Tag: Health

  • Why drinking milk is good for us (and our farmers)

    Milk prices are sinking fast and UK dairy farmers are fighting to stay afloat. The ‘milk trolley challenge’ and supermarket protests have helped raise the profile of their plight but our appetite for the white stuff has never been lower. Twenty years ago we drank three times as much whole milk as we do today;…

  • Gardener beware! 4 deadly plants that could be in your backyard

    Vegetable growers will know that there is little to beat eating the fruit of efforts. A bowl of garden-grown lettuce leaves, tomatoes and cucumbers, sprinkled with freshly cut basil leaves puts any shop-bought salad to shame. The mysterious death of gardener Nathan Greenway, however, highlights the dangers of unwittingly harvesting the wrong kind of plant.…

  • Test yourself: Could you spot a skin cancer? Never miss a melanoma.

    If you ever doubted humankind’s ability to do great things for our planet, just look at the sky. Or rather, look toward the ozone layer high in the stratosphere. If you cast your mind back, you will remember that there was a lot of talk of the ‘hole in the ozone layer’ brought on by…

  • Choosing Wisely: when you should refuse a medical test

    Today I offer you an exclusive preview of a forthcoming late summer blockbuster. Due for premiere later this year, it will be a medical drama billed to be more engaging than Terminator: Genisys and more disturbing than Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension. Directed and produced by an internationally respected team from America, Canada and the…

  • Strokes are NOT rising among people of working age, despite news reports

    If there were an award for the world’s most stupidly named medical condition, ‘stroke’ would win. We use it when talking about petting a dog or caressing a lover – the complete opposite of what a medical stroke is. A serious and life-threatening condition, strokes frequently cause paralysis, slurred speech, confusion – or worse. For…

  • The unseen Rwanda healthcare revolution - and what it teaches us

    Good news stories can be sometimes hard to come by. All too often the television and media tell us only of humanity at its worst: crimes, killings, and politicians doing dodgy things. Away from the flat screens, however, remarkable victories take place every day – often in the most surprising places. Rwanda, for example, is…

  • Don’t forget to vote: it’s good for body and mind

    Waiting for the general election has been a bit like waiting for Christmas. The hype keeps building but the big day never seems to arrive. Rather than greetings cards, however, ‘vote for me’ flyers have been piling up on the door mat. And instead of wall-to-wall seasonal specials, television viewing has been nonstop politics. Come…

  • A chocolate a day (may possibly) keep the doctor away

    The Easter eggs don’t last long in our house. It wouldn’t have always been that way though: as I child, I would diligently squirrel away Easter chocolate, treating myself only on special occasions. I now have no such willpower and, by the looks of it, neither do the rest of you. A recent survey has…

  • The risks of drinking bottled water: getting some clarity

    One of the best ever episodes of Only Fools and Horses has to be ‘Mother Nature’s Son’. Originally aired in 1992, the hilarious Christmas special sees Delboy convert his kitchen into a mineral water bottling factory after he successfully duped a wealthy entrepreneur into selling his brand of ‘Peckham Spring’ water. In true Del and…