Health

We’ve all been there. You’re laying in bed at 3.00 AM, staring at the ceiling and counting down the hours till you have to get up and function in the outside world. Struggling to get to sleep is frustrating at best, but it can even be damaging to our mental and physical health if it becomes a chronic issue. With this in mind, it’s no wonder many of us are seeking out solutions to this problem. But what if you’re...

There is something instinctual about dancing, an echo from our ancestors that calls to us like a forgotten song in early childhood. Dancing makes us feel ‘alive’. It can boost brain-power and allow us to overcome social anxieties, helping us form better social groups with workmates, family members, even complete strangers. And yet the health benefits of dancing remain under-represented and under-rated. As though it’s a practice restricted to either professionals on stage or, at the other extreme, to the...

Drinking coffee is "more likely to benefit health than to harm it" - with three or four cups a day conferring the biggest boost, according to a new study. Researchers brought together evidence from more than 200 studies and found that drinking three to four cups of coffee a day is associated with living longer and a lower risk of heart disease compared with drinking no coffee. Coffee drinking is also associated with lower risk of some cancers, diabetes, liver...

Frying food bad for your diet and lungs Having a fry up really is not only bad for your diet but also bad for your lungs because you breathe in tiny droplets of hot fat, a study found. As food is fried, water droplets "explode" not only spitting hot fat onto your skin but into the air forming dangerous indoor pollution. And chicken, other meat pumped with water or Chinese stir frys are the worst offenders. Scientists at Texas Tech...

People living in polluted urban areas are far less likely to be admitted to hospital with asthma when there are lots of trees in their neighbourhood, a study by the University of Exeter’s medical school has found. The study into the impact of urban greenery on asthma suggests that respiratory health can be improved by the expansion of tree cover in very polluted urban neighbourhoods. Published in the journal Environment International, the study looked at more than 650,000 serious asthma attacks over a 15 year period....

As we approach Christmas and the New Year, we are also coming up on the time which sees people all across the country making resolutions to better themselves in 2018, in one way or another. For the sake of their health, many thousands of those addicted to smoking are likely to resolve to ditch their habit, which is no small feat and requires a lot of willpower to be successful. Fortunately though there is plenty of help and guidance and...

An Amazonian shamanic psychedelic brew is a safe psychiatric medicine to treat depression and alcoholism, a British study suggested. Ayahuasca traditionally used by South American indigenous tribes was more effective in helping heavy drinkers tackle their addiction than LSD and magic mushrooms. The jungle tea made from a mixture of plants contains the hallucinogenic drug dimethyltryptamine, an illegal Class A drug known as DMT or Dimitri. Researchers from the University of Exeter and University College London found alcoholics were better...

An advert for a glossy travel magazine featuring an "unhealthily thin" model posing on a beach has been banned. The ad in Glamour magazine for Condé Nast Traveller was branded "socially irresponsible" by watchdogs. An investigation was launched when the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received a single complaint in June about the advert. The complainant said the model looked "unhealthily thin" and challenged whether the ad was socially irresponsible. Condé Nast Traveller bosses claimed the model was "naturally slim" and...

As the season of sniffles approaches, GP Dr Roger Henderson has revealed the sticky ins-and-outs of sneezing, wheezing and other symptoms of the common cold. Sneezing is your body’s way of removing irritants from your nose or throat and is a powerful, involuntary expulsion of air, which typically leaves the body at speeds topping 100mph, and contains as many as 40,000 droplets. Bacterial and viral infections which cause a cold are commonly spread with sneezing – the force of a sneeze...