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Treating gum disease helps diabetics, post-election extravaganza, and are one in six doctors really addicted to drink and drugs?

By Steve Nowottny

Our roundup of health news headlines on Thursday 13 May.

It's all about the Nick 'n' Dave show this morning, with the front pages of all the nationals dominated by what the Sun cutely calls ‘the biggest double act since Morecambe and Wise'. In fact, the formation of the new Government is such a huge, multi-faceted story that you have to go twenty pages into the Guardian before you can find news on anything else.

One facet of that story, of course, is the appointment of Conservative health spokesman Andrew Lansley – it's a move that was politically almost inevitable, the Guardian says, given that he had been ‘credited with neutralising the potentially vote-losing issue of the NHS for the Tories in the election'.

The Daily Mail – which tires of the politics extravaganza after a mere ten pages – asks in an in-depth investigation: ‘Why ARE so many doctors addicted to drink or drugs?'

The story quotes a Department of Health-backed study released in March which found that one in six doctors will have been addicted to drink or drugs – or both – at some stage in their medical career. As the Mail, never knowingly underhyped, puts it, this raises ‘the horrifying prospect that these highly-paid carers may have your life in their trembling hands'.

And the BBC reports that treating serious gum disease in diabetics can help to lower their blood sugar levels.

Scientists at Edinburgh University, who published their findings as part of the international Cochrane Collaboration, found reducing gum inflammation can help minimise complications from the condition.

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

Daily Digest