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The Sun
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Judy Finnigan reveals how she lost two stone after she ‘nearly died'
THIS Morning legend Judy Finnigan has revealed she "nearly died" from a ruptured stomach ulcer. The ITV daytime alum recently showed off her slimmed down figure on a day out with her GMB presenter spouse Richard Madeley, 69. 6 6 6 Judy also showcased her svelte look in a floral frock as she turned 77. Yet the broadcaster has now opened up on the terrifying reason behind her new look - and the health scare that proved life-changing. In 2018, Judy needed two life-saving blood transfusions after taking ibuprofen for her knee pain sparked a stomach ulcer. Opening up on the horror incident, which could have seen her "bleed out within an hour" she has told MailOnline: "I nearly died. "Totally out of the blue never experienced anything like it before and hope to god I never will again. "I survived thanks to exceptionally swift arriving and skilled ambulance crew and superb emergency treatment at London's Royal Free Hospital and two major life-saving blood transfusions." Since then, Judy's figure has changed dramatically with her losing over five stone. The change took her super fit daughter Chloe - who acts as her PT - by surprise, and the professional trainer admitted in 2018 that all the hard work was done by her mum without any help from her. Speaking on Loose Women, she explained how her mum's diet consisted of raw fish and healthy whole grain salads, though she wasn't interested in gym workouts. She said: "I was as surprised as anyone else when I opened the fridge on coming home on the weekend and saw superfood salads and soups, I thought, what the hell is going on! Richard Madeley takes a swipe at This Morning saying his show with Judy was different because 'we're trained journalists' "I have to say her diet is now amazing. Her palate has changed. She has got into sushi, raw fish and whole grain salad. She has dropped the pounds naturally." Earlier this month, mum of one Chloe then shared a selection of snaps from Judy's family birthday celebrations at home. She wrote in the caption: ""Rosé flowing with your chosen family. "Happy birthday to my favourite woman in the world." LOVE STORY Judy's birthday celebrations come after Richard gave an update on their working relationship. The pair rose to fame co-hosting ITV's This Morning and their eponymous Channel 4 program, Richard & Judy. Judy retired from working on TV in 1986, but Richard decided to stay on and his currently a co-host on ITV's Good Morning Britain. The pair spoke about their relationship during a joint interview on Kate Thornton's White Wine Question Time. Judy explained: "We are incredibly close, we always have been. "Obviously, I think working together for so long has bonded us more tightly than if we had two completely separate jobs." She added: "I think the thing is, when you're presenting a show like the kind that we presented, it's very instinctive, you're doing interviews all the time." "By the time I decided I'd had enough, you and I were something completely different anyway, it just didn't matter, it didn't make any difference at all. "When you go and do GMB, I'm still here in bed, I'm happy to stay when he gets up, it doesn't make any difference at all to our relationship." Richard explained: "I can see that from the outside, it looks as if... as you say, we were bonded in our professional lives together and now we're not, but actually, here on the inside, we still are." 6 6 6
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Judy Finnigan reveals how she lost two stone and overhauled her health after she 'nearly died'
Judy Finnigan has revealed how she lost two stone and overhauled her health after she 'nearly died' from a ruptured stomach ulcer. The television presenter, 77, suffered a major health scare in 2018 when she was left needing 'two life-saving blood transfusions.' As a result, she worked alongside her personal trainer daughter Chloe Madeley, 34, to make better life style choices which kept the pounds off. Speaking in a new interview with Bella, Judy explained how taking ibuprofen left her with a stomach ulcer that could have seen her 'bleed out within half an hour' without medical intervention. She said: 'I nearly died. Totally out of the blue never experienced anything like it before and ope to god I never will again.' From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new Showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. Judy continued: 'I survived thanks to exceptionally swift arriving and skilled ambulance crew and superb emergency treatment at London's Royal Free Hospital and two major life-saving blood transfusions. Chloe put Judy on a revised programme of eating and exercising, which saw her drop two stone. A source told the magazine: 'Judy has had a few underlying medical conditions over the years and losing weight has ad a significant impact on her general health.' Two weeks ago Judy looked incredible as she celebrated her 77th birthday with her family. The festivities were documented by daughter Chloe who shared a slew of rare snaps of her mother, who has retreated from the public eye in recent years. Judy was dressed to impress for the occasion, showcasing her weight loss in a £126 floral Boden dress. She was treated to balloons, flowers and a cake for her big day, as the family celebrated while out enjoying the sunshine in the garden. Chloe captioned her post: 'Rosé flowing with your chosen family. Happy birthday to my favourite woman in the world.' And the birthday bash ended up being a two-day event, with Judy later seen in a flowing black top and trousers as they enjoyed another sunny day in the garden. Judy has been enjoying a new lease of life after losing five stone in 2018. While she made headlines with her new look, daughter Chloe told MailOnline that her mother wasn't even trying to lose weight and it all happened rather naturally. At the time, Chloe said: 'Her palette is changing as she's getting older and I think she was always a kind of meat and potatoes kind of girl. 'I actually haven't had anything to do with it. 'I was as surprised as anyone else when I opened the fridge on coming home on the weekend and saw superfood salads and soups, I thought, what the hell is going on!' She added: 'I have to say her diet is now amazing. Her palate has changed. She has got into sushi, raw fish and whole grain salad. She has dropped the pounds naturally.' While Judy has largely stepped away from the spotlight, Richard remains a regular face on This Morning. The pair first met back in the Eighties while working at ITV Granada Television, before going on to tie the knot in 1986.
Medscape
06-05-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Does Immunosuppression Prevent PAH in Systemic Sclerosis?
MANCHESTER, England — Use of immunosuppressive drugs within 5 years of the onset of systemic sclerosis (SSc) did not lower patients' risk for developing pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) but was associated with a significantly lower likelihood of death in patients with the complication, researchers reported at the British Society for Rheumatology (BSR) 2025 Annual Meeting. Senior author for the study, Christopher Denton, MD, PhD, professor of experimental rheumatology at UCL Medical School and head of the Centre for Rheumatology at the Royal Free Hospital, London, England, told Medscape Medical News , 'Pulmonary hypertension is one of the complications of scleroderma that has been thought traditionally not to be so inflammatory or immunologically driven. But we got an interesting signal, which was that patients who were on hydroxychloroquine seem to have a lower frequency of developing pulmonary hypertension' than those who were not using immunosuppressants. Christopher Denton, MD, PhD Denton noted that, generally speaking, hydroxychloroquine was thought to be 'quite a benign drug,' so the result begs the question as to whether it could be beneficial to give to people with SSc who may be at risk for developing PAH. 'It does suggest that maybe immunomodulation could be helpful, although hydroxychloroquine does lots of other things as well as immunomodulation,' and this was a small study, Denton cautioned. A 'Dreadful Complication' Stefano Rodolfi, MD, who presented the study's findings and works as a clinical research fellow at the Royal Free Hospital, said that PAH was 'one of the most dreadful complications' of SSc that affects an estimated 8%-13% of patients during the disease course. The 3-year survival rate is around 50%, he said. Stefano Rodolfi, MD It is 'a complication whose proposed pathophysiological mechanism is thought to start with an initial vascular injury to the pulmonary vasculature, leading to an aberrant fibroproliferatory repair process, progressive obliterative pulmonary vasculopathy, ultimately resulting in an increase in the mean pulmonary arterial pressures, increasing pulmonary vascular resistances, and right ventricular dysfunction,' Rodolfi explained. 'However, we have evidence for a role of immune dysfunction in the pathogenesis and pathophysiology,' he said. There are data showing that various autoantibodies are present, such as antibodies against the endothelin-1 receptor, angiotensin II receptor, and fibroblasts. There are also data suggesting a proinflammatory cytokine profile and the presence of activated monocytes in patients with SSc-PAH. 'Furthermore, we have indirect evidence on the role of immunosuppression in this complication,' Rodolfi added. Thus, one might expect that immunosuppression would be part of the management approach for SSc-PAH, but its 'treatment mirrors the same approach of the idiopathic counterpart of PAH, being based on a combination of vasodilatory and antiproliferative agents.' Study Overview Rodolfi explained that a retrospective analysis of 629 'well-characterized' patients with SSc was performed to answer two key questions: First, can early immune suppression prevent the development of PAH? Second, does immunosuppression alter survival in SSc-PAH? PAH was defined using the Venice definition of precapillary pulmonary hypertension: Mean pulmonary artery pressure ≥ 25 mm Hg, pulmonary vascular resistance > 3 Wood units, and a pulmonary wedge pressure ≤ 15 mm Hg. Rodolfi noted that this was a prior definition. After excluding patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD) that extended ≥ 20% on a high-resolution CT scan or who had a forced vital capacity < 70%, there were 607 patients available for analysis. Of these, 320 had received immunosuppression through their disease course, and 287 had not. Early Immunosuppression and Development of SSc-PAH For the first part of the analysis, patients were divided into three groups: Those who had received immunosuppression 'early,' ie, within the first 5 years of their SSc diagnosis (n = 206); those who had received immunosuppression 'late,' receiving it after 5 years of their SSc diagnosis (n = 144); and those who received no immunosuppression (n = 287). Immunosuppression was defined as treatment with glucocorticoids (prednisone equivalent ≥ 10 mg/d for ≥ 6 months) or conventional synthetic or biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs. Over a median follow-up of 21 years, 77 patients developed PAH: 11 (5.3%) in the early immunosuppression group, 21 (14.6%) in the late suppression group, and 45 (15.7%) in the no suppression group. The difference between those with early immunosuppression and those without any use of immunosuppression was significant ( P < .001). However, after adjusting for potential confounding factors, such as male sex, diffuse cutaneous onset of SSc, ILD, scleroderma renal crisis, severe cardiac involvement, and presence of specific autoantibodies, there was no difference between the groups in terms of the time to developing PAH. Time to PAH was 'superimposable' across the three groups (10.5 vs 11 vs 11 years, respectively; P = .581), 'so we can conclude that early immune suppression did not significantly impact on the development of PAH,' Rodolfi reported. However, when analyzing the potential effects of individual immunosuppressive agents, treatment with mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) was associated with significantly reduced odds (odds ratio [OR], 0.12; P = .048) of developing PAH vs not using MMF. Other notable findings were that the presence of ILD, even if 'mild,' was associated with the development of PAH (OR, 3.01; P = .006). Other factors associated with increased risk for SSc-PAH were scleroderma renal crisis (OR, 6.54; P = .035) and the presence of anticentromere antibodies (OR, 2.94; P = .026). Conversely, the presence of anti–Scl-70 was associated with reduced odds of developing PAH (OR, 0.15; P = .009). The fact that MMF was associated with a reduced odds of developing SSc-PAH fits with other data, Rodolfi said. The drug has been shown to alleviate thickening of pulmonary arterial walls and inhibit abnormal vascular remodeling in a mouse model of PAH, and its efficacy has been reported in cases of PAH associated with other connective tissue diseases other than SSc. Mortality Impact For the second part of the analysis that examined the possible effect of immunosuppression on mortality in SSc-PAH, two groups of 'ever' (n = 30) or 'never' (n = 42) users of immunosuppression were formed. Rodolfi reported that more patients in the 'ever' than 'never' group had diffuse cutaneous SSc (20% vs 0%) and ILD (60% vs 14.6%), but fewer had anticentromere antibodies (55.2% vs 86.1%). Over a median follow-up of 7 years, 22 patients (73%) died in the 'ever' group and 30 died (71%) in the 'never' group. The median duration of survival from the time of PAH diagnosis was 7 years and 4 years, respectively, in the two groups (OR, 0.41; P = .045). 'When analyzing the impact of single agents, hydroxychloroquine was associated with reduced mortality risk,' Rodolfi said. Of the nine patients who had been treated with hydroxychloroquine, two died 17 years after their PAH diagnosis (hazard ratio, 0.04; P = .004). 'Once again, this is corroborated by preclinical evidence,' Rodolfi said, adding that it's not the first time either that hydroxychloroquine has been shown to have a possible beneficial clinical effect. Although a different endpoint was used, prior data have shown that treatment with hydroxychloroquine given in the first 18 months of SSc onset may reduce the risk for developing PAH. It is 'not quite the same finding as we had. Our signal was towards a benefit in survival, but still, something to corroborate the role of hydroxychloroquine in this setting.' Are There Any Practice Implications? But are the findings enough to have an impact on practice as it stands today? Consultant rheumatologist Carmel Stober, MD, PhD, who works for Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, Cambridge, England, told Medscape Medical News that the results could potentially have an impact on how some patients with systemic sclerosis were treated. 'For example, if someone has got limited cutaneous systemic sclerosis, you would not necessarily get them on immunosuppression,' but you might give hydroxychloroquine if it has an effect on risk for PAH and there is a risk-benefit advantage for it, she said. The hypothesis is that PAH is modifiable by immunosuppression, Stober said, noting that the second part of the study looked at people who were already receiving immunosuppression and whether that decreased their risk for PAH. But the answer as to whether immunosuppression truly has that effect lies perhaps in a randomized controlled trial. Rodolfi noted that an ongoing multicenter, open-label, randomized trial of about 120 patients with limited cutaneous SSc in the United Kingdom is aiming to determine if MMF plus standard of care can slow down disease progression vs standard of care alone. The study's findings have been previously presented as a poster at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) 2024 Annual Meeting. The study was independently supported. Rodolfi and Stober had no financial conflicts of interest to report. Denton reported receiving no financial relationships on the abstract but has in the past received speaker or advisory fees, research support, or clinical trial funding from various pharmaceutical companies, including Actelion, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, and Novartis.
