Since being declared a pandemic earlier this month, swine flu has continued to cause concern for many people across the world, not least those in high risk groups such as people with diabetes.

Now renamed influenza A(H1N1), swine flu is a respiratory disease that could lead to complications such as bronchitis and pneumonia. It has some elements of a virus found in pigs but cannot be transferred from pigs to humans. Swine flu has now been confirmed in a number of countries and is spreading from human to human by droplet infection when sneezing or coughing. The number of new confirmed cases is rising steadily.

Everyone could be at risk

Influenza A(H1N1) is a new virus, so the flu vaccination given each year does not give protection. Everyone could be at risk of catching it, including previously healthy adults. Stocks of antivirals are being increased and are effective if taken within 24 hours of symptoms developing.

How to protect yourself

The best way to protect yourself and stop the spread of the disease is by using and disposing of tissues when sneezing or coughing and washing your hands as soon as possible afterwards.

The Department of Health has been encouraging people to ‘catch it, bin it, kill it’. Also try to avoid close contact with people who appear unwell and who have fever and cough. Face masks don’t protect people from becoming infected.

People with diabetes at higher risk of flu

“People with diabetes are a high risk group when it comes to getting flu,” said Caroline Butler, Care Advisor at Diabetes UK.

“Having flu can really upset diabetes control and cause blood glucose levels to fluctuate. This can leave people with diabetes open to many health problems, including complications of flu such as pneumonia and bronchitis.”

IT firm Computacenter said on Thursday its first-half adjusted profit would be ahead of market expectations, helped by growth in its contractual services business and significant cost cuts.

The company said it was confident about growing its contractual services business in the second half, but said a return to growth in capital expenditure on IT equipment across its geography was unlikely.

Panmure Gordon analyst George O’Connor raised his price target on the company’s stock to 240 pence from 236 pence, and retained a “buy” rating.

In the six months ended June 30, overall revenue fell by 3 percent. On a constant currency basis, it declined 8 percent.

“The trading environment remains very challenging and neither Computacenter nor its customers are immune. It is therefore no surprise that our product sales are down in the period,” Chief Executive Mike Norris said in a statement.

Annual service contract base rose 11 percent to 510 million pounds ($820 million), based on constant currency.

Computacenter’s German unit signed one of its largest managed services contracts to date, which will start in the second half, but will not make a significant contribution to the business until 2010, the company said.

Computacenter said the majority of its planned cost reductions in the UK have taken place, which, along with the exiting of trade distribution, will have a positive effect on margins.

Computacenter ended the sale of PCs, laptops and printers in November, choosing instead to focus on the higher-margin server, storage and networking sectors.

The company’s shares, whose value has more than doubled in the year to date, were up 2 pence at 208.5 pence by 0916 GMT on the London Stock Exchange. They touched a high of 212 pence earlier in the session.

Drug dealer Jesse James Hollywood, whose crimes inspired the 2007 film Alpha Dog, starring Justin Timberlake, has been found guilty of murder.

The 29-year-old was convicted of kidnapping and killing teenager Nicholas Markowitz, 15, in August 2000 over debts owed by his half-brother.

Hollywood fled after the slaying and was captured in Brazil in 2005.

Four others have already been convicted in connection with the crime. Hollywood could now face the death penalty.

Markowitz was the brother of a small-time drug dealer Ben Markowitz. During trial, it emerged that he had been killed following a dispute between his brother and Hollywood over more than $2,000 worth of marijuana.

The 15-year-old was held hostage for several days, before being bound with duct tape, struck over the head with a shovel and shot several times.

Remorse

After four days deliberation, a Santa Barbara Superior Court jury also found Hollywood guilty of the special circumstance allegation of being a principal in a murder committed in the course of a kidnapping and being involved in a crime in which an assault weapon or machine gun was used.

The guilty conviction makes Hollywood eligible for the death penalty.

Taking the stand in his own defence, Hollywood said: “I just feel terrible about everything that happened. I feel terrible for the Markowitz family.

“I feel terrible that anyone would think I could do something like that.”

The crime was the inspiration for Alpha Dog, which starred Bruce Willis, Justin Timberlake, and Sharon Stone.

Timberlake’s character, Frankie Ballenbacher, was based on Jesse Rugge, one of Hollywood’s co-defendants, currently serving a life sentence.

Emile Hirsch played Johnny Truelove, a character based on Hollywood.

The sentencing phase of the trial begins on Monday.

Mystery surrounds the whereabouts of Michael Jackson’s body, a day after the public were given a final opportunity to say goodbye to the King of Pop.

His gold-plated coffin was removed from the Staples Centre in Los Angeles on Tuesday after a memorial event which saw stars and Jackson’s 11-year-old daughter pay emotional tributes to the late singer.

But his final resting place has not been announced by the family, with speculation ranging from a private cemetery in LA to the sprawling Neverland ranch in Santa Barbara.

A private memorial was held at Forest Lawn in Hollywood Hills prior to the public memorial, but it is not thought that Jackson will be buried among the other Hollywood stars interred at the graveyard.

Likewise there is doubt over whether the family will be allowed to bury the Thriller singer at Neverland, his former home.

On Tuesday, followers of the singer were given the opportunity to celebrate his life and music during a star-studded public memorial.

The event, billed as the biggest celebrity send-off in history, ran at least 30 minutes longer than scheduled.

The emotional eulogies were capped by Jackson’s daughter Paris, who outshone the stars with a tearful tribute to the “best father you could ever imagine”. The 11-year-old, comforted by the Jackson family, sobbed as she made her public debut in front of 17,000 fans in Los Angeles - with an estimated billion more tuning in worldwide.

Shane Filan is set to become a father for the third time.

The Westlife singer - who already has a daughter Nicole, three, and nine-month-old son Patrick with wife Gillian - is thrilled to be adding to his family and revealed the baby is due next year.

He said: “I know a lot of you have already heard the rumours, but I wanted to confirm to you myself that Gillian and I are expecting another baby.

“We’ve been keeping it a complete secret from everyone for a while, and made the announcement at my 30th birthday party on Saturday (04.07.09). The baby’s due early next year and we’re completely over the moon about it. The thought of becoming a dad for the third time is just amazing!”

Speaking after Nicole’s birth in 2005, Shane said: “It was the most emotional and amazing experience of my life.”

“The baby looks like me. She’s got dark hair and is absolutely gorgeous. Gillian will be staying in hospital for a few days and I can’t wait to get her and Nicole back home.”

John Mayer didn’t sing at Michael Jackson’s memorial because he isn’t as talented as the late ‘King of Pop’.

The ‘Gravity’ musician - who performed an instrumental version of Michael’s hit ‘Human Nature’ at the ceremony at Los Angeles’ Staples Center on Tuesday (07.07.09) - decided against tackling the vocals as he didn’t want to be compared to Michael.

He said: “The decision not to sing cam from knowing what’s best for me. I think it’s a mine field to try in any way to replicate vocally what Michael Jackson has done. And in a way, it was sort of respectfully leaving an absence, you know, sort of the presence of his absence.”

John, 31, was amazed to be asked to attend the memorial - which also saw performances from Mariah Carey, Usher and Michael’s brother Jermaine Jackson - as he had never met the ‘Billie Jean’ singer.

He explained: “The first thing I said was a question, ‘Does this really come from the family?’ I think that was essential to me to be able to process the honor. It took me about 48 hours to strike the balance in how I was going to approach being invited to this unbelievable event without actually having the proximity to Michael Jackson, personally. I’d never met him.”

Car sales in China rose 48% in June from a year ago, boosted by government incentives and the continuing resilience of the country’s economy.

Sales hit 872,900 vehicles last month, the biggest increase since February 2006, said the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

Chinese car sales are continuing to benefit from cuts in sales tax, and subsidies to trade in older vehicles.

It comes as the wider China economy continues to grow at more than 6%.

The most recent official data showed that the economy expanded at an annual rate of 6.1% in the first three months of 2009, a slight slowdown from 6.8% in the final three months of 2008, against the backdrop of the global recession.

‘Proud result’

Domestic Chinese car sales overtook those in the US for the first time in December of last year, and this trend has continued.

While 872,900 cars were sold in China in June, 859,847 were bought in the US.

Global carmakers are now increasingly targeting China as a key growth market.

“It was really hard for our auto industry to achieve such a proud result against a backdrop of general gloom in the international auto industry,” said the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, which is authorised by the Chinese government to release the data.

US carmaker General Motors recently reported that its sales in China rose 38% in the first half of this year, while Ford’s sales in China increased 14% over the same period.

Patients across the country are voicing a growing desire for greater engagement in, and control over, their own medical care. A new study led by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) will examine the impact of adding new layer of openness to a traditionally one-sided element of the doctor-patient relationship - the notes from patients’ doctors’ visits.

Funded through a $1.4 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Pioneer Portfolio, the 12-month OpenNotes© Project will bring together approximately 100 primary care physicians and 25,000 patients to evaluate the impact on both patients and physicians of sharing the comments and observations made by physicians after each patient encounter. Physicians and patients at Geisinger Health Systems in Pennsylvania and Harborview Medical Center in Seattle will also participate in the 12-month trial.

“Patients remember precious little about what happens in the doctor’s office,” says Tom Delbanco, MD, a primary care physician at BIDMC and the Richard and Florence Koplow-James Tullis Professor of General Medicine and Primary Care at Harvard Medical School. “We expect OpenNotes© will improve patient recall, help patients take more charge of their care, and offer an opportunity for avoiding potential medical errors as patients and families monitor and think about their care in a much more active and knowledgeable way.”

That premise is based in part on a recent study by Delbanco and Jan Walker, RN, MBA, Instructor in Medicine in the Division of General Medicine and Primary Care at BIDMC and Harvard Medical School. Reporting in the Journal of General Internal Medicine (JGIM), Delbanco and Walker found that consumers want full access to all of their medical records and are willing to make some privacy concessions in the interest of making their medical records completely transparent.

The study also found that, going forward, consumers fully expect that computers will play a major role in their medical care, even substituting for face-to-face doctor visits.

“We learned that, for the most part, patients are very comfortable with the idea of computers playing a central role in their care,” Walker says. In fact, patients said they not only want computers to bring them customized medical information, they fully expect that in the future they will be able to rely on electronic technology for many routine medical issues, she says.

“Doctors have strong differences of opinion about this, but there is almost a religious character to the debate - it’s uniformed by evidence,” says Stephen Downs, an assistant vice president at RWJF and member of the foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio, which supports innovative ideas and projects that may lead to important breakthroughs in health and health care. “It’s a subtle change - but it could reposition notes to be for the patient instead of about the patient, which might have a powerful impact on the doctor-patient relationship and, in the long run, lead to better care.”

To collect evidence, physicians and patients will fully share, through a simple one-step intervention, all encounter notes. By contrasting the experience of trial participants with unenrolled physicians and patients, the researchers hope measure the impact of notes access through online surveys of both doctors and patients.

“While this intervention potentially could disrupt the current flow of primary health care, it holds considerable potential to transform the doctor-patient relationship,” says Delbanco. “By enabling patients to read their clinicians’ notes, OpenNotes© may break down an important wall that currently separates patients from those who care for them. It may promote insight and shared decision-making by bringing closer together the unique expertise of the clinician and the unique understanding of himself or herself that each patient possesses.”

A drug discovered in the soil of a South Pacific island may help to fight the ageing process, research suggests.

When US scientists treated old mice with rapamycin it extended their expected lifespan by up to 38%.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, raise the prospect of being able to slow down the ageing process in older people.

However, a UK expert warned against using the drug to try to extend lifespan, as it can suppress immunity.

We believe this is the first convincing evidence that the ageing process can be slowed and lifespan can be extended by a drug therapy starting at an advanced age.
Professor Randy Strong
University of Texas

Rapamycin was first discovered on Easter Island in the 1970s.

It is already used to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients, and in stents implanted into patients to keep their coronary arteries open. It is also being tested as a possible treatment for cancer.

Researchers at three centres in Texas, Michigan and Maine gave the drug to mice at an age equivalent to 60 in humans.

The mice were bred to mimic the genetic diversity and susceptibility to disease of humans as closely as possible.

Rapamycin extended the animals’ expected lifespan by between 28% and 38%.

The researchers estimated that in human terms this would be greater than the predicted increase in extra years of life, if both cancer and heart disease were prevented and cured.

Researcher Dr Arlan Richardson, of the Barshop Institute, said: “I’ve been in ageing research for 35 years and there have been many so-called ‘anti-ageing’ interventions over those years that were never successful.

“I never thought we would find an anti-ageing pill for people in my lifetime; however, rapamycin shows a great deal of promise to do just that.”

Professor Randy Strong, of the University of Texas Health Science Center, said: “We believe this is the first convincing evidence that the ageing process can be slowed and lifespan can be extended by a drug therapy starting at an advanced age.”

Calorie restriction

Rapamycin appears to have a similar effect to restricting food intake, which has also been shown to boost longevity.

In no way should anyone consider using this particular drug to try to extend their own lifespan, as rapamycin suppresses immunity
Dr Lynne Cox
University of Oxford

It targets a protein in cells called mTOR, which controls many processes involved in metabolism and response to stress.

The researchers had to find a way to re-formulate the drug so that it was stable enough to make it to the mice’s intestines before beginning to break down.

The original aim was to begin feeding the mice at four months of age, but the delay caused by developing the new formulation meant that feeding did not start until the animals were 20 months old.

The researchers thought the animals would be too old for the drug to have any effect - and were surprised when it did.

Professor Strong said: “This study has clearly identified a potential therapeutic target for the development of drugs aimed at preventing age-related diseases and extending healthy lifespan.

“If rapamycin, or drugs like rapamycin, works as envisioned, the potential reduction in health cost will be enormous.”

‘Don’t try it now’

Dr Lynne Cox, an expert in ageing at the University of Oxford, described the study as “exciting”.

She said: “It is especially interesting that the drug was effective even when given to older mice, as it would be much better to treat ageing in older people rather than using drugs long-term through life.”

However, she added: “In no way should anyone consider using this particular drug to try to extend their own lifespan, as rapamycin suppresses immunity.

“While the lab mice were protected from infection, that’s simply impossible in the human population.

“What the study does is to highlight an important molecular pathway that new, more specific drugs might be designed to work on.

“Whether it’s a sensible thing to try to increase lifespan this way is another matter; perhaps increasing health span rather than overall lifespan might be a better goal.”

At least 34 people have been killed in a double suicide bomb attack in northern Iraq, police and medics say.

They say about 60 people were injured when two bombers detonated their explosive vests in the town of Talafar, near Mosul.

The attacks are the deadliest since the withdrawal last week of US combat troops from Iraqi towns and cities.

In Baghdad, at least seven people were killed and nearly 20 injured in two bomb explosions in Sadr City.

‘Judge targeted’

The attacks in Talafar, which is populated mainly by members of the Turkmen ethnic minority, happened early in the morning and in quick succession.

First, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives vest. The second blast followed as people gathered at the scene of the first explosion.

An Iraqi policeman at the scene of the blast in Sadr City, Baghdad
In Sadr City, the bombs went off in a popular market place

There are fears that the death toll will rise further, police say.

The target appears to have been the home of a local judge, the BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse in Baghdad says.

This area of northern Iraq is rapidly becoming Iraq’s most dangerous region, our correspondent says.

On Wednesday, two explosions near Shia mosques in Mosul killed at least nine people and wounded many more.

In Baghdad’s Sadr City, a Shia area of the Iraqi capital, two roadside bombs exploded in a market, killing at least seven people.

The bombs were reportedly placed in rubbish piles in the area.

US combat troops pulled out from Iraqi towns and cities last week.

US President Barack Obama has described the handover to Iraqis as a milestone, warning that the country’s leaders would face “hard choices” on security and politics.

The withdrawal came ahead of the full departure of US forces by 2012.