Should I give a four-month-old baby solids?
When should babies start solids? My first child was gobbling up runny baby cereal at three months. Two decades later (my child-bearing was spread out), the rules had changed to nil by mouth except breast milk until six months. Not…
Why eating more fruit and veg doesn’t always help you lose weight
Will eating more fruit and vegetables make me thin? Want to get thin? Eat more fruit and vegetables – they’re a low-calorie way of filling up, right? The health site WebMD has “eat more fruit and vegetables” as one of…
Why walking is good for you
Pilates, yoga and the classic treadmill get all the attention when it comes to popular ways to stay healthy. There is, however, a more unassuming workout that might not get the column inches, but has all the benefits: walking. Certified…
Text neck: how smartphones are damaging our spines
Are smartphones a pain in the neck? According to new research carried out by a US doctor, they are far worse – “text neck” is becoming an epidemic that could lead to permanent damage. The posture we adopt as we…
Vampire of the uplands
At first I thought it was a thorn from a rose. I ran my hand up the back of my calf and could feel it caught in my skin. Something small, sticking out, it could be flicked back and forth…
How to cure my allergy
It was an egg biryani that started it. I had spent Easter hooked up to an intravenous drip in India – after a curry turned out to be housing a potent strain of E coli – and left the hospital…
Eat, drink and be … healthy?
It is a bright, autumnal Tuscan morning. Woodsmoke rises poker-straight into the sky, the village church jangles the quarter-hours and green-cloaked hills wrap the horizon. I’m in the walled garden of my private villa – vine pergola to the right,…
Teeth problems are top reason for young children’s hospital admissions
The number one reason for primary-school-aged children being admitted to hospital is to have multiple teeth taken out, newly released figures show. The number of children aged from five to nine needing hospital treatment for dental problems rose by more…
Exercise is good … but it won’t help you lose weight, say doctors
Being dangerously overweight is all down to bad diet rather than a lack of exercise, according to a trio of doctors who have reopened the debate about whether food, sedentary lifestyles or both are responsible for the obesity epidemic. In…
Cocoa, fruit and tea can help keep heart healthy, study says
Substances found in cocoa, fruit and tea could help healthy people keep their heart and circulation in good working order as they get older, according to researchers in Germany. Healthy middle-aged people who consumed two flavanol drinks a day had…
Memory loss in old age breakthrough offers dementia hope, say researchers
Researchers may have found a way to slow down or prevent memory problems that arise in old age and which can become devastating in patients with dementia. The fresh hope comes from a series of studies in humans and mice…