HEALTH MATTERS - September 2026
A digest of medical and scientific news
Clean air, growing lungs: what the ULEZ did for London’s children
The Children’s Health in London and Luton study, published in The Lancet Public Health on 18 August 2026, has produced the first direct evidence that a clean air zone can restore lung growth affected by traffic pollution.
Researchers from Queen Mary University of London, Imperial College and the Universities of Oxford, Bedfordshire, Cambridge and Edinburgh recruited 3,414 children aged six to nine just before London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) began in April 2019, and compared those in central London against a similar group of children living in Luton, which has similar traffic pollution but no clean air zone.
The London children had smaller lungs and lower forced expiratory volume (FEV1), a measure of lung obstruction, than the Luton children. Over the following five years, as London’s nitrogen dioxide exposure fell twice as fast as Luton’s, London children’s lung growth increased to catch up with that of the Luton children, and the proportion of children with reduced lung function fell by 5%, compared to a fall from only 2% in Luton.
The study alone does not prove causation outright,it could not control exposure or exclude other factors, but the result is highly suggestive. Children in high-traffic neighbourhoods are more exposed to traffic-related pollution. As their lungs and physiology are still developing, they are more prone to stunted growth, raised risks of asthma, bronchitis, heart disease and earlier death.
At least, ULEZ seems to have helped.
Breathe deep, while you sleep, breathe deep.
Europe’s mosquito season; is it the ‘new normal’?
The European Centre for Disease Control has confirmed that reports of both West Nile virus and chikungunya infections have been increasing in Europe this summer. Nine European countries have reported a total of 429 locally acquired West Nile virus infections. Transmission typically peaks in August and September, so the total is expected to keep climbing.
Aedes albopictus, the mosquito that transmits dengue and chikungunya, is now established in 16 European countries, more than triple the distribution of a decade ago. Though most infections are mild, these viruses can cause serious illness and even fatalities.
The European climate change to higher average temperatures, longer summers, milder winters and changing rainfall provides perfect conditions for mosquito spread and reproduction, and so increases the risk of these viral infections.
This is a problem that is only likely to increase as the climate changes to become warmer, more energetic and chaotic. It seems you no longer have to travel to the tropics in order to develop an interesting infection.
Newer anticoagulants and cognitive decline
Reported by news outlets, a Swedish nationwide study of adults with atrial fibrillation (AF - a highly irregular heart beat) and Alzheimer’s disease published in the European Heart Journal on 12 August 2026, found that direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) were associated with slower cognitive decline than warfarin or no anticoagulation.
DOAC use was also linked to lower mortality, stroke and fracture risk, without a significantly increased risk of major bleeding, while warfarin lowered stroke and mortality risk compared to no treatment but carried a higher bleeding risk.
However, another trial comparing apixaban (a DOAC) with aspirin after cryptogenic stroke (a type of ischaemic stroke that occurs without a known cause) with atrial cardiopathy (a disorder of the heart's atria that can increase the risk of stroke), which found no significant difference in cognitive decline between the two treatments.
The situation is not clear. The choice of anticoagulant in atrial fibrillation will continue to be guided mainly by the aim to prevent strokes rather than by a possible cognitive benefit that is yet unproven.
DRC’s Ebola outbreak becomes the country’s largest ever recorded
The Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo of15 May 2026 is now the largest Ebola epidemic ever recorded in the country and is the fastest-growing on record.
At the time of writing, the World Health Organisation has recognised 4,665 cases of Bundibugyo infection and 2,184 deaths; both figures are steadily increasing.
There is no licensed vaccine or specific treatment for this type of Ebola virus. Existing measures were developed against Zaire ebolavirus; WHO has advised against using the licensed Ervebo vaccine for Bundibugyo virus because the evidence of protection is poor.
Medical and aid efforts are complicated by active conflict in the area (an Ebola treatment centre was attacked in July), and by health-worker strikes over unpaid salaries. More than 150 health workers have been infected. Uganda’s linked outbreak was declared over on 28 July after 20 confirmed cases and two deaths, with no further transmission, demonstrating how differently an outbreak can resolve depending on health-system capacity, stability and security.
The USAID cut and its foreign-assistance freeze in early 2025 forced partner organisations to lay off staff and stop disease-surveillance and Ebola-preparedness work in both DRC and Uganda. The US withdrawal from WHO has also been blamed for cutting the CDC off from some official outbreak-reporting channels. One estimate attributes roughly 300,000 additional deaths in DRC to the broader aid collapse, generally.
Since the outbreak, the US has increased funding to the area.
Coffee, body composition and sex hormones
Researchers at the University of Oulu, publishing in the European Journal of Nutrition on 16 July 2026, analysed coffee intake against body composition, metabolic markers and sex hormones in 2,264 adults from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort of 1966. Despite similar BMIs across the groups, higher coffee intake was associated with lower total and visceral fat, greater skeletal muscle mass, and lower circulating branched-chain amino acids (linked to insulin resistance) in both sexes.
The hormonal effect varied. Men with higher coffee intake had higher total and bioavailable (active) testosterone and a more favourable glucose-insulin profile, though free testosterone was a little lower due to a raised sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG). Women showed higher SHBG and lower free androgens, with no change in total or bioavailable testosterone.
Firstly, this study cannot establish that coffee itself produced these differences, and secondly, Finland is among the world’s heaviest coffee-consuming nations, and only 70 of the 2,264 participants reported drinking none at all - a very small ‘control’ group. There have to be questions about how far these findings are relevant to lower-consumption populations.
As a heavy coffee user, this leaves me wondering how coffee consumption affects me. It’s a good job I don’t have to hand write these pieces.