By Laura Passi
Our roundup of health news headlines on Friday 20 August.
Party drugs are still in the papers but the message today is a tad unclear. The Daily Telegraph reports that the Home Office will be given powers to ban ‘legal high' party drugs immediately, in a bid to ‘halt their escalating use among young people'. This follows a story earlier this week in which the legal high 'Ivory wave' was blamed for the death of a chef.
However, follow the page down and the headline reads, 'Ketamine quickly helps depression' - ‘even when years of alternative treatments have failed'.
And The Independent headline is 'Ketamine acts like magic to lift depression study says'. The drug isn't considered practical because it can cause ‘short term psychotic affects' (hence its use as a party drug), and ‘has to be administered intravenously', although the latter is surely not the case. The Daily Digest once knew a guy who could quite capably snort the stuff.
The Daily Mail gives us the news of Branda Allison, a woman dubbed ‘the human magnet'. Metal objects can stick to her skin for 45 minutes at a time, caused by her natural electromagnetic field, and the effect is heightened during periods of stress. The paper provides a photo so you can marvel at the various metal knick knacks (including a Vaseline lid) adorning Allison's chest and face. Bizarrely, online her face is happy, but in the print version, sad.
And on the more serious side, The Times reports that ‘Top performing hospital doctors could take a pay cut of up to £10,000' and ‘Eating green leafy vegetables could reduce your chances of developing Type 2 diabetes.' Sadly, no links, so you'll have to buy the paper to read more.
Spotted a story we've missed? Let us know and we'll update the digest throughout the day...
Daily Digest
