Obese patients who enrol on commercial programmes such as Weight Watchers lose twice as much weight as those just given advice by the nanny state and doctors research suggests. A paper in the The Lancet found that overweight people who spent a year attending group meetings, being weighed regularly and following diet tips lost an average of 11.1lb (5.06kg).

This is twice the 4.9lb (2.25kg) shed by those who received weight-loss information at their local doctors’ surgery.

In addition, those on the Weight Watchers programme had lower cholesterol levels and smaller waist measurements, making them at lower risk of developing diabetes and heart disease.

Academics commenting on the study say public sector health services – such as the NHS – should consider paying for patients to attend private weight-loss classes than providing treatment themselves.

The study was carried out by Dr Susan Jebb at the UK Medical Research Council in Cambridge and colleagues but funded through a grant from Weight Watchers itself to the MRC.

It states that 1 billion people worldwide are overweight and 300 million obese, putting them at high risk of illness and early death and placing a heavy burden on healthcare systems.

The researchers took 770 overweight and obese patients, mainly middle-aged women, in Germany, Austria and Britain and gave half of them free access to a Weight Watchers programme while the others received “standard care” through their GP.

Those on the commercial scheme were encouraged to attend weekly weigh-ins as well as counselling and group support meetings, and were able to monitor their food intake and activity levels online as well as access meal ideas and take part in community discussions.

After 12 months, weight loss among those in Weight Watchers was “significantly greater” than those given GP advice, and they were twice as likely to have lost more than 5 per cent of their initial bodyweight.

In addition, their insulin, glucose and total cholesterol levels were found to be lower while their waist circumferences had dropped by an average 2.2in (5.60cm) compared with 1.2in (3.16cm) among those on the GP course. Both groups ended up with lower blood pressure.

The researchers say the commercial programme could be more successful at changing people’s behaviour because it offers more frequent weighing and peer support.

The paper claims it could also prove cheaper, at about £50-60 for 12 weeks, because it involves larger groups of people.

The authors conclude: “Data from our study suggest that referral by a primary health-care professional to a commercial weight loss programme that provides regular weighing, advice about diet and physical activity, motivation, and group support can offer a clinically useful early intervention for weight management in overweight and obese people that can be delivered at large scale.”

Kate Jolly and Paul Aveyard from the University of Birmingham write in an accompanying opinion piece: “Evidence that weight loss achieved by fairly brief interventions can be sustained long term without continued support would be valuable.

“However, present evidence shows that the commercial programme assessed by Jebb and colleagues provides a more effective weight management service than does primary care, and is widely available. Such programmes are likely to be an important component of the medical management of obesity in primary care.”

Previous research had suggested that nanny state schemes to “bribe” the obese into losing weight, currently on trial in the NHS, were just as effective as programmes such as Weight Watchers.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Weight-Watchers-twice-as-effective-as-advice-for-obese

Teenage pregnancy are “contagious”, according to a study which has found that younger sisters tend to follow the example set by their older siblings.When an older sister becomes a gymslip mum, the younger sister is twice as likely to do the same.

This “peer effect”, as Bristol University researchers called it, raised the chances of becoming a teenage mother from about one in five to two in five.

The effect was stronger when sisters were closer together in age, while it was also stronger in poorer households.

Being educated to a higher level decreased its effect, but the research found that the sibling effect “dwarfs” that of more years in school.

Professor Carol Propper said: “Previous research has shown that family background and raising the education of girls decreases the chances of teenage pregnancy.

“However, these findings reveal the positive sibling effect still dwarfs the negative effect of education. These findings provide strong evidence that the contagious effect of teen motherhood in siblings is larger than the general effect of being better educated.

“This suggests that more policies aimed directly at decreasing teenage pregnancy may be needed in order to reduce teen births.”

The analysis was based on census data from 42,000 Norwegian women born after the Second World War. Most gave birth in the 1970s and 1980s.

The study, a collaboration with academics at Bergen University in Norway, the Norwegian School of Economics and Imperial College London, has been published as a working paper by Bristol University’s Centre for Market and Public Organisation.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Teenage-pregnancies-contagious

Nursing homes are to be told to submit to new “excellence tests” or risk losing public funding under new plans.
Homes will be assessed on staff training and turn-over, daily activities for residents, and the quality of care they offer.

Only those which professionally register all their staff are expected to be allowed to take part and the results of the tests will be published to give families information on what they can expect from individual homes.

Ministers have warned that only those institutions which meet the new standards are likely to be funded in future by local councils.

But critics of the plan said small independent care homes might not be able to afford the cost of registering for the new scheme and could go bankrupt, forcing residents to move even if the home was offering outstanding care.

The Independent has been highlighting the neglect of elderly residents in some homes, which campaigners say will get worse as public-sector cuts start to bite. More than half a million elderly people are in nursing homes and the number is expected to rise to 1.3 million by 2050.

Local councils spend around 50 per cent of their budgets on social care, the bulk of which is for the elderly. As a result of the public-sector funding cuts highlighting the neglect of elderly residents in some homes, which campaigners say will get worse as public-sector cuts start to bite.

More than half a million elderly people are in nursing homes and the number is expected to rise to 1.3 million by 2050.

Local councils spend around 50 per cent of their budgets on social care, the bulk of it on the elderly. As a result of the public-sector funding cuts announced in October’s comprehensive spending review, the same councils will have their budgets cut by up to 9 per cent a year for the next four years.

At Christmas, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) carried out spot inspections of 234 health and social-care institutions, including nursing homes, which revealed significant lapses in standards in more than a third of cases. Ten reviews resulted in the highest form of censure, which could to lead to the commission withdrawing licences to operate.

After one review, a nursing home in Luton – run by Southern Cross, Britain’s largest care-home provider – was closed immediately because conditions were so bad. The commission found that 26 other institutions were not meeting required standards in all areas and ordered improvements.

Later in the year, the Government will unveil its long-term plans for reforming the care sector. These are likely to include the introduction of a new “insurance model” to pay for care in later life. People without insurance forfeit their assets when they die to pay for care they have received.

Speaking before a consultation to decide how the excellence rating will be assessed, Paul Burstow, the Care Services minister, said good-quality care was not always about money. “Compassion, common sense, treating people with dignity and respect are not simply about spending more. They are about the way you do things. We want to look at what’s being done [in nursing homes] to add life to the years you’re having rather than just adding years to the life you’re leading.

“The new ratings will provide further pressure within the sector to improve. So it creates another lever for the commissioner to pull, to say we are only going to place people with you if you are excellent.”

The scheme will start out as optional and the cost of the inspections will be borne by the care homes. The commission’s chief executive, Cynthia Bower, said: “CQC’s role is to identify and react to signs that people may be at risk of receiving poor care. But this is not the same as saying other provider are offering ‘excellent’ care.

“An excellence award can recognise best practice, be a spur to improvement for providers who already meet CQC’s essential standards, and can help people who need longer-term care to make choices.”

Under the plans, all staff working for “excellent” nursing homes will likely have to be registered with a new Health and Care Workers Professions Council. This means care workers could be “stuck off” for poor practice and eventually the body could require minimum qualifications for registration.

“We want to see if we can work it on a voluntary basis but you probably won’t be able to have an excellence rating unless you employ people who are registered,” said Mr Burstow.

His long-term intention was to make the care system much more transparent and clear for both residents and their families,” he said.

From:  http://www.independent.co.uk/excellence-ratings-for-care-homes

Warning labels on medicines should be simplified because words such as “drowsiness” and “avoid” are too confusing for modern patients, experts claim.Research by the British National Formulary (BNF), which advises doctors, nurses and pharmacists, found labelling that has been around for decades is now too difficult for members of the public to understand.

It found phrases such as “may cause drowsiness” are no longer “readily understood” and should now be simplified to say “this medicine may make you sleepy”.

Likewise, the phrases “avoid alcoholic drink” and “take at regular intervals” caused indecision among modern takers.

The report recommends the labels should now read “do not drink alcohol while taking this medicine” and “space the doses evenly throughout the day”.

The research was carried out by Professor Theo Raynor, and colleagues at the University of Leeds.

He said: “Most medicines do contain leaflets which provide detailed information for patients.

“However the leaflet may get lost, which means that the label on the medicine plays a very important part in guiding people’s behaviour.

“It is vital therefore that wordings on labels are simple and straightforward.”

Prof Raynor’s team tested a selection of instructions on almost 200 people aged 20 to 80.

The experts reworded phrases that people found confusing, and then retested them in several sittings, including one-to-one interviews.

Prof Raynor said “avoid alcoholic drinks” was a good example.

“Our user tests have shown that the word “avoid” can cause confusion and that some people think it only means they should limit their alcohol intake.

“This phrase will now be replaced by the instruction: ‘do not drink alcohol while taking this medicine’, which is far clearer.”

Other recommendations include changing “do not take indigestion remedies at the same time of day as this medicine” to “do not take indigestion remedies two hours before or after you take this medicine”.

Another phrase, “do not stop taking this medicine except on your doctor’s advice”, becomes “warning: Do not stop taking this medicine unless your doctor tells you to stop.”

The revised phrases are included in a new, updated version of the BNF.

“The software used by large pharmacy chains and independent pharmacist to print instruction labels is updated regularly, so we would expect to see these new phrases appear within the next six months,” Prof Raynor said.

Professor Nick Barber, a pharmacologist at London University, said: “When serious errors occur which cause harm to patients, it is often as a result of a series of minor failures at various stages.

“Therefore in taking more care about the wording of detailed instructions we can help improve the safety of medicines.

“With two million prescriptions being issued every day, a small percentage improvement through labels being more understandable could make a significant impact”.

Duncan Enright, publishing director at BNF publications, said: “It has never been easier to change labels on medicines given current computerised systems and therefore we hope that the large pharmacy chains and independent pharmacies will adopt these recommendations.”

The words “drowsiness” and “drowsy” are thought to date back to 1520 probably from the word drusan or drusian “to sink,” also “become languid, slow, or inactive” which are related to dreosan “to fall”.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/May-cause-drowsiness-too-confusing-for-modern-medicine-labels

A row over a disgraced GP sacked from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs for controversial views including linking homosexuality with child abuse intensified as it emerged that a Home Office report makes the same point.
The appointment last month of Dr Hans Christian Raabe – who takes a hard line against drug use – was welcomed by anti-drugs campaigners. A media backlash prompted the Home Office to sack Dr Raabe over his 2005 comments linking homosexuality and child sex offences.

Dr Raabe said that he is considering taking legal action against the Home Office unless he receives an apology. He pointed to a research report by the Home Office – Sex Offending Against Children: Understanding the Risk – which states: “Bradford et al (1988) suggested reasonably that approximately 20 to 33 per cent of child sexual abuse is homosexual in nature.”

He pointed out that this is a similar statistic to that cited in the academic paper he co-authored in 2005, claiming 25 per cent of child sex abuse is homosexual. “This is quite hypocritical and very bizarre indeed. I am being sacked by the Home Office for stating what a Home Office document says,” the Manchester GP said.

“I volunteered for unpaid public service and feel as though my personal and professional reputation has been shamefully destroyed by the Government, for saying something it says itself. My appointment has been revoked based on the wrong perception that I could potentially discriminate against gay people; something I have never done, either in my private or professional life. The real issue is that there was a campaign to get rid of me. I suspect it’s a group of people that are for a more liberal drug policy and perhaps want to legalise drugs.”

Anti-drugs campaigners yesterday called on the Home Secretary, Theresa May, to apologise for “an unjustifiable personal and professional attack by her ministry”. David Raynes, from the National Drug Prevention Alliance, described Dr Raabe’s sacking as “a vicious and personal witch hunt orchestrated by pro-drugs campaigners” and said “there remains a cabal of people on the committee who are sympathetic to the legalisation of all drugs. It can ill afford to lose people who act as a balance against this view”.

The Home Office said: “Dr Raabe’s failure to disclose a controversial report which, among other things, links homosexuality to paedophilia raises concerns over his credibility to provide balanced advice on drug misuse issues and impacts on the smooth running of the ACMD.”

Other controversial figures appointed to the expert body last month include a former cocaine addict and a drugs researcher who has downplayed the risks of ecstasy.

From: http://www.independent.co.uk/sacked-drugs-adviser-demands-apology-from-home-office

Overweight pregnant women are more likely to be overdue and have more complicated births, a study has found.
Women who were overweight or obese before they conceived were more likely to have a longer pregnancy, need to have labour induced artificially and to go on to require caesarean section births.

The research was conducted by a team at Liverpool University who examined the records of almost 30,000 women who gave birth over four years.

Three in ten obese women were overdue, defined as still pregnant ten days after their due date, compared with around two in ten of healthy weight women.

More than a third of obese women had their labour induced, compared with just over a quarter of normal weight women, the study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology found.

In addition almost three in ten obese women had an induction of labour which later resulted in a caesarean delivery compared to less than two in ten normal weight women.

However, more than seven in ten obese women still gave birth naturally and the rates of complications in labour and for the baby were the same as in normal weight women.

Other studies have found that maternal obesity is now one of the biggest risks in childbirth. In 2007 it was found that half of all women who died during pregnancy or soon after giving birth were overweight.

Maternity units have had to order special operating tables, wheelchairs and other equipment to deal with the increasing number of obese mothers and doors have had to be widened to accommodate them.

Management of obese prolonged pregnancies is often difficult as induction of labour is associated with a high risk of caesarean section and the possible complications that follow including infection, bleeding and clots.

Dr Sarah Arrowsmith, from the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Translational Medicine, and lead author on the paper said: “Maternal obesity has become one of the most commonly occurring risk factors in obstetric practice including greater risk of prolonged pregnancy.

“The importance of this research is that it investigates delivery outcomes for women who are obese with prolonged gestation and receiving labour induction. The fact that the majority of obese women did have a vaginal delivery, with labour complications being largely comparable to normal weight women, suggests that induction of labour in obese women with prolonged pregnancy is a safe method for managing these difficult pregnancies.

“Our findings were somewhat unexpected, given the well-reported complications surrounding obesity in pregnancy, but were clinically reassuring.

“Our current research is focused towards underlying causes of prolonged pregnancy, which can affect up to ten per cent of women, as currently we know little about it.”

Professor Philip Steer, BJOG editor-in-chief said: “Maternal obesity is on the rise and is associated with pregnancy complications. The risk of caesarean section is heightened when the woman is induced, however, it is promising to see that a large number of obese pregnant women delivered vaginally.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Obese-pregnant-women-have-more-complicated-births-research

Hundreds of herbal medicinal products will be banned from sale in Britain this year under what campaigners say is a “discriminatory and disproportionate” European law.
With four months to go before the EU-wide ban is implemented, thousands of patients face the loss of herbal remedies that have been used in the UK for decades.

From 1 May 2011, traditional herbal medicinal products must be licensed or prescribed by a registered herbal practitioner to comply with an EU directive passed in 2004. The directive was introduced in response to rising concern over adverse effects caused by herbal medicines.

The UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) quango has issued more than a dozen safety alerts in the past two years, including one over aristolochia, a banned toxic plant derivative which caused kidney failure in two women.

Herbal practitioners say it is impossible for most herbal medicines to meet the licensing requirements for safety and quality, which are intended to be similar to those for pharmaceutical drugs, because of the cost of testing.

According to the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), which represents herbal practitioners, not a single product used in traditional Chinese medicine or ayurvedic medicine has been licensed. In Europe, around 200 products from 27 plant species have been licensed but there are 300 plant species in use in the UK alone.

The ANH estimates the cost of obtaining a licence at between £80,000 and £120,000 per herb. They say this is affordable for single herbal products with big markets, such as echinacea, a remedy for colds and flu, but will drive small producers of medicines containing multiple herbs out of business.

Under EU law, statutorily regulated herbal practitioners will be permitted to continue prescribing unlicensed products. But the Coalition Government and the previous Labour administration have delayed plans to introduce a statutory herbal practitioner register.

This means thousands of patients who rely on herbal treatments face being denied access to them. Medical organisations, including the MHRA, have warned the measures may drive patients to obtain herbal medicines over the internet – where risks are much greater.

Michael McIntyre, the chairman of the European Herbal and Traditional Medicine Practitioners Association, said: “The problem is you can’t get a licence for many herbal medicines because they are grown in people’s back gardens and you can’t patent them. The implications are very serious. Patients want to receive treatment from trained and qualified practitioners but unless we have regulation they can’t have confidence in who is treating them. The worst outcome is that patients will end up going to the internet for their herbal medicines where there are no controls.”

Dr Rob Verkerk, of the ANH, said: “Thousands of people across Europe rely on herbal medicines to improve their quality of life. They don’t take them because they are sick – they take them to keep healthy. If these medicines are taken off the market, people will try and find them elsewhere, such as from the internet, where there is a genuine risk they will get low quality products, that either don’t work or are adulterated.”

The MHRA said it had received applications for licences for 166 herbal products, of which 78 had been granted. Sir Alasdair Breckenridge, chairman of the MHRA, said a register of herbalists was essential. “Just because something is natural doesn’t mean it is safe,” he said. “It is terribly important to have responsible people who have undergone training prescribing these products.”

Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter, said proposals for regulation would be worthless unless they required practitioners to follow best evidence for the effects of their remedies. “It is in danger of regulating nonsense – and that must result in nonsense,” he said.

A review of the codes of conduct by which alternative practitioners were bound found the “vast majority” did not include an obligation to report adverse effects, he said. The only exception was the Chinese Herbal Medicine Code which advised members to report “cases of industrial poisoning or accident”.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said no decision had been made on a statutory register of herbal practitioners. “The Government is aware of the strength of feeling on this issue and is actively exploring options.”

Remedies under threat
Cascara bark (Cascara sagrada, Rhamnus purshiana)
Helps stimulate a sluggish bowel.

Pau D’Arco (Tabebuia impetiginosa)
Anti-inflammatory, used for infection control.

Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera, or winter cherry)
Anti-inflammatory, for arthritis and boosting the immune system.

Skullcap (Scutellaria baicalensis/Chinese skullcap)
For anxiety, headaches and pain relief.

Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria)
For stomach acidity, diarrhoea, headache.

Horny goat weed (Epimedium grandiflorum)
Used to enhance libido.

From: http://www.independent.co.uk/health-news/europe-to-ban-hundreds-of-herbal-remedies

Eating five portions of fresh fruit and vegetables every day will not protect you from cancer as they have little effect compared with smoking, alcohol and obesity, a study finds.
Official guidelines recommend at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day in order to be healthy but new research has found that this may not have a substantial effect on cancer.

The science suggests that people should be told that cancer risk is much more related to how much you smoke, eat and drink rather than what you eat.

The review, published in the British Journal of Cancer, looks at a decade of evidence on the links between fruit and vegetables and the development of cancer, but it concludes that the evidence is still not convincing.

The only diet-related factors that definitely affect cancer risk are obesity and alcohol, they discovered.

Tobacco is still the single biggest cause of cancer.

While smoking increases the risk of cancer by as much as 50 fold, even large consumptions of fruit and veg will only reduce the risk by a maximum of 10 per cent.

Professor Tim Key, an epidemiologist from Oxford University, said that while there are undoubted benefits in eating fruit and vegetables there is little hard evidence that they protect against cancer.

But the evidence is indisputable that cancer is strongly linked to being overweight or obese, and drinking more alcohol than the recommended daily limits.

He said: “Fruit and vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet and a good source of nutrients.

“But so far the data does not prove that eating increased amounts of fruit and vegetables offers much protection against cancer.

“But there’s strong scientific evidence to show that, after smoking, being overweight and alcohol are two of the biggest cancer risks.”

Overweight people produce higher levels of certain hormones than people of a healthy weight and this can contribute to an increased risk of breast cancer.

Being overweight can increase your risk of other common cancers like bowel and also hard-to-treat forms of the disease like pancreatic, oesophageal and kidney cancer.

When alcohol is broken down by the body it produces a chemical which can damage cells increasing the risk of mouth, throat, breast, bowel and liver cancers.

In the UK 15,000 cases of cancer are caused by alcohol, it is believed, and 19,000 cases of cancer are caused by being overweight or obese.

Sara Hiom, director of health information at Cancer Research UK, said: “Too few people know about the significant cancer risks associated with obesity and drinking too much alcohol.

“While stopping smoking remains the best way to cut your chances of developing cancer, the importance of keeping a healthy weight and cutting down on alcohol shouldn’t be overlooked.

“Keeping alcohol intake to a maximum of one small drink a day for women and two small drinks per day for men and keeping weight within the healthy limits can have an enormous impact.”

The British research mirrors the findings of an American study published in April.

For every extra two portions consumed the risk of cancer reduced by just three per cent, the research conducted by a team at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York suggested.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Five-a-day-will-not-stop-cancer

Patients with ME will be banned from donating blood transfusions in the UK under new safety guidelines.
Nanny state officials spin that the ban, starting on 1 November, is designed to protect the health of people with ME – also known as chronic fatigue syndrome.

But the ME Association says the move is motivated by concerns that the illness may be caused by a virus similar to HIV that can be passed on via blood.

Prior to the ban ME patients could give blood provided they were in remission.

But the cyclical “relapsing-remitting” nature of this chronic condition means people can become ill again.

NHS Blood and Transplant says the ban is “a precaution to protect the donor’s safety by ensuring their condition is not made worse by donating blood”.

They say the move brings ME blood donation policy into line with other relapsing conditions or neurological conditions of unknown or uncertain origin, such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s Disease.

But the ME Association believes there is another reason for the ban – to protect blood recipients from a potentially blood-borne illness. Although they agree with the ban, they say the public should be made aware of all of the reasons for it.

Experts do not know what causes ME.

But US scientists recently linked the condition to a retrovirus – known as XMRV – after finding it in the blood of many patients.

The Whittemore Peterson Institute team found XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus) in 67% of ME patients compared to under 4% of the general population.

However since the 2009 discovery, published in the journal Science, other research teams, including experts in the UK, have failed to demonstrate such a link.

A spokeswoman from NHS Blood and Transplant said: “Currently there is no epidemiological evidence of a link between XMRV and CFS in the UK.”

Although the evidence is patchy, the ME Association say it is enough to advise caution and recommend a ban on blood donations from ME patients.

The American Association of Blood Banks put in place a similar blood ban in June of this year as an interim measure until the true risk of transfusion transmission of XMRV is known.

The ME Association’s medical advisor, Dr Charles Shepherd, said this was a well-judged approach.

“In the current state of uncertainty about a possible viral link a ban is a perfectly sensible measure to take in case it is caused by a retrovirus.

He said the UK ban should not leave a big gap in the blood donor pool.

“Although people with ME often want to donate blood, they make up a small number of the many thousands of donations the NHS receives each year.”

Seven thousand units of blood a day are needed to meet the demand of NHS Blood and Transplant alone.

The ME donor ban applies across all four of the UK’s Blood Services.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/me-patients-banned-from-blood-donations

Young adults are turning to so called legal highs as they seek alternatives to other drugs, according to experts.
The National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse report warned the drugs had emerged as an alternative to the “low quality” of other substances.

Over the past years, the number seeking help for cocaine, crack cocaine and heroin use all fell.

But this was largely down to large reductions in the under 25 age group, as the number of over 40s actually increased.

The NTA believes this reflects the fact the “Trainspotting” generation who got hooked in the 1980s are now ageing and increasingly developing problems linked to their sustained drug use.

The findings also chime with British Crime Survey figures which show overall drugs use has been steadily falling in recent years.

Less than 1% of the population use the most harmful drugs – crack cocaine and heroin.

The NTA figures showed that over the past year the number of people needing treatment for cocaine fell by 15% to 7,304, for crack cocaine by 17% to 3,686 and for crack and heroin together by 16% to 21,341.

This is almost entirely due to large falls in the under 25s seeking treatment as the over 40s have been rising in recent years.

For example, the number of over 40s being treated for crack cocaine or heroin use has risen by a third over the last four years.

The report, compiled with the help of Glasgow University, warned there was some anecdotal evidence of a move towards synthetic compounds known as legal highs, such as mephedrone, among younger age groups.

However, the NTA said it had yet to see many people wanting treatment for these, although it warned that could happen in time.

Peter Kelsey, of Lifeline Redcar and Cleveland, which helps drug users, said: “People hear the word legal and they think safe. Yet it’s anything but.

“We’re seeing a big rise in people coming to use because of legal highs, which we think may be down to the poor quality and price of coke and the legal aspect.”

The government has already responded to the use of so-called legal highs.

Mephedrone – also known as Meow, Bubbles and M-Cat – was banned and made a class B drug in April.

The Home Office has also announced plans for year-long bans that could be introduced quickly if new drugs take off.

NTA chief executive Paul Hayes said the agency now had to “refocus” the treatment system in response to these trends.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11493247