“Just 30 minutes of exercise a day ‘as good as drugs’ to lower blood pressure,” reports the Daily Mirror. Australian researchers conducted experiments on 67 adults aged 55 to 80 to look at the effects of half an hour of walking on the blood pressure of people who were otherwise sitting down for 8 hours
“Cervical cancer could be eliminated in most countries by 2100,” reports The Guardian. The headline is prompted by a new study that predicted what might happen to cervical cancer over the next 50 years. Most cases of cervical cancer are caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), and there are effective vaccines that can protect people
“How many push-ups you can do could predict your risk of heart disease,” the Metro reports. The headline is prompted by a new study involving around 1,000 male firefighters (average age 40) from Indiana in the US, who attended regular physical and medical assessments during a 10-year period. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the more risk factors for
“Teen cannabis use is to blame for 60,000 people suffering depression in the UK,” reports The Sun. A review has found that teenagers aged under 18 who used cannabis were 37% more likely to get depression in early adulthood than teenagers who didn’t. Cannabis use among teenagers has been linked to poor mental health previously,
“The elderly are being fobbed off with pills for mental health problems instead of receiving therapy,” claims the Mail Online, while The Daily Telegraph reports that “NHS ageism is blocking older people’s access to talking therapies”. The news reports, and their sensational claims, are based on a new review looking into older people’s experience of
“Study links heavily processed foods to risk of earlier death,” reports The Guardian. Researchers reported that middle-aged French people who ate 10% more so-called “ultra-processed” food had a slightly increased chance of dying over a 7-year period compared with those who ate less. The researchers describe ultra-processed food as “food products that contain multiple ingredients
“Chippies are selling smaller portions of fish and chips in bid to fight Britain’s obesity crisis,” reports The Sun. Fish and chips are an enduringly popular takeaway choice in the UK; hence the phrase “it’s as British as fish and chips”. An increasing concern is whether one of our national dishes is contributing towards levels
“Adding more fruit and veg to your diet boosts your mood and emotional wellbeing as much as landing a new job,” reports the Mail Online. Researchers used survey results from UK families to estimate the link between how much fruit and vegetables people ate on a typical day, and their mental wellbeing. They found people
“Women’s brains are nearly four years younger than men’s, at least in how they burn fuel, according to scans performed by US researchers,” The Guardian reports. A group of researchers from the US took specialist brain scans from nearly 200 healthy adults aged between 20 and 80. They used the scans to calculate what they
“E-cigarettes are almost twice as effective at helping smokers give up tobacco than other alternatives such as nicotine patches or gum,” Sky News reports. E-cigarettes deliver a vaporised dose of nicotine, the addictive substance in tobacco. They don’t involve burning tobacco, which causes much of the health damage from smoking cigarettes. However, there’s been controversy
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