the BMA and Department of health over the NHS reforms. The BMA says clauses within the bill make in ‘overly restrictive and controlling'. But Simon Burns, health minister, said the claims were 'nonsense'.

A designer vagina, apparently something a lot of women are hankering for following the ‘pornification of society' due to a number of things, for example the easy access to pornography on the internet. The Guardian reports that medical experts from the Kings College have found number of women undergoing labiaplasty surgery has soared. Surgery is used to make the ‘labia smaller or more symmetrical' but private companies are largely ‘unregulated' and have been accused of operating on women who on medication or are depressed.

The Daily Mail's front page today reads: ‘1 in 4 cancer cases missed: GPs send away alarming number of patients delaying vital treatment'. The report, by the Rarer Cancers Foundation, found a quarter of patients were diagnosed with cancer when it had already spread to other organs ‘by which time it is often terminal'.

Eric Low, chief executive of Myeloma UK, stuck up for doctors and said: ‘We shouldn't have a bash at GPs – we need to provide them with the resources and background information to enable them to make these diagnoses.'

Education, education, education. Never a truer word said if you are trying to prevent high blood pressure in later years. Scientists have found ‘a correlation between years spent in education and lower lifetime blood pressure', which is even more pronounced for women. They looked at men and women who had spent less that 12 or more than 17 years in education ‘educated women had readings 3.26 millimetres of mercury (mmHg) lower, on average, over the 30-year timespan.'

Spotted a story we've missed? Let us know in the comments and we'll update the digest throughout the day...

Daily Digest