Unprecedented progress in reducing the number of women smoking during pregnancy in England could be put at risk by NHS funding cuts.

A new BMJ article reveals that the proportion of women smoking during pregnancy in England has almost halved in the last decade.

Most of the decline happened in the last five years thanks to the introduction of dedicated stop smoking advisers in NHS maternity services since 2020.

But the team fear that the reduction could be threatened by cost-cutting exercises.

And they are calling for continued investment to give every child a smokefree start in life.

*Please mention the European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2025, Malaga, Spain, 11-14) if using this research*

New research being presented at this year’s European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2025) has found that patients of an online obesity clinic achieved similar weight loss to that reported in clinical trials – but with less than half the medication. The study is to be published in the journal The Lancet Digital Health.

The American College of Cardiology has recognized three outstanding abstract presentations as Abstract Award winners at the ACC Asia 2025 Together with SCS 36th Annual Scientific Meeting on May 9-11 in Singapore.

The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) and matching funders today awarded two Seeding Solutions grants totaling over $5 million to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center (Danforth Center) for crop development research.

While health status is an important factor in whether a person is able to grow old in their home and community (age in place), researchers at McGill University have shed new light on the social factors that can also have an impact, both directly and through their impact on health over a lifetime. 

“The main takeaway from our research is that aging in place is not equally accessible to everyone,” said Amélie Quesnel-Vallée, the senior author on the paper and the Inaugural Chair and Professor in the Department of Equity, Ethics and Policy and the Canada Research Chair in Policies and Health Inequalities.