Diet sodas might not raise diabetes risk

The World Health Organisation has warned that the COVID-19 pandemic is entering a "new and dangerous" phase. Thursday saw the most cases in a single day reported to the WHO.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the day had seen 150,000 new cases with half of those coming from the Americas and large numbers also from the Middle East and South Asia, the BBC reported.

He said the virus was still spreading fast and the pandemic accelerating.

He acknowledged people might be fed up with self-isolating and countries were eager to open their economies but he said that now was a time for extreme vigilance.

Maria van Kerkhove, technical lead of the WHO's COVID-19 response, told a press conference the pandemic is "accelerating in many parts of the world".

"While we have seen countries have some success in suppressing transmission and bringing transition down to a low level, every country must remain ready," she said.

Mike Ryan, the head of the WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, said that some countries had managed to flatten the peak of infections without bringing them down to a very low level.

"You can see a situation in some countries where they could get a second peak now, because the disease has not been brought under control," he said.

"The disease will then go away and reduce to a low level, and they could then get a second wave again in the autumn or later in the year."

Taking multiple courses of antibiotics within a short span of time may do people more harm than good, suggests new research which discovered an association between the number of prescriptions for antibiotics and a higher risk of hospital admissions.

Patients who have had 9 or more antibiotic prescriptions for common infections in the previous three years are 2.26 times more likely to go to hospital with another infection in three or more months, said the researchers.

Patients who had two antibiotic prescriptions were 1.23 times more likely, patients who had three to four prescriptions 1.33 times more likely and patients who had five to eight 1.77 times more likely to go to hospital with another infection.

"We don't know why this is, but overuse of antibiotics might kill the good bacteria in the gut (microbiota) and make us more susceptible to infections, for example," said Professor Tjeerd van Staa from the University of Manchester in Britain.

The study, published in the journal BMC Medicine, is based on the data of two million patients in England and Wales.

The patient records, from 2000 to 2016, covered common infections such as upper respiratory tract, urinary tract, ear and chest infections and excluded long term conditions such as cystic fibrosis and chronic lung disease.

The risks of going to hospital with another infection were related to the number of the antibiotic prescriptions in the previous three years.

A course is defined by the team as being given over a period of one or two weeks.

"GPs (general physicians) care about their patients, and over recent years have worked hard to reduce the prescribing of antibiotics,""Staa said.

"But it is clear GPs do not have the tools to prescribe antibiotics effectively for common infections, especially when patients already have previously used antibiotics.

"They may prescribe numerous courses of antibiotics over several years, which according to our study increases the risk of a more serious infection. That in turn, we show, is linked to hospital admissions," Staa added.

It not clear why hospital admissions are linked to higher prescriptions and research is needed to show what or if any biological factors exist, said the research team.

"Our hope is that, however, a tool we are working for GPs, based on patient history, will be able to calculate the risks associated with taking multiple courses of antibiotics," said Francine Jury from the University of Manchester.

Washington D.C., Jan 5: After a woman filed a lawsuit against a diet soda company, the California court has declared that the beverage does not promise to help buyers in losing weight.

The woman had gulped down the drink for over a decade but did not lose inches as a result.

The three-judge panel declared during the hearing: "The prevalent understanding of the term in (the marketplace) is that the 'diet' version of a soft drink has fewer calories than its 'regular' counterpart."

However, the members of the US 9th circuit court have felt that the consumers tend to make out something of their own that is unreasonable and eventually hamper the reputation of brands through a deceptive allegation, reports Fox News.

The response was due to a misleading case filed against Diet Dr Pepper by Shana Becerra from Santa Rosa, California. Shana claimed that she has been addictively purchasing the low-calorie beverage for the past 13 years hoping for losing some fat but failed to lose even a single inch.

The woman also stated that the attractive and fit models misled her into believing that drink will help her in perfecting her body like them.

However, the court's decision was that advertisements are for representational purposes only. "Cannot be reasonably understood to convey any specific meaning at all," as written by Judge Jay Bybee.

Shana had last week made such allegation against Diet coke as well where the court came to a similar verdict. She claimed that she had found various studies where it is evident that the artificial sweetener aspartame used in diet beverages actually boosts weight gain.

But the artificial sweetener is approved in by the concerned administrative department and thus is used in most American drinks.