Adapted from BMJ 2-9 May 2026

If a child from parents who have psychiatric or behavioural problems is adopted into a favourable home environment, this has lasting benefits for that child, but also for the children of that child.

Researchers in Sweden used national registers to compare full siblings and half maternal siblings born between 1950 and 1980 who were adopted before the age of ten, compared with their biological siblings who were not adopted. The children of these children were also compared. The outcomes included psychiatric, social, educational, cognitive and non-cognitive measures.

Adopted children showed a lower risk of psychiatric disorders: 29.8% compared to 36.1%.

Fewer criminal convictions: 26.1% compared to 34%

Fewer social welfare recipients: 37.8% compared to 48.5%

Higher mean intelligence scores: 4.5 compared to 3.8

Better cognitive skills scores: 4.8 compared to 3.9.

More likely to attend university: 26% compared to 15.2%.

The measures between the future offspring were less marked but still showed some improvement with higher psychosocial functioning. Regarding psychiatric disorders the figures were 29.6% compared to 32.3%.

The early environment in early life plays a central role in shaping health, educational, and labour market outcomes over the life course. Disadvantaged children who suffer from poverty, poor neighbourhoods, and who don’t get good nursery or maternal care have worse outcomes in adulthood.

Sweden has a particularly good social welfare system so results could be different in other countries. The results do seem to indicate that if a child’s environment can become more stable, and adequate resources and support are given to caregivers, the child’s outcome should improve.

My comments: I wondered how these figures compared with “normal families”. I asked ChatGTP.

Around 25% of working age adults have some form of criminal conviction. This includes minor offences such as motoring offences or not having a television licence. When these are excluded the figures are 25% of men and 10% of women have some sort of conviction.

In the UK 22-23% of adults of working age get some sort of disability or health related support, get benefits due to low income, receive housing assistance or are carers. 10% of UK adults get some sort of health support.

About 50% of UK adults go to university. 40% go immediately after school and the rest go later. More women go than men. 42-46% of working age adults have a higher education qualification such as degrees, HNDs or nursing qualifications.

These figures tend to indicate that children adopted from difficult home circumstances still don’t do as well as “average” children, although the UK is a different country and the times periods are not directly comparable.

Adapted from BMJ 21-28 March 2026

Estimates of the genetic contribution to human lifespan have been surprisingly low and often show rates of 20% or less.

A re-analysis of Scandinavian twin cohort studies now puts this figure at 50%.

The reason for lower figures is that mortality rates are distorted by external causes that often have a familial effect such as infection, violence and other unintentional harms such as eg road traffic accidents or natural disasters or building collapses.

When these deaths are excluded the heritability of the intrinsic life span rises to around 50%.

This is similar to other complex traits such as body mass index, blood pressure and general cognitive ability.

My comments: Recently a friend who is adept at trawling ancestry sites discovered information about my family tree. There was a great deal of poverty and early death. I added up the ages of death of my parents and grandparents and divided the figure by six. According to this, my heritable life expectancy is 54.8 years. I’ve already lived 12 years longer than this. Here is a list of the ages and causes of death:

Women: Jeannie, my mother’s mother : Age 38 Lobular pneumonia and heart failure due to Pneumococcal Pneumonia – now has effective anti-biotics and vaccination. Ellen my mother: Age 46 Myocardial Infarction due to Ischaemic Heart Disease – now would have substantial chance of success after a stent operation and modern drugs. Sarah my father’s mother : Age 71 Heart Failure due to Pernicious Anaemia- now treatable with vitamin injections and drugs.

Men: Thomas, my father’s father: aged 29 Burns and Pneumonia due to Industrial Accident- chances of this very much reduced now with Health and Safety at Work Legislation. Robert, my mother’s father aged 66. Head injury due to fall from a height at work due to Industrial Accident – chances of this very much reduced due to Health and Safety at Work Legislation and practices around scaffolding. Tommy my father aged 79: Cardiac Failure due to Hypertension. Would still have died of this but modern drugs slow down the progression and he could possibly have added up to a further five years of life, though not without debility.

Adapted from The Lancet 19th May 2026

Is weight cycling clinically harmful?

Prof Faidon Magkos, PhD^a Send email to fma@nexs.ku.dk ∙ Prof Norbert Stefan, MD PhD^b,c,dAffiliations & NotesArticle Info

Publication History:

Published May 14, 2026

DOI: 10.1016/S2213-8587(26)00037-9 External LinkAlso available on ScienceDirect External Link

Copyright: © 2026 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.

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Summary

Worldwide, approximately half of the general population is actively attempting to lose weight.

However, weight loss is typically followed by substantial weight regain, often leading to repeated cycles of loss and gain of bodyweight. Weight cycling has been suggested to be metabolically harmful, in that it could lead to greater rebounds in fat mass and smaller regains in lean (muscle) mass, thereby promoting sarcopenia, lowering metabolic rate, and exacerbating obesity and its metabolic complications (eg, glucose intolerance).

In this Personal view, we critically evaluate evidence from studies in humans and animals investigating whether weight cycling has adverse effects on bodyweight, body composition, energy metabolism, and metabolic function. We also briefly discuss potential strategies to mitigate weight regain and its consequences.

Overall, the current evidence does not support a causal link between weight cycling per se and clinical harm in people with obesity.

Most of the adverse effects reported are likely circumstantial, possibly because of ageing, unintentional weight loss, reverse causality, earlier onset of obesity, repeated obesogenic exposures, or longer cumulative exposure to obesity.

Available evidence suggests that the benefits of intermittent weight reduction—such as improved metabolic markers, cardiovascular health, and quality of life—outweigh the potential risks associated with weight fluctuation.

Adapted from BMJ 21-28 March 2026

Throughout the UK, Accident and Emergency Departments are in crisis.

A survey by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine was sent a survey to their members in March.

51% of the 80 respondents said that their department was fairly or very unsafe and 28% said that their department was very or fairly safe.

88% said that overcrowding was a daily occurrence. 96% said overcrowding happened several days a week.

Meanwhile in Scotland, Fiona Hunter, the Vice President of the Scottish branch of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. In 2024 the college showed that 818 excess deaths occurred due to long waits in Accident and Emergency Departments.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats analysis reported that in 2025 there were 871 deaths associated with a wait of 12 hours or more for hospital admission in Accident and Emergency Departments.

My comments: A lot of A and E attendees are people who would be better served by Primary Care than A and E. General Practitioners are under strain, and have limited appointments in weekday and out of hours services by allocating fixed appointments, instead of absorbing the work regardless of ability to provide good care. This is a way of coping and I don’t blame them. The result however, is ever overflowing A and E departments. I know that some areas have GPs on site in hospitals to deal with some patients but this doesn’t happen everywhere.

Adapted from BMJ 21-28 March 2026

Cancer death rates in the UK are their lowest level on record.

This level peaked in 1989 and is now 29%. About 250 in every 100,000 die from cancer each year. This is 11% lower than ten years ago.

Cervical cancer has shown the greatest fall in death rates. Deaths have fallen 75% in the last 50 years. Much of this is due to cervical screening programmes. The progress is likely to continue as there has been a great impact in cervical cancer prevention since the vaccination programme against HPV started in 2008.

Adapted from BMJ 18-25 April 2026

Firstborn children are known to outperform their later born siblings in adulthood regarding earning capacity and IQ. It has now been shown that these differences start really early in babyhood from research published in JAMA.

In Japan, 2,000 sibling pairs were tested regarding cognitive skills and developmental milestones. By six months of age, the older siblings outperformed the younger ones. Some of the differences evened out by the age of 12 months, but deficits in fine motor skills and personal-social areas persisted.

This difference however is paralleled by lower parental engagement for second born and subsequent children. Resources become diluted as families grow.

My comment: I do remember slacking off with my second son compared to my first. The first one got everything done by my Penelope Leitch book.

The second got warmer and more social baths, far fewer photographs taken, was able to decide his own bedtimes, decided when he was ready to get toilet trained, I found him trying to change his own nappy, and I didn’t bother trying to get him to eat vegetables or anything he didn’t immediately like. He also stayed on bottled milk far longer. He was able to get these himself out of the fridge. Unlike baby #1 I didn’t warm up the milk after one month of age and he took it chilled.

I hope my lack of diligence in one side of the equation gave me more time to spend talking to him and playing with him on the other. He did speak far later though.

They have both done very well in adulthood although the limited dietary intake persists. I do think the younger child had a better time of it with a more relaxed parenting style.

Adapted from BMJ 18-25 April 2026

A study published in Psychiatry indicates that cannabinoids don’t do much, if anything, for mental health improvement.

A systemic review of 54 clinical trials involving over 2,500 participants, showed no consistent benefit for anxiety, depression, or post traumatic stress disorder.

Limited evidence of benefit was seen in insomnia, Tourette’s syndrome and autistic spectrum disorder, but the study quality was low.

My comment: As a doctor I was aware that some patients got a benefit from cannabis/cannabinoids for chronic pain and multiple sclerosis. I’m also aware that some dogs are being given cannabinoids for various complaints and also been told that sometimes it makes a big difference.

Adapted from BMJ 18 -25 April 2026

Kengo Miyoshi, Assistant Professor, Tokyo states that to avoid weight regain with GLP-1 drugs, Japanese patients enter a programme of structured support to maximise the effectiveness of the intervention.

The drugs are regulated and are only given where there are obesity related co-morbidities and functional impairment. The drugs are only started after six months of lifestyle modification which includes dietary, exercise, psychological and behavioural modifications. These should be continued lifelong. At the six month point, GLP-1 drugs are prescribed but for a maximum of 68-72 weeks. The exit criteria is established at the outset. The continued support mitigates the “weight regain” effect.

Randomised controlled trials have shown that exercise makes a big difference to the effects of the drugs during and after GLP-1s are stopped. While on the drugs, exercise promotes greater fat loss, preservation of lean muscle mass, improved insulin sensitivity, increased cardiorespiratory fitness, and physical functioning. When the drugs are stopped, the preserved lean muscle mass, higher exercise expenditure and sustained physical activity lead to less fat regain. The metabolic improvements need to be supported by structured care long term. Obesity is after all a long term condition and needs to be supported as such.

Adapted from BMJ 21-28 February 2026

In a Norwegian cohort study of more than 1.3 million births, they found factors that both increased and decreased the chances of the baby developing multiple sclerosis in adulthood.

Increased risk of multiple sclerosis:

the mother has diabetes

the baby is born large for gestational age

No change in rate of multiple sclerosis:

baby born preterm

mother has hypertension or eclampsia

placental abruption occurence

Decreased risk of multiple sclerosis:

baby is born small for gestational age