Rising antibiotic use: doctors blame their patients - Who is to blame for the rising inappropriate use of antibiotics? A new report suggests that doctors believe that, in many cases, the overprescribing o...

Antibiotic use in children raises blood poisoning risk - Gastrointestinal infection due to enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 is the chief cause of a severe form of blood poisoning known as haemolyt...

The common cold - This greatest bugbear of an upper respiratory tract infection is usually caused by bacteria or viruses, or even occasionally, allergic reactions.

Vitamins: They can make you healthier (and grass may be green in a double-blind placebo study) - The understanding of nutrition plays a tiny part in a doctor’s education – in fact, it’s around one day out of a five-year programme – and so any stud...

Probiotic Drinks - First there was plain yoghurt, then fruit yoghurts, then yoghurt drinks, and now everyone ’s talking about - and apparently consuming - gut-friendly p...

Probiotics may prevent diarrhoea due to antibiotics - The probiotics Lactobacillus and Saccharomyces boulardii (a yeast) are better than placebo in preventing antibiotic-associated diarrhoea, according to...

Probiotics: They protect the gut when you take an antibiotic - There’s been a lot of talk recently about the effectiveness of probiotics – and, judging by a new study, there may be something to it.

Antibiotics: Not so fast, doc - The doctor’s promise to ‘first do no harm’ may have to be altered to: ‘First do nothing’. Doctors who do not immediately prescribe antibiotics for tr...