Latest news with #WesternCountries
The Guardian
12 hours ago
- Health
- The Guardian
New blood test for coeliac disease can diagnose autoimmune condition without need to eat gluten
Coeliacs may soon no longer need to eat large amounts of gluten – the very thing suspected of making them sick – to get an accurate diagnosis. Australian research published on Tuesday in the journal Gastroenterology showed a blood test for gluten-specific T cells had a high accuracy in diagnosing coeliac disease, even when no gluten was eaten. Around 1% of people in western countries have coeliac disease, an autoimmune condition in which gluten causes an inflammatory reaction in the small bowel. Currently, every approved method to diagnose it requires people to eat gluten, the paper said. Current testing methods – blood tests or a gastroscopy – require weeks of a person eating gluten, while often enduring symptoms such as diarrhoea, abdominal pain and bloating. Despite the importance of early diagnosis, the researchers said many people are deterred because they do not want to get sick from the tests. More than one in two cases of coeliac disease are either undiagnosed or diagnosed late, prior research has shown. 'There are likely millions of people around the world living with undiagnosed coeliac disease simply because the path to diagnosis is difficult, and at times, debilitating,' said Assoc Prof Jason Tye-Din, a senior author of the paper and head of the Coeliac Research Laboratory at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) in Melbourne, Australia. The new research could be a 'game-changer', helping address 'one of the biggest deterrents in current diagnostic practices', Tye-Din said. The study evaluated the potential of a blood test to measure an immune marker interleukin 2 (IL-2). In 2019 WEHI researchers discovered that marker spiked in the bloodstream of coeliacs shortly after they ate gluten. Researchers analysed blood samples from 181 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 75 recruited at Royal Melbourne hospital. These included 75 people with coeliac disease who had been on a gluten-free diet for at least a year, 13 with active, untreated coeliac disease, 32 with non-coeliac gluten sensitivity and 61 controls who did not have coeliac disease nor gluten sensitivity. Using a new diagnostic system developed with Novoviah Pharmaceuticals, participant blood samples were mixed with gluten to see if the IL-2 signal appeared. They found the test detected the condition with up to 90% sensitivity and 97% specificity – even in patients following a strict gluten-free diet, the lead author, Olivia Moscatelli, who was diagnosed with coeliac disease at 18, said. Novoviah Pharmaceuticals was an industry partner on the study, but played no role in the execution or interpretation of the research, authors said. The company aims to get the test into clinical use within two years, Tye-Din said. The researchers acknowledged the limitations of the study in that it only involved participants from one centre with relatively small subgroup sizes, and that children and patients on immunosuppressants were not assessed. Several researchers had advisory, directorship and shareholder roles within various pharmaceutical companies declared under conflict of interests. Prof Peter Gibson, a gastroenterologist from Monash University, said further studies were needed, but 'the science is of high quality, the numbers of people tested is large, their underlying conditions well described and the results are very impressive'. 'The test technically is very simple so it can readily be adapted to a routine laboratory test,' Gibson said. He called it a 'genuinely major step forward in the diagnosis of coeliac disease at least in clinically uncertain circumstances'. Assoc Prof Vincent Ho, a gastroenterologist at the Western Sydney University's School of Medicine, said 'the test is very new and it needs to be validated across other laboratories and be cost-effective compared to current tests before it can be used in clinical practice'. Ho noted the study's small sample size and that it would be important the results be replicated in other larger studies in other centres. 'The research … showed that in patients with coeliac disease a single dose of gluten (10 grams or the equivalent of four slices of wheat bread) was able to result in an immune reaction that could be detected on a blood sample in the lab,' Ho said. 'This means in theory that coeliac disease could be diagnosed without the need for weeks of exposure to gluten.' But, Ho said, because the test assesses an immune response to gluten, this means that people on immunosuppressive drugs may not register a reaction.
CNA
5 days ago
- Lifestyle
- CNA
Changing tides: Chinese families reassess study abroad plans
Western English-speaking countries, especially the United States, have long been top choices for Chinese parents seeking overseas education for their children. While this remains largely true, there has been a subtle shift amid rising geopolitical tensions. CNA's Tan Yew Guan reports.
Daily Telegraph
03-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Telegraph
‘Feral cities': Western countries face civil war within five years, military expert warns
Don't miss out on the headlines from Innovation. Followed categories will be added to My News. Britain, France and other western countries are dangerously close to collapsing into violent civil conflict characterised by 'feral cities' where authorities can no longer maintain rule of law, a military expert has warned. In a sobering essay in the latest issue of Military Strategy Magazine, David Betz, Professor of War in the Modern World in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, argues governments across the west have 'squandered their legitimacy'. He warns they are 'losing the ability to peacefully manage multicultural societies' that are 'terminally fractured by ethnic identity politics' and increasingly gripped by riots, terrorism and unrest. 'The initial result is an accelerating descent of multiple major cities into marginally 'feral' status,' he wrote. The concept of 'feral cities' was defined by US Navy commander Richard Norton, in a 2003 article for Naval War College Review, as 'a metropolis with a population of more than a million people in a state the government of which has lost the ability to maintain the rule of law within the city's boundaries yet remains a functioning actor in the greater international system'. 'As of 2024, a list of global cities exhibiting some or all the characteristics of amber and red ferality, such as high levels of political corruption, negotiated areas of police control if not outright no-go zones, decaying industries, crumbling infrastructure, unsustainable debt, two-tier policing, and the burgeoning of private security, would include many in the West,' Prof Betz said. Riots erupted in France after PSG's Champions League victory. Picture: Lou Benoist/AFP 'The direction of the situation, moreover, is decisively towards greater ferality. In short, things are manifestly worsening right now. They are, however, going to get very much worse — I would estimate over not more than five years.' He bases this belief on the combination of two other key factors. One is the 'urban versus rural dimension of the coming conflicts which, in turn, is a result of migrant settlement dynamics'. 'Simply put, the major cities are radically more diverse and have a growing mutually hostile political relationship with the country in which they are embedded,' he said. Prof Betz points to recent election results in France, the UK and US which highlighted the deepening split between left-wing voting urban centres and right-wing rural areas. The second factor, is 'the way in which modern critical infrastructure — gas, electricity, and transportation — is configured'. 'Again, simply put, the life support systems of cities are all located in or pass through rural areas,' he said. 'None of this infrastructure is well guarded, indeed most of it is effectively impossible to guard adequately.' Prof Betz predicts the likely trajectory of 'the coming civil wars' based on these factors. 'First, the major cities become ungovernable, i.e., feral, exhausting the ability of the police even with military assistance to maintain civil order, while the broader perception of systemic political legitimacy plummets beyond recovery. The economy is crippled by metastasising intercommunal violence and consequent internal displacement,' he said. Britain and France are 'most likely' to face civil conflict. Picture:'Second, these feral cities come to be seen by many of those indigenes of the titular nationality now living outside them as effectively having been lost to foreign occupation. They then directly attack the exposed city support systems with a view to causing their collapse through systemic failure.' Any civil war would be 'long and bloody' — using casualty figures from height of the Northern Ireland conflict as a guide, Prof Betz estimates more than 23,000 per year killed in the UK. He urges politicians, defence leaders and the public to avoid falling victim to 'normalcy bias' and begin planning for the very real possibility of civil conflict, including by the identification of suitable 'secure zones' for displaced populations, and the protection of important cultural property. 'At the time of writing the countries that are most likely to experience the outbreak of violent civil conflict first are Britain and France,' he said. 'The conditions are similar, however, throughout Western Europe as well as, for slightly different reasons, the United States; moreover, it must be assumed that if civil war breaks out in one place it is likely to spread elsewhere.' Prof Betz has previously outlined how 'the conditions which scholars consider to be indicative of incipient civil war are present widely in Western states' — namely 'a combination of culturally fractured societies, economic stagnation, elite overreach and a collapse of public confidence in the ability of normal politics to solve problems'. Anti-racism counter protesters after the Southport riots. Picture: JeffThese factors have long been applied to the analysis of countries outside the west, but he says politicians must accept the danger internally is now 'clear and present'. 'According to the best guess of the extant literature, in a country where the conditions are present the chances of actual civil war occurring is 4 per cent per year,' Prof Betz said. 'With this as an assumption, we may conclude that the chances of it occurring are 18.5 per cent over five years.' Assuming there are at least 10 countries in Europe that face the prospect of violent civil conflict, 'the chances then of it occurring in any one of these countries over five years is 87 per cent'. Prof Betz notes both France and the UK have experienced 'precursor incidents' targeting critical infrastructure. In July 2024, co-ordinated arson attacks disabling Paris' rail network were followed by a major sabotage on the long-distance fibre-optic cable network. In London, vigilantes known as 'Blade Runners' have damaged or destroyed more than 1000 surveillance cameras intended to enforce the city's ultra-low-emission-zone (ULEZ) scheme. 'The precariousness of contemporary urbanity is a thing which geographers have worried over for at least a half century,' Prof Betz said, noting the viability of large cities 'has always been contingent' on the supply of resources from the surrounding country. 'Their apparent stability is, in fact, an astonishing balancing act requiring constant and competent maintenance. On current trajectory, that balancing act is going to fail.' It comes as France was again gripped by rioting over the weekend, with two people killed and nearly 200 injured as violent mobs took to the streets following Paris Saint-Germain's (PSG) Champions League victory. Fireworks explode over riot police on the Champs-Elysees. Picture: Aurelien Morissard/AP One distressing clip on social media showed two young women in a car being surrounded by young men before the passenger window was smashed open. Far-right politician Marine Le Pen said on Monday that the 'atrocities committed last night throughout France' were 'the result of 40 years of laxity and renunciation'. 'Today in France, it is no longer possible to have moments of popular fervour without thugs coming to smash and burn everything and deprive the French of the serenity to which they should be entitled,' she wrote on X. A growing number of European leaders have sounded warnings about political unrest in increasingly fractured multicultural societies. British Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer last month announced a surprise crackdown on immigration, warning the UK risked 'becoming an island of strangers'. In 2023, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the country was being gripped by a wave of violent crime the likes of which it had 'never seen before'. 'Irresponsible immigration policy and failed integration have brought us to this point,' he said. Mette Frederiksen, Denmark's centre-left Prime Minister, said in March that 'I consider this mass migration into Europe as a threat to the daily life in Europe'. 'If I ask people about security and their security concerns, many of them will reply that Russia and defending Europe is top of mind right now,' she told Politico. 'But security is also about what is going on in your local community. Do you feel safe where you live? When you go and take your local train, or when your kids are going home from school, or whatever is going on in your daily life?' Originally published as 'Feral cities': Western countries face civil war within five years, military expert warns
News.com.au
03-06-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
‘Feral cities': Western countries face civil war within five years, military expert warns
Britain, France and other western countries are dangerously close to collapsing into violent civil conflict characterised by 'feral cities' where authorities can no longer maintain rule of law, a military expert has warned. In a sobering essay in the latest issue of Military Strategy Magazine, David Betz, Professor of War in the Modern World in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, argues governments across the west have 'squandered their legitimacy'. He warns they are 'losing the ability to peacefully manage multicultural societies' that are 'terminally fractured by ethnic identity politics' and increasingly gripped by riots, terrorism and unrest. 'The initial result is an accelerating descent of multiple major cities into marginally 'feral' status,' he wrote. The concept of 'feral cities' was defined by US Navy commander Richard Norton, in a 2003 article for Naval War College Review, as 'a metropolis with a population of more than a million people in a state the government of which has lost the ability to maintain the rule of law within the city's boundaries yet remains a functioning actor in the greater international system'. 'As of 2024, a list of global cities exhibiting some or all the characteristics of amber and red ferality, such as high levels of political corruption, negotiated areas of police control if not outright no-go zones, decaying industries, crumbling infrastructure, unsustainable debt, two-tier policing, and the burgeoning of private security, would include many in the West,' Prof Betz said. 'The direction of the situation, moreover, is decisively towards greater ferality. In short, things are manifestly worsening right now. They are, however, going to get very much worse — I would estimate over not more than five years.' He bases this belief on the combination of two other key factors. One is the 'urban versus rural dimension of the coming conflicts which, in turn, is a result of migrant settlement dynamics'. 'Simply put, the major cities are radically more diverse and have a growing mutually hostile political relationship with the country in which they are embedded,' he said. Prof Betz points to recent election results in France, the UK and US which highlighted the deepening split between left-wing voting urban centres and right-wing rural areas. The second factor, is 'the way in which modern critical infrastructure — gas, electricity, and transportation — is configured'. 'Again, simply put, the life support systems of cities are all located in or pass through rural areas,' he said. 'None of this infrastructure is well guarded, indeed most of it is effectively impossible to guard adequately.' Prof Betz predicts the likely trajectory of 'the coming civil wars' based on these factors. 'First, the major cities become ungovernable, i.e., feral, exhausting the ability of the police even with military assistance to maintain civil order, while the broader perception of systemic political legitimacy plummets beyond recovery. The economy is crippled by metastasising intercommunal violence and consequent internal displacement,' he said. 'Second, these feral cities come to be seen by many of those indigenes of the titular nationality now living outside them as effectively having been lost to foreign occupation. They then directly attack the exposed city support systems with a view to causing their collapse through systemic failure.' Any civil war would be 'long and bloody' — using casualty figures from height of the Northern Ireland conflict as a guide, Prof Betz estimates more than 23,000 per year killed in the UK. He urges politicians, defence leaders and the public to avoid falling victim to 'normalcy bias' and begin planning for the very real possibility of civil conflict, including by the identification of suitable 'secure zones' for displaced populations, and the protection of important cultural property. 'At the time of writing the countries that are most likely to experience the outbreak of violent civil conflict first are Britain and France,' he said. 'The conditions are similar, however, throughout Western Europe as well as, for slightly different reasons, the United States; moreover, it must be assumed that if civil war breaks out in one place it is likely to spread elsewhere.' Prof Betz has previously outlined how 'the conditions which scholars consider to be indicative of incipient civil war are present widely in Western states' — namely 'a combination of culturally fractured societies, economic stagnation, elite overreach and a collapse of public confidence in the ability of normal politics to solve problems'. These factors have long been applied to the analysis of countries outside the west, but he says politicians must accept the danger internally is now 'clear and present'. 'According to the best guess of the extant literature, in a country where the conditions are present the chances of actual civil war occurring is 4 per cent per year,' Prof Betz said. 'With this as an assumption, we may conclude that the chances of it occurring are 18.5 per cent over five years.' Assuming there are at least 10 countries in Europe that face the prospect of violent civil conflict, 'the chances then of it occurring in any one of these countries over five years is 87 per cent'. Prof Betz notes both France and the UK have experienced 'precursor incidents' targeting critical infrastructure. In July 2024, co-ordinated arson attacks disabling Paris' rail network were followed by a major sabotage on the long-distance fibre-optic cable network. In London, vigilantes known as 'Blade Runners' have damaged or destroyed more than 1000 surveillance cameras intended to enforce the city's ultra-low-emission-zone (ULEZ) scheme. 'The precariousness of contemporary urbanity is a thing which geographers have worried over for at least a half century,' Prof Betz said, noting the viability of large cities 'has always been contingent' on the supply of resources from the surrounding country. 'Their apparent stability is, in fact, an astonishing balancing act requiring constant and competent maintenance. On current trajectory, that balancing act is going to fail.' It comes as France was again gripped by rioting over the weekend, with two people killed and nearly 200 injured as violent mobs took to the streets following Paris Saint-Germain's (PSG) Champions League victory. One distressing clip on social media showed two young women in a car being surrounded by young men before the passenger window was smashed open. Far-right politician Marine Le Pen said on Monday that the 'atrocities committed last night throughout France' were 'the result of 40 years of laxity and renunciation'. 'Today in France, it is no longer possible to have moments of popular fervour without thugs coming to smash and burn everything and deprive the French of the serenity to which they should be entitled,' she wrote on X. A growing number of European leaders have sounded warnings about political unrest in increasingly fractured multicultural societies. British Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer last month announced a surprise crackdown on immigration, warning the UK risked 'becoming an island of strangers'. In 2023, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the country was being gripped by a wave of violent crime the likes of which it had 'never seen before'. 'Irresponsible immigration policy and failed integration have brought us to this point,' he said. Mette Frederiksen, Denmark's centre-left Prime Minister, said in March that 'I consider this mass migration into Europe as a threat to the daily life in Europe'. 'If I ask people about security and their security concerns, many of them will reply that Russia and defending Europe is top of mind right now,' she told Politico.
Fox News
02-06-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Common supplements and medications could cause liver damage, studies show
As cases of drug-induced liver injury (DILI) are on the rise, experts are warning of the hidden dangers associated with some common medications and supplements. Statistics show that DILI, also known as toxic hepatitis or hepatotoxicity — which is known to be a significant cause of acute liver failure — has been growing in Western countries since the 1960s. Around one-fifth of the total population who are prescribed medications will experience DILI, according to recent research published in the journal Toxicology Reports. Potential triggers of liver injury include herbal products, dietary supplements and medications, the study found. Those with pre-existing liver conditions and nutritional deficiencies are at a higher risk, as are pregnant women. One of the liver's main functions is to break down substances taken orally, including supplements and medications, according to the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG). For some people, the process of metabolizing these substances can be slower, increasing the risk of liver damage. Even medications that have been tested for safety and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can potentially cause liver injury in rare cases, stated the ACG. Common symptoms of liver disease include nausea, loss of appetite, abdominal pain, generalized itching, dark urine and jaundice, although some people may notice no signs, per the above source. The recent study in Toxicology Reports identified several drugs that are most likely to cause liver injury. Medications aren't the only agents that can cause drug-induced liver injuries. Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, spoke with Fox News Digital about the risks of herbal and dietary supplements (HDS) affecting the liver. "The biggest problem with herbal supplements is that the amount you are taking of active chemicals isn't strictly regulated, so you don't know exactly what you are getting." "The biggest problem with herbal supplements is that the amount you are taking of active chemicals isn't strictly regulated, so you don't know exactly what you are getting," he said. "And since several of the supplements are metabolized through the liver, there is now an increasing incidence of liver toxicity in users." Cases of DILI linked to herbal or dietary supplements have nearly tripled between 2004 and 2014, according to a 2024 study published in JAMA Network Open. The researchers identified the following most commonly used botanical products known for potential liver toxicity. It is estimated that at least 15.6 million U.S. adults have used at least one of these six botanical products within the past 30 days. "The most commonly implicated botanical products in the DILIN (Drug-Induced Liver Injury Network) include turmeric, kratom, green tea extract and Garcinia cambogia, with potentially severe and even fatal liver injury," the study stated. Drug-induced liver injury caused by HDS can be severe or even fatal, leading to death or liver transplantation, the researchers noted. Fox News' Siegel also warned against the potential liver-related risks of some of these named supplements. "Turmeric is a natural anti-inflammatory and may be useful in small doses, but can be toxic in large doses," he cautioned. "Garcinia cambogia is very popular, especially as a weight-loss agent, but there is no real evidence that it actually works, and there is no reason to take it, especially with the new GLP-1 drugs." While red yeast rice has cholesterol-lowering statin-type properties, Siegel cautioned that the amount of active chemicals isn't as strictly regulated as approved medications. "Turmeric is a natural anti-inflammatory and may be useful in small doses, but can be toxic in large doses." "I find it useful in some patients who are reluctant to start statins and are looking for a more natural alternative, but I must strictly monitor the amount taken and the effect on the liver," he said. Regarding green tea, Siegel noted that it does have antioxidant properties and can be useful to consume as a beverage (though it has a lot of caffeine) — "but there is no reason whatsoever to take more of it in an extract, where it can be toxic." The FDA states on its website that it does regulate dietary supplement products and dietary ingredients, but under "a different set of regulations than those covering 'conventional' foods and drug products." "Manufacturers and distributors of dietary supplements and dietary ingredients are prohibited from marketing products that are adulterated or misbranded," the agency says. "That means that these firms are responsible for evaluating the safety and labeling of their products before marketing to ensure that they meet all the requirements of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act as amended by DSHEA and FDA regulations." For more Health articles, visit Fox News Digital reached out to several researchers and the FDA regarding the rise in drug- and HSD-related liver injury.
