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Daily digest July 23 2015

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Daily Digest

Britain still has health workers who believe gay people can be 'cured'

Hundreds of British health workers have heard their colleagues suggest that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people can be ‘cured’, a new study shows.

Out of 3,001 health and social care workers surveyed from across the NHS and private sectors, 10% have been in situations where colleagues have expressed those beliefs – a figure that jumps to 22% in London.

The Unhealthy Attitudes study, released by equality charity Stonewall, found that LGBT people are facing discrimination from healthcare professionals.

A quarter of staff working directly with patients have heard their colleagues make negative remarks about lesbian, gay or bisexual people, or use language like ‘poof’ or ‘dyke’ in the past five years.

Read more on the Telegraph website

Basis for eating disorders found in children as young as eight

Children as young as eight can experience dissatisfaction with the size and shape of their body that puts them at risk of eating disorders in their teens, according to a major study which for the first time reveals how early anxieties about body image set in.

The largest UK study ever on eating disorders in children followed 6,000 kids to the age of 14. It found that self-esteem in eight-year-olds was one of the critical predictive factors for problems in their teens.

The results shocked the researchers. ‘When I started the study, I wouldn’t have thought so many boys and girls might be unhappy about their bodies at such a young age,’ said lead author Nadia Micali, based at the University College London Institute of Child Health and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

Read more on the Guardian website

Cataract eye drop treatment offers thousands hope

Eye drops that may cure cataracts have been developed by scientists in a breakthrough that could eliminate the need for surgery. British doctors carry out an estimated 300,000 operations to remove clouded lenses each year, making it the most common surgical procedure in the country.

Although the operations are cheap and take as little as half an hour under local anaesthetic, a drug that can sort out the condition without the need to go under the knife would be a significant advance.

(£) Read more on the Times website