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(CNN) -- Physicians have long recommended that mothers breastfeed their babies -- as breastfeeding comes with many health benefits for both a mom and her infant -- but many babies may never receive breast milk, especially in certain countries.

A new UNICEF report released Wednesday that ranks countries by breastfeeding rates shows that in high-income countries, more than one in five babies is never breastfed, whereas in low- and middle-income countries, one in 25 babies is never breastfed.

Among the high-income countries, Ireland, France and the United States had the three lowest breastfeeding rates.

"The data and the analyses are a confirmation of a trend that we have seen for a number of years now," said Victor Aguayo, UNICEF's chief of nutrition, who was involved in the report's policy analysis.

"In higher-income countries, we see that the proportion of children who have never been breastfed is significantly higher than the number of children in low- and middle-income countries. That is a fact," he said. "We need to create environments -- including in the US -- that make breastfeeding the norm."

Based on the new report, here are the countries with the highest and lowest percentages of babies who are ever breastfed.

The factors that can make a difference

The new report included data on breastfeeding prevalence among 123 countries. Those data came from several sources, including UNICEF's global databases, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Lancet and studies published in scientific journals such as Acta Paediatrica.

An analysis of the data showed that 95% of babies worldwide are breastfed at some point in their lives. The prevalence of breastfeeding varied among high-income countries but not so much among low- and middle-income countries.

The high-income countries in the report were Australia, Barbados, Canada, Chile, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Oman, Qatar, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Uruguay and the United States. The data for those countries were based on breastfeeding rate estimates from 2010 or more recently.

Of those countries, Uruguay ranked highest, with 98.7% of babies ever being breastfed, followed by Sweden and Oman, both with 98%.

Ireland ranked lowest among those countries, with only 55% of babies ever being breastfed, followed by France with 63% and then the US with 74.4%.

A CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released last year found that the percentage of babies in the United States who start out breastfeeding increased from 73% among those born in 2004 to 83% among those born in 2014.

In the new UNICEF report, among the low- and middle-income nations, the data showed that nearly nine in 10 babies were breastfed, even in the countries with the lowest breastfeeding rates for that group.

The percentage of babies ever being breastfed was above 88% in all of those countries, reaching above 99% in Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

The data for low- and middle-income countries were based on estimates of breastfeeding rates between 2010 and 2017, with the exception of China, where the estimate was based on 2008.

"The overall report by UNICEF is accurate and represents current research about breastfeeding rates around the world in countries with varied development and among different socioeconomic groups," said Pamela Mulder, assistant professor at the University of Iowa's College of Nursing, who was not involved in the report.

"At first glance, the data about breastfeeding rates may seem contradictory. Given the many benefits of breastfeeding, it may seem odd that some high-income countries have the lowest rates of breastfeeding ... while others have very high rates," Mulder said.

"Many of these differences are due to the personal, family, community, social, economic and legislative environments of the country and for each family," she said.

In Sweden, for instance, parents are given 480 days of paid parental leave, and "having paid leave gives mothers the freedom to focus on breastfeeding instead of making a choice between breastfeeding or employment," Mulder said.

On the other hand, in low- and middle-income countries, mothers often don't have a safe alternative to breast milk, and infant formula is expensive.

"Many families in low- and middle-income countries just can't afford to buy it," Mulder said.

Of course, the factors driving these differences in breastfeeding rates between countries are as much economical as they are political, Aguayo said.

"Societies change," he said. "As women join the formal or the informal work force, we see that in some countries, there is a tendency, among some women, to not breastfeed their babies anymore. If a significant proportion of women are not breastfeeding their children, it is, by and large, because mothers and woman and families aren't getting the support they need to do so."

That word -- support -- was the most important in the new report, Aguayo said, adding that support can be provided in various ways.

"Maternity leave and maternity protection are key for mothers in their breastfeeding choice, that is if women are given a six-month maternal leave so that they can stay home with their babies and breastfeed them exclusively, as we are recommending," Aguayo said.

"We also need to support women to be able to breastfeed in public places. Breastfeeding needs to be common more; breastfeeding should be supported by people in airports," for instance, he said. "The health system has a major role to do and to play in supporting mothers before delivery, during delivery and after delivery. So health professionals need to be trained to support mothers in attempting to breastfeed."

In the United States and other high-income countries, many of the babies who are less likely to breastfeed disproportionately come from poorer households and disadvantaged backgrounds, said Dr. Laura Kair, medical director of the Well Newborn Nursery at University of California, Davis Medical Center, who was not involved in the UNICEF report.

"Because of all the benefits of human milk that we know of, lack of breastfeeding could worsen health disparities among those populations," she said. "So I think it's good that these statistics exist, because it sort of gives a framework, and it highlights the importance of promoting breastfeeding to improve maternal-child health."

How long should babies be breastfed?

Joanne Silbert-Flagg, assistant professor and clinical coordinator for the MSN Entry into Nursing Program at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, and Deborah Busch, also an assistant professor at the university, pointed out the importance of clarifying what rates of "ever" being breastfed really mean. They were not involved in the UNICEF report.

" 'Ever breastfed' is if you ever gave some breast milk. If they say, 'Have you breastfed in the first six months? Have you provided any breast milk?' It could just be they breastfeed once or twice a day, and the rest of the time they give formula, but that would be included in 'ever breastfed,' as opposed to exclusively breastfeeding, meaning you're not giving anything other than breast milk. Whether it's pumped milk, breast milk or breastfeeding at the breast, they've received no formula whatsoever," Silbert-Flagg said.

"There's very few that exclusively breastfeed," she said. "So it's very interesting to look at research studies or how they're collecting the data, because you could skew the results to look like there's a higher breastfeeding rate if you included 'ever breastfed.' "

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends to exclusively breastfeed in the first six months of a baby's life, followed by breastfeeding in combination with the introduction of complementary foods until at least 12 months of age.

UNICEF and the World Health Organization also recommend exclusive breastfeeding from within an hour after a baby is born until the baby is 6 months old, but thereafter, nutritious complementary foods should be added to a child's diet while continuing to breastfeed for up to 2 years or beyond.

"In the US, it's not really stressed to breastfeed after a year, and a lot of moms will feel like they need to wean at a year, even though that's not always necessary," Silbert-Flagg said. "Of course, you're only doing it maybe twice a day after a year, but still continuing to breastfeed has the health benefits."

Some mothers are unable to breastfeed for medical reasons, such as being infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV, or not producing enough milk. The University of Iowa's Mulder said that those mothers should consult with a trained health care professional for support and guidance.

"Additionally, mothers can try breastfeeding in the hospital after birth and infant formula is available if breastfeeding is not working for them or their infants," she said. "They can also combine breast milk and infant formula feedings, and they can breastfeed for the time they choose, whether that be two weeks or six months."

The health benefits of human milk

Breastfeeding comes with both short- and long-term benefits, Silbert-Flagg said.

Short-term benefits for the baby include that breast milk coats the gut, provides good bacteria and helps protect babies from illness; for the mother, breastfeeding helps lose their pregnancy weight and balance post-pregnancy hormones.

As for long-term benefits, "moms who have gestational diabetes are more likely to get Type 2 diabetes later on in life, but breastfeeding can lessen that risk and lessen diabetes in the child," Silbert-Flagg said.

"Any allergic disorders like asthma or allergies are less in breastfed babies," she said. "Then, cancers in mom -- uterine and breast cancer -- actually are dose related to breastfeeding. So the more months a mom breastfeeds, it lessens her risk of getting breast cancer."

A study published last year in the journal Pediatrics found limited positive impacts of breastfeeding for children's cognitive development and behavior later in life. That study involved about 8,000 families in Ireland and included information on children's behaviors and cognitive activities at ages 3 and 5. Breastfeeding data were collected from their moms.

All in all, "breastfeeding is considered the optimal method of infant feeding," said Kair, of the University of California, Davis.

"Human milk has immune cells as well as commensal bacteria, or good bacteria, that help us establish our microbiota. It has highly specialized sugars and proteins that help fight infections, as well," she said. "Human milk is alive, and it's medicine that's prepared specifically for an individual baby."

IN July 2016, personal trainer Donald Benjamin paid $300 to get the kind of news that most people dread: He should stop eating cheese.

"Although I've never had any symptoms, genetically, I'm lactose intolerant," says the 27-year-old fitness fanatic, who learned about that sensitivity and other nutritional needs from DNAFit, an at-home testing kit that supplies dietary and fitness recommendations based on users' individual genes. "And I love cheese," he says. "I really love it." Still, Benjamin tried giving up dairy for two whole months. "I think I did feel a little better," says the West Long Branch, NJ, resident, who admits it was curiosity, rather than a specific health or weightloss goal, that initially tempted him to take the test in the first place. "What I think it did most for me was help me to stop eating cheese mindlessly." Health nuts are turning their homes into mini medical labs, swabbing their cheeks or spitting into vials to collect samples of their DNA, just as they would for companies such as Ancestry and 23andMe. But, instead of supplying fun facts about their family tree, companies such as DNAFit ($300), Vitagene ($99) and Fitgenetix ($495) turn genetic information into personalized advice about everything from caffeine sensitivity to sugar intake.

"Since we debuted on the market in 2014, our sales numbers have pretty much doubled every year," Avi Lasarow, CEO of the UK-based DNAFit, says.

Lezlie Mitchell, a Los Angelesbased actress and blogger who travels to NYC frequently, says Vitagene worked for her. In February, she sent a saliva sample off to the San Francisco-based company and quickly got her results back.

Mitchell was advised to avoid caffeine after noon, because she's a "slow processor," meaning it takes her longer than average to metabolize the buzzy stimulant.

She was also told to start taking a daily magnesium pill in the evening, which she buys in a bundle - along with probiotics, zinc and B-complex vitamins, among others - from Vitagene for $79 a month. Since heeding the company's advice, she says, she's been feeling great.

"I have been sleeping like a baby, and my energy levels are better." Mitchell, 35, says she's also lost about 10 pounds since she's been adhering to the Vitageneapproved regimen, which involves shunning super-sugary fruits, such as ripe bananas and pineapple. "[It] takes out the guesswork," says Mitchell, who in the past has also tried the ketogenic diet, the blood-type diet, and going vegan, and turned to this plan about a year after giving birth, to help with losing baby weight. "It gives you exactly what you need without [your] having to figure out the best route for you, so why not?" This, says Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Center at Weill Cornell Medicine, is the DNA diet's biggest advantage. "One thing we find [at the clinic] is that people want to be told what to do," he says, pointing out that a gene-specific diet is likely no better for encouraging weight loss than any other equivalently healthy plan.

"[Some people] find that they do better with structure. And for that type of person, maybe this is helpful, because it says, 'do this and this.' " Holly Lofton, director of the medical weight-management program at NYU Langone Health, agrees. "It's like a horoscope - I read my horoscope and I'm Pisces, and it sounds like me, but I also read Libra and Leo and it sounds like me, too. Lowcarb, low-fat, watching the timing of your eating, avoiding sugars, all these things really come together to provide lots of different ways that can be effective for weight loss in different people." But over at Vitagene, CEO Mehdi Maghsoodnia swears that a decade from now, no one will think twice about swabbing their cheek to decide what - and what not - to eat.

"You will think it would have been crazy not to do this," he says.

A recent study out of the Stanford University School of Medicine, which Lofton references as a rebuttal to the claims made by proponents of genetic diets, suggests otherwise.

This past February, researchers published the results of a rigorous two-year clinical trial in which more than 600 overweight and obese subjects were split into two groups, and instructed to follow either a lowfat or a low-carb diet. To determine which diet each participant got, they were genetically tested and then sorted based on key indicators of fat or carb sensitivity in the blood.

In the end, the study found that neither group was more successful and all of the participants - whether carb- or fat-starved - lost weight. The takeaway? When it comes to shedding pounds, the most important quality of a diet is whether or not someone can stick with it, not your genetic makeup.

(An as-of-yet unpublished study out of Europe, and supplied by DNAFit, suggests that a genetic diet and a low-carb, high-fat ketogenic diet are similarly effective when it comes to weight loss, but the DNA-specific one has a clearer impact on other indicators of good health, such as cholesterol and glucose levels.) Meanwhile, Donald Benjamin recently took a short break from his gene-specific eating to try the ketogenic diet. Going keto came with a big bonus: dairy.

"It was like, 'Oh my God, I get to have cheese again,' " he says.

But he's still convinced that he should ultimately stop eating cheddar, Gouda and the like, based on what DNAFit told him.

"I'm trying to cut down [on dairy] until I'm at a point where I don't miss it," he says. "It's like, 'Fun's over, back to reality.' "

GET A SAMPLE

Three DNA diet kits and what they offer

* For $495, Fitgenetix supplies meal plans and supplement recommendations. At $695, the premium plan also includes private coaching sessions.

Fitgenetix.com

* The $99 Vitagene report provides fitness, health and dietary advice and, conveniently, the company sells monthly vitamin subscriptions ($49 per month for a basic plan and $79 per month for the premium version) that the reports recommend. Vitagene.com

* For $300, DNAFit supplies both diet and fitness info; users have the option of paying less for a baseline nutrition or fitness report ($199 each)

Experts reveal symptoms of not getting enough vitamins and minerals after finding 44 per cent of Brits have no idea about which they should be consuming

Everyday symptoms which could show you have a vitamin[http://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/vitamins]or mineral deficiency, including cracked lips, headaches – and bad breath – have been revealed by experts.

Persistent dandruff[https://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/how-rid-dandruff-treatments-cure-12193094], itchy or dry skin, low mood and even stress could also be signs you need more of a certain vitamin or mineral in your diet.

Other issues which could point to a deficiency include thinning hair, a low libido[http://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/love], white spots on your nails and tiredness.

The findings, from a survey by Healthspan to launch its new magnesium range, showed 44 per cent of Brits have no idea about the different vitamins and minerals they should be consuming.

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One in twenty of the 2,000 adults polled believe they need to be eating krill oil and vegetable oil for a healthy body, while some even said they thought kryptonite and kerosene are essential vitamins and minerals.

And almost six in ten admit they are clueless about the signs which could show they are suffering from a mineral deficiency.

Worryingly, almost half of Brits are unaware that taking medication[http://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/medicine], antibiotics and even drinking tea and coffee can all affect how you absorb vitamins and minerals.

Magnesium can cut the risk of a fracture by as much as 44 per cent - giving hope to common problem among elderly[http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/magnesium-can-cut-risk-fracture-10216087]

Healthspan’s head of nutrition Rob Hobson said: “Many of these symptoms are things people put up with every day, thinking they are just par for the course.

“But often, they could be a sign that you are suffering a vitamin or mineral deficiency and simply eating foods which contain the item you are lacking could ease your symptoms.

“For example, a headache could be an indicator that you need more magnesium, vitamin B12 and B6 – something you can get from eating pumpkin seeds, prunes, banana or fortified soy milk.

Best hay fever treatments and remedies as UK wakes up to 'very high' pollen count on Grand National day[http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hay-fever-remedies-treatment-relief-10182744]

“And even bad breath, while a possible sign of poor oral hygiene, could also be linked to your gutand an iron deficiency.

“It’s important to bear in mind that your ability to absorb vitamins and minerals can also be affected by medications you are taking, such as antibiotics or the oral contraceptive pill as well as aspects of your diet such as whether you drink tea or coffee.”

Cracking lips can be a sign of a vitamin C or iron deficiency, with eating more red meat, red peppers, kale and tofu a way of boosting levels of the vitamins and minerals in your diet.

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Persistent dandruff could be an indicator you need more biotin or vitamin B7 while feeling stressed could be a sign you need to consume more magnesium, zinc or essential fatty acids.

A magnesium deficiency could also be indicated by insomnia, PMS and restless legs.

And thinning hair could be a result of a mild iron and vitamin C deficiency and white spots on the nails could signal a lack of zinc and iron.

The research found 36 per cent of people have made a conscious effort to boost their intake of certain vitamins and minerals because they felt they were lacking in them, while 28 per cent have even sought professional help.

And one in five have suffered from a symptom or health condition which was caused by a vitamin or mineral deficiency. It also emerged 41 per cent of Brits are currently taking a supplement, with 68 per cent of those saying they do so to improve their health.

But almost one in five have the supplement as an insurance policy and one in ten take it for a "quick boost".

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Healthspan’s Dr Sarah Brewer added: “An estimated 40 per cent of UK adults take at least one dietary supplement[http://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/diet], whether vitamins, minerals, fish oils, glucosamine, isoflavones or herbal remedies such as Devil’s Claw or Saw Palmetto.

“Many people taking a food supplement or herbal remedy are also taking at least one prescribed drug.

“In fact, the popularity of complementary medicine has now increased to the extent that 30 per cent of people use them at the same time as conventional medications.

“Although the risk of serious interactions between vitamins, minerals and prescribed drugs is low, many drugs appear to deplete body stores of vitamins and minerals and, in these cases, a replenishing supplement is desirable – but are you taking the right one?

“Many popular dietary ingredients also deplete levels of certain vitamins and minerals and can interfere with the absorption of food supplements.”

Mums taking pregnancy vitamins will have no impact on their baby's IQ and intelligence[http://www.mirror.co.uk/science/mums-taking-pregnancy-vitamins-no-10068491]

What could be: Iron and/or vitamin C deficiency

Foods which can help: red meat, red peppers, kale, tofu

What could be: Biotin or vitamin B7 plus deficient in essential fatty acids

Foods which can help: fresh salmon, almonds, peanut butter, sunflower seeds

What could be: Could be mild iron and vitamin C deficiency

Foods which can help: Lemons, kiwi fruit, strawberries, red kidney beans

What could be: Vitamin D deficiency plus mixed vitamin B, zinc and essential fatty acid deficiency

Foods which can help: Eggs, prawns, fresh tuna, mushrooms

What could be: Omega-6 essential fatty acid deficiency

Foods which can help: Sunflower seeds, pine nuts, sesame seeds, turkey mince

How to get rid of eczema, beat the itch and scratch cycle and stop the causes[http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/how-beat-itch-scratch-cycle-5640975]

What could be: Possible zinc deficiency

Foods which can help: Crab, spinach, cashew nuts, cocoa powder

How to get rid of spots fast - a guide to what type you may have and how to treat acne[http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/how-rid-spots-fast-guide-8650220]

What could be: Could be lack of zinc or iron

Foods which can help: Lean pork, mushrooms, chickpeas, dried apricots

What could be: Iron deficiency

Foods which can help: Flaxseed, chicken liver, pistachio nuts, lentils

What could be: Sign of Vitamin B2 (riboflavin and or vitamin B6 and/or zinc deficiency

Foods which can help: Feta cheese, almonds, mackerel, asparagus

What could be: Iron, folic acid, and vitamin B12, B3 deficiency

Foods which can help: Black beans, pak choi, avocado, trout

Matt Tebbutt forced to apologise after swear word pops out LIVE on Saturday Kitchen[http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/saturday-kitchen-swearing-matt-tebbutt-10230680]

What could be: Poor oral hygiene but can be linked to gut health as well as iron deficient

Foods which can help: Raisins, peas, fortified breakfast cereals, adzuki beans

What could be: Magnesium plus could be vitamin B12 and B6 as well dietary factors

Foods which can help: Pumpkin seeds, prunes, banana, fortified soy milk

How to get rid of a headache or migraine in just TWO minutes using this very unusual method[http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/rid-your-headache-migraine-just-8733302]

What could be: Possible zinc deficiency

Foods which can help: Eggs, red meat, yoghurt, red kidney beans

What could be: Low in Vitamin B, Vitamin D, magnesium deficient as well as low in essential fatty acids

Foods which can help: Cashew nuts, kale, mushrooms, barley

What could be: Vitamin D as well as the B vitamins and magnesium

Foods which can help: Quinoa, salmon, avocado, French beans

Tea drinking capital of the UK revealed, with locals supping 1,460 cuppas a year[http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tea-drinking-capital-uk-revealed-10223328]

What could be: This time of year can be vitamin D

Foods which can help: Mushrooms, fortified breakfast cereals, mackerel, eggs

What could be: A whole raft of deficiencies from vitamin D, magnesium, B vitamins and even calcium

Foods which can help: Tofu, milk, bananas, dates

What could be: Magnesium, zinc, essential fatty acids deficiency

Foods which can help: Fresh tuna, cocoa powder, prawns, sunflower seeds

What could be: B vitamins, iron and magnesium deficiencies but also underactive thyroid

Foods which can help: Dried apricots, prunes, liver, walnuts

Why am I always tired? The top reasons why you’re tired all the time and how to get your energy back[http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/feeling-tired-heres-10-reasons-6579569]

What could be: Could be deficient in magnesium

Foods which can help: Spring greens, Brazil nuts, soya beans, chickpeas

22-stone mum 'traumatised' after she didn't fit in plane seat loses ten stone and plans first holiday for a decade[http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/dieting/success-stories/22-stone-mum-traumatised-after-10205472]

What could be: Lack of magnesium/iron or folate

Foods which can help: Avocado, dried oregano, bulger wheat, dark chocolate

What could be: Low levels of Magnesium, potassium, sodium, vitamin B1 and vitamin D if there is hypocalcaemia (low calcium levels)

Foods which can help: Trout, pork, chia seeds, macadamia nuts

What could be: Low levels of magnesium and levels of oestrogen

Foods which can help: Cashew nuts, pumpkin seeds, mackerel, wild rice

What could be: Could be due to anaemia so lack of iron

Foods which can help: Red meat, kale, tofu, cumin

Sure, you could head to your neighbourhood juice shop and order a $7 or $8 smoothie.

Blending your own, however, is not only easier on your wallet, but you can customize to your heart's content and make several batches at a time.

Whether you're making a nutrient-dense meal replacement, a protein-packed workout booster or a sweet, chill treat, the flavour combinations are endless. You can use whichever ingredients you like or need to clear out of your refrigerator or freezer. All it takes is a little bit of thought.

A basic smoothie is quick and easy. It contains three essential elements: a liquid, a base (fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables) and a chill factor (ice or frozen fruit). Those simple components inspire all kinds of wonderfully tasty blends. Choose ingredients for nutrition and pleasure (yes, you can have both!) in equal measure, taking into account taste, texture and vibrant colour. After all, nobody wants to drink anything that looks and tastes like the place where the plants came to die.

To take your blends to the next level, to maximize nutrient density and to amp up the "wow" flavour factor, check out this handy guide to help get you blending like a pro.

The building-block elements below are listed in the order in which you would add them to the blender. (For personal blenders in which you invert the cup onto a blade assembly, reverse this process.)

Step 1: Liquid

Pour liquids (1 to 2 cups) in first for efficient blending. Examples: coconut water, milk, juice, kefir, kombucha, herbal or green tea.

To add a little magic, sprinkle in spices, herbs, citrus zest, natural extracts and flavourings and sweeteners.

For a nutritional boost, sprinkle in superfood powders, chia, hemp, flax, green powders, protein powder or cold-pressed oils.

Step 2: Base

Add soft and hard produce, and fibrous foods such as nuts and dried fruits, then frozen fruits.

The heart of the base is 2 to 3 cups of fruits and vegetables (fresh, frozen, baked, steamed, dried), as well as raw and sprouted nuts and seeds (¼ to ½ cup).

To taste, include an element of cream: avocado, banana, mango, cooked grains (¼ cup), silken tofu, nut butter, raw nuts (such as cashews and blanched almonds, ¼ to ½ cup) or yogurt (½ to 1 cup).

If you like greens, consider 1 to 2 cups. Examples: spinach, romaine, radish greens, collards, chard, kale, beet greens, dandelion, arugula, parsley, cilantro, mint or basil.

Step 3: Ice

The ice goes in last to help pull all the other ingredients down into the blades for even mixing.

Cool tips

Make ahead. Consuming smoothies right away maximizes nutrient value. However, for convenience, they can be refrigerated in sealed glass containers for a few hours or overnight. For longer storage, freeze in glass jars, allowing an inch of headspace for expansion of liquids. Defrost in the refrigerator, then shake or blend before serving.

Flavour your ice. Freeze cubes of leftover fruit and vegetable juice, milk and tea. Use instead of plain ice for a flavour or nutrient boost or to approximate the magic of ice cream or sorbet.

Freeze your vegetables. Our tastebuds are temperature-sensitive, so ½ cup of frozen broccoli or cauliflower can be incorporated without altering the flavour of your smoothie.

Hot additions

Warm it up. Adding foods such as fennel, cinnamon, ginger and cayenne not only balances cooling blends but also gives smoothies a nice kick, stimulates the lymphatic system and can help detoxify.

Add a body bonus. Adding ½ teaspoon of probiotic powder or the contents of 1 probiotic capsule helps balance the natural sugar content of sweet smoothies, aids the digestive system and can help boost immunity. It is undetectable in a smoothie and a great way to get your daily dose.

Drizzle in a healthful extra. Cold-pressed oils such as flaxseed, hemp, borage, avocado, coconut, macadamia, pumpkin seed and olive are healthful boosts. Start small, with just a teaspoon. Add gradually, typically up to about a tablespoon - just enough so you can't detect it.

Healthful ideas

Rotate your greens. To avoid oxalic toxicity (which can deplete calcium from bones and teeth), blend a variety of greens. Start with mild leafy greens such as spinach, radish greens and kale. Work your way up to more pungent greens such as collard, chard, beet greens and arugula. Then introduce wild edibles such as dandelion greens.

Watch your combos. If bloating is a concern, pay attention to food combining. Blending certain fruits and vegetables together is problematic for some people and not others. Adding too much fruit or sugar to blends, or drinking high-water-content foods after other concentrated foods, also can cause problems. Consult a registered dietitian or nutritionist.

Juicing vs. blending. Juicing removes skins and piths, which is good for cleansing or recovery from acute illness, as it offers a nutrient-dense experience that accommodates gentler digestion. Blending retains all the nutrients in skins, piths and seeds; that kind of fibre slows down the assimilation of sugars, assists with bowel regularity and is thought to help eliminate toxins.

Dear Dr. Roach: Last summer I went camping and ran out of clean water. I had to boil water and drink it without any treatment tablets. That evening, I had painful cramps in my stomach, and in my upper abdomen, under my ribcage. Since then, my digestion has been horrific. I have constant rank gas and bloating when eating foods I've never had a problem with before, even fruits and vegetables. I have been a big eater of probiotic foods, with no digestive disturbances. However, since this incident, any form of probiotic, whether from capsule or natural foods like sauerkraut or kimchi, gives me the worst gas and bloating I've ever had.

I had parasite and bacterial stool testing done with my doctor, and I came up clear. I feel like I need antibiotics or something to clear whatever is going on with my digestive system, but am hesitant because I have had four rounds of antibiotics in 2017 from surgeries. I am worried about "beaver fever." What do you recommend? A.L.

There are several infections one can get from drinking unprocessed water while camping.

"Beaver fever" is a name for infection from the parasite Giardia lamblia, which is found in water where animals (especially beavers) are found. It's a reasonable thought - it's one of the few waterborne infections that can persist for months. However, I think Giardia is unlikely. Symptoms from Giardia normally begin one to two weeks after exposure, and the parasites are killed very rapidly by boiling water.

Your symptoms are very much like irritable bowel syndrome, and I do wonder if it might have been triggered by some event that day you were camping. Usually, three sets of cultures for parasites are done to make sure there isn't an unwelcome guest in your intestine causing symptoms. A gastroenterologist would be a good choice to help you track down an identifiable cause and to get some symptomatic relief. Antibiotics are not recommended without knowing what you are treating.

Dear Dr. Roach: I am fortunate enough to be a healthy and well 81-year-old woman. I take vitamin D, and exercise daily with walking and yoga. My recent bone-density test showed my T-score for the hip at -2.2 and spine at -3.2. My primary doctor insists that I take Prolia or Boniva. I am reluctant to do this, as I am aware of the side-effects and don't trust the ultimate results of the medication.

Nutrition centres have recommended calcium supplements.

Your help would be greatly appreciated. L.B.

Anyone can get an estimate of his or her risk for fracture using the FRAX tool at sheffield.ac.uk/FRAX. I made a few assumptions with the information you gave me and estimated your risk of a hip fracture in the next 10 years as six per cent, and any major osteoporotic fracture as 17 per cent.

A medication such as Boniva would be expected to reduce your risk to something like four per cent and 14 per cent. Prolia has been shown to reduce risk of vertebral and hip fractures, and the decreased risk of vertebral fracture might be even greater with this drug (perhaps four per cent hip and eight per cent total), although Prolia and Boniva have not been directly compared. Guidelines would clearly recommend medication for you. Calcium alone is unlikely to significantly reduce your risk of fracture.

"Insist" is a strong word, but given the reduction in your relatively high fracture risk, I would suggest that you reconsider. Boniva is given once monthly and Prolia twice yearly. The side effects are mild for most people. Taking the medication for three to five years is very reasonable, after which you'd re-evaluate. I hope this information makes it easier for you to make the right decision for yourself. Dr. Roach regrets that he is unable to answer individual letters, but will incorporate them in the column whenever possible. Readers may email questions to ToYourGoodHealth @med.cornell.edu

It's not so much what you put in to your body as what's coming out of it...

Feces, number twos, poop, dung, night soil, ejectamenta - call it what you want, but there's nothing nice about poo.

Even that - dare we say - cute poo emoji can only do so much good PR for the stuff.

Now, there's more bad poo news[http://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/toilet-waste-go-plane-what-7581440]- and it affects our waistlines.

On top of all the warnings about which foods, times and habits contribute to unhealthy weight gain, it now turns out our poo could be making our waistlines grow[http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/people-struggle-lose-weight-because-8935001].

It probably seems unlikely that what our bodies expel out of necessity could be the cause of weight gain.

However, the root of the problem is the bacteria in our poo.

And we can also lay the blame with our parents, as we inherit these faecal microbes from them. Cheers, guys.

What are your toilet habits telling you about your health?[http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/what-your-toilet-habits-telling-5784599]

GIF: Mr Hanky

A new link has been discovered between the diversity of bacteria in feces (called the human faecal microbiome) and levels of abdominal fat, reports the Metro[http://metro.co.uk/2016/09/28/your-poo-could-actually-be-making-you-fat-scientists-warn-6158204/].

Published in the journal Genome Biology, the results of the study showed people "with a more diverse community of bacteria in their poo had generally lower levels of belly fat[https://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/how-rid-belly-fat-expert-7417508]."

Additionally, researchers at King’s College London examined the stool samples of 1313 British twins to extract DNA information about faecal microbes.

How to get rid of belly fat - expert reveals where you're going wrong and best tips for a flat stomach[https://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/how-rid-belly-fat-expert-7417508]

Dr Jordana Bell explained the study's findings saying, "There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that gut bacteria may play a role in obesity, and a number of studies are now exploring this in more detail.’

"Further scientific investigation is needed to understand how precisely our gut microbes can influence human health, and if interventions such as faecal transplants can have safe, beneficial, and effective impacts on this process."

How to boost your health

Corrections & Amplifications

Stephen Robb is the former chief financial officer of Clorox Co. An earlier version of this article, a photo caption, and an online summary and subhead incorrectly spelled his first name as Steven.

Former Clorox Co. finance chief Stephen Robb welcomed a challenge, but feared he had overstepped as he dived into the cold waves of San Francisco Bay.

"When I jumped into the water, I just stayed calm, stayed focused," said Mr. Robb, even as lightning and thunder shook the predawn darkness during the 1.2 mile swim from Alcatraz to shore.

The avid outdoorsman, who completed the race alongside 600 other swimmers in under an hour, applied the same determination during a nearly 30-year career at Clorox. He retired at the end of March.

Mr. Robb centered Clorox's business on the domestic market even as other companies chased profits overseas. He positioned the maker of bleach, toilet cleaner and disinfecting wipes to dominate in midsize-product categories while keeping cost down.

"What Steve Robb provided was a lot of consistency," said Jason Gere, a consumer-products analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets, adding Mr. Robb was instrumental in cutting costs, integrating acquisitions and training future leaders.

Earlier in the year, the company reported overall sales growth of 1% for the quarter ended Dec. 31, helped by double-digit volume gains in sales of wellness-related items such as probiotics and water-filtration systems.

Overall, the company's financial strength is reflected in its dividend policy. The company has increased its dividend annually for four decades.

That success didn't come without some hard calls by Mr. Robb, who rose to the CFO post in 2011. "During my tenure we were coming out of the worst recession we had seen in a generation," he said.

Clorox's decision to focus heavily on its U.S. business roughly seven years ago was one of the most controversial strategic moves in Mr. Robb's career, he said.

"Keep in mind that this was at a time when many other companies were chasing BRIC," he said, referring to the acronym for the block of developing countries that include Brazil, Russia, India and China.

"One of the toughest days was our decision to exit Venezuela," Mr. Robb said, reflecting on a move announced in September 2014. "We were losing too much money as a company."

Venezuela's socialist government choked the private sector with regulations that have stirred inflation, which the International Monetary Fund estimates could reach 13,000% this year.

Mr. Robb also backed Clorox's strategy of establishing strong brands in smaller product categories. The company's 2016 acquisition of Renew Life, the maker of probiotic products sold at natural grocers like Whole Foods for $295 million is one such move.

Mr. Robb, the son of an engineer and a stay-at-home mom, grew up in the heart of what was to become Silicon Valley, about 40 miles southeast of San Francisco in Sunnyvale, Calif.

He left home while still a teenager and swept floors and bused tables to pay his bills. "I've worked in restaurants, I've been a janitor, I worked for UPS. It's honorable work," he said.

Mr. Robb worked full time while attending college. He graduated in 1988 from San Jose State University with a degree in finance and economics. The next year, now married, Mr. Robb took a staff accountant position at Oakland-based Clorox, about 90 minutes from his hometown.

"I laughingly remember telling my wife that I would join Clorox, stay for a couple of years and then probably move to a different company," he said. "I never expected to be CFO and I didn't expect to stay nearly 30 years. Clorox was my first and last company in finance."

Mr. Robb had stints as the finance chief of Clorox's household segment and as head of global finance overseeing the company's daily finance operations.

"Steve leaves a tremendous legacy of financial stewardship and discipline that has served the company and investors well and will contribute to the company for years to come," said Clorox Chief Executive Benno Dorer in a statement earlier in the year.

Looking back, Mr. Robb said he is most proud of launching an internal developmental program that established training classes for employees.

"Those are the moments that change the culture in a company," he said.

Clorox treasurer Paola Gonzalez said Mr. Robb, her mentor, encouraged her to pursue an opportunity she didn't feel confident about, adding she wouldn't be in her current post if not for him.

"He told me that he thought I had the right skills and would be successful," said Ms. Gonzalez. "I'm not the only one he has done that for."

Write to Ezequiel Minaya at ezequiel.minaya@wsj.com[mailto:ezequiel.minaya@wsj.com]

Are you a mum or a  grandma who's secretly dipping in to  your little one's products?

You're probably not alone. Despite the age gap, mature skin has many of the same issues as baby skin — dryness, sensitivity and irritation.

Dr Jennifer Crawley, consultant dermatologist for award-winning British brand Childs Farm, explains: 'Much like a baby's skin, more mature skin needs extra special care to keep it healthy and hydrated. During the menopause, it can become drier and more prone to irritation.

'As we age, oestrogen levels fall, and skin becomes thinner and loses the ability to hold water. The pH level also changes, which can lead to dryness, sensitivity and fragility.'

Indeed, Childs Farm reports that 40 per cent of its buyers don't have children themselves. It seems we're happy to have packaging with gambolling lambs and sleeping ducks on our bathroom shelves, if what's inside is kind to our dry, irritated and sensitive skin. And, in many cases, it's far cheaper than the grown-up version.

So, what are the best cross-generational products? Read on to find  out . . .

THE FLUSH-BUSTER

MooGoo Soothing MSM cream (£12, 270g, moogooskincare.co.uk)

Angry, red cheeks aren't just confined to teething babies. They can strike in menopause when hot flushes cause rosacea, making skin inflamed.

Step forward MooGoo Soothing MSM cream, a natural nourishing moisturiser with 10 per cent MSM (organic sulphur), a powerful soothing agent for skin. It also contains squalene, an antioxidant, which enhances skin elasticity and moisture retention, and protects from free-radical damage. The pH-balanced moisturiser is rich, but has a fine texture.

NAPPY CREAM FOR HANDS

Childs Farm Nappy Cream as hand cream (£4, 100ml, childsfarm.com)

Baby's bottoms and chapped middle-aged hands aren't so different — they both get wet frequently and need a strong skin barrier to prevent redness and chafing. Many nappy creams use zinc as a physical moisture barrier.

However this one from Childs Farm keeps the natural skin barrier robust from within using cell-plumping super moisturisers such as cacao and shea butter.

Because it has to keep baby's bottom dry, the cream is designed to sink in quickly. This makes it perfect as a hand cream that won't leave smeary marks on everything. It contains soothing aloe vera, is unfragranced, and a steal at £4.

BRUSH THAT HELPS SAVE FRAGILE HAIR

PK Kids Children's Grooming Brush (currently half price at £6, philipkingsley.co.uk)

This super-lightweight brush may have been made for small hands, but it has become a firm a favourite with the older generation.

Created by the trichologists at Philip Kingsley, the brush has the same widely-spaced and rounded pins used in the brand's more expensive adult brushes. These are brilliant at minimising pulling — avoiding tears for grandchildren and grandmothers, and preserving fragile hair.

ANTI-SPOT WONDER BALM

Aurelia Comfort and Calm Rescue Cream (£28, 50g, aureliaskincare.com)

This is one of those creams that mums whip out to treat any bump, bruise or  irritation.

It smells like calm in a pot thanks to lavender, calendula and chamomile, but has so many skincare benefits too, from skin-barrier boosting probiotics to antimicrobial silver (that zapped my chin spot overnight) and bruise-control arnica, as well as being organic (hence the price tag).

An award-winner, it's one to have in your handbag for emergencies at any age, including dry patches, chapped lips, sunburn, flaking cuticles, spots, even insect bites (probiotics calm the skin's immune triggers). Or just rub it between your palms and take a deep breath when you need a moment of calm.

THE NEW HOT CLOTH

Cuddledry Natural Sea Sponge (£5.99, cuddledry.com)

Whenever Cuddledry exhibits at baby shows, it's the grandmas who gravitate towards these super-soft sea sponges — for themselves.

These natural creatures hold up to 30 times their weight in water, and are worth ditching your hot cloth for.

They allow for a much more targeted cleanse than a soggy flannel — without adding to landfill or ocean plastic with cotton pads and wipes.

The low pH makes them ideal for sensitive skin. Used with a cleanser or balm, they make light work of make-up and leave skin soft. Cuddledry sources them ethically from a family farm in the Philippines and, at £5.99, it's a bargain.

GENTLE SHAMPOO TO FIGHT FRIZZ

Childs Farm Sensitive Scalp Shampoo (£5, 250ml, childsfarm.com)

Hair becomes finer as we age, and this gentle shampoo, made for wispy baby locks, is perfect for 50+ flyaway hair.

The magic is in its use of one of skincare's buzz ingredients — salicylic acid made from willow bark, which is  found in toners and anti-blemish lotions. It calms irritation and gently sloughs off dead skin, which can weigh fine hair down.

As a baby shampoo, it helps treat cradle cap. For grown-ups it targets dandruff and itchy, flaky scalps in a gentle way. It also contains argan oil to moisturise both hair and scalp. Best of all? It's just £5 and fragrance free.

HAIR-SMOOTHING BAMBOO TOWEL

Cuddletwist Bamboo Hair Towel (£9.99, cuddledry.com)

Adult hair towels tend to be either bulky and pricey (thanks to VAT) or at the budget end, made of cheap fabric. This bamboo towel, designed for little ones who hate having their hair rubbed dry, is too good not to borrow from your favourite tot. It cuts drying time and, as older hair tends to be more fragile, the less time spent heat styling the better. And because it fits snugly, pulling back your skin, it's a non-surgical face-lift, too.

BOTTOM BALM DEODORANT

Burt's Bees Baby Bee Cream to Powder (£9.30, 113g, feelunique.com)

One of the newest textures in beauty is 'cream to powder' — used in products such as blushers to give a glide-on feel and matte finish. You can see why mums love this particular cream to powder for their baby's bottoms — it moisturises and absorbs wetness, and makes a discreet mattifier when you are feeling shiny after the gym or a hot flush. It also has soothing aloe and a citrussy fragrance.

© Daily Mail

Because of my interest in quackery, I collect ducks. Only the inanimate variety, of course. So naturally I was drawn to recent headlines in numerous newspapers and blogs along the lines of "Your cute rubber duck may be a haven for bacteria," and "Rubber duckies not as squeaky clean as you might think." I was pretty sure they would not really be talking about rubber ducks since the ubiquitous yellow duckies are made either of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or polyethylene. Indeed, the scientific paper that was referenced in the articles entitled "Ugly ducklings - the dark side of plastic materials in contact with potable water," and clearly did not deal with "rubber ducks."

Originally, way back in the middle of the 19th century, after Charles Goodyear's discovery of vulcanized rubber, bath toys made of rubber did make an appearance. They weren't very popular, because they did not float. Then, sometime in the 1950s, manufacturers replaced rubber with polyvinyl chloride, and the rest, as they say is history. Ducks made of PVC are buoyant, are easily dyed, and can be made squishy by the incorporation of plasticizers. Some of these, the phthalates, are controversial because of their hormone-like properties.

The popularity of the yellow ducks really took off in 1970 when Ernie on Sesame Street sang about his playmate, the "rubber duckie" that made "bath time lots of fun" and was his "very best friend." That "best friend" is on the verge of being shunned because of the findings by Swiss researchers that the popular bath toys can become contaminated with bacteria on the inside and can potentially cause infections by squirting out contaminated water.

What prompted scientists to carry out the autopsies on the poor duckies that revealed the presence of biofilms on their insides? Taking up the scalpel seemed justified because a number of parents had been blogging about discoloured water being squirted out of bath toys, and a couple of papers in the scientific literature had already suggested that bath toys can be subject to bacterial contamination. In one case, an outbreak of infection in a pediatric hospital was linked to shared bath toys.

"A city for microbes," is the way a biofilm has been described. That "city" is constructed of microbial cells glued to each other and bound to a surface by a mix of polysaccharides, proteins and nucleic acids exuded by the cells. The formation of biofilms is facilitated by warm, moist environments, such as found in showers, sewage pipes, catheters and, as we now have learned, the insides of bath toys. Just to be clear, not all the bath toys examined were ducks. There were alligators, mice, elephants, starfish, boats and footballs, so duckies are not the only creatures that should stand accused of crimes in the bathtub. Although real rubber duckies can still be found, the toys in this study were all plastic. I know this because the paper actually included colour photos of the subjects. Believe me, I know my ducks, and these are all PVC or polyethylene.

The Swiss researchers gathered 19 used bath toys and also purchased brand new ones that were bathed every second day over a period of 11 weeks, half in clean water and half in water that had been used for bathing. All of the toys developed biofilms, with the dirty water controls showing the most bacterial cells per square centimetre of surface. Soap residues, skin secretions and chemicals leaching out of the plastic are believed to acts as nutrients for microbes, leading to the formation of biofilms.

What are we to make of all this? Remember that we do not live in a sterile environment, and that we are exposed to numerous microorganisms all the time. And such exposure is not necessarily a problem. After all, there is much discussion these days in scientific circles about our microbiome, and how exposure to microbes early in life may train the immune system to react only to real dangers and thereby reduce allergies that are basically a result of immune reactions to substances that do not actually pose a risk.

I don't think that duckies should be banished from the bathroom, but they should be kept clean. Many can be given a bath in dilute bleach or even be put in a dishwasher. Remember also that the "problem" occurs when water gets inside. There are many ducks that are totally sealed. You may not be able to use them as water pistols, but you don't have to worry about biofilms. And as far as the notorious phthalates leaching out, and possibly affecting babies, well that worry is also gone. The problematic phthalates have been replaced by other plasticizers.

As far as my duckies go, they never go near water. They sit on my shelves quietly serving as a constant reminder of the need to silence the quacks. joe.schwarcz@mcgill.ca Joe Schwarcz is director of McGill University's Office for Science & Society (mcgill.ca/oss). He hosts The Dr. Joe Show on CJAD Radio 800 AM every Sunday from 3 to 4 p.m.

WHO KNOWS HOW we fill our time. Why we decide to do what we decide to do when we decide to do it. If we decide to do it. Because every week, so many tasks and jobs and bits and duties and pleasures and chores and projects and enquiries and forms and activities and organisings and hobbies and emotional hurdles and conversations slip through the colander of life. And then those undone, unloved, incomplete, perfectly innocent mini-missions morph into niggles and worries and bothersome shadows that tickle us behind the brain. That do not allow us that sense of completion. Because life is never complete, is it? Here are a few things that you might have forgotten to do this week alone…...

1. Take that print you bought in a Paris flea market five years ago to the framer.

2. Or hang any pictures.

3. Use that Estée Lauder sheet mask you bought six months ago.

4. Get that life-crisis piercing. You've spent hours on the Maria Tash website and still NOTHING.

5. Look into your pension. Hang on, what pension?

6. And let's not even mention wills.

7. Savings. LOL.

8. Learn how to put GIFs on Instagram stories.

9. Watch Blue Planet. (Although you pretend you have.)

10. Delete everything you are never going to watch from Sky Planner.

11. Find a cool thing to put the loo rolls in, so they don't roll around the bathroom floor.

12. Write your novel.

13. Learn how to contour.

14. Pilates.

15. Sort out the towels (and throw away the ones you bought when you were a student).

16. Buy buttons for the bottom of the duvet.… The original ones were eaten by the washing machine.

17. Sew buttons on anything. AT ALL.

18. Go on a silent retreat in India.

19. Grow vegetables.

20. Spice up your sex life in a meaningful way.

21. Learn calligraphy.

22. Work out how you feel about death.

23. Sort out the mugs.

24. Take that vintage dress you bought last year to the dressmaker to be turned into the world's most magical sheath that will be the envy of all and make everyone think you are a bit French and dating Mark Ronson.

25. Clean all your silver jewellery that has oxidised.

26. Read War and Peace.

27. Ask for a pay rise.

28. Meditate for longer than three minutes. OK, two and a half.

29. Clean the dishwasher filter.

30. Throw away your mixtapes, which you still have even though you have no means of playing them.

31. Make a soufflé.

32. Order those life-changing probiotics that you heard about

33. Forgive your mother.

34. Buy one of those 'instant wardrobe updaters' that you keep reading about. *pullsonblackdress*

35. Clear out that pile of dusty, sticky, lumpy coffee-table books. 36. Update your IOS - the fear, the fear.

37. Understand Bitcoin.

38. Hook up the Alexa you got for Christmas.

39. Book tickets to the next Guilty Feminist live show. Or Hamilton. Or The Ferryman.

40. Buy new headphones. The wires are sticking out and they look genuinely dangerous, but if you hold them at a certain angle then they sort of still work, so on you plough. themidult.com

Look into your pension… .… hang on, what pension? Ad don't An even mention wills

It's your special day. And you want to look beyond gorgeous! Even if you don't typically fuss much, your wedding or graduation is a great time to go for glam.

When wedding and grad season comes around, the experts at Merle Norman are thrilled to enter the excitement of those special days and help young brides and grads prepare.

Achieving the glam look begins with preparing your skin. "We like to see clients several months in advance of their special occasion so we can help them prepare their skin to help create that glamourous look," says Paulette Schumacher, owner at the Scotia Centre location.

Grads tend not to start as early, but brides can begin coming in for deep cleansing facial treatments six to eight months in advance. "It's good to start with facials and brow shaping and any waxing they want done," says Schumacher. After the initial facial, clients need to return every six weeks to two months for maintenance and compounded benefits.

The next step is to begin a daily skin care regimen, morning and night with the big three: a cleanser, toner and moisturizer. With these as a foundation, Merle Norman then moves to a personalized approach. "Then we customize for their needs, choosing from a large selection of products. If there's acne or pores that are causing their skin to look grey, there are lots of ways we can help to prepare their skin."

Clients can do some of the preparation at home, like using exfoliators two or three times a week. Merle Norman offers other products for at-home use, such as masks and scrubs. Free make-up lessons are available in store, allowing brides and grads to educate and empower themselves.

A new acne line helps kill bacteria in the skin and has been quite successful. "You need to start that early enough because you may have more breakouts when using the new product initially. You need some time to clear the skin and let it get used to the changes," says Schumacher.

The result is skin that is radiant and flawless. Each face is unique and when necessary, the experts at Merle Norman can hide things as well, like birthmarks and blemishes. While they will remain raised, their appearance will be minimized.

Let's not forget the eyelashes! False eyelashes were popular in the 60s but interest gradually died off in the 70s and 80s. These days we're seeing a lot of elongated, false eyelashes again. They tend to bring out the eyes and make them look bigger. Besides the glam factor, false eyelashes are a good option for people who are allergic to mascara, who don't have eyelashes or have short eyelashes, or who have medical issues. "It gives them a chance to at least have eyelashes," says Schumacher.

"With eyelashes, a lot of girls are choosing to do the extensions, but in some cases it's not cost effective. Buying false eyelashes and doing your own application is more cost effective for a lot of people," she says. Choose eyelashes based on your requirements. You can pick something natural for everyday wear, and choose something more dramatic for evenings out. Some eyelashes produce more of an almond shaped eye, or a cat-eye look. More recent glue products are latex free and safer for sensitive skin.

Merle Norman will either teach people how to apply the lashes or do it for them. "It takes practice. Nobody ever gets them on perfect the first time. Once you catch on they're easy to apply," says Schumacher. "If you're going out in the evening it really glamorizes your makeup."

Probiotics are creating a sensation in skin care. A new line by Merle Norman called Skintelligent offers probiotic technology in a 'smart'system that features ingredients that create balance and support the skin's natural process of shedding dead skin. It has anti-stress benefits, improves the texture of the skin and has anti-aging properties, which will be of interest to the moms of these brides and grads.

Merle Norman celebrates your special day and is delighted to help you prepare. Visit the store today, located in Scotia Centre at 123 2nd Avenue South.

Go to any women's clothing store and you'll notice: Floral prints are having a moment right now. Shirts and skirts and dresses — and even men's clothing — are festooned with flowers, in prints that are a throwback to the '60s or '90s. In the words of  "The Devil Wears Prada's" icy editor in chief Miranda Priestly: "Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking."

But here's an area in which florals are actually novel. The trend is also sprouting up in food and, especially, beverages. It's a natural evolution of several previous trends, including our love for rainbow colors and all things pink. "Food, like fashion, is driven by trends, seasonality and the occasional gust of hype," said food writer Lee Tran Lam in Australian Vogue. Floral flavors were one of the biggest trend predictions for 2018, and one that has borne out right on time: just as those April showers bring May flowers.

Like spring crocuses, floral foods are starting to pop up in mainstream consumer products. The flavors you're most likely to see are lavender, hibiscus and elderflower — each with its own distinct botanical flavor.

Elderflower

These are tiny white flowers that smell like perfume and honey. You probably know them from the liqueur St-Germain. You might also find it in gin, and it's a flavor that pairs really well with gin cocktails.

Try it in: Belvoir Fruit Farms Elderflower Lemonade, Blue Ridge Bucha's elderflower sunrise kombucha.

Hibiscus

There are a lot of flowers in the hibiscus family, but they are found in tropical and subtropical climates. Hibiscus flowers have been used for tea throughout history in many parts of the world, and they play a role in the cuisine of several cultures, especially in central America. They have a tart, berry flavor.

Try it in: Farmhouse Culture's strawberry hibiscus "gut punch" sparkling probiotic veggie drink, Potter's craft grapefruit hibiscus cider, Rishi hibiscus berry tea, Whole Foods's 365 tropical hibiscus fruit bars.

Lavender

It's a divisive flavor, because some people can think it tastes like soap. But it's gained popularity as the lavender latte, which uses lavender syrup, has become an unexpected coffee shop hit.

Try it in: Lavender lattes at your local coffee shop, lavender honey, Ice Cream Jubilee's honey lemon lavender ice cream.

Other flowers

Other floral flavors you might encounter include orange blossoms, roses, violets and nasturtiums. Also sprouting in popularity: edible flowers as a decoration on salads and cakes (like my colleague Becky Krystal's take on the royal wedding cake, here). When you buy edible flowers, make sure they were grown specifically for culinary use — you'll want to avoid flowers that were sprayed with pesticides or chemicals. Your local farmers market is a great place to start. We got ours from the District's Little Wild Things City Farm. A mix of violas, pansies and other assorted flowers, they have a mild arugula taste.

Try it in: Charm City Meadworks's sweet blossom mead, Whole Foods's 365 raspberry geranium fruit bars, Gideon Spring wildflower blossom honey.

More from Voraciously: 

Dark, masculine restaurants are out. The freshest design is feminine.

Sparkly pizza, bagels and gravy: Nothing is safe from edible glitter's reach

Black wine is here to turn out the lights on your rosé party

Kellogg Co. said Pringles chips, Eggo frozen waffles and demand in emerging markets helped the food maker post a strong quarter even as cereal sales in the U.S. remained soft.

Kellogg's revenue rose 4.7% to $3.4 billion overall in the first quarter, helped by last year's $600 million acquisition of protein bar maker[https://www.wsj.com/articles/kellogg-to-buy-protein-bar-maker-rxbar-for-600-million-1507294801] RXBAR. On a comparable basis, sales were up 0.6%.

"We have a lot of work to do, but we are making progress," said Chief Executive Steve Cahillane, who joined the company last fall[https://www.wsj.com/articles/kellogg-ceo-john-bryant-to-step-down-1506603901].

Kellogg's shares rose 2% in recent trading on the better-than-expected results. The maker of Frosted Flakes and Cheez-It crackers has struggled in recent years as Americans opt for less cereal[https://www.wsj.com/articles/kelloggs-cereal-struggles-continue-1518100846] and fresher, healthier snacks.

Mr. Cahillane said the company has made progress with its lagging Special K brand and other cereals, but comparable sales still fell 2.4% in Kellogg's U.S. morning foods division.

He said Kellogg will continue to invest in health-oriented cereals like its new Special K with probiotics—and in more indulgent brands, too. The company recently added Chocolate Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops with marshmallows. Adults are eating more of those sweeter cereals[https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-spoonful-of-sugar-helps-the-sales-go-up-cereal-makers-return-to-the-sweet-stuff-1522937066] for snacks and desserts, according market research firms.

"For morning foods, this year it's all about getting back to basics," Mr. Cahillane said.

Kellogg also sees more potential for its frozen foods, including Eggo waffles and Morningstar Farms vegetarian burgers. Frozen used to be not very exciting, Mr. Cahillane said, but with simple ingredients and a culinary focus, it can do well.

"Frozen can be the new fresh with a convenience factor to it," he said.

Like many of its peers, Kellogg is facing higher trucking costs and rising prices for certain ingredients.

"It's a shortage of drivers…we expect over time it will mitigate," Mr. Cahillane said. Kellogg said cost-saving efforts allowed it to cover the higher prices.

Like many of its peers, Kellogg is facing higher trucking costs and rising prices for certain ingredients. Kellogg said cost-saving efforts allowed it to cover the higher prices.

Kellogg's operating profit margin rose to 14.7% in the quarter, up from 14.3% the prior year, even though its gross profit margin tightened.

Also this week, Kellogg increased its investments in West Africa, including boosting its stake in a Nigerian packaged-food company, Tolaram Africa Food.

"We've built scale in snacking presence in emerging markets, and it's paying off," Mr. Cahillane said.

Kellogg's quarterly profit rose 11% to $1.19 a share on an adjusted basis. The company's business in West Africa led to improved guidance for the year. It now expects sales growth of 3% to 4% and adjusted earnings per share growth of 9% to 11%, both excluding the impact of foreign-currency translation.

Write to Annie Gasparro at annie.gasparro@wsj.com[mailto:annie.gasparro@wsj.com]

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* Kellogg's Problem: Americans Aren't Eating as Much Cereal[https://www.wsj.com/articles/kelloggs-cereal-struggles-continue-1518100846]

* Kellogg to Buy Protein-Bar Maker RXBAR for $600 Million[https://www.wsj.com/articles/kellogg-to-buy-protein-bar-maker-rxbar-for-600-million-1507294801]

Discolored, yellowing and stained teeth[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/dark-truth-diy-teeth-whitening/] can be caused by everything from coffee and curries to tobacco and poor dental hygiene – as well as being a natural part of the ageing process. Among the more surprising culprits are fruit juices (high sugar content) and potatoes (which oxidise to form a black pigment).

We hear a lot about foods that are bad for your teeth, so it's easy to feel disheartened – but what should we eat for a whiter, brighter smile?

Dark chocolate can actually be a cavity fighter"It's true that people don’t realise how sugary and acidic some fruits are, but you’ve got to be careful about isolating certain foods and labelling them either 'good' or 'bad' for your teeth," says cosmetic dental surgeon Dr Krystyna Wilczynski[https://drkrystyna.com/about/], a member of the British Dental Association and The Royal College of Surgeons' Faculty of Dental Surgery. "It should be health first, and cosmetic concerns second."

"Everything has both health benefits and disadvantages. Dental hygiene, good diet overall and a holistic, balanced view of health is the way to go for healthier, whiter teeth.

"These suggestions shouldn't be taken in isolation, but they're fun to know."

1. Strawberries

Partial to a punnet or two in your picnic basket? Nothing to worry about. "Strawberries are a bit of an unusual one because they contain malic acid, which is considered a natural tooth whitener," says Dr Krystyna. "That's not to say go and rub a strawberry on your tooth and it will look white. It's just that as opposed to eating curries or drinking coffee, which will stain your teeth, strawberries don’t stain your teeth."

2. Probiotic foods

There's been plenty of noise recently about the benefits of probiotics for gut health and the microbiome[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/the-health-test-that-could-transform-your-wellbeing---for-just-2/] (the good bacteria hosted by your body) – but did you know that probiotic foods (such as yogurt, kefir, kimchi, sauerkraut, miso and pickles) can also help to reduce plaque? "Alongside good dental hygiene and regular trips to the dentist, probiotics help to decrease plaque and prevent gingivitis – inflammation in the gums caused by plaque which hasn’t been cleaned away properly," says Dr Krystyna. Taking good care of your gut could also help to improve immunity, mood and skin. [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/nutrition/the-30-day-gut-makeover/]

3. Cheese

Cheese-lovers, rejoice: the appearance of the cheeseboard after a meal may not be such a bad thing. Cheese is believed to have a number of health benefits[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/news/eat-cheddar-live-longer-5-surprising-health-benefits-cheese/], and a 2013 study, from the Academy of General Dentistry in America, found that cheese not only makes the mouth more alkaline (which reduces the need for dental treatment) but also creates a protective film around the teeth."Dairy can help to restore the pH balance of your saliva," explains Dr Krystyna. "If your mouth is too acidic, the enamel can wear away. Dairy products help to neutralise the balance of acid and alkali. Saliva naturally neutralises it to stop it from wearing away things like enamel, but eating cheese can help."

As if we needed an excuse.

3. Pumpkin seeds

"Pumpkin seeds are full of the nutrients and vitamins that are great for health of teeth and gums: zinc, iron and magnesium will strengthen tooth enamel and prevents decay."

We like them sprinkled over porridge to add texture, or mixed up into leafy salads.

4. Broccoli

Broccoli is not only the UK's favourite vegetable[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/news/uks-favourite-vegetable-broccoli/] – it could also keep your teeth white. "Eating raw broccoli instead of steamed, boiled or roasted broccoli can act as a natural toothbrush to remove external staining on teeth, since it's quite chunky and textured. It also contains high levels of iron which reduce acid erosion and discolouration." Chuck a couple of florets in your lunchbox – it won't do you any harm.

5. Green tea

While black tea contains tannins that will stain your teeth, green tea isn't so bad, and contains chemicals called polyphenols which actually clean the mouth. "Drinking green tea is understood to reduce bacteria and toxic products in the mouth," says Dr Krystyna. "Green tea is also rich in fluoride - the most well-known tooth strengthener." Anyone fancy a brew?

6. Dark chocolate

As if we needed any more health reasons to eat chocolate[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/nutrition/chocolate-10-health-reasons-you-should-eat-more-of-it/], it turns out that it might also be good for your teeth. "There has been plenty of debate over whether dark chocolate is actually good for your teeth," Dr Krystyna reveals. "Dark chocolate can actually be a cavity fighter. But the issue isn’t so black and white. Milk chocolate and white chocolate contain sugar, which is bad for teeth.

"I don't condone or promote the over-consumption of those for any teeth benefit – but high percentage cacao chocolate that contains no sugar can actually be beneficial to oral health, in moderation. Cocoa beans contain tannins, polyphenols and flavonoids. These are all antioxidants which benefit the mouth and teeth. Put simply, antioxidants are group of molecules that keep your body healthy on a cellular level, and in fact, dark chocolate can contain up to four times the levels found in green tea.

"Polyphenols can prevent bad breath, limit gum infections and even prevent some bacteria from converting sugar into the acid which rots teeth. Tannins are the plant compounds that give the dark chocolate the bitter taste and dark colour, but are responsible for helping prevent bacteria sticking to teeth - and therefore limit tooth decay. This happens as their molecules bind to bacteria before plaque has time to form. Alongside this benefit, unfortunately tannins can stain teeth – so you must be careful and ensure good oral hygiene regime.

"Finally, flavonoids in dark chocolate known as epicatechin have been known to slow tooth decay."

7. Oranges and pineapples

While the sugar content of fruits such as oranges can be detrimental to your teeth, that doesn't mean you should be demonising the contents of your fruitbowl. Dr Krystyna stresses that it isn't all bad: "Oranges and pineapples are sharp and tart, and sourness and tartness produces saliva, which cleans the teeth. Of course, sucking an orange every day will erode your teeth but a piece of your favourite fruit every now and then is no bad thing."

8. Almonds

"These are a good source of calcium and protein whilst being low in sugar. They're perfect for snacking in place of sugary treats," recommends Dr Krystyna. Apparently, they can also help to promote a good night's sleep. [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/08/06/eating-perfect-breakfast-good-nights-sleep/]

Why everything you thought you knew about brushing your teeth is probably wrong[https://cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk/2953f9c5-566a-4a74-b3d5-e06f2cf2d930.html]

If there's a universal truth to be drawn from the current makeup landscape, it's that more is more. So many new products crowd the market that even a beauty hound can become boggled. Sift through them, though, and there are creative new options well worth your attention. Textures, in particular, have become more inventive. Below, a primer on some of the newest and some tips on how to use them.

The New Lip Stains

Lip stains deliver a believable finish but are often faulted for drying out lips or settling in fine lines. Not so with the new hyaluronic-acid-infused versions like the Dior Addict Lacquer Plump ($37).

With a consistency akin to a super-pigmented jelly, the formula gives you a surprisingly shiny inklike stain with a subtle plumping effect courtesy of the hyaluronic acid. The Dior makeup artist Ricky Wilson likes this method to achieve an everyday look.

''Apply a generous amount to the bottom lip, and instead of rubbing the lips together, simply press them to create a transfer to the top lip and then use your finger to move the product to the lip edge,'' he said. ''Or put a touch of the Lacquer Plump on the tip of your favorite nude lip liner and apply to lips. This prevents the liner from going on too pronounced and will give the lips natural dimension.''

If you prefer a matte lip stain, you may want to try the YSL Tatouage Couture Matte Satin ($36) instead. Blessedly lightweight and more pigmented than the usual stains, the formula is closer to a liquid lipstick. Be wary, though, of creating harsh lines. To achieve a more diffuse effect, apply and let dry before gently blurring any obvious lines or excess pigment with your finger.

Glitter Eyes

Glitter is back in a big way -- see the inspiring looks by the makeup artist Katie Jane Hughes on Instagram (@katiejanehughes) for reference -- but what's out are the messy loose pigments that require pro dedication to apply.

Tom Ford's new Extreme line of twinkly shadows ($36) in an intriguing new base formula of gel polymers and oils create a barely there, flexible film. (The texture feels almost creamy.) Glitter, pearl and micronized pigments stay on better, so much so that the shadow can appear 3-D or nearly wet.

''The formula is best applied dry with fingertips or with a brush,'' said the makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench, who worked with Mr. Ford on this collection.

There is also pigment underneath the glitter that has a slight sparkle. ''It's so when you blend the pigment out, it doesn't drag but rather melts into the eyelid,'' Ms. Ffrench said.

Tom Ford isn't alone in rethinking glitter. Bodyography's gluten-free and vegan Glitter Pigments ($23) are based on a similar gel-base concept. The rosy Stratus hue is in tune with the pink eye shadows spotted recently on social media and runways.

If you're looking for a mirrored, metallic effect without obvious pieces of glitter, Tarte's Chrome Paint Shadow ($22) is a winner. Dip your ring finger into the little pot and swipe onto your lids for ''Space Odyssey''-worthy results.

The New Face Powders

Innovation isn't transforming only eye shadows. Armani Beauty is introducing a new compact called Neo Nude Fusion Powder ($58). The formula, which has the appearance of a powder, is essentially a dehydrated liquid foundation that ''reactivates'' when it comes into contact with your skin's own moisture. Linda Cantello, the international makeup artist for the Armani Beauty, was jazzed by the radiant, natural-looking finish. (Anyone who wants full coverage will need to layer it with foundation.)

Ms. Cantello advised using a ''large natural-hair brush to apply directly over skin.'' Perhaps best of all, the formula won't cake as the day wears on. Also, the powder works best on skin that is somewhat oily or very moisturized; otherwise, it can take up to 20 to 30 minutes to settle. Once it settles, though, the finish is essentially seamless.

For a more matte look for spring, Urban Decay offers a novel option: a translucent powder that's designed to mix with your foundation. Called the Velvetizer ($34), it is especially effective at tempering a dewy-finish foundation. Tweak the amount you add according to the humidity or your skin that day.

Powdered Lips

Lip powders have become the nouveau finish of choice. That's partly because of their ''versatility,'' said the Chanel makeup artist Cyndle K, referring to the company's Poudre à Lèvres Lip Balm and Powder Duos ($37).

''Applied on top of a lipstick, the powder gives unbelievable staying power and helps prevent feathering,'' she said. ''Or you can create a beautiful bitten-lip look by applying the balm and then using your finger to dab on the color.''

Looking for a range of powdery hues? Nars has teamed with the London fashion designer Erdem Moralioglu on a collection that hit the Nars site in mid-April. Among the limited-edition items is a lip powder palette with a tinted balm ($49).

Or wear your own favorite lip balm with CLE Melting Lip Powder ($19.99). The Korean brand designed its formula to be multifunctional. Add a dab to your cheeks for a pulled-together look.

Jelly Illuminators

The new jelly illuminators feel young and playful. Jiggly and bouncy, they're also fun to capture on camera, as demonstrated by Farsáli, a social-media-savvy brand whose rose gold Jelly Beam Illuminator ($40) has been quite the hit on Instagram. Another option is the Inc.redible You Glow Girl Iridescent Jelly ($12), though the violet-tinged iridescent sheen isn't for everyone.

Unlike highlighting powders and liquids, which can wander, the jelly consistency largely stays put. It also offers a pretty, slightly dewy finish without the heaviness of a cream formula. Use as you would any highlighting product: Dab on tops of cheekbones, brow bones and the cupid's bow with your ring finger.

If you're new to highlighting, try an illuminator with slightly less pigment, like the H20+ Probiotic Champagne Illuminator ($22), which will give you a subtle, natural-looking sheen.

It's time to break the poo taboo. Going to the loo is a daily reality to everyone and if like me it is something you hate and avoid talking about at all costs, it's time to embrace the movement as it could be impacting your health.

The importance of gut health [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/beauty/body/looking-gut-could-transform-health/] is ever growing and the subject of many conversations in the world of health and beauty. Cleansing your gut and body is considered to be one of the most important health steps you can take and if your system is sluggish, there is no better way than to opt for a colonic. Colonic irrigation or colonic hydrotherapy has long been regarded as dangerous, uncomfortable, scary and something for only those who have 'serious' digestive problems. Well that's not quite the case.

I recently went to meet with Kara-Mia Vernon [http://www.embracinghealth.co.uk/] who is a qualified naturopath and nutritionist and has an elite residence at Grace Belgravia Wellbeing, Health and Medical club[https://www.gracebelgravia.com/] where she has carried out thousands of colonic irrigation treatments. I have struggled with a slow digestive system for about ten years and just got used to the fact that I was let's say, less regular than others. Did you know everyone should go twice a day at the minimum?

As the importance of gut health and its link to good skin is on the rise, I decided I wanted to address the issue and try something new. Whilst it's not for everyone, after five treatments I can honestly say it has changed my life for the better. I have so much more energy, I feel less bloated, have fewer headaches and my stomach is much flatter ( one of the great perks! ). I only wish I had realised sooner, that this was the ultimate detoxifying treatment for me. Here is everything you need to know about colonic hydrotherapy and why it could work for you.

What is colonic irrigation?

Colonic hydrotherapy is a complementary cleansing process where warm water passes into the colon and carries out loose faecal debris and waste to effectively flush the colon.

Before having colonic irrigation, the therapist will ask you about your medical history to check if you have any health problems that might make the treatment inadvisable. During the procedure, you lie on your side while warm water is passed into your bowel through a tube inserted into your rectum. The water circulates through your colon, and waste products are passed out of your body through the tube. It usually takes around 30-45 minutes.

Top tips | Get a good gut feeling, by Eve Kalinik[https://cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk/6fb6a572-98f5-4370-905d-103c05dd4224.html] How does it work?

"As a Naturopath, I have long been aware that health and also disease start in your gut," says Vernon. "However there is still so much education to be done to inform everyone of how essential a healthy gut and a working-system is to your overall health. If you have a compromised evacuation system then you have an issue. This is where colonics can help address this," advises Vernon."We were never designed to eat three meals a day, with snacks and the amount of sugar and processed foods that are now ubiquitous in our diets. Our digestive systems are overloaded and many modern illnesses are lifestyle related. Prevention is key and people should spend more time and money on health habits and enhancers," she tells me.

'Inside out beauty' is a term coined by the beauty industry with skincare brands avidly innovating skincare that works from the inside out but there is no better, physical approach than a colonic. "Your entire body is linked to the gut. Every system has a link back to your intestine and what happens on the inside is reflected on the outside," says Vernon.

Our understanding of the gut microbiome (gut flora) and its link to other body functions such as immunity, human metabolism and nutrition has increased over the last 10 years allowing us to further understand how important it is to cleanse the gut. "Since our digestive system is closely linked with the rest of the body's functions, colon therapy can also support symptoms such as headaches, allergies, acne and improve mental and physical sluggishness," says Vernon.

Does it wash out all the good bacteria?

One of the greatest negative connotations associated with colon hydrotherapy is the hearsay idea that it strips all the natural and good bacteria from your gut. "It's false. If it did strip all the healthy good stuff, then I wouldn't do this job," says Vernon. "It's simply not possible to wash out two kilos of bacteria that are largely located in the mucus membrane of the colon. It is, however, more damaging to keep old fecal waste inside," she says.

How often should you have a colonic?

"Ideally, three over the course of a few weeks is best as it enables a more thorough cleanse. After that, every client is unique," advises Vernon. Obviously, the 25-year-old who's bowels open twice a day is very different to the 45-year-old who goes three times a week.

Things to be aware of before your treatment

1. It's not glamorous. It's a tube in an awkward place removing your own waste

2. There is a loud loo flushing sound that sounds like the chain is stuck. It's perfectly normal. This is where your waste goes out and allows water to come in

3. You have to relax, the more you relax the greater the results

4. Laxative effect coffee may be used, in conjunction with water, to encourage stool movement

5. Your therapist will massage your stomach to help motivate a better flush. This can be uncomfortable but very effective

Book to see Kara-Mia at www.gracebelgravia.com [https://www.gracebelgravia.com/enquire-now/]

7 things your skin could be telling you[https://cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk/fb925983-ce7a-4a35-96ef-1f116f4afe3b.html]

THE mood swings have been off the scale this month and the tiredness is palpable. And then there's all the sniping and bickering: the minutiae of life can seem an insurmountable burden when you are having a bad day.

Given I'm 45, you might think my middle-age hormones are to blame. But it's not me in a permanent funk; it's my partner Jo, 53.

He eats well, exercises regularly and has no vices, aside from the odd glass of good red wine. And yet he just seems so tired, troubled and fed up of late.

Huddled talks with female friends uncover similar tales of low energy, short fuses and sleepless nights in their middle-aged menfolk.

Could it be — dare to whisper it — the male menopause?

Some sneaky research online, while Jo watches television, confirms what I suspect: he is just as much at the mercy of middle-aged hormonal changes as I am.

Some men, like women, even require HRT (where the hormone being replaced is, of course, testosterone). By the NHS definition, the male menopause (also referred to as the andropause, andro meaning male) is used to explain a set of mid-life symptoms commonly experienced by men.

These can include mood swings and irritability, loss of muscle mass and reduced ability to exercise, general lack of enthusiasm or energy, and poor concentration.

Other andropausal symptoms, I discover, might be difficulty sleeping, loss of libido and a redistribution of fat that manifests in a large tummy or 'man boobs'.

While I'm relieved Jo's yet to show signs of the latter two, I realise he is ticking most of the other symptom boxes.

Falling testosterone levels could be to blame, but lifestyle factors can also have a huge impact on men of his age, particularly stress, depression and anxiety.

High amounts of the stress hormone cortisol, I discover, can cause a reduction in testosterone, which, in turn, affects energy levels and libido.

At this point in their lives, men often have lots to feel stressed about: they are likely to be in the thick of juggling family life — possibly caring for elderly parents too — with increased responsibility at work. But Jo isn't the anxious type, is he?

When we met five years ago, his boundless energy was one of the things that attracted me. He was one of the most fun and positive people I'd ever come across. When he revealed the eight-year age gap, I didn't flinch. His sprightly, 48 put my sluggish 40 to shame.

Our courtship was whirlwind and within six months we were engaged and living together in blended family bliss with our four offspring, my two children, Tallulah, now 13 and George, 11, and  his girls, Lola, 16, and Scarlett, 13.

When not working long days in London as a director, Jo was sorting family admin, vacuuming the house or tidying up after untidy tweens. On summer evenings, you'd usually find him cleaning the car or digging the garden.

Saturday meant an early morning sprint or hilly bike ride, and come midnight, seven days a week, he'd still be wide awake watching the TV, as I battled to keep my eyelids open. Dark wintry weekday mornings could never bring him down. While I was comatose, he'd be making tea. He's never had man flu.

Then six months ago, my silver-haired superhuman hit a wall. The man who had the energy for anything and everything suddenly flatlined. Jo's transformation from  dynamic and full of energy to tired and tetchy happened almost overnight.

It began with daily complaints of feeling achy and creaky. Concentrating was hard work, he said, relaxing, even more difficult. He tried to stay cheery but it was obvious he was struggling. I did my best to lift his spirits and we both blamed winter blues but the truth is, living with this very different Jo wasn't much fun.

Overnight, it seemed, we did less running and cycling and watched more TV. We kissed less, and  argued more. He went to bed later  and later, only to get up before it was light, unable to sleep  properly.

But while he seemed prepared just to accept this and insisted his  symptoms were down to nothing more than that inevitable, unstoppable thing called ageing, I wasn't.

The speed of his decline didn't make any sense to me, for starters. I also couldn't help making the connection between his symptoms and my own set of pre-menopausal ones.

I have been open about my own roller-coaster hormonal ride since hitting 40. But Jo simply would not countenance talking about HIS hormones.

After weeks of struggling with his loss of mojo, I finally persuaded him to see a professional for a midlife MoT.

We turned to Dr Sohere Roked, a GP and specialist in male hormones and age management, who is based at the Omniya Clinic in  London.

Dr Roked confirms that Jo's reluctance to theorise about his worsening malaise is fairly typical: 'My female patients are much more aware of what is going on with their bodies and open to talking about these inevitable mid-life changes.

'Most men come to see me only when their symptoms have become a serious problem. It's frustrating, as the earlier we pick up an imbalance, the more likely we are to be able to manage it.

'A lot of male patients open up about how they are feeling only when they see test results in  black and white that show an obvious connection between the medical facts and their symptoms.'

She takes blood samples from Jo so she can measure his testosterone levels and check for any vitamin or mineral deficiencies. She also sends him off with little plastic vials to collect saliva in at different times of the day. This is to pick up any spikes in cortisol, the hormone released when we're stressed.

Jo finds the saliva collection annoying but is spurred on by the worrying things we might find. While some of the short-term effects of this stress hormone will be feeling tired and short-tempered, the longer-term implications can be much more serious if ignored.

'Left to build up, excess cortisol causes inflammation in the body, which can disrupt blood sugar levels, affect gut bacteria and increase blood pressure,' says Dr  Roked.

'Most worryingly, inflammation is a driving force for most serious diseases, including cancer.'

The tests take a week to process, and then Jo is back for the results. He has a casual air about him when he heads off to Dr Roked's clinic, but I can tell that he's feeling nervous.

After months of brushing his symptoms under the carpet, the diagnosis is just moments away. Dr Roked reveals the good news that Jo isn't fighting any serious illness. The other good news — and Jo is smugly glowing — is that his testosterone levels for a man of his age are good.

Yet with a reading this impressive, Dr Roked also points out that Jo should be feeling great. So why isn't he?

The saliva tests provide the answer. He is producing an unhealthily high level of the stress hormone cortisol, which is suppressing the energy-boosting effects of testosterone.

Faced with these figures, Jo finally admits he's been feeling overworked and overwhelmed for a while. While he thought he'd been just about coping with the busy job, commute and houseful of demanding, albeit lovely, children, it turns out life's pressures have taken their toll.

'We talk about everything else, so why didn't you just tell me?' I ask him.

His answer is that, unlike me, he just doesn't analyse how he or his body is feeling all the time. The tension just crept up on him.

What we learn, is, that for men, the causes of the andropause are complex, and a decline in testosterone can often be as a result of lifestyle factors. In Jo's case his body is producing lots of testosterone. but it's the stress that's depressing these levels.

If he keeps the stress under control and carries on living healthily, there's no reason why Jo can't feel fantastic for at least another couple of decades. But first he has to admit he has a problem.

And that is the issue for many men of Jo's age, says Dr Paul McLaren, consultant psychiatrist at the Priory Hayes Grove Hospital in Kent.

'We see particularly high rates of stress and anxiety amongst men in their late 40s and early 50s, so the stereotype that men don't share their troubles is a very real one,' he says. 'We don't really understand why, but we do know that many of them are unlikely to seek help, even from close family and friends.'

I'd never heard Jo utter the word 'stress' so the prognosis hadn't even occurred to me.

I'm relieved there is nothing seriously wrong, but I do feel guilty that I haven't noticed how much he has on his  plate. Instead of feeling irritated by him, I should have empathised.

Dr Roked prescribes daily supplements to help get him back to his high-energy self. These include a high strength Omega-3 to reduce any inflammation that's already taking hold in cells and body tissue.

The pot of giant Omega- 3 pills joins a stack of other vitamin and mineral supplements she recommends, including Vitamin D. The blood tests have  shown that Jo has alarmingly low levels  of this essential mood  booster.

Alongside his high-strength Vitamin D supplement is Vitamin B (another vital energy enhancer) to help stimulate his sluggish hormone-producing adrenal glands, which have been battered by the excess cortisol, and he has a supply of the herbal supplements ashwagandha and rhodiola.

Back at home, the pill popping proves a bit of a chore. The man who never takes tablets suddenly has ten different magic pills to swallow. But Jo diligently follows instruction and the positive effects are impressively immediate.

A week later, he's feeling noticeably less tired and has agreed to manage his stress levels better. We've even started a yoga class together and best of all, he says he no longer feels 'old'.

Nor should he, says Dr Roked: 'It's perfectly possible for men to keep on feeling fantastic well into old age, provided they stay in tune with their body and are not afraid to get checked out when something doesn't feel right.'

This is music to my ears — if only  the female 'change' was so  manageable.

* omniya.co.uk

© Daily Mail

From Dylan to Nicole Scherzinger, celebrity endorsements are really just consumer scams. So why can’t we resist them?

Just in case you’ve been finding news stories not quite depressingly on-the-nose enough for you recently, it’s been announced that anti-consumerist folk hero Bob Dylan will be selling his own Bob Dylan-branded whiskey[https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/apr/29/bob-dylan-whiskey-heavens-door]. It’s the logical endpoint for celebrity endorsements: Woody and Buzz Lightyear are selling broadband[https://www.uswitch.com/broadband/news/2014/08/toy_story_cast_returns_for_sky_broadband_ad_buzz_lightyear_toys_up_for_grabs/], the Muppets are selling loaves of bread[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/25/warburtons-on-a-roll-as-it-toasts-success-of-muppets-christmas-ad], James Corden is selling anything[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl4f-KDO_Uk] he can get his hands on – why shouldn’t Bob get in on the action?

But I think Dylan’s missed a trick going with whiskey and not something like Kwik Fit. I can see the advert now: “ How many roads must a man drive down[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWwgrjjIMXA], before he takes advantage of a half-price tyre change (subject to terms and conditions, see in store for details)?”

To be fair to Dylan, he’s not just slapping his name on the product and taking the cash (what I believe is now known in the industry as a “ doing a Kevin Bacon[https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2012/nov/24/the-new-ee-advert] ”). Whiskey is clearly something he takes seriously, and he’s personally and rigorously tasted his new brand, “Heaven’s Door” (which maybe explains why he’s been so difficult to get hold of[https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/apr/02/bob-dylan-finally-accepts-nobel-prize-in-literature-at-private-ceremony-in-stockholm] ). But all the same, there’s something quite sobering about Dylan’s move into alcoholic marketing.

Consumer culture is all about monetising the name, even if the name is virulently opposed to the culture. It’s hard to escape the idea that Dylan’s whiskey is a drinkable version of a mass-produced Che Guevara T-shirt[https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/quiz/2014/aug/22/che-guevara-jack-daniels-famous-t-shirts-quiz] – a way for consumerism to make money off of the people who hate consumerism (or at least want to show everyone they hate consumerism). Perhaps this was always what was going to happen to a revolutionary voice like Dylan: to mangle a quote from The Dark Knight[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-either-die-a-hero-or-you-live-long-enough-to-see-yourself-become-the-villain], you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a whiskey spokesman.

The reason celebrity endorsements particularly stick in my throat, like a subpar bourbon from an inferior 1960s musician, is that they are irritatingly effective. I had never considered buying a probiotic yoghurt before I saw the actor Martine McCutcheon holding an Activia[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLHfLWUD3To] and rubbing her tummy in a satisfied, non-bloated manner – now I eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I didn’t really care about skin care until I saw an advert with the footballer Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain putting on some Nivea[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmLNoHMnvEA] – now I use it all the time. If anything my face is too moisturised: if someone tries to kiss me on the cheek their lips slip right off my face.

I still trust brands with a recognisable spokesperson more than others, even though deep down I know that these things are a scam. Why do they work? Maybe, depressingly, it’s because we have a subconscious desire to be like the celebrity – we’re sold the idea that if we drink enough of Dylan’s whiskey, some of his talent will rub off on us. At a deeper level, they make success and fame seem laughably attainable – all you have to do to look like Nicole Scherzinger is buy the product she’s advertising, even if it has a dumb name like “ Perfectil[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y6UxvTXHFM].” (One assumes “Definitelygoingtoworkil” was already taken.)

Sometimes I worry that all celebrity endorsements do is dilute our own uniqueness. We cobble together an identity based on the things that our favourite celebrities like – a funhouse mirror of different reflections, acting as a substitute for our own personality. Maybe some day the cult of celebrity will die down, and we’ll be able to judge products based on what they are, not who likes them.

• Jack Bernhardt is a comedy writer and performer

NEW YORK -- Graham Kerr is having a group of guests over to his home so he's decided to whip up a batch of his Farmhouse Vegetable Soup.

It calls for a blended medley of carrots, onions, garlic, parsnips, sweet potato and onion. The recipe is from his groundbreaking "The Graham Kerr Cookbook" and it's tried-and-true - he's been making it for more than 50 years, for royalty and commoner alike.

The dish is also a way to chart the remarkable life of Kerr, who began as an energetic TV pioneer with a love of clarified butter on "The Galloping Gourmet," swung dramatically toward health food following tragedy and now embraces a middle path embracing nourishment and delight.

"It's a thick soup which I used to make with cream," he says. "I now take out some of the vegetables, whiz them up in a blender with some evaporated skim milk, and pour that back in the place of cream. I find it just as unctuous."

That his soup has endured from late-'60s ham and hedonism to today's Pilates and probiotics is a testament to the strong architecture of the recipe. That strength has prompted publisher Rizzoli to republish Kerr's 52-year-old cookbook this spring.

"This book is close to my heart because it's a method of cooking which is good. You only need to change the ingredients and the weight of some of them and it works just as well today as it did 52 years ago," Kerr said by phone from his home in Washington state.

The book came out in 1966, several years before Kerr first leapt over a chair on "The Galloping Gourmet." Some of the ingredients have not aged well - toheroa, a green clam from New Zealand, is almost extinct - but Kerr's clear and concise methods for everything from carving chicken to poaching fish are timeless. He included three measurements for every recipe - grams, ounces and cups.

He taught basic preparations for things like sauces and meats and then offered readers ways of building on them. The reissue includes new archive photos - including remarkably small-looking chickens by our standards today - and charming handwritten commentary from Kerr.

Cookbook authors Matt and Ted Lee are behind the push to reissue forgotten culinary gems and they were stunned to find so much still relevant in "The Graham Kerr Cookbook."

"He's really expressing a very enlightened way about food, the likes of which American culture wouldn't see expressed in popular culture for 40 years," Matt Lee said, citing Kerr's embrace of using meats nose-to-tail, his thriftiness and attentiveness to food waste by using the whole vegetable.

Lee also credited Kerr's book - along with Julia Child and James Beard - with empowering home chefs at a time when the culinary world was cloistered.

"This was to empower you to take these techniques to whatever protein or vegetable that you may encounter," he said.

Kerr even went further - he encouraged readers not to obey his recipes to the letter.

Kerr, 84, was born in London to a hotel manager father. He grew up living on the property and eating meals in the restaurant before the customers arrived. He was trained in the French culinary traditions at college and briefly became manager of the Royal Ascot Hotel in London.

In 1958, Kerr moved to New Zealand, where he was named chief catering adviser for the Royal New Zealand Air Force. His break into television occurred two years later - courtesy of an injury.

The Air Force was going to film a live TV segment with a physical education instructor but he sprained his ankle. Kerr was ordered - "I said no and they said 'This is an order,'" he recalls - to do something on-air. So he did something basic. He cooked eggs.

That eventually led him to gallop: Kerr and his producer wife, Treena, moved to Canada and created a cooking show that showed off Kerr's charisma and humour on "The Galloping Gourmet," which ran from 1969-71 and reached 200 million viewers around the world each week.

On the show, Kerr would cook in a suit coat, tie and a colourful shirt or a tuxedo, mixing "Monty Python"-esque humour with a generous helping of innuendo and a splash of video clips of exciting food places around the world.

The tall and handsome chef was liberal with glugs of sherry and his use of egg whites. His dishes often boiled over or he spilled ingredients and he invited audience members up to cook with him. His humour got him an invitation to "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson in 1970.

A car crash in 1971 left Kerr and his wife badly injured. While they recuperated, the family sailed the world. When Treena suffered a heart attack in 1986, her husband reformed his culinary ways and tried to wring as much fat, salt and sugar out of his recipes as possible.

"I did go through a phase in my life when everything started with 'b' - it was brown rice and bulgur and barley - and it really tasted like the backside of the moon, whatever that must taste like," he said.

"My son, who was 12 at the time, said, 'Dad, I'm 12 years old and I don't expect to get cancer of the bowels, so would you please find something else?' I finally came to the conclusion that things must be delightful."

These days he loves local cheese and vegetables, lamb loin, and makes porridge with local fruit, nonfat Greek yogurt, skim milk - and a splash of hazelnut creamer ("I would never tell anyone except you," he says, conspiratorially.)

Now a widower, he loves to share his culinary skills with friends and strangers alike.

"I have had a life of being filled with joy. And, OK, the ingredients have changed, that doesn't really matter," he said. "It's the end result of nourishing someone and giving them a delightful experience and laughter at the same time."

There hasn't been a significant advance in the treatment for depression in nearly 40 years.

And the most commonly prescribed antidepressants, SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) — once hailed as wonder drugs — do not work for a significant number. They also have a range of potential side-effects, including insomnia, sexual problems and difficulty coming off them.

But now a Cambridge University psychiatrist suggests there is a radical way to transform this gloomy picture. Professor Edward Bullmore believes the root of the problem is inflammation. In his book, The Inflamed Mind, he argues that depression is not a mental, but a physical, illness caused by inflammation — which opens up the possibility of entirely new approaches to treating it.

Inflammation is the body's first line of defence: it occurs when the immune system's messenger molecules (cytokines) alert white blood cell 'shock troops' (macrophages) to attack and destroy invaders — such as bacterial infection.

As part of the immune response, the blood vessels expand to bring more blood to the damaged area to repair it. The most obvious signs of inflammation are the redness and swelling that occur when you cut yourself, for instance.

But like any military operation, this immune response can be a doubled-edged sword; friendly fire can damage healthy cells, too. High levels of inflammation are now known to be associated with most chronic diseases, including diabetes and cancer, as well as rheumatoid arthritis, asthma and gum disease.

And as Professor Bullmore sets out in his book, it seems that inflammation is linked with depression, too. The idea is that if you treat the inflammation, the depression is alleviated.

For decades, drug treatment for depression had been largely limited to SSRI drugs that raised the amount of the brain chemical serotonin, which is known to be associated with positive feelings.

The thinking was that depressed people didn't have enough serotonin. But if this inflammation theory is proven right, in the foreseeable future patients could be leaving their GP surgery with a much more varied package to help with low mood.

For instance, SSRIs —which do benefit some people — might be combined with anti-inflammatory drugs already on the market, even the familiar aspirin or ibuprofen found in every bathroom cabinet.

Patients with severe depression might benefit from electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve, which runs from the gut to the brain. This treatment is known to calm inflammation. Changes in diet and lifestyle could be effective, too.

There had long been hints that inflammation could play a part in depression. For instance, after being vaccinated — designed to cause an immune response — people often complain of feeling tired and lacking motivation.

It was a consultation with a woman with severe arthritis when he was a young hospital doctor in 1989 — about the time SSRIs first came on the market — that made Professor Bullmore start to think about a link between inflammation and depression.

Her swollen, painful hands made the diagnosis of arthritis obvious; but then, instead of immediately writing a prescription for an anti-inflammatory painkiller, he asked how she felt. 'Quietly but clearly, she told me she had very low levels of energy,' he writes. 'Nothing gave her pleasure any more; her sleep was disturbed and she was preoccupied by pessimistic thoughts.' All classic signs of depression.

He diagnosed not one but two disorders, though at the time he didn't link it with inflammation.

Still, excited by what seemed to him a new finding, Bullmore told his senior physician who, unimpressed, replied: 'Depressed? Well, you would be, wouldn't you?'

It's a classic problem in medicine. When two disorders come together, are they separate, or does one cause the other? Was the constant pain and difficulty moving what made her depressed or did the inflammation that damaged her joints play a part?

It was an idea that went against the conventional understanding that the immune system was blocked from acting on the brain by the blood brain barrier — effectively a filter that keeps out many of the compounds carried in the blood.

But within a few years, research showed that immune system cells and proteins could get through the blood brain barrier, and studies on animal brains revealed that these immune cells could behave like the most undisciplined militia, blasting the territory they were supposed to be protecting.

This research showed that nerve cells in the brain exposed to the immune system's messenger cells, the cytokines, were likely to die and networks of cells became less able to learn and lay down memories. But this was different from the havoc wreaked in arthritic hands, not least because the lack of pain receptors in the brain meant it wasn't painful.

The immune troops also made use of a form of protein called tryptophan, which is normally turned into the 'feelgood' chemical serotonin, to make toxic damaging compounds instead.

This could be why SSRIs don't benefit depressed patients with high levels of inflammation — as the raw material for making serotonin isn't available.

It's not just illness and infection that cause inflammation. Obesity is linked with it, especially the fat stored round the middle (a source of inflammatory cytokines). Habits such as smoking, not exercising and a high sugar diet all combine to keep inflammation raised.

However, about 80 per cent of depressive episodes are connected with stress, says Professor Bullmore, citing the example of a man who starts divorce proceedings being ten times more likely to suffer depression than the general population; the risk for his wife is 20 times greater.

Such stressful events also raise the risk of conditions such as cancer and heart disease.

So the link between inflammation and depression looks very plausible. But it could have an even greater impact on medicine than improving treatments for these patients, as it questions the division between patients with physical disorders — such as heart disease — and those with mental problems such as depression and anxiety.

Physicians treat the physical disorders and psychiatrists treat the mental ones.

But does this divide still make sense when inflammation can equally affect both types of disease?

This 'medical apartheid', as Professor Bullmore calls it, is very damaging to patients. Having worked as both a physician and a psychiatrist, he knows that both sides disapprove of crossing the line. When he was a doctor he was discouraged from pointing out that psychological factors, such as depression, could be making a patient's physical condition worse and should be treated.

Later, as a psychiatrist, he was warned off suggesting a patient's anxiety might have a physical cause — damage to the heart — rather than a psychological one, such as low self-esteem.

He describes as 'one of the most shocking health care statistics I know' the fact that patients with mental illness have a life expectancy at least ten years shorter than it should be.

So what does all this mean for patients? One intriguing new treatment for depression could be nerve stimulation, he suggests — specifically stimulation of the vagus nerve that runs from the gut to the brain. This helps keep automatic processes such as the heart rate stable.

It is now known that it does the same thing for inflammation. Indeed, research with rheumatoid arthritis patients has found that 20 minutes a day of vagus nerve stimulation led to a rapid, significant drop in inflammation.

'It may prove possible to turn inflammation on and off at the flick of a switch,' writes Professor Bullmore.

More immediately, he advises being aware of the inflammatory effects of gum disease. We should also look after our gut bacteria, which are closely involved with the immune system and directly linked with the brain. Tackling stress, obesity, lack of exercise and poor sleep should help reduce inflammation, too.

New treatments are welcome, Professor Bullmore adds, but we need to move on 'from seeing depression as all in the mind or all in the brain to a response of the whole human self to the challenges of survival in a hostile world'.

* The Inflamed Mind, by Edward Bullmore, is published by Short Books price £14.99. To order a copy for £11.24 (25 per cent discount) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 0844 571 0640; p&p is free on orders over £15. Offer valid until May 15, 2018.

© Daily Mail

Eradicating gut bacteria may be a new way to treat heart failure, where the heart becomes damaged after a heart attack and stops pumping efficiently, according to a new study.

Researchers found that immune cells called T cells are activated during heart failure and they move into the heart tissue, causing inflammation and worsening the damage.

A study presented to the American Society for Investigative Pathology showed mice given antibiotics and antifungals to wipe out the microbiome (the community of microbes that live in the gut) had significantly less heart damage.

© Daily Mail

STEVE INSKEEP: This year Americans will spend more than $2 billion on probiotics, supplements aimed at boosting what are called good bacteria inside us. One part of the market that's growing rapidly is probiotics for babies and kids. Here's NPR's Allison Aubrey.

ALLISON AUBREY: Like a lot of new moms, Courtney Becerra finds parenting to be full of surprises and worries.

COURTNEY BECERRA: I have a son named Wyatt. He is 7 months old.

AUBREY: One of her concerns was Wyatt's belly. His whole digestive system just seemed off and his skin was an issue, too. Early on, he got bad rashes and developed eczema.

BECERRA: He would scratch his stomach, and he would be fussy and whining.

AUBREY: Now, when a friend of hers suggested that she try a probiotic marketed specifically for babies, she checked out the product's website and read about some of the research behind it. The gist of what she read is that the probiotic might help boost levels of bifidobacteria, which is thought to be protective.

BECERRA: I asked the pediatrician about starting the probiotics, and she gave me the go ahead.

AUBREY: Probiotics are generally considered safe, but the question is, do they really work to improve health? Courtney Becerra says in her experience, since Wyatt began the probiotic, he seems better. His G.I. system has calmed down, and his skin has cleared up, too. Now, this might be the result of a bunch of things she tried. For instance, she experimented with diet changes that could have altered her breast milk. She also used ointments to help Wyatt's skin. But her hunch is that the probiotic really did work.

BECERRA: As a mom, you want nothing but your baby to be healthy, and that's what I see now.

AUBREY: There are lots of people like Courtney Becerra who are now believers in probiotics. Daniel Merenstein is a family physician at Georgetown University. He says his patients ask about them all the time.

DANIEL MERENSTEIN: A high percentage of patients I see are already taking a probiotic or giving one to their kid.

AUBREY: Merenstein says there is evidence to show that probiotics can be useful for certain conditions in babies and kids.

MERENSTEIN: They definitely help for infantile colic, preventing some diarrhea, especially diarrhea caused by antibiotics, certain diseases for kids, like ulcerative colitis, they've definitely been shown to help.

AUBREY: Now, a lot of the probiotic studies are small and funded by industry, and Merenstein says researchers still have a long way to go to figure out which strains and combinations of bacteria may be effective for which conditions.

MERENSTEIN: Just like antibiotics, different ones need to be used at different dosages and in different lengths for different diseases. There's no question that's how probiotics also work.

AUBREY: When it comes to cost and quality, not all probiotics are the same, and some could be just a waste of money. Probiotic supplements are not regulated the way pharmaceutical drugs are so the quality and dosing can vary from product to product or even batch to batch. Now, as for parents who are thinking of probiotics as part of a prevention strategy to give to their healthy kids the way you'd give, say, a multivitamin, Merenstein says he's skeptical.

MERENSTEIN: I don't think there's any evidence that you need to give a probiotic as a quote, unquote, "prevention."

AUBREY: But as the research continues to evolve, there will be more evidence to show how and when probiotics can help. Allison Aubrey, NPR News.

Warning: This content, as it pertains to sex, is explicit.  

Half the fun of sex may be talking about it.  But that does not include, unfortunately, reading a book on the topic from the editors of Goop - even with a foreword from "grocery shops in a bandeau top" Gwyneth Paltrow.  

The ground covered in The Sex Issue: Everything You've Always Wanted to Know about Sexuality, Seduction, and Desire (out Tuesday) is titillating enough. Sex toys, tantric sex, porn and fantasies are touched on, but most of the material itself could've been just as easily be found at Cosmopolitan. com or another similar site.  

Part of Goop's charm is it's unique recommendations and offerings, right? Like at-home coffee enema kits, a $15,000 24-karat gold dildo, and "Why Am I So Effing Tired?" vitamins. USA TODAY's own Andrea Mandell got her aura photographed and knocked back organic bone broth at Goop's inaugural health summit last June. She ultimately decided the day was "half great and half cray. "  

At the risk of being accused of having a jade egg up the wrong orifice, The Sex Issue is - for lack of a better word - dry.  

More: Gwyneth Paltrow is officially engaged to Brad Falchuk: 'We feel incredibly lucky'

More: Bobbi Brown is launching a Goop-like wellness line with collagen vanilla, probiotic pixie sticks

But there are a few gems - or essential crystals, what-have-you - nestled within the book.  

Out of nearly 300 pages, here are the tips from the editors and featured experts that kept us from being total Goop-less romantics (in order of ascending Goop-iness).

1. "Treat your love life like a growing tree, and the people you date like leaves sprouting on the branches. Keep them alive and rustling but at a safe distance until you find someone you want to take more seriously. "

2. Gauge your level of attraction to someone by asking "if you would want to spend twenty minutes orally pleasuring them. "

3. Get over an ex by tossing old intimates. "The lingerie you wore with past lovers can carry the toxic residue of those relationships, along with painful memories. "

4. Peruse The Labia Library's website. "It's pictures of many, many women's vaginas. As with penises, the variety is huge. . . Spend some time on that site, and you'll internalize the truth: that 'normal' doesn't have strict parameters. " 

5. Invest in the Elvie "to work out the pelvic floor. " Described as "an incredibly well-designed and easy to use device-plus-app that takes you through a series of exercises. . . You insert a small (smoothly shaped) pod much as you would a tampon. Using Bluetooth, you connect the pod to your phone, and then. . . you play some games. " 

6. Pick up a glass dildo for de-armoring, "basically a sexual practice where you press the dildo into pressure points inside the vagina and create deep inner relaxation. " According to sexuality coach Layla Martin, "This helps to release stored trauma and emotional baggage from the vagina and . . . it's like doing a physical vaginal cleanse for yourself. "  

7. Try orgasmic meditation, which is "essentially the yoga of sex, whereby a woman lies down and her partner strokes her clitoris for fifteen minutes, and both reap the benefits (enhanced connection, happiness, vitality and fulfillment) of tapping into a higher orgasm state. " 

More: 10 mildly pretentious commandments from ‘beauty bible’ ‘Goop Clean Beauty’

More: Gwyneth Paltrow wants to rid women of 'parasites' on their bodies

More: Gwyneth Paltrow did an 'awful' seven-week cleanse

As a track runner at McGill University, I got my big break thanks to a performance-boosting supplement.

One of my teammates was taking prerace hits of sodium bicarbonate, but he overdid it and had to withdraw from the 4x800metre relay thanks to a bout of baking-sodainduced explosive diarrhea. I was added to the relay as his replacement, ran a new personal best and earned my first trip to the national championships.

That happened more than two decades ago, but such unintended consequences are among the pitfalls discussed in a new consensus statement about sports supplements issued by the International Olympic Committee, which appears in this month's issue of the British Journal of Sports Medicine. While supplements are widely used by athletes and non-athletes alike, their benefits are often backed by flimsy or nonexistent evidence, and their downsides are ignored until it's too late. But, as the new guidelines point out, there are some rare exceptions – if you know where to look.

The report was produced by a 25-member panel of scientific and medical experts who gathered at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, last year, including Stuart Phillips of McMaster University, Lawrence Spriet and Margo Mountjoy from the University of Guelph and Alan Vernec of the World Anti-Doping Agency in Montreal.

Athletes turn to supplements for a wide variety of reasons, but the panel chose to focus on three main goals of supplementation: correcting deficiencies in specific micronutrients; supplying convenient sources of energy and macronutrients such as protein; and providing a direct enhancement of performance or training.

In the micronutrient category, vitamin D, iron and calcium are common choices, and there's reasonable evidence for their use – but only under certain specific conditions.

While many people take supplements as an “insurance policy" just in case they have a deficiency, the new guidelines suggest turning to supplements only after confirming that you really have a deficiency, and then getting further testing to check whether the supplement really reverses that deficiency.

The second category is more about convenience. For the most part, there's nothing magical about sports bars and protein powders except that they're easy to transport and digest. A recent meta-analysis by Phillips and his colleagues, for example, found that protein powders and shakes do improve gains in strength and muscle mass from resistance training. But the effect is subtle and may disappear if (like many Canadians) you're already getting more than 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight from your diet anyway.

The third category, supplements that promise a direct improvement in your performance, is the one that generates the most hype. Of the “many thousands" of such products on the market, the panel identified four with an “adequate" level of evidence supporting their use: Caffeine: Unique in its versatility, caffeine boosts long endurance tasks, short allout efforts and repeated sprints like those required in field sports, by altering your perception of effort.

Creatine: This widely used weight-room supplement provides cellular fuel for short, all-out efforts, which translates into greater gains from strength training over the course of weeks or months.

Nitrate: In the past decade, nitrate-rich beet juice has emerged as a popular endurance-booster. Studies show typical gains of 1 per cent to 3 per cent in races lasting longer than 12 minutes; the caveat is that beet juice triggers gastrointestinal symptoms in some people.

Baking soda: During all-out exercise lasting between about one and 10 minutes, your muscles and blood become increasingly acidic. Baking soda buffers (counteracts) this rising acidity, boosting race performance by about 2 per cent. As my McGill teammate discovered, it can also trigger gastrointestinal problems. There's emerging evidence that an amino acid called beta-alanine, taken daily for several months, can play a similar role in counteracting rising acidity without the GI risks.

There are other supplements that may turn out to be useful, such as probiotics to enhance immune functions, though the current evidence remains patchy.

But the overall message from the consensus statement is one of caution. Even seemingly benign supplements such as vitamins C and E, the authors points out, seem to interfere with training-induced fitness gains.

A worrying number of sports supplements turn out to contain unlabelled and sometimes dangerous ingredients, other studies have found.

In other words, as I discovered in that long-ago relay race, sometimes the most reliable performance-booster you can take is nothing at all.

Alex Hutchinson is the author of Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance.

Your body works hard to fight off infections, but there are things you can do to give it a boost

Work out to beat bugs

Most people know about the benefits of exercise for our hearts, waistlines, muscles and bones. Fewer are aware of how it supports our immune defences, especially as we age. Production of naive T cells[https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/naive-t-cell], which raise the alarm when they detect infections the immune system has not encountered before, declines as we get older. Research published by Professor Janet Lord’s group[https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/inflammation-ageing/lord-janet.aspx] at the University of Birmingham last month found that cyclists aged 55 to 79[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/mar/08/cycling-keeps-your-immune-system-young-study-finds] were generating as many of these cells as young adults and had more B regulatory cells, which help to prevent autoimmune disease. Other studies show moderate to vigorous exercise reduces the risk of upper respiratory tract infections,[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12165677] including the common cold.

Zzzz yourself better

Sleep is important to the functioning of the immune system. Research suggests that white blood cells in those aged 65 and over who sleep six hours or fewer a night may be less effective in dealing with invading pathogens than cells from those who sleep more. Sleep deprivation also makes people more susceptible to colds and flu.

Mix up your menu

Our guts contain trillions of microbes that play key roles in the immune system. For example, they promote the production of T cells, which help to trigger immune responses and prevent autoimmune diseases. Having a low-fat, high-fibre diet with plenty of vegetables promotes a broad range of gut bugs and boost levels of beneficial bacteria. “Having a varied diet is likely to be better for your bacteria, which is, in turn, likely to be better for your immune function,” says Professor Sheena Cruickshank[https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/sheena.cruickshank.html] of the University of Manchester.

Befriend friendly bacteria

Probiotics – live bacteria or yeasts added to yoghurts or taken as supplements – can reduce the risk of infectious diarrhoea linked to antibiotic use and help those with ulcerative colitis or pouchitis, a complication of surgery for ulcerative colitis. However, most of the claims made for probiotics are not supported by good-quality research evidence, despite a global market estimated to be worth about $40bn (£29bn)[https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/probiotics-market-size-to-exceed-usd-64-billion-by-2023-global-market-insights-inc-578769201.html]. Prebiotics – non-digestible food ingredients that help existing gut probiotics grow – are also available. There are studies that suggest benefits, but most are small-scale and industry-funded. “It’s a huge business, but at this stage it’s not clear which bacteria we might want to nurture to promote health-giving effects, and most people could probably get the same effects with a healthy, balanced diet,” says Cruickshank.

Moderate your drinking

Drinking to excess can leave you with more than a hangover. A 2014 study found that drinking four to five shots of vodka reduced levels of white blood cells[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141229092606.htm], which combat infections and cancer, for up to five hours after peak intoxication. Heavy drinking has also been found to undermine the ability of immune cells called macrophages to engulf bacteria.

Don’t smoke

Smokers are more prone to inflammatory diseases and infections such as pneumonia and flu than non-smokers. Research suggests this may be partly down to nicotine undermining the ability of white blood cells called neutrophils[https://bmccellbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2121-9-19] to ingest and kill harmful microbes. Smokers also have fewer friendly bacteria and more pathogens[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15947322] in the nasopharynx, the upper part of the throat behind the nose, and higher levels of bacteria that cause skin infections and oral diseases[https://tobaccoinduceddiseases.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12971-014-0026-3].

Get some sunshine

Our bodies create vitamin D when our skin is exposed to sunlight outdoors. Vitamin D helps to keep our finely tuned immune systems in balance by, for example, stimulating the development of cells that prevent the autoimmune responses[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166406/] seen in conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. It is also used by macrophages to help kill harmful bacteria, and supports our defences against colds and flu.

Plant yields a supercarb linked to intestinal health

Moss might be the next big thing in the health food industry.

Turns out, the fuzzy green plants that grow on trees may be good for your gut, according to new research published in the journal The Plant Cell.

A new complex carbohydrate that might be beneficial for human gut health was recently discovered in moss by researchers at the University of Rhode Island and Australia's ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Walls.

The carb is a polysaccharide that closely resembles another that's typically found in oats and healthy cereals.

"What we found was a new polysaccharide made up of the sugars glucose and arabinose," Rachel Burton, the study's lead author, says. "We have called it arabinoglucan and believe the way the two different sugars link together will make it structurally similar to beta glucan" - a beneficial dietary fiber.

"We are not advocating eating moss," Burton says. "We are simply saying that there is great potential for this new polysaccharide as we've seen with others."

Though the function of this new carb isn't yet known, its properties suggest that mosses can at least be used in health supplements and perhaps in some of the other ways that plants are utilized by people - such as raw materials like paper.

"This discovery leads to the question," Burton says, "How many other polysaccharides do plants contain that we don't yet know about?"

Kombucha culture, with a DIY attitude, is hitting the city hard

The culture of fermentation in Winnipeg is on the rise, thanks to the city's craft-beer boom, sourdough starters and kimchi.

You can add kombucha to the list.

In short, kombucha is fermented tea. The process involves brewing tea with sugar, then adding a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) to initiate the fermentation process. A SCOBY is a nasty-looking, multi-layered thing that floats around in the tea. Over the course of anywhere between a week to a month, the sealed mixture is left for the SCOBY to convert the sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide. The bacteria in the SCOBY effectively eats the alcohol, turning the bulk of it into natural acids while developing additional layers that can be peeled off and used in subsequent kombucha batches.

Kombucha's origins are nearly as murky as the drink itself. Most reports put kombucha's origins somewhere in Asia many centuries ago, although the drink appears to have made its way into the western world via Russia.

Kombucha has been touted as having wide-ranging health benefits — everything from curing herpes to reversing grey hair to improving libido. And while most of these purported health benefits are either straight-up myths or haven't been proven scientifically, at its most basic level, kombucha's probiotic nature seems to help with digestion/upset stomachs, and the tea used in the batch typically contains antioxidants.

Perhaps that's why kombucha was long sequestered in health-food store shelves in North America. But the increasing popularity of probiotics, and the move away from processed food and drink (including high-sugar beverages such as soda) has seen kombucha's stock rise, making it one of the fastest-growing beverage categories in North America.

A quick scan of of big-box grocery store shelves today reveals numerous commercially produced kombuchas in a wide range of flavours and from all corners of the continent.

And in Winnipeg, there are a handful of small-scale commercial kombucha producers helping carve out a corner for the drink in smaller establishments across the city.

Prism Kombucha was one of first local commercial kombucha producers to appear on retail shelves. The company was started less than a year ago by 26-year-old Daniel Pastuck, who brews his kombucha at FortWhyte Farms. “They've been amazing to work with," Pastuck says. “There's a whole bunch of people here doing interesting food-based business, and it's awesome to have a commercial kitchen that's so accommodating."

Pastuck began brewing kombucha at home in 2010; after eventually graduating from business school and with years of working at local eateries under his belt, he decided to have a go at the kombucha business. Prism is predominantly a one-man operation, with Pastuck taking care of marketing, accounts and deliveries himself, an undertaking he sees becoming more difficult heading into the summer months. “I've been able to grow the business five times in the six months I've been up and running," he notes.

“It's right on the brink right now in Winnipeg," he says of kombucha's popularity. “I feel like we're a couple years out from it becoming pretty mainstream."

Prism is available at a number of local eateries, which can then offer it as a soda alternative to non-drinkers. (It was the official non-alcoholic beverage at the Raw: Almond dinners on the river this year.) “I like to promote (Prism) as an alternative to soda or alcohol," Pastuck says. “It has half the amount of sugar as juice, doesn't get you intoxicated and it's refreshing."

Prism is also available at a handful of local coffee shops, some Food Fare locations and select Vita Health outlets via the chain's kombucha growler bar system.

While the eventual goal is to have a lineup of four flavours on the go at once, Pastuck produces just one flavour of kombucha at a time using locally sourced ingredients. He's at the end of a run of his first flavour, the spicy and rich Chagga Chai. It's a blend of chai spices, Assam organic Indian black tea and locally harvested chaga mushrooms. Pastuck sources his teas locally from Boreal Wildcraft; the chaga mushrooms, which are often used for medicinal purposes and have high levels of antioxidants, come from the Lynn Lake area.

Next up for Prism will be the Prairie Wildflower kombucha, with flavours better suited to warmer weather. The blend of elderflower, elderberries, rose, chamomile, sweetgrass as well as green and white teas should be available in May.

• • •

Along with the rise of commerically available kombucha has come a do-it-yourself movement that has seen an increasing number of people making their own kombucha, experimenting with all manners of styles and flavours.

Ryan Maione's interest in fermentation, yeasts and various cultures stems from an interest in all things kitchen-related, which led to him reading about fermentation, and specifically kombucha, online. In addition to making his own kombucha, the 20-year-old pastry chef at S Squared Patisserie has begun experimenting with making his own sauerkraut as well as batches of kimchi. He plans on taking a horticultural farming program in Victoria and then combining the two fields, working on small-scale and urban farms.

An avid traveller, Maione first tried kombucha while he was away. He first started making his own kombucha four years ago. “At first it wasn't really as available here as it is now, so I started looking up how to make it."

Maione has found there to be a learning curve and a fair bit of trial and error in perfecting his kombucha brewing process — some of which can be risky because carbon dioxide is involved. “It's really important your bottles are fermentation-grade," Maione notes.

“I bought some bottles from Ikea originally that are nice-looking, but they're not fermentation-grade, and I've had a couple explode on me. It's like a glass bomb."

Making his own kombucha has allowed Maoine to experiment with a wide range of flavours. “I started out simple, with black tea, but it's easy to get funky with the fruits. The last one I did was a vanilla rooibos tea, and I used orange to flavour it. It tasted a lot like a Creamsicle," he says.

While Maione often trades bottles of his kombucha with friends who make it, he's always open to share with those who are less familiar with the drink — a reflection of the community culture cultivated by kombucha homebrewers. “When my friends come over, I'll offer them some kombucha to drink, and then a bottle to take home. I don't think of the kombucha as mine — it's more of a sharing thing. Getting the bottle back is all I care about."

ben.macphee-sigurdson@freepress.mb.ca

(Reuters Health) - People who make an effort to improve their diet may be more likely to have less fat in their livers and a lower risk of liver disease than individuals who stick to unhealthy eating habits, a U.S. study suggests.

Researchers focused on what's known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFDL), which is usually associated with obesity and certain eating habits. While dietary changes are recommended to treat this type of liver disease, research to date hasn't clearly demonstrated whether these changes can work for prevention.

For the current study, researchers examined data from dietary questionnaires and liver fat scans for 1,521 people enrolled in the long-running Framingham Heart Study. Participants did the questionnaires and scans twice, at least three to four years apart.

During the study, people with above-average increases in adherence to a healthy Mediterranean diet rich in whole grains, fish, lean protein, veggies and olive oil were at least 26 percent less likely to develop fatty liver than individuals with average increases in adherence, the study found.

Above-average increases in sticking to another liver-friendly diet, the so-called Alternative Healthy Eating Index, were associated with at least 21 percent lower odds of developing fatty liver, researchers report in Gastroenterology.

People with a high genetic risk for fatty liver disease whose diet scores decreased during the study period accumulated more fat in their livers. But even with a high genetic risk, fat accumulation didn't increase if people kept their diets the same or improved them.

"Our findings demonstrate that increasing diet quality is associated with less liver fat accumulation and reduced risk for new-onset fatty liver, particularly in individuals with a high genetic risk for NAFLD," said senior study author Dr. Daniel Levy, director of the Framingham Heart Study and a researcher at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

Participants who had improved diet quality scores consumed more fruit, vegetables, and whole grains, which have high amounts of water and fiber.

"We speculated that these foods may decrease energy intake by affecting satiety and improve weight control and therefore reduce liver fat," Levy said by email. "It is also possible that fiber intake may affect gut bacteria and subsequently have impact on liver fat."

Both diets in the study also limit intake of red meat that can lead to liver fat, and encourage consumption of foods like nuts, which may help reduce liver fat accumulation, Levy added.

Most people have a little bit of fat in their liver. Fatty liver disease can occur when more than 5 percent of the liver by weight is made up of fat. Excessive drinking can damage the liver and cause fat to accumulate, a condition known as alcoholic fatty liver, but even when people don't drink much, they can still develop non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

The study wasn't a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how diet changes might impact the risk of developing fatty liver. Researchers also relied on questionnaires to assess participants" diets, which can be unreliable, and they lacked data on non-dietary causes of liver fat accumulation including certain medications and viral infections.

Even so, the findings add to the evidence suggesting that healthy eating habits can minimize the risk of fatty liver disease, even when people have a genetic risk for this condition, said Shira Zelber-Sagi, a researcher at the University of Haifa in Israel who wasn't involved in the study.

"Genetics is not a destiny," Zelber-Sagi said by email. "The patients have the power to improve their liver health by themselves in many cases of NAFLD."

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2r6sVG3[http://bit.ly/2r6sVG3] Gastroenterology, online March 28, 2018.

The housing minister Dominic Raab eats the same sandwich from Pret A Manger every lunchtime

Housing Minister Dominic Raab’s diary secretary recently revealed that he eats the same thing for lunch every day of the week.

She said[https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/do-desk-yes-tory-ministers-12428657]: “He has the same sandwich every day. He has the same lunch. He has the same baguette with the same smoothie with a pot of fruit everyday.

“It’s from Pret. He has the chicken Caesar and bacon baguette, superfruit pot and the vitamin volcano smoothie every day.”

Read more

Supermarket lunch meal deals contain up to 30 teaspoons of sugar

But aside from the fact that Raab must be spending a fortune by not bringing in lunch from home, many people have expressed confusion at the fact that the Tory MP eats the exact same meal every day.

Sure, it sounds rather boring, but is there actually anything wrong with eating the same lunch every day? And is Raab’s choice healthy? We asked the experts.

“His choice of lunch could definitely be worse!” specialist dietitian Nichola Ludlam-Raine[https://nicsnutrition.com/] told

The Independent

.

“I love the fact that he’s ordering a superfruit pot with his lunch and the ingredients of his smoothie look good; it’s a mixture of whole fruits with apple juice. As long as that’s his only smoothie/fruit juice for the day then he’s within the guidelines of sticking to 150ml of each a day.”

Raab’s choice of sandwich, however, scored him fewer points.

A post shared by Pret (@pretamangeruk)[https://www.instagram.com/p/Bg3MXwNA0aP/] on

Mar 28, 2018 at 2:47am PDT

“Regarding the baguette, although chicken is a lean, white meat, the bacon is classed as a red, processed meat which we shouldn’t ideally be eating on a daily basis; this is because of the extra salt it contains and the processing that it goes through. There is a little bit of salad in his baguette, but to add even more fibre the baguette could be wholemeal,” Ludlam-Raine explains.

So would it be worth Raab choosing a different sandwich from time to time?

“Variety is the spice of life and although having the same meal for lunch is easy, it’s not good for your body - we need to get a range of different nutrients and pre/probiotics across the week,” Ludlam-Raine continues.

Read more

Five nutrition lies ruining your health

“I would suggest he mixes his lunch up and perhaps only has this particular lunch two to three times a week.”

If you want to make sure your lunch ticks all the boxes, follow the following guidance from Harley Street nutritionist and author of

Re-Nourish: A Simple Way To Eat Well

, Rhiannon Lambert[http://rhitrition.com/]:

“An ideal plate consists of one portion of protein, one handful of carbohydrates, two handfuls of non-starchy vegetables and one thumb-sized portion of healthy fats,” she told

The Independent

.

“Having a well balanced and varied diet is also the key the good gut health. More and more research is demonstrating the importance of variety and fibre in our diet to help our gut bacteria thrive.

“A lot of us arecreatures of habitand sometimes get stuck in the routine of having the same foods everyday. However, I like to challenge my clients to add as much colour to their diet as possible. Making small changes such as adding a variety of fruits and vegetables to your dietmay have a big effect on your overall health.”

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Get ready for a new round of cola wars! Or shall we say tea, water and organic beverage wars?

Pepsi reported its latest results Thursday. And even though it acknowledged "challenges" in its US soda business, Pepsi posted solid sales growth in North America from Lipton and Pure Leaf, LifeWTR and Kevita kombucha and probiotic cleansing drinks.

The company also posted strong gains in beverage sales from China, India, Brazil and other international markets and an increase in revenue from its Frito-Lay snack business, which owns Doritos, as well as its Quaker brand of oatmeal and cereal.

All that added up to a stellar quarter for Pepsi, which reported sales and profits that topped Wall Street's forecasts. The stock rose nearly 1% on the news.

Pepsi's results come just two days after its top rival Coca-Cola also reported better-than-expected sales and profit, led by the fist increase in volume from the Diet Coke brand in North America in more than seven years.

Coke recently rolled out four new Diet Coke flavors that it clearly was targeting to Millennials -- things like Ginger Lime and Feisty Cherry.

So how will Pepsi respond to Coke's newfound Diet Coke success? Chief financial officer Hugh Johnston said in an interview with CNNMoney that Pepsi is also working on "some things with flavors" for the core Pepsi brands, which he described as a "work in progress."

But Johnston said its "innovation strategy" -- working to develop more non-soda drinks -- is paying off too. He pointed to the launch of the company's new bubly brand of sparkling water, for example.

The sparkling water category is red hot thanks to the success of the LaCroix brand that's owned by National Beverage. Coke is trying to gain a foothold in this market too. It recently bought the US rights to Mexico's Topo Chico band.

Pepsi also recently unveiled Tropicana Coco Blends, pineapple and peach passion fruit drinks that also have coconut water. There's also a new line of organic Tropicana juices for kids that have no added sweeteners or artificial flavors.

But Johnston added that other core Pepsi beverages are getting a new push as well. He said the company has particularly high hopes for its new Gatorade Zero, a version of the sports hydration drink that has no carbohydrates.

"Gatorade Zero is going to be a big winner," Johnston said.

Pepsi also just rolled out Mtn Dew Ice, a clear lemon-lime flavor. Pepsi promoted it in a Super Bowl ad with Morgan Freeman and Missy Elliott that paired with a new ad for Doritos Blaze starring Peter Dinklage of "Game of Thrones" and Busta Rhymes.

Johnston said Pepsi increased its ad budget in the first quarter, and he noted that Coke did as well. That trend should continue. Pepsi is looking to spend more on marketing for both its soda brands as well as non-carbonated beverages like tea.

And Pepsi is doing so more online as well. Johnston said 30% of the company's ad spending is now on digital platforms. That percentage has gone up steadily over the past few years and should keep doing so.

So the Coke vs. Pepsi war is definitely back on. But it's now playing out on Google, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram as well as TV.

This simple test that’s easy to do at home is a better measure of your health than BMI

As a nation we are gaining weight rapidly, risking our lives and passing on bad habits to our children and future generations.

Fast food, busy lifestyles and genetics are largely to blame and a new BBC documentary looks at ways to battle the bulge and improve rates of obesity[https://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/obesity].

Using the latest scientific research, it claims to show how simple changes can help keep us trim by eating at the right times, keeping our gut bacteria in check and even how some researchers are looking at a simple injection that could solve the serious problem of obesity.

The simple string test is also shown and is a good place to start to check if you are overweight and taking years off your life.

Jamie Oliver's letter to Theresa May calling for total junk food deals ban – and more[https://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/jamie-olivers-letter-theresa-calling-12424606]

Quite simply, get yourself a piece of string that’s long enough to go from your heel to the top of your head.

Then fold that length of string in half. See if you can fit it around your middle…

If you can, that’s great, as waist size should be less than half your height, if you can’t it’s time to take a look at your diet and how much exercise you do.

We now know that visceral fat – that around your middle – wraps around the body’s vital organs, those being the heart, liver and pancreas which in turn increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes and of having dangerous levels of blood pressure.

How to win the fat war: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall fights the nation's bulge in new three-part series[https://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/how-win-fat-war-hugh-12382368]

According to the BBC documentary, 25% of people with a normal BMI score failed the string test, which means that people with a healthy BMI score can still carry too much weight around their vitalk organs and risk their health.

Doctor Margaret Ashwell features in the show and explained: “BMI doesn’t measure fat distribution. The best way of explaining it is think of a great hunky rugby player, they might have the same BMI as a chubby darts player.

“The rugby player might have more muscle than fat, where as a dart player is going to have more fat than muscle.”

Ashwell also advised that it’s easy to rectify and is back to the simple message of eat less and exercise more.

How to boost your health

Losing just five per cent of body fat will cut visceral fat and helpfully, it’s the first area that shifts.

The show also looks at whether it’s our eating habits or genetics that are to blame for so many people in the UK being obese.

Professor Sadaf Farooqi from the University of Cambridge believes it is down to genetics.

“It is a lottery,” he says. “We inherit these genes. They either contribute to a higher tendency to gain weight or they may protect you from gaining weight.

Obesity is now a 'disease of the poor' and experts warn it's because healthy foods is too expensive[http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/obesity-now-disease-poor-experts-11320461]

“It’s not really about people’s fault, it’s about understanding there is a lottery, we can moderate some things in our environment, but actually understaning there is a very biological side to this is very important.”

The number of obese British five to 19-year-olds went up from 360,000 in 1975 to 1.13 million last year, according to a report for the World Health Organisation. [http://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/world-health-organisation]

Scientists said the overall child obesity rate of about 10% was flatlining but warned it was soaring for the poor and falling for the middle and upper classes.

The experts are now urging the ­Government to develop strategies to make healthier food more affordable.

The Truth About Obesity is on Thursday April 26 on BBC1 at 8pm.

A couple of months back I was restlessly searching through Netflix for something to watch. Pretty standard for a Sunday evening. About three-quarters of my TV viewing is food related, usually something a bit vanilla – Rick Stein or Nigel Slater on some marvelous gastronomic journey[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2018/02/02/nigel-slaters-middle-east-lebanon-indulgent-enlightening-trip/] . Or Masterchef[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2018/04/13/masterchef-final-review-whose-culinary-skills-saw-walk-away/] .

Then I found Rotten[https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80146284], a series highlighting major issues within the food industry. The second episode, in particular, grabbed my interest. The Peanut Problem maps the rise of food allergies[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/news/14-common-food-allergens/] and offers insight on some novel methods used to combat them, including oral immunotherapy, a sort of vaccination for allergies that's still in its infancy but showing very promising results.

Halfway through, I turned to my mum: "Did anyone at your school suffer from food allergies?" As a millennial, allergies were fairly common at my school. We knew who couldn't eat what, saw classmates throw up their lunch on more than one occasion, and were generally well acclimatised to it all.

My mother's answer was unequivocal: it wasn't a thing. She grew up in a developing country in the 1960s. All her childhood activities were outdoors and food hygiene standards weren't stringently enforced. In contrast, today in the UK, where cleanliness is next to Godliness, around two million people suffer from allergies – a figure not including food intolerances. Since 1990, hospital admissions for children have risen by 700pc[https://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/facts-stats.pdf] .

Our immune system was made to differentiate between thousands of chemicals. When it doesn't have enough of the study material, at some point your under-educated immune system can overreact to different thingsDmitry AlexeevThere are several theories explaining the rise of allergies. One of the most prominent surrounds a big 2018 trend: gut health. According to the hygiene theory, as children playing outside became a thing of the past, and food – and lives – grew over-sanitised, our gut diversity decreased[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/whats-your-gut-type-and-why-you-should-care/], weakening out immune system. A high consumption of processed food doesn't help, as nutrients and good bacteria are stripped away.

"Our immune system was made to differentiate between thousands of chemicals," says Dmitry Alexeev, head of the bioinformatics laboratory at the Research Institute of Physical Chemical Medicine, Moscow. As children play around in dirt, they are exposed to bacteria and parasites which can help build a strong immune system. "When it doesn't have enough of the study material, at some point your under-educated immune system can overreact to different things" - most commonly, food.

Nutritionist Katy Mortimer explains that the "short answer [for rising allergies] is we are not 100pc certain, but the answer is likely to be complex, environmental and multi-factoral. Ultimately it will come down to how our genes are interacting with our modern environment," which includes factors such as better hygiene, less exposure to microbes, changes in diet and reduced rates of breastfeeding.

Professor Gideon Lack, Head of Department of Paediatric Allergy at King's College London, agrees there is correlative evidence between decreasing gut diversity and the rise in allergies, although he sounds a word of caution: "While there is data to support an altered gut microbiome in patients with allergic disease, the data is retrospective, which means it's derived after the group of children have already developed their allergies. It's difficult to sort out what is cause and what is effect," he explains. "But there is a lot of biological plausibility."

Part of the plausibility stems from the comparative rareness of allergies in developing countries. According to Prof Lack, where children have lower sanitation levels – "obviously that comes with a cost" – one benefit is that microbial exposure may protect them from food allergies. "At the same time there's data on children who grow up in farms[http://time.com/4508613/farm-allergy-risk/] who are potentially protected."

Other possible explanations include Vitamin D deficiencies ( in the West, we're spending less time outdoors than ever[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/10747841/Children-spend-less-than-30-minutes-playing-outside-a-week.html] ); and the overuse of antibiotics, which Alexeev says "directly kills the microbes" that help us break down foods.

Prof Lack, on the other hand, argues the evidence for antibiotics leading to allergies is "not very strong".

So, aside from rolling around in mud, what can be done?

About halfway through The Peanut Problem, the documentary turns its attention to Israel, a country where peanut allergies are rare. A 2008 study[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19000582], in which Prof Lack was involved, compared Jewish and Israeli children to non-Jewish British children, finding the latter 10 times more likely to have peanut allergies. A key reason appears to be the prevalence of Bamba, a peanut-based Israeli snack, in the diet, going against traditional advice of approaching foods with allergens with caution for younger children. According to the study, high-risk children fed peanuts from a young age were less likely to develop an allergy.

Does that mean we should look again at the received wisdom that parents should avoid giving their young children nuts, at least for the first couple of years of life?

In truth, this is slightly antiquated; health advice has moved on, and the NHS now says it's fine to give ground-up nuts to babies from the age of six months, so long as they don't have a family history of allergies. If the family history is there, pediatricians tend to recommend waiting until the child is two or three years old.

FAQ | Coeliac disease[https://cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk/1e42536f-3760-4b7d-a357-cdb9e76c2b68.html]However, oral immunotherapy takes this a step further, by suggesting that low-level exposure to allergens can 'vaccinate' allergy sufferers. By introducing small doses of an allergen orally, at a level below one that causes symptoms, and building up gradually, the immune system learns to tolerate the harmful proteins.

Trials into oral immunotherapy date back as far as the turn of the 20th century (though they were put off for decades after a child suffered severe allergic reactions, according to Prof Lack) and Katy Mortimer points out that it's already a fairly common treatment for allergens like grass pollen, dust mites or cat dander. Allergy shots and tablets[https://acaai.org/allergies/treatment/allergy-shots-immunotherapy], for example, can treat dust allergies or insect stings.

Research in food allergens has been slower to take off, as they lead to more serious reactions. But trials are taking place, with the US at the forefront. The Peanut Problem shows one America child with her clinically-approved 10,000mg 'morning dose' of plain peanuts in a sealed plastic bag – she was eventually cleared to eat foods that may have been cross-contaminated. "I've had a lot of things since, like Chinese, Indian. I like Indian," she beams. Another speaks of an original wheat tolerance level of 50mg rising to 8,000mg. "I can eat things a kid wants, that I grew up not being able to eat," he comments.

Importantly, oral immunotherapy is mainly intended to protect against accidental exposure, rather than, say, allow a peanut allergy sufferer to freely eat peanuts. "What people need to realise is that so far the evidence is that it does not provide an all-time cure," says Prof Lack. "If the child takes the food for two or three years, stops for six weeks, and then is re-exposed, they'll no longer be protected."

It may not work equally for all allergens, either, as there is a lot of variation between allergens and reactions to them. Mortimer points to encouraging examples of milk allergy prevention. The iMAP milk ladder[https://www.allergyuk.org/assets/000/001/297/iMAP_Final_Ladder-May_2017_original.pdf?1502804928], for example, works on the basis of slowly introducing milk products – starting with baked milk goods – until the allergy has been beaten.

Still in its infancy, the experts stress it's essential not to try these techniques at home. "It's important that parents whose children are at high risk of developing peanut allergies do not experiment with these approaches outside of a clinical setting and/or without the guidance of a GP or paediatric allergist," says Mortimer.

Nevertheless, the early signs are positive. There are two products now with FDA approval in the United States. One is an oral capsule, the other a skin patch[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/11/14/patch-peanut-allergies-gives-hope-cure/] . "Hopefully, it is going to be translated into clinical application in the next year or two," Prof Lack concludes.

Researchers have identified a low-cost medication that they say could protect millions of young children in poor nations from dying of pneumonia, malaria and other preventable diseases.

But they and other experts acknowledge they will have to decide carefully how best to deploy the new tool—an antibiotic widely prescribed in the U.S. for bacterial infections—because heavy use could fuel antibiotic resistance. Taking antibiotics at a young age may also increase the risk of other health problems later on, some experts say.

In a large study published Wednesday[http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1715474] in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers gave prophylactic doses of azithromycin, an antibiotic also known by the brand name Zithromax, to children between the ages of 1 month and 5 years in three sub-Saharan African countries. The children received one dose every six months for two years.

A control group received a placebo. More than 190,000 children in total were involved in the study, which was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

At the end of the test period, the death rate of the children who got the drug was 13.5% lower than those who didn't get it, the researchers found. The effect was greatest in the youngest children: mortality was 24.9% lower in one-to five-month-olds who got the antibiotic than in those who didn't.

Almost all of the reductions were in Niger, the country in the study with the highest mortality rate. The other two countries that participated were Tanzania and Malawi.

The magnitude of the effect surprised researchers, who said it potentially signals a powerful new tool to save children in places with high death rates. Childhood mortality has dropped 56% world-wide since 1990, thanks largely to vaccines. But 5.6 million children under 5 years old died in 2016, according to the United Nations, which aims to end preventable deaths in children under 5 by 2030. The leading causes of death include pneumonia, malaria, and preterm birth complications.

"There are still some areas where more than 10% of kids don't make it to their fifth birthday," said Thomas Lietman, senior author of the study, professor of ophthalmology and director of the Francis I. Proctor Foundation at the University of California San Francisco. "People are thinking, what can we do?"

The benefits of azithromycin will have to be weighed against the risk that widespread use could promote antibiotic resistance, which can render bacteria-killing drugs ineffective, Dr. Lietman said.

Azithromycin has been administered prophylactically for two decades to communities in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia en masse to prevent trachoma, a bacterial infection that causes blindness.

Some bacteria have developed resistance to azithromycin during these programs, but "when we stop our trachoma program, that resistance goes away after a few years," Dr. Lietman said. He and his colleagues are examining data from the NEJM study for signs of resistance.

The idea for the childhood-mortality study arose when researchers and public-health officials noticed that fewer children were dying in communities receiving azithromycin in trachoma programs.

The NEJM study didn't probe exactly how the drug prevented deaths. But azithromycin is known to work against pneumonia and other major childhood killers. Azithromycin has also reduced infections in pregnant women and their babies in recent studies.

Careful use of the antibiotic should not lead to widespread resistance, said Charles Knirsch, vice president of world-wide research and development and infectious-diseases researcher at Pfizer Inc., which manufactures Zithromax and has donated more than 700 million doses for trachoma programs.

Communities where it has been given for trachoma, and for the childhood mortality study, have low exposure to antibiotics and a lower risk of developing resistance, he said.

Experts who weren't involved in the study called its findings important.

"There are not many things we can do to have that much impact on child survival," said Karen Kotloff, professor and head of the infectious disease and tropical pediatrics division at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

The results are "astonishingly good," said Martin Blaser, professor and director of the Human Microbiome Program at New York University Langone Medical Center.

But both said the prospect of such widespread use of an antibiotic must be carefully considered given the risk of resistance. "Azithromycin is a very important part of our armamentarium to fight certain infections," Dr. Kotloff said. For example, it is the only readily available oral drug to treat a highly drug-resistant strain of typhoid behind a major outbreak in Pakistan, she said.

Giving antibiotics to young children could have other effects on their health down the road, Dr. Blaser said. "There is a growing body of evidence that taking antibiotics early in life increases risks for communicable and noncommunicable diseases," he said.

These and other questions will be studied further, said Rasa Izadnegahdar, deputy director of global health for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Researchers are studying whether continuing treatment with azithromycin will prevent more deaths, Dr. Izadnegahdar said. Other studies are probing how azithromycin prevents death—possibly through altering a child's microbiome, the collection of bacteria and other microbes that inhabit the human body—and whether the antibiotic can be given in the first month of life, he said.

Write to Betsy McKay at betsy.mckay@wsj.com[mailto:betsy.mckay@wsj.com]

Thinking about Earth Day, I did a Google search for “global warming solutions.” Up popped a slew of “what you can do” lists from leading scientific and environmental organizations. When I dug in, however, I found the suggestions rather general — “reduce emissions,” “stop deforestation,” “consume less,” “be efficient,” “eat smart.” The lists were also mainly about what we ought to do, rather than about what people are doing, where we are seeing progress and how we might build on those opportunities. I wondered: How do we translate these imperatives into action for people in different fields and positions?

One important source of guidance is Project Drawdown[http://www.drawdown.org/], a global coalition of researchers, scientists, economists and others, that, in recent years, has built a model to evaluate and rank the top active solutions[http://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank] to global warming, based on their actual impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

I spoke with Project Drawdown’s executive director, the environmentalist and author Paul Hawken[http://www.paulhawken.com], about this initiative and where he sees it heading.

David Bornstein: When did you get the idea for Project Drawdown?

Paul Hawken: Back in 2001, the Carbon Mitigation Initiative[http://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges/] came out of Princeton with the famous eight global wedges ` 15 solutions that if adopted would stabilize emissions by 2050. I didn’t share the same enthusiasm as other environmentalists because 11 of the 15 solutions[http://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges/intro.php] could only be implemented by the boards of directors of very conservative, large corporations, and every solution was financially underwater.

In 2013, Bill McKibben wrote his piece in Rolling Stone “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math[https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719],” where he showed that if we burned all the coal, gas and oil that was in reserve on fossil fuel companies’ balance sheets, we’d be Venus. At that time, activist friends came to me and said: “It’s game over. There’s nothing that can be done.”

D.B.: Clearly you didn’t think it was game over.

P.H.: I did not. I asked colleagues: “Do we actually know what we can do with respect to addressing global warming? Can we make a list of things that we are already doing and measure their greenhouse gas impact, along with the cost or savings if any?”

I gathered a small group of friends to see if we could map, measure and model the 100 most substantive solutions to reverse global warming. I wanted to name the goal: “Drawdown” — the first time on a year-to-year basis that greenhouse gases peak and go down. It is the only goal that makes sense for humanity and civilization. And larger goals create a greater sense of possibility.

D.B.: How did you figure out the solutions and rankings?

P.H.: We put the word out to universities around the world, seeking research fellows who would do a master’s thesis on one of the solutions for the princely sum of $1,000. We were overwhelmed with applications from Rhodes scholars, Fulbright scholars and White House fellows. We chose nearly 70 fellows. We used Zoom night and day to collaborate with colleagues from 22 countries. We added 120 advisers and 40 outside expert scientific reviewers of the model itself.

D.B.: How did you decide which solutions to include?

P.H.: We modeled solutions that are in place, practiced, understood and about which there is peer-reviewed science with respect to impact and robust economic data with respect to cost. To source economic data, we used highly respected international institutions, including the International Energy Agency, World Bank, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change[http://www.ipcc.ch/]] and Bloomberg Energy. We erred on the side of conservatism on all data.

D.B.: How did the process help you to think differently about global warming?

P.H.: We constantly hear that global warming is an energy problem, that the solutions are solar, wind and electric vehicles. For the individual, that message sounds like I hope “they” do it. There’s a belief that there’re only a few things individuals can do beyond recycling, riding a bike and eating less meat. In fact, there’s an extraordinary diversity of solutions to global warming that are at hand, being implemented and scaling. I don’t think people, politicians and businesspeople know that. Clean energy is the crucial solution to be sure, but there’s much more we can do.

D.B.: Like what?

P.H.: Two of the top four solutions individuals can practice every day. No. 3 is reduced food waste[http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/reduced-food-waste], which particularly applies to America, where we waste 133 billion pounds [https://www.usda.gov/oce/foodwaste/faqs.htm]of food a year — close to a third of the food supply. That is a conservative estimate. In our model we didn’t include the methane emissions caused by landfilling our food because we couldn’t get the data — and methane is 28 to 36 times more powerful in global warming potential than carbon dioxide.

The No. 4 solution is a plant-rich diet[https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&source=mailto&to=http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/plant-rich-diet]. This means reducing overconsumption of protein to a healthy level — about 50 to 55 grams a day instead of 90 to 100 or more, and shifting a proportion of that reduced intake to plant proteins. It doesn’t mean being a vegan or vegetarian; it means more plants. You choose which diet you want. Levels of protein that are medically healthier for you are healthier for the planet and atmosphere, too.

D.B.: Can you talk about the No. 1 solution? I was surprised to see that it was “‘refrigerant management[http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/materials/refrigerant-management].”

P.H.: We were, too. The hydrochlorofluorocarbon gases (HFCs) used in refrigerants that replaced chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were destroying the ozone layer, are anywhere from 146 to 12,500 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in their global warming potential. Poorly maintained air-conditioners and refrigerators leak HFCs. When air-conditioners and refrigerators are disposed of or recycled, the refrigerants can escape into the air. We do a pretty good job preventing this in the United States, and the European Union does even better, but in Asia and Africa, HFCs are allowed to escape and have a huge impact.

D.B.: What else caught you by surprise?

P.H.: Over all, we were surprised that the largest sector was food. Agriculture, food waste and diet, food production and distribution of food, holistic grazing. We didn’t see that coming. It’s larger than the electrical generation sector.

And the overall ranking of the solutions shocked us. If you had asked every person at COP21[http://www.cop21paris.org/] in Paris (us included) to name the top 10 solutions in any order, I don’t believe anyone would have gotten it even close. That is still true. After 50 years of global warming being in the public sphere, we didn’t know the top solutions to reversing it. And there’s a reason: We never measured and modeled the top solutions. Instead, sincere, well-meaning people profess their beliefs. You have a prominent scientist asserting that if we don’t go all in with nuclear power, we’re toast. Vastly untrue. You have journalists assuring us that if we go 100 percent solar, we’ll stabilize emissions. That’s a scientific howler, too. People who are earnestly guiding us to climatic stability have not done the math. That’s all we do at Project Drawdown: math.

What Drawdown reveals is not “our” plan. It seems that the collective wisdom of humanity has a plan. Drawdown is a reflection of what the world knows and what it is actually doing. None of the millions of data points modeled was our data.

D.B.: I suspect that few people will have heard of solution No. 9: silvopasture[http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/silvopasture]. What’s that?

P.H.: The meaning is in the words “silvo” and “pasture” — tree and pasture. It is the combination of woodland trees and forage for domesticated animals. It’s been practiced for 3,000 years. It’s accelerating in growth and understanding today. The dynamic relationship between pasture, grassland and trees creates greater carbon sequestration, more water retention, less if any erosion, and more biodiversity. You have more birds, which is good for controlling insects. You have more microbiota creating healthier soil. And it produces more income for the farmer. It’s being advanced by agroforestry associations around the world.

D.B.: When people ask, “What should I do?” what do you say?

P.H.: A primary goal of Drawdown is to help people who feel overwhelmed by gloom-and-doom messages see that reversing global warming is bursting with possibility: walkable cities, afforestation, bamboo, high-rises built of wood, marine permaculture, multistrata agroforestry, clean cookstoves, plant-rich diet, assisting women smallholders, regenerative agriculture, supporting girls’ ongoing education, smart glass, in-stream hydro, on and on.

D.B.: Is the Drawdown collaboration growing?

P.H.: Yes, coalitions are spontaneously arising all over the world. We are in direct relationships with several country and state governments on the policy level. There are Drawdown groups forming in NGOs and faith-based communities; impact investors are employing it; and teachers from fourth grade to graduate school are developing curriculum. Fifteen universities in the world are going to regionalize the model for their province, state and country. There are over 100 companies who are committing to Drawdown as their goal. There’s going to be an international Drawdown conference in 2019 organized by Penn State, the university that has contributed the most climate scientists to the IPCC. And Drawdown is going into 11 languages this year.

D.B.: Why do you think you’ve gotten such a strong response?

P.H.: I think people feel excluded by how the climate establishment has been communicating its message. The science is extraordinary, but science communication has been unintentionally inept. It’s been remote, fear-based and conceptual. Ninety-eight percent of all climate communication is about the probability of what’s going to go wrong and when. Those probabilities are based on impeccable science, for which we have profound respect, but constant repetition of a problem does not solve the problem. It shuts people down. With Drawdown, we don’t blame, shame or demonize. We don’t use fear as a motivating theme. We explore possibility because virtually all human beings move toward the possibility of a better life.

David Bornstein is the author of “How to Change the World,” which has been published in 20 languages, and “The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank,” and is a co-author of “Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know.”

Though the buzz may have settled to a hum, Prince Edward County east of Toronto continues to grow quietly, boasting all the accoutrements for the perfect weekend getaway — rolling rows of green vineyards, menus elevated by local produce, a growing craft beer and cider scene, and undulating white sand dunes that greet the crashing waves of Lake Ontario.

The county made its name on its west side, with the star power of Wellington’s Drake Devonshire Inn and Norman Hardie Winery and Vineyard, but the action is lately moving east, as a number of new restaurants, wineries and breweries are putting down roots.

Here are 10 of Prince Edward County’s hidden gems and up-and-comers to round out that next weekend itinerary.

Here are 10 of Prince Edward County’s hidden gems and up-and-comers to round out that next weekend itinerary.

Lighthall Vineyards — 308 Lighthall Rd., Milford

Despite being one of Prince Edward County’s younger and more low-key wineries, family-owned Lighthall Vineyards has reached some significant milestones: It’s one of Canada’s first producers of both wine and cheese, and it’s the first in Ontario to make both products under the same roof. Its excellent Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and sparkling wine pair perfectly with its handmade sheep-milk cheeses, including a Brie, a washed rind, a blue, a Manchego and a feta.

lighthallvineyards.com/

lighthallvineyards.com/

Fifth Town Artisan Cheese

lighthallvineyards.com/

Fifth Town Artisan Cheese —

lighthallvineyards.com/

Fifth Town Artisan Cheese — 4309 County Rd. 8, Picton

Speaking of cheese, Fifth Town Artisan Cheese is an idyllic spot for an appetizing break from wine tasting. Located on the final stretch of Prince Edward County’s easternmost peninsula, Canada’s only LEED-certified dairy (complete with subterranean cheese-aging caves) offers nibbles of fresh and aged cow, goat and buffalo cheese made onsite using locally sourced milk. If the cheese samples only whet the appetite, visitors can order full cheese and charcuterie boards to enjoy in the outdoor lounge or shaded pavilion.

fifthtown.ca

fifthtown.ca

Public House at Jackson’s Falls — 1768 County Rd. 17, Milford

Anyone looking to change up their dining experiences in the county must absolutely book a table at the Public School House. A 10-minute drive south of Picton, this rustically decorated, one-room schoolhouse from the 1870s produces seasonal, locally sourced, wild-foraged and First Nations-inspired food. Nine gorgeous guest rooms are available in the attached Jackson Falls Country Inn for any diner who can’t trek any further on a satiated stomach, and the bar serves up exclusively Prince Edward County wines. Local brews are to be added to the taps this year.

jacksonsfalls.com/the-restaurant

jacksonsfalls.com/the-restaurant

Midtown Brewing — 266 Main St., Wellington

While it’s fair to credit Prince Edward County’s rise in popularity to its young and trendy wine scene, other beverages are now flexing their thirst-quenching muscles. Alongside a handful of new local brewpubs, Midtown Brewing in Wellington started serving up an extensive list of craft beer in 2017, including an extra special bitter, a rye pale ale, a Vermont-style IPA and a kolsch, as well as ciders, radlers, sangria and numerous other cocktails. To soak up all that booze, the brewery also offers food, from olives marinated in rosemary and orange peels to a fried chicken sandwich with buttermilk ranch sauce.

midtownbrewingcompany.com/

midtownbrewingcompany.com/

County Cider Co.

midtownbrewingcompany.com/

County Cider Co. —

midtownbrewingcompany.com/

County Cider Co. — 657 Bongards X Rd., Picton

Offering some of Prince Edward County’s most sublime views of Lake Ontario, County Cider Co. is the creation of Grant Howes, the grandfather of Ontario cider. Though hard ciders may be a more recent addition to most city bar taps, this award-winning spot has been specializing in the drink since 1995, producing 350,000 litres every year from more than 16 hectares of apple trees. Pull up a seat on the patio by the 1830s renovated barn and enjoy a tasting flight of ciders balanced out by lamb sliders, wood-fired pizzas or the Grant burger, a tribute to the company’s founder who passed away last year.

countycider.com/

countycider.com/

Kinsip House of Fine Spirits

countycider.com/

Kinsip House of Fine Spirits — 66 Gilead Rd., Bloomfield

If wine, beer and cider aren’t your tipple, swing by Kinsip House of Fine Spirits to experience the county’s very own farm-based, grain-to-glass distillery. Formerly 66 Gilead Distillery, Kinsip is the county’s only purveyor of whisky, vodka, gin and rum, and it ferments, distills and ages each bottle onsite. The picturesque grounds, complete with a brood of free-roaming chickens, is a great venue to start any tasting tour of the county.

kinsip.ca/

kinsip.ca/

Sand and Pearl Raw Bar

kinsip.ca/

Sand and Pearl Raw Bar — 1705 County Rd. 12, Picton

Nicole and Nathan Hynes, owners of Toronto’s Auld Spot Pub, opened this raw bar and fish fry in the summer of 2017. A perfect stop on the way back from an afternoon at Sandbanks Provincial Park, this West Lake outpost serves up fresh shucked oysters, pickerel and chips, a hot-buttered lobster roll and a smoked trout niçoise. Though it’s also the summer home for the Hynes’s other baby, Sweetgrass Brewing Co., Sand and Pearl also offers a selection of local brews, wine and a signature Bloody Caesar.

facebook.com/sandandpearl/

facebook.com/sandandpearl/

Seedlings — 433 Main St., Bloomfield

Since The Hubb, one of Prince Edward County’s original fine-dining mainstays, closed its doors this past winter, a new farm-to-table bistro has blossomed in its place. Seedlings, located inside Angeline’s Inn in Bloomfield, opened in early April after a whirlwind renovation. The menu, overseen by Chef Michael Portugal, will change up biweekly, celebrating the region’s local produce and farmers.

seedlings-pec.ca/

seedlings-pec.ca/

The June Motel — 12351 Loyalist Parkway, Picton

Already a popular base for Prince Edward County weekend regulars, the June Motel opened its delightfully pink doors to the public in 2017. This bohemian sanctuary along the county’s Loyalist Parkway is a throwback to mid-century motor lodges, with updated modern stylings by Toronto expats April Brown and Sarah Sklash. It also stocks its guest rooms with wine, offers onsite yoga classes, and provides grab-and-go breakfasts.

thejunemotel.com/

thejunemotel.com/

Ontario Fermentation Festival — Crystal Palace, Picton

Organized by self-proclaimed “bacteria farmers” Jenna Empey and Alex Currie, Prince Edward County’s first festival celebrating all things fermented returns for its sophomore year at Picton’s Crystal Palace on Aug. 4. While perusing a roomful of food, beverage and craft vendors, visitors can learn about, taste, and buy a number of probiotic products, including kimchi, nut cheeses, pickles, sauerkraut, vinegars, sour dough bread, kombucha, chocolate, coffee and tea.

ontariofermentationfest.com/

Follow this link to view this story on globeandmail.com: Ten new things to see, do, eat and drink in Prince Edward County

The Globe and Mail

For years, doctors have been told to look at the patient - not the computer - when providing medical care. What we haven't been told is what to do when there's only a computer.

Telemedicine is perhaps the most rapidly evolving area in health care. About 15 million Americans receive some form of remote medical care every year. Investment in on-demand health-care services is estimated at $1 billion annually, according to Accenture Consulting. Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest integrated delivery system, provides more visits virtually than it does in person.

All of which raises an important but overlooked question: Do doctors know how to use telemedicine?

As is often the case with technological change, our capacity to generate innovation has exceeded our capacity to understand its implications. With telemedicine, we've done what we generally do: Introduce a new treatment, technology or care model, and assume doctors will figure out how to use it.

But as telemedicine moves from a technology used to manage minor ailments - coughs, rashes, sore throats - to one that affects nearly every field of medicine, it's important to consider whether its increasingly complex application is being matched with increasingly sophisticated training.

Misdiagnosis, for example, remains a fundamental problem in medicine, and it's not clear whether telemedicine will ameliorate or exacerbate it. Much of medical diagnosis remains clinical gestalt: an integrated assessment based on labs, history and exam. But how should this evaluation vary by the medium in which a patient is cared for? Should doctors feel comfortable making some diagnoses remotely, but not others? Should they adjust their threshold for ordering more tests, or dismissing minor complaints, when caring for patients on a screen instead of in an office?

Building rapport with patients remotely is also more difficult than in person. The subtle cues that bond doctor and patient are largely absent during a virtual visit, and some argue we should teach not just bedside manner but also "webside manner."

Clinical rapport is no small thing. It can help patients lose weight, control blood pressure and manage pain. It has sometimes been found to have as large an effect on disease prevention as commonly used medications. And it's a central driver of patient satisfaction.

"Today, telemedicine usually means a video chat," said Eric Topol, digital health expert and executive vice president of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. "But soon, telemedicine will be a data-exchange platform, in which patients are generating and transmitting data - vital signs, genetic scores, microbiome information - in real time to doctors. Are we preparing physicians for that kind of future?"

The case of "telestroke" services is illustrative. By some estimates, patients going to rural hospitals with stroke symptoms are only 10 percent as likely as certain patients in urban areas to get the clot-busting drug tPA. (A tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, must be given within hours of symptom onset.) This has prompted growth of telestroke programs around the country.

The decision to administer tPA is not easy. A neurologist must review images remotely, evaluate subtle changes in patients, consult with on-the-ground physicians and nurses, and manage delicate conversations with patients and families about complex trade-offs. (A tPA treatment can rapidly dissolve clots, but it can also cause catastrophic brain bleeding.)

But there are few formal ways to evaluate neurology trainees or to help them manage telestroke consultations. Those who do receive formal training report marked increases in their comfort with telestroke care.

"It's different caring for patients on screen, especially when it comes to stroke," said Amanda Jagolino-Cole, an assistant professor at McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and a member of the teleneurology team. "How do you build trust? How do you get clinicians in the room to help with exam maneuvers? It all needs to be taught and practiced. These are life-changing events for patients."

Rahul Sharma, emergency physician in chief at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center, thinks we need not just more training but a new medical specialty entirely: the "medical virtualist." Medical virtualists would be doctors who spend most or all of their time caring for patients remotely and who receive dedicated training and certification. He argues that specialties such as intensive care, interventional radiology and surgical subspecialties were born from advances in medical knowledge and technology, and the same should now hold true for telemedicine.

Sharma helped launch one of the country's first telemedicine programs based in an emergency department. When patients with minor complaints enter the emergency department, they're given a standard in-person triage evaluation, but then they are offered the option to be seen virtually. Those who accept the offer enter a room with a computer monitor through which they videoconference with a physician who can order X-rays and prescriptions, and, if necessary, ask an in-person clinician to assist with minor procedures such as removing stitches. Wait times for those with non-urgent conditions have dropped from more than two hours to less than 40 minutes, and fewer than 2 percent of patients have had to return to the hospital unexpectedly.

"Patients love it," Sharma said. "And not just millennials. Twenty percent of our telemedicine visits are for patients over 65. We've even treated people over 100. If you can get them to buy in, you can get anyone to buy in."

To train doctors to provide virtual care, the program enlisted consultants who specialize in presentation and public speaking and held workshops on best practices. It also taught them methods for examining patients remotely. Physicians can, for example, ask patients with sore throats to take a photo with their smartphone, or ask family members to help with basic physical exam maneuvers.

Medical students at Weill Cornell can also now take a two-week telemedicine and digital health elective in which they learn to interview patients virtually, participate in telestroke and telepsychiatry visits, and understand the legal and regulatory issues around telemedicine.

We often assume that if we get the finances and regulation right, telemedicine will be incorporated into clinical practice and create positive health outcomes for patients. But its integration and effectiveness may depend in part on whether doctors feel comfortable using it: Providing medical care virtually is fundamentally different from providing it in person - in ways we haven't examined carefully or sought to address.

Going forward, more-effective telemedicine may require more-effective telemedicine training.

health-science@washpost.com

Khullar is a physician and researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine and director of policy dissemination at the Physicians Foundation Center for Physician Practice and Leadership. Follow him on Twitter at @DhruvKhullar.

Update -- 5:30 p.m. Adds new study, grafs 2-8

(CNN) -- Could the no-calorie sweetener you rely on to replace sugar in your diet actually cause weight gain instead of the weight loss you were expecting?

The answer may be yes, according to a new study.

"Artificial sweeteners are not risk-free," said Brian Hoffmann, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Marquette University, and a lead author of the study. "They are a very controversial topic when it comes to health and nutrition ... but they're so prevalent in society that I think we owe it to ourselves to try and figure out what's actually going on."

Hoffmann presented his new research Sunday at the annual Experimental Biology meeting in San Diego. Relying on rats and human cell cultures, his team identified a number of pathways linking artificial sweeteners with metabolic changes at the genetic level that could lead to diabetes and obesity. Specifically, the researchers found that three weeks of exposure to aspartame and acesulfame potassium -- two artificial sweeteners frequently combined in products such as Equal -- altered the expression of certain genes responsible for lipid metabolism in the cells of both rats and humans.

"Aspartame had some significant changes, and one of those was an increase in lipids in the bloodstream and a decrease in a biomolecule that is involved in clearing (lipids) from the bloodstream. And we saw the exact same thing with the acesulfame potassium," Hoffmann said.

"We then took those particular sweeteners and put them on endothelial cells -- the cells that line the blood vessels and would be exposed to them in the body -- and we detected a marked dysfunction, suggesting why sweeteners and diet soda have been linked to potential cardiovascular problems," he added.

What was perhaps most surprising, according to Hoffmann, was that these metabolic changes did not occur in the presence of natural sugars such as glucose and fructose. This suggests that artificial sweeteners could contribute to metabolic disorders such as diabetes and obesity by an entirely different mechanism than natural sugars, he said.

Artificial sweeteners appear to contribute to metabolic disorders by altering the activity of certain genes responsible for the breakdown of macromolecules such as fats and proteins, Hoffmann said. This is different from normal sugars, which contribute to cardiovascular disease through insulin resistance and by damaging the cells lining the body's blood vessels.

"People are generally consuming non-nutritive sweeteners believing they are a 'healthy choice,' but this may not be true," said research scientist Meghan Azad of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, who was not involved in the new study.

"This is especially important given the widespread and increasing consumption of artificial sweeteners in the general population and the increasing use of artificial sweeteners in our food supply," said Azad, who has authored a paper that reviewed a number of studies on the potential downside of artificial sweeteners on weight and health.

According to Azad, over 40% of adult Americans consume no-cal sweeteners on a daily basis, and studies that measure the sweeteners in blood and urine show that many people who report not using artificial sweeteners are unknowingly consuming them.

It's the latest assault in the ongoing debate over artificial sweeteners and their impact on health -- a debate that began when one of our most popular foods, sugar, turned sour in terms of health.

The need for a sugar substitute

How can something as good as sugar be bad for us?

Actually, it's not, if you keep to the newest dietary guidelines from the US Department of Agriculture: only 10 teaspoons of sugar a day for the average person. Unfortunately, that equals just one 16-ounce bottle of regular soda.

Most Americans eat much more sugar than that -- more like 30 to 40 teaspoons a day -- and we've learned just how unhealthy that can be. Abundant sugar is now linked to a host of health issues: obesity, chronic inflammation, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, even cancer.

To satisfy our sweet tooth, many of us turn to the fake stuff: artificial sweeteners. There are just five approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in the United States: acesulfame potassium (sold as Sunett and Sweet One), aspartame (sold as Equal, Nutrasweet and Sugar Twin), neotame (sold as Newtame), saccharin (sold as Sweet'N Low, Sweet Twin and Necta Sweet) and sucralose (sold as Splenda). One more, cyclamate, is widely used in more than 100 countries but banned in the United States.

The FDA says all five approved sweeteners are safe as long as they are used in moderation. That means no more than 23 packets a day of Splenda, Sweet One or Newtame, 45 packets a day of Sweet'N Low or 75 packets a day of Equal.

Sounds doable. So besides weight gain, which isn't proven, why do so many people still consider artificial sweeteners dangerous?

Partly it's due to our suspicion of putting anything chemical or artificially manufactured in our bodies. It's also due to a long history of overly publicized, poorly designed, badly executed animal studies that the FDA now says falsely linked artificial sweeteners to cancer.

Here's a history on where we've been and where we stand on today's major artificial sweeteners. Get ready; it's a roller-coaster ride.

Saccharin and cyclamate

1879: First artificial sweetener, saccharin, is finger-lickin' good-for-you

Russian chemist Constantin Fahlberg was eating dinner when he made an amazing discovery: The roll he'd just bitten into tasted extremely sweet. Realizing that the sugary, metallic taste had come from his own hands, he rushed back to the lab to find the source. After tasting everything in sight -- not exactly good lab safety protocol -- he discovered that the sweetness came from an accidental chemical reaction between coal tar derivatives (yum!), producing benzoic sulfinide.

That's one version of the story. Another account says Fahlberg's boss, Dr. Ira Remsen, was the diner who forgot to wash up before eating. Regardless, it was Fahlberg who realized the commercial viability of saccharin as an inexpensive sugar substitute that isn't metabolized by the body, has no calories and doesn't cause tooth decay. He soon applied for patents and began offering saccharin in powder and pill form as a "nonfattening" alternative to sugar.

1908: Weight-watching President Roosevelt keeps saccharin from being banned

Early in the 20th century, food horror stories like Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" started to frighten the American public. In reaction, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act in June of 1906, to protect the public from "adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs or medicines." It wasn't long before saccharin was in the crosshairs.

The charge was led by Dr. Harvey Wiley, chief of the USDA's chemical division. Wiley was well known for his "Poison Squad," a group of civil servants who were given free room and board if they would eat food heavily laced with widely used chemical preservatives, including saccharin. Wiley then studied their urine and feces samples to test the impact on the body.

Certain that saccharin was a danger, Wiley took his case to President Theodore Roosevelt. But Roosevelt would have none of it, as he was using saccharin to manage his weight. Wiley describes the President's reaction in his autobiography: "'You say saccharin is injurious to health? Why, Doctor Rixey gives it to me every day. Anybody who says saccharin is injurious to health is an idiot.'"

Wiley didn't give up, and he was able to get saccharin banned from use in processed foods, but direct sales to consumers were permitted. As the years went on, science couldn't find any hard evidence that saccharin was harmful, and widespread sugar shortages during World Wars I and II fanned consumer desire.

1937: Diabetics rejoice as cyclamate meets saccharin

Michael Sveda, a University of Illinois student chemist, was working with a compound called cyclamate when he discovered his cigarettes tasted like sugar (obviously he was smoking on the job). Introduced to the US market in 1950 by Abbott Labs, cyclamate was initially marketed to diabetics for insulin control.

But cyclamate's biggest role was in cutting the bitter, metallic taste of saccharin. Normally added at a ratio of 10 parts cyclamate to 1 part saccharin, that preparation became the basis of the popular brand Sweet'N Low and was soon sold in millions of snack foods and diet sodas. In 1958 the FDA gave cyclamate GRAS status: Generally Recognized As Safe.

1977: Warning: Saccharin will give you cancer, if you're a lab rat

A 1969 study found sperm and chromosomal breaks in rats exposed to cyclamates. Then, a 1970 study found feeding high doses of the chemical to lab rats (5% to 7.5% of the diet) caused bladder cancer in the rodents. The FDA quickly acted, completely banning the use of cyclamate in 1970. Cumberland Packing Corp., the owner of Sweet'N Low, just as quickly switched to an all-saccharin version.

But by that point, cyclamate and saccharin were intertwined, in studies and in the public consciousness. Another 1970 study found bladder tumors in eight of 80 rats fed a high-dose mixture of the two. More research followed, finding urinary, lung, stomach and reproductive tumors. Despite warnings that the studies were flawed, by 1976 the FDA announced a plan to ban saccharin.

Congress -- pushed partly by lobbyists in the food industry, partly by a public outcry against losing access to the noncaloric sweetener -- took a softer approach. Instead of a ban, Congress decreed in 1977 that any food sweetened with saccharin must carry a scary warning label: "Use of this product may be hazardous to your health. This product contains saccharin which has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals."

2000: Saccharin will not give you cancer, even if you're a lab rat

Research into saccharin continued. A review study in the Annals of Oncology found over 20 studies analyzing the effects of high-dose exposure in rats, yet only one showed any evidence of bladder lesions. A closer look at that study discovered that researchers used a breed of rat frequently infected with a parasite that would leave it susceptible to bladder cancer.

Another set of studies looked at second generation rats and also found bladder cancer. But then it was discovered that feeding rats vitamin C at the same levels as saccharin would also produce bladder cancer. It turned out rats have different urine components than humans, and it was those components that were interacting with the sweeteners and leading to the bladder damage. Studies done on primates found no bladder tumors, and human studies in Denmark, Britain, Canada and the United States showed no connection either.

In 2000, Congress removed the warning label. Saccharin was OK again. But by then, several competitors had arrived on the scene and taken over a greater share of the exploding marketplace.

Aspartame

1965: Another accidental find, in many ways 'Equal' to its predecessors

Chemist James M. Schlatter was looking for an anti-ulcer drug when he stumbled upon the sweet taste of aspartame by (you guessed it) licking his finger. A mix of aspartic acid and phenylalanine, two naturally occurring amino acids, aspartame entered the growing artificial sweetener market in 1973. Today, we know it as Equal, Nutrasweet or Sugar Twin.

Unlike the other artificial sweeteners, which are usually excreted unchanged, aspartame can be metabolized, so it does have minimal calories (about 4 per gram). It also has some known health concerns. It should not be used by anyone with the genetic disorder phenylketonuria or certain rare liver disorders, or pregnant women with high levels of phenylalanine in their blood, because it doesn't metabolize properly in those individuals. The FDA requires any food made with aspartame to put that restriction on the label.

1996: Charges that aspartame causes brain tumors, proven and unproven

Animal studies in the 1980s showed no cancer-causing effects from aspartame, even in high doses, and no damage to DNA. But that didn't stop a researcher named J.W. Olney and his associates from drawing a connection between aspartame use and the increasing number of brain tumors in humans, as both occurred over the same 20 years. Based on a study (later disproven) that showed 12 rats developed cancerous brain tumors after eating aspartame for two years, Olney and his colleagues proposed that aspartame was the likely cause.

Reaction was swift, with some calling for a ban on aspartame. But others pointed out the "ecological fallacy" in Olney's argument. Why not call foul on VCRs, home computers or the hole in the ozone layer, which were also newly present during the same time period?

A case-controlled study on children with brain tumors soon put the matter to rest, finding "little biological or experimental evidence that aspartame is likely to act as a human brain carcinogen."

The next generation: Sucralose, neotame and acesulfame potassium

1967: Another brave chemist tastes his delicious experiment

What ever happened to safe lab protocol? Yes, acesulfame potassium, also known as acesulfame K, Ace-K or ACK, was discovered by Karl Clauss and Harald Jensen in Frankfurt, Germany, when they combined fluorosulfonyl isocyanate and 2-butene. Clauss spilled some and then (of course) licked his finger. The tabletop version is called Sweet One, but it's often used in combination with other artificial sweeteners to better mimic the "real" taste of sugar.

1976: Another one bites the sweet dust

Scientists were working with a chlorinated sugar compound in 1976 when one of the researchers decided to (what else?) taste it. Sucralose was born. It's made by replacing three hydrogen and oxygen atoms in sucrose with chlorine atoms, making it about 600 times sweeter than sugar.

Today, we know this chlorine-based sugar derivative as Splenda. As the most heat-stable of all the artificial sweeteners, it's popular with food manufacturers.

2002: The final artificial sweetener birth was planned

Unlike those of its predecessors, neotame's was a planned birth. With the market for artificial sweeteners in the billions, scientists around the world were playing with chemicals to find the next big hit. They also wanted to improve on older models: fix the bitter aftertaste and develop higher heat stability and a higher sweetness factor (so you could use less and save money).

Developed by Monsanto, the owners of Nutrasweet, neotame certainly delivered on at least two of those goals: It is heat-stable, and the intensity of its sweetness is 7,000 to 13,000 times greater than sugar. But the sweetness takes a while to develop in the mouth, it lingers longer, and it can have a licorice-like quality, so neotame is most often used in combination with other artificial sweeteners.

2005: Diet sodas cause weight gain

By 2005, millions of people were using artificial sweeteners for weight control. So it was a shock when researchers at the University of Texas found that conventional wisdom was wrong, when they analyzed eight years of data from the San Antonio Heart Study. The more diet sodas a person drank, the more likely he or she was to gain weight.

To this day, no one knows why. Was it due to the artificial sweetener? Was it something else in the soda? Does drinking a diet soda make it more likely a person might order a double burger and fries? As several reviews point out, it remains a riddle.

2012: Artificial sweeteners probably safe, but some lingering health concerns

Studying the effects of specific artificial sweeteners is a challenge in today's world, as many soda and food manufacturers create mixtures of sweeteners to mimic sugar and make their products taste unique. So it's hard to tease out which of the sweeteners might be a problem.

But studies continue to find concerns that bear watching. A 2008 study found that drinking more than two servings of diet soda a day doubled the risk for kidney decline in women. A 2012 study suggested a possible connection between diet sodas and an increased risk for vascular events. If you use a ton of sweetener -- more than 1,680 milligrams a day, and that's a lot -- you could have a somewhat higher risk of bladder cancer. And several studies have discovered that daily consumption of diet soda may be linked to metabolic syndrome -- a sort of prediabetes -- and Type 2 diabetes, perhaps because it alters people's gut bacteria.

Oh, and for the record, a 2013 review says there is still evidence that diet soda helps with weight loss.

2017: More evidence of weight gain

A review by the University of Manitoba's Azad and her colleagues, published in July in the journal of the Canadian Medical Association, combed the medical literature for the latest randomly controlled trials about artificial sweeteners and weight. Azad said they found little connection to weight loss except in long-term trials that were sponsored by the artificial sweetener industry.

A separate review of a larger sample of observational studies found people who used artificial sweeteners over time gained weight and had a larger waist circumference, as well as a higher incidence of hypertension, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular events.

"Based on all of the research done so far, there is no clear evidence for a benefit, but there is evidence of potential harm from the long term consumption of artificial sweeteners," Azad said. "This should inspire consumers to think about whether they want to be consuming artificial sweeteners, especially on a regular basis, because we do not know if they are a truly harmless alternative to sugar.

"More importantly," she added, "our results send a strong message to researchers and research funding bodies that more studies are needed to understand the long term health impact of artificial sweeteners."

Stay tuned

So where does this leave us? The FDA feels you can be pretty darn sure that a moderate dose of the artificial stuff won't give you cancer. If you're a heavy consumer -- and that's a lot of sweetener -- that's another story.

As for connections to kidney or cardio problems and weight loss (or gain), stay tuned. We're sure more studies proving (and disproving) those concerns are on their way.

In the meantime, the stance of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is that non-nutritive sweeteners can help limit calorie intake as a strategy to manage weight or blood glucose.

British scientists claim they have beaten more than a dozen rival teams around the world in the race towards a new synthetic antibiotic[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/antibiotics/] . They hope that the agent – an improved version of a natural antibiotic called teioxobactin[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/14/first-new-antibiotic-in-30-years-discovered-in-major-breakthroug/], discovered in soil by American scientists in 2015 – will provide a new treatment for resistant hospital superbugs [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/global-antibiotic-consumption-soars-feeding-spread-uk-super/] and a range of other infections that are becoming impervious to our battered medicine cupboard of 20th century antibiotics.

The group from Lincoln University, the site of a new medical school due to open its doors in September, has been collaborating with groups from Liverpool University, as well as academic researchers in the Netherlands, Belgium and Singapore, to achieve the advance.

Their data, just published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, provides the first evidence using mice that the treatment can knock out methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant enterococci, both of which appear on a new World Health Organisation list of 12 “priority pathogens”[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/02/27/a/] – treatment-resistant families of bacteria that represent the biggest threats to human health.

Their work is an advance, but not yet a game-changer.

Latest data from the authoritative Philadelphia-based Pew charitable trust which is tracking progress in superbug war[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/27/superbugs-set-kill-cancer-jeremy-hunt-warnswith-fifth-antibiotic/], indicates there are 80 possible new antibiotic drugs, vaccines and other “non-traditional” candidate products in development round the world, which could save us from losing the war against new generations of killer infections.

The need has never been more urgent. A recent global study from a team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, showed the problem has been fuelled by an astonishing 65 per cent increase in antibiotic use[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/06/thousands-gps-warned-reduce-antibiotics-fight-against-superbugs/] between 2000 and 2015.

Current UK government projections indicate that by the time today’s primary school children reach adulthood, deaths from infectious illnesses will claim at least 10 million lives a year worldwide and limb amputations to halt the spread of infection will become commonplace – unless we find new treatments.

“We are optimistic,” saya Dr Ishwar Singh, a specialist in novel drug design and development who is leading the Lincoln project. “We are the first people worldwide to achieve this step. We have not only proved our treatment kills the bacteria, but we have also shown it reduces inflammation at the same time.”

The results so far are only in mice, but Dr Singh is in talks with three pharmaceutical industry investors and he hopes the product will go into human trials in as little as three years.

Not far from Lincoln at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, Professor Chagnjiang Dong, an expert in molecular medicine, is also forging ahead with a different candidate weapon: a treatment that blocks construction of the two-layer cell walls protecting virulent so-called gram-negative bacteria, which include resistant strains of salmonella, E.coli and legionella, all of which regularly cause fatal outbreaks of disease.

Professor Dong is as upbeat as Dr Singh: “We think we have found a very good target for a new treatment. I am very optimistic about where this will lead,” he says

Q&A | Antimicrobial resistance[https://cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk/c8bd5839-fe38-4c95-9edd-02399646e231.html] Over in Leicester, Professor Martha Clokie, another infectious diseases expert, is working on phages – tightly targeted viruses that attack disease-causing bacteria, which could provide an answer to the search for a new way of destroying antibiotic-resistant superbugs. She is similarly hopeful but, like the others, needs more investment to develop her work.

Until now, the problem has been bubbling away below the surface. Official figures indicate about 5,000 people a year in the UK are dying from illness that could previously be treated by penicillin and its myriad derivatives. Many authorities believe the real figure is 10,000 deaths or more, but it is still a number that looks irrelevant compared with the 300,000-plus who die from cancer and heart disease.

However, increasing numbers of superbug survivors [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/26/contracting-super-bug-has-changed-life/] are coming forward with accounts of the horrific damage that may affect many more of us. In February, Magdalena Malec, 31, from Dunstable, Beds, described how she lost a kidney, plus both legs, her right arm and fingers of her left hand, from a superbug infection during routine treatment to remove an ectopic pregnancy.

A few weeks later, Ben May, a 25-year-old Oxford graduate and keen athlete from Haslemere, Surrey, told how he narrowly escaped amputation but suffered life-threatening illness and eight operations after he contracted a hospital superbug following surgery for a soccer injury.

Antibiotic resistance | Case studies[https://cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk/325289f1-d0b6-4019-92ca-90f20c6c69c4.html] Also last month, Dee Struthers from the Isle of Man, who set up a charity after her 18 year-old daughter Ann died in 2013 from a superbug throat infection, presented her local emergency services with a lactate monitor, a device to show when antibiotics are not working. “Perhaps if Ann’s blood had been tested with such a monitor, we would be sharing a different story today,” she said.

A further worrying development was reported last month by Public Health England, who revealed doctors were battling with the a new treatment-resistant version of the common sexually transmitted gonorrhea, an infection that can cause permanent infertility. The male victim is believed to have survived, but no details have been published.

Antibiotics work by destroying the cells walls of disease-causing bacteria, disrupting their repair mechanisms, or preventing cell multiplication. Existing treatments are called broad-spectrum, meaning they work against varieties of different bacteria. Doctors have prescribed them indiscriminately secure in the knowledge that knocking out a variety of different species at the same time will probably include the one causing the infection.

Although the treatment has been liberally overused in the UK, overuse has been even worse in the developing world. In addition, countries that permit routine use of antibiotics for pre-emptive dosing of intensively reared chickens, pigs and cattle to prevent spread of infection in their cramped and unhygienic living conditions has only encouraged the survival and proliferation of the deadliest bacteria, whose mutations have now made them resistant to existing drugs[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/04/17/house-mice-carry-deadly-drug-resistant-diseases-scientists-warn/] .

Antibiotic resistance | Global consumption fuels spread of superbugs[https://cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk/6841b9a8-b967-4259-b003-876bf10e4223.html] “There’s no doubt that the rate of antibiotic resistance[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/antibiotic-resistance-killing-thousands-britain-today-dad-one/] is accelerating,” says Nick Brown, a Cambridge medical microbiologist who directs a global public awareness campaign called Antibiotic Action. “Attracting investment for new antibiotics is difficult. Despite the scale of a problem, which is ranked alongside terrorism and global warming as a major threat to mankind, drug companies can make much more money out of treatments for heart disease and cancer.”

In the past two years however, levels of anxiety among doctors have been ratcheted up by new warnings from the World Health Organisation (WHO)[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/02/27/a/], the US Centers for Disease Control, and an influential report commissioned by Britain’s chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies from Professor Jim O’Neill, a global authority on bacterial infection.

Professor O’Neill whose report concluded 10 million lives could be lost to superbug infections by 2050, says: “Key medical procedures such as gut surgery, caesarian sections, joint replacements and treatments that depress the immune system such as chemotherapy for cancer, could become too dangerous to perform.”

The WHO also fears the lack of commercial incentive for pharmaceutical companies to develop antibiotics. Last March, it published a list of 12 “priority pathogens”, including new treatment-resistant versions of run-of-the-mill bugs which routinely cause food poisoning, stomach and chest infections.

“This list is a new tool to ensure [drug] researchers and developers respond to urgent public health needs,” said WHO spokesman Dr Marie-Paule Kieny. “Antibiotic resistance is growing and we are fast running out of treatment options. If we leave it to market forces alone, the new antibiotics we most urgently need are not going to be developed in time.”

And that is the problem. “We want to encourage the development of new drugs that are expensive to produce and we also want to restrict their use,” says Lloyd Czaplewski, an antibiotic investment consultant. “We need to decouple use from profit. It’s a bit like having a fire extinguisher: you pay a lot for it, but you hope never have to use it.”

In addition to the search for new antibiotics, other anti-superbug treatments include short-acting vaccines, targeted anti-bacterial antibodies or agents to attack specific bacterial properties; and probiotics – “good” bacteria designed to crowd out disease-causing bugs.

Meanwhile, phages – the viruses capable of infecting and destroying targeted disease-causing bacteria – have been dramatically successful for some people. Tom Patterson, 71, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California in San Diego, is one of the highest profile beneficiaries of the technique. He almost died from septic shock after all known antibiotics were ineffective against an infection from a resistant bug called acinetobacter baumannii, which he contracted on holiday in Egypt two years ago. It was only through his medical contacts that he was able to get a targeted bacteriophage from the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

“It was quite simply, a miracle,” said Professor Patterson, who had been expected to to die. “Within two days of receiving the therapy, I was getting better.”

If we’re going to make progress, we need attitudes to change so people realise antibiotic research is just as importantThe phage technique was developed behind the Iron at a time when antibiotics were hard to come by. Although it is now being investigated as an alternative to antibiotics, it is fearsomely expensive, with each phage having to be tailored to an individual patient.

A variety of international collaborations have formed to tackle the problem of funding for unprofitable treatments designed to be used as sparingly as possible. The biggest investor has been the European Union’s Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) which since 2013 has been overseeing a vast £620 million joint project between industry, academia and biotech companies.

The IMI collaboration is also co-operating with another joint project, Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria BioPharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X), funded by the US government and the London-based Wellcome Trust medical charity. It has a £320 million commitment to identify 20 potential new antibiotics and get at least two of them into human trials by 2021.

Alongside this is the World Health Organisaton’s £240 million Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARD-P), which is hoping to produce new potent forms of four existing antibiotics by 2023.

Despite these apparently vast levels of investment, Czaplewski says getting a candidate treatment to a stage where it may be considered for next-level funding is still too expensive for many ideas to get off the ground. “The charity sector is very under-represented in this field and that needs to change,” he says. “At the moment, there is a cancer research building on virtually every major university campus. If we’re going to make progress, we need attitudes to change so people realise antibiotic research is just as important.”

A third admit lying to their boss about their reason for absence

One in five hay fever[https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/hay-fever] sufferers have taken time off work due to their allergy, a study has found.

The itchy eyes, runny noses and sneezing fits that often come with the allergy leave almost four in 10 struggling to do their job.

As a result, 19 per cent of the 1,660 hay fever sufferers polled have ended up calling in sick.

Read more

How to combat hay fever symptoms

But a third of those confessed to not being completely honest with their employer about why they had taken time off, with the majority saying their boss would not see hay fever as an acceptable excuse.

The research was commissioned by Well Pharmacy ahead of Allergy[https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/allergy] Awareness Week which takes place from 23to 29April.

Pharmacist Jane Devenish said: “Hay fever affects up to 30 per cent of adults in the UK and 40 per cent of children, according to Allergy UK.

Symptoms include headaches, blocked sinuses andshortness of breath(Getty Images/

iStockphoto

)

“Symptoms can be severe, including headaches, blocked sinuses, shortness of breath, watering red itchy eyes, and even difficulty hearing, which can have a real impact on quality of life.”

Researchers revealed how pollen allergies are impacting the working day, with a third of sufferers often left feeling too worn out to concentrate.

And 44 per cent find themselves unable to stay focused because they are constantly interrupting their day to blow their nose or sneeze.

One fifth are more irritable with colleagues and 15 per cent reckon their ability is stifled as avoiding fresh air, which could aggravate their symptoms, means they spend all day indoors.

But almost half of sufferers agreed those around them who don’t have pollen allergies are not very understanding of their symptoms and the effect it has on them.

Read more

Wet wipes are contributing to childhood food allergies, finds study

Boxer with nut allergy sues cafe for milkshake which put him in a coma

Fish oil and probiotics in pregnancy may decrease child's allergy risk

It's not just work where hay fever sufferers are left struggling though, as 84 per cent said their pollen allergy impacts their quality of life, with an equal number struggling to get a quality night’s sleep[https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/sleep] when symptoms kick in.

Nearly three in 10 find it difficult to keep a tidy home during the hay fever season and more than one third are unable to keep up with exercise as a result of their allergy.

The research also found 13 per cent struggle to keep up a happy relationship with their partner and seven per cent admitted their hay fever symptoms make them feel less romantic.

More than half say their symptoms leave them feeling tired and run down, with one fifth going as far as to say they have times where they feel too uncomfortable to do anything.

Read more

Toddler with dairy allergy left fighting for life after eating ‘vegan’

And nearly one quarter are feel upset or down as a result of their allergies.

Worryingly for sufferers, symptoms seem to be lasting longer than ever, with almost a quarter experiencing the itchy eyes[https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/eyes] and sneezing for six months or more each year.

A third also believe their symptoms have started earlier than usual over the last few years.

In a bid to lead a more normal life, 85 per cent try to manage their hay fever misery with antihistamines, with 44 per cent using a nasal spray and 31 per cent turning to eye drops.

Yet, 84 per cent admitted they still experience hay fever symptoms even when taking their medication[http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/medication].

As a result, two thirds will take extra precautions such as closing all the windows and doors, not cleaning the house and even wearing a dust mask.

Jane Devenish added: “Only 33 per cent of people surveyed had ever seen a pharmacist for treatment.

“I would urge the 84 per cent who still experience symptoms, despite their treatment, to pop in to see their local pharmacist[https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/pharmacists] for a consultation about the best treatments to help them manage their symptoms better.

“As well as for advice on practical tips about how to minimise symptoms, such as washing hands frequently, keeping doors and windows closed when pollen counts are high, and avoiding alcohol.”

SWNS

High in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Spain, an international team of researchers set out four buckets to gather a shower of viruses falling from the sky.

Scientists have surmised there is a stream of viruses circling the planet, above the planet's weather systems but below the level of airline travel. Very little is known about this realm, and that's why the number of deposited viruses stunned the team in Spain. Each day, they calculated, some 800 million viruses cascade onto every square metre of the planet. Most of the globe-trotting viruses are swept into the air by sea spray, and lesser numbers arrive in dust storms.

"Unimpeded by friction with the surface of the Earth, you can travel great distances, and so intercontinental travel is quite easy" for viruses, said Curtis Suttle, a marine virologist at the University of British Columbia.

"It wouldn't be unusual to find things swept up in Africa being deposited in North America."

The study by Suttle and his colleagues, published this year in the International Society of Microbial Ecology Journal, was the first to count the number of viruses falling to earth. The research, though, is not designed to study influenza or other illnesses, but to get a sense of the virosphere, the world of viruses on the planet.

Generally it's assumed these viruses originate on the planet and are swept upward, but some researchers theorize that viruses may originate in the atmosphere. (There is a small group of researchers who believe viruses may even have come here from outer space.)

Whatever the case, viruses are the most abundant entities on the planet by far. While Suttle's team found hundreds of millions of viruses in a square metre, they counted tens of millions of bacteria in the same space.

Mostly thought of as infectious agents, viruses are much more than that. It's hard to overstate the central role that viruses play in the world: They're essential to everything from our immune system to our gut microbiome, to the ecosystems on land and sea, to climate regulation and the evolution of all species. Viruses contain a vast array of unknown genes - and spread them to other species.

Last year, three experts called for a new initiative to better understand viral ecology. "Viruses modulate the function and evolution of all living things," wrote Matthew B. Sullivan of Ohio State, Joshua Weitz of Georgia Tech, and Steven W. Wilhelm of the University of Tennessee. "But to what extent remains a mystery."

Do viruses even fit the definition of something alive? While they are the top predators of the microbial world, they lack the ability to reproduce and so must take over the cell of a host - called an infection - and use its machinery to replicate. The virus injects its own DNA into the host; sometimes those new genes are useful to the host and become part of its genome.

Researchers recently identified an ancient virus that inserted its DNA into the genomes of four-limbed animals that were human ancestors. That snippet of genetic code, called ARC, is part of the nervous system of modern humans and plays a role in human consciousness - nerve communication, memory formation and higher-order thinking. Between 40 per cent and 80 per cent of the human genome may be linked to ancient viral invasions.

Viruses and their prey are also big players in the world's ecosystems. Much research is aimed at factoring their processes into our understanding of how the planet works. "If you could weigh all the living material in the oceans, 95 per cent of it is stuff you can't see, and they are responsible for supplying half the oxygen on the planet," Suttle said.

In laboratory experiments, Suttle has filtered viruses out of seawater but left their prey, bacteria. When that happens, plankton in the water stop growing. That's because when viruses infect and take out one species of microbe they liberate nutrients in them, such as nitrogen, that feed other species of bacteria. As plankton grow, they take in carbon dioxide and create oxygen.

Viruses help keep ecosystems in balance by changing the composition of microbial communities. As toxic algae blooms spread in the ocean, for example, they are brought to heel by a virus that attacks the algae and causes it to explode and die, ending the outbreak in as little as a day.

While some viruses and other organisms have evolved together and have achieved a kind of balance, an invasive virus can cause rapid, widespread changes and even lead to extinction.

West Nile virus has changed the composition of bird communities in much of the United States, killing crows and favouring ravens, some researchers say. Multiple extinctions of birds in Hawaii are predicted as the mosquito-borne avipoxvirus spreads into mountain forests where it was once too cold for mosquitoes to live.

When species disappear, the changes can ripple through an ecosystem. A textbook example is a viral disease called rinderpest.

The Italian army brought a few cattle into North Africa, and in 1887 the virus took off across the continent, killing a broad range of cloven-hoofed animals from Eritrea to South Africa - in some cases wiping out 95 per cent of the herds.

"It infected antelope, it infected wildebeest and other large grazers across the whole ecosystem," said Peter Daszak, the president of Ecohealth Alliance, which is working on a global project to catalogue viruses likely to pass from animals to humans.

Combined with drought, large numbers of people died from starvation as rinderpest spread. An explorer in 1891 estimated two-thirds of the Masai people, who depended on cattle, were killed.

"Almost instantaneously, rinderpest swept away the wealth of tropical Africa," wrote John Reader in his book Africa: A Biography of a Continent.

With intensive vaccinations, rinderpest was completely wiped out, not only in Africa but globally in 2011.

"Viruses aren't our enemies," Suttle said. "Certain nasty viruses can make you sick, but it's important to recognize that viruses and other microbes out there are absolutely integral for the ecosystem."

No matter what age, there are certain things we should all be doing to improve our health – whether that be eating healthily, quitting smoking or keeping active

Half of people in the UK admit they would only change their ways if they had a warning from their doctor, a recent Bupa survey found.

But no matter what age, there are certain things we should all be doing to improve our health – whether that be eating healthily, quitting smoking or keeping active.

Here, we look at specific issues which, if addressed through the decades, can help you achieve a long , healthy and happy life.

Four Bupa Health Clinic experts – Dr Luke Powles and fellow GP Dr Ann Robinson, dermatologist Dr Stephanie Munn and behaviour change adviser Juliet Hodges – offer their advice on staying healthy from your 20s to your 60s – and beyond.

How controlling your gut bacteria could help you avoid a host of illnesses from diabetes to Parkinson's[https://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/how-controlling-your-gut-bacteria-12321113]

Boozing, smoking, poor mental health and too much time in the sun are the big risks in this age group.

Current guidelines advise up to 14 units of alcohol a week – equivalent to seven medium glasses of wine.

“Minimising your alcohol intake can help reduce a range of problems including liver disease, obesity and some cancers,” says Dr Powles.

Suicide is the leading cause of death among young people, so look after your mental wellbeing.

Dr Knowles says: “Getting the right help and support early can ensure you’re well-armed with ways to manage your mental health throughout your life.” If you want a tan, wear sunscreen – and avoid sun beds.

Quit smoking too as it will keep you looking younger for longer. Dr Munn warns: “Smoking in your 20s will mean your skin will age faster as any amount of smoking can drastically damage elastin in the skin.”

Behaviour change adviser Juliet Hodges says: “It takes an average 66 days to form a habit, so whether it’s giving up smoking, exercising or wearing sunscreen, persevere for two months and you’ll be on the road to a long-term pattern of good behaviour.”

Amazing stories of the Saturday Night Takeaway fans who won a flight to the Florida finale[https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/amazing-stories-saturday-night-takeaway-12318532]

There are cancer alerts for men and women in this decade.

Cervical screening is critical at this point, says Dr Powles. He adds: “From age 25 women should have a smear test every three years, as early detection can hugely increase your survival rate.”

One in 20 women have a smear test result that comes back abnormal and while this doesn’t mean they have cancer, investigating can help reduce the risk and detect harmful viruses which can lead to cervical cancer[http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/all-you-need-to-know-about-cervical-cancer-1548351]in later life. The 30-45 age group are most affected by cervical cancer.

Men are most likely to get testicular cancer in their early 30s, according to Cancer Research UK. Watch out for testicular pain, a pulling sensation in your scrotum, a painless lump on either testicle and a dull ache in your groin.

It’s also the time wrinkles and early sun damage start to appear. Actinic keratosis – rough skin caused by damage from years of sun exposure – most commonly presents itself during this decade. Use a daily moisturiser and, between May and October, one that contains sunscreen. Mums, meanwhile, face the prospect of stretch marks[http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/how-rid-stretch-marks-what-10726483]which can take up to a year after birth to appear. Dr Munn advises moisturising the entire body regularly during and after pregnancy to limit them.

Keeping your brain healthy and your ticker fighting fit is a priority.

Alzheimer’s starts 20 years before symptoms appear, so be aware of life choices that lift the risk of dementia.

Dr Robinson says: “Smoking and diabetes increases risk, as does high blood pressure[http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/ten-ways-banish-high-blood-9621402], high cholesterol, being inactive and being obese.”

Keeping active and maintaining a healthy weight will protect your heart – and regular health checks are advised. Dr Powles says: “While oestrogen protects women from many forms of heart disease, these fall during the menopause[https://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/how-you-can-beat-misery-11890461], meaning they need to be as vigilant as men.”

Breast cancer is the main cause of death for women in their 40s, so frequently check for any changes.

A vigilant approach to health is advised for people in their 50s.

Firstly, stay in tune with your body and act on any niggles, for example a persistent cough or lower back pain, straight away.

Dr Powles says: “It’s also important to protect your bones. Weight-bearing exercise, such as weight-training, tennis, or jogging, can help keep your weight in check. Also book in a health assessment – this will consider all aspects of your lifestyle and give practical, personalised advice on keeping bones strong and healthy.”

While you can have skin cancer at any age, the most common time is in your 50s. Dr Munn says: “Make sure you see you GP if new moles appear or they change shape, have different colours, become itchy or start bleeding.”

Going through the menopause can also affect your skin, causing it to become dry and giving you brittle nails. If so, use plenty of moisturiser, hand cream and cuticle oil.

Finally, staying social and maintaining friendships can help improve mental health in preparation for retirement age, where some people experience greater isolation.

Dementia is the leading cause of death in older age among women and the second biggest for men after heart disease.

While there is a genetic link, there is no doubt keeping the brain engaged and healthy cuts the risk of developing dementia.

Dr Robinson says: “Taking care of our brain health should start much earlier in life, but it is still important that we keep our brain active during our 60s. This can even build its reserves of brain cells and connections, so you could even generate new cells.”

Dr Powles adds: “For this age group it is important to stay physically as well as mentally active. We know that when older adults lose their mobility, their physical and mental health can follow. This also applies to older adults who retreat into inactivity in later years – so it is vital that those in their 60s should try to do something active, even if it is just heading out for a walk every day, or doing gardening.”

Crosswords and puzzles, such as Sudoku, are excellent for engaging your brain every day – as is learning a new skill or simply going to watch a play.

Dr Powles says these are all fun and relaxing ways of staying mentally alert and active.

On this Earth Day weekend, I'm celebrating "down-toearth" kindnesses of gardening friends.

Over coffee one Saturday morning with my friend Sallie, I indulged in a brief lamentation over the falling-apart nature of structures in my garden, including two old potting tables with rotting slats.

That afternoon, Sallie appeared in the back garden with her husband, Les, a skilled carpenter. He surveyed the general ruin of the table beside the greenhouse and offered to replace the slats.

On the day Les arrived with the replacement flats, another friend had come by to help out with some garden work. That afternoon we raked and weeded a patch of ground in a wooded area behind the garden shed where I knew a pre-emergent carpeting of tiny native starflowers lurked beneath the winter's accumulated debris.

Our work cleared a canvas for a soon-to-be lovely picture - whorls of dainty leaves and, in May, tiny pinkish-white flowers. Because the flower stems are so thin, the tiny blooms seem to hang in the air, like stars. Microbiome of the soil: By now, most of us have become familiar with the term "microbiome," meaning the collection of microorganisms that inhabit a particular environment. A human body is home to trillions of bacteria and other microbes, collectively known as the body's microbiome.

That microbiome keeps us alive by protecting us against germs, producing vitamins, and breaking down food to release energy.

In the same way, the microbiome of the soil in our gardens - bacteria, fungi and other organisms - keeps that soil, and our plants, alive. The soil's beneficial microbes and our plants bond together in a symbiotic relationship. Plant roots distribute food into the soil. That nourishment feeds beneficial organisms, causing their numbers to increase explosively. In turn, those organisms release nutrients to the plants and help to protect them from disease.

As it benefits the human body to consume whole, unprocessed foods that nurture beneficial rather than pathogenic microbes in the gut, the soil will be at its most vital when fed with natural materials that nurture a healthy diversity of helpful microbial life.

Compost is the heavy lifter in this enterprise, as are natural-source, unprocessed fertilizers such as lime, seed meals and kelp meal.

To help ensure healthy microbial ecosystems in their bodies, some people ingest beneficial bacteria in the form of probiotics.

Equivalent "pro-biotics" for the soil are such products as EM (Effective Microorganisms) and Bokashi. Both are sold at some garden centres and farm supply stores. Earth Day: As we celebrate Earth Day this weekend, may we acknowledge, appreciate and nurture the community of beneficial organisms in our soils, as we give thanks also for the blessing of generous friends who help us to more fully enjoy our gardens.

Garden Events

Orchid meeting. The Victoria Orchid Society will meet on Monday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m. in Gordon Head United Church Hall, 4201 Tyndall Ave. Featured will be the society's annual auction of about 100 orchids. The event is open to the public.

View Royal meeting. The View Royal Garden Club will meet on Wednesday, April 25, at 7:30 p.m. in Wheeley Hall, 500 Admirals Rd. in Esquimalt. Bruce Carter, owner of Wes-Tech Irrigation Systems, will describe techniques for keeping watering systems working efficiently. The presentation will include some hands-on practice. A judged mini show will feature exhibits from members'gardens and there will be a sale of plants and garden items. Non-member drop-in fee $5.

Sooke meeting. The Sooke Garden Club will meet on Wednesday, April 25, at 7 p.m. in St. Rose of Lima Church, 2191 Townsend Rd. Guest speaker will be Lori Weidenhammer, author of Victory Garden for Bees. Non-member drop-in fee $5.

HCP workshops. The Horticulture Centre of the Pacific, 505 Quayle Rd. in Saanich, is offering the following workshops. To register call 250-479-6162. hcp.ca.

Meadowscaping for Biodiversity, Saturday, April 28, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Learn how to grow a thriving native wildflower meadow. HCP members $45, others $60.

Twining with Soft Materials, Saturday, April 28, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Use rush, sedge and flower leaves to make a small bowl-shaped basket. If the class is full another will be added on Sunday, April 29. Members $120, others $140.

Healthy Soils: Compost Tea for the Garden, Sunday, April 29, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Learn how to brew and use compost tea. Members $35, others $40.

Blame it on spring fever. Or perhaps the fact that I'm staring out the window as a beautiful spring storm rages through our area. At any rate, my mind is jumping to several findings that relate our diet to the development or protection from cancer:

It's been estimated that we could prevent more than half of all cancers if we would modify our habits, especially those related to smoking (don't do it) and diet. And one of every three cases of cancer can be traced to what we eat or don't eat. Still, the evidence of what and how we should eat to prevent cancer is at best inconsistent, according to a review on this topic in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Although researchers are hard pressed to find dietary components that directly cause cancer, certain components in our diet are linked to an increased risk. For example, a high intake of added sugar and soft drinks is significantly associated with an increased risk for pancreatic cancer. Saturated fat from animal sources like red meat and dairy foods is also a risk factor for this type of cancer in some individuals. And higher intakes of fish (not fried) are associated with a lower risk for pancreatic cancer.

Some beneficial microbes in our gut —what some people call good bacteria or probiotics —may help our bodies fight off the development of colon cancer, according to researcher and registered dietitian Johanna Lampe of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. We can keep these good bugs working by feeding them healthful types of carbohydrates found in dried beans and lentils, onions, garlic and artichokes.

In addition, foods such as oats, barley, mushrooms, apples, pears, raisins, peaches and plums contain fermentable fibres, resistant starches and other types of fibres that are apparently considered delicacies by our good gut microbes. When good bacteria (probiotics) feed on these prebiotics, they produce substances that nourish the lining of the colon and may also help shut down the road that can lead to cancer.

Here's some disappointing news. Although modest amounts of alcohol may help protect against heart disease, the American Institute for Cancer [http://www.aicr.org]Research recommends we don't drink alcohol at all for cancer prevention. That's because even small amounts can increase our risk for some types of cancer such as breast cancer. If you do drink alcohol, says these and other health experts, limit your intake to no more than two drinks a day for men and one drink a day for women. (One drink is equal to 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of distilled alcohol.)

We don't have all the answers about how some cancers happen, but experts say we can substantially lower our risk for developing or dying from cancer if we consistently follow these four recommendations: maintain a healthy body weight, stay physically active, consume a diet that includes a high amount of plant-based foods (fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes) and limit our intake of alcohol.

Osteoarthritis progresses no faster in obese subjects with a healthy mix of gut microbes

Fast food diets are causing arthritis[https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/arthritis] and debilitating joint pain butnot by causing us to pile on the pounds, as scientists have shown an explosion of junk-hungry bacteria[https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/Bacteria] in the gut are responsible.

Osteoarthritis is one of the biggest causes of disability in higher income countries, affecting at least eight million people in the UK[http://www.arthritisresearchuk.org/arthritis-information/conditions/osteoarthritis.aspx] and 31 million in the US.

Obesity significantly increases the chances of being affected and it was thought this was due to increased wear and tear on joints like the knees.

Read more

GI diets don’t work – gut bacteria and dark chocolate are a better bet

But US researchers have shown it is the body’s response to unhealthy gut bacteria that speeds up this process, rather than the weight itself, which could mean heavy people with a balanced bacterial mix can avoid arthritis.

“There are no treatments that can slow progression of osteoarthritis – and definitely nothing reverses it,” said Dr Eric Schott from the University of Rochester Medical Centre in the US.

“But this study sets the stage to develop therapies that target the microbiome (the body’s bacterial ecosystem) and actually treat the disease.”

The findings are now being looked at by the US Department of Defence to see whether supplements to promote a healthy mix of stomach bugs can avert joint problems in veterans.

Read more

Eat your fibre or face the flesh-eating microbe cannibals

The microbe is mightier than the market

Scientific breakthrough unlocks secrets of microbes

Bacteria that thrive on a high fat junk food trigger inflammation, the body’s response to stress and foreign invaders, when they build up in intestines.

This causes the immune system to attack its own cells and cartilage in joints like the knee, which are subject to a lot of wear and are particularly susceptible.

“Cartilage is both a cushion and lubricant, supporting friction-free joint movements,” said Michael Zuscik,associate professor of Orthopaedics, who led this study.

“When you lose that, it’s bone on bone, rock on rock. It’s the end of the line and you have to replace the whole joint. Preventing that from happening is what we, as osteoarthritis researchers, strive to do – to keep that cartilage.”

For the study, published today in the journal

JCI Insight,

the team fed mice on a high fat diet which caused them to rapidly develop twice the body fat of the control-group miceand develop diabetes.

The obese group had a much higher level of inflammation-causing bacteria than the control group, which were fed a lean diet,and osteoarthritis progressed much more quickly after they were each given an injury to their knee cartilage.

But these effects were completely neglected by introducing a “prebiotic” supplement, a sweetener called oligofructose, which encourages growth of the sort of health-promoting bifidobacteria, which iscommonly added to yoghurt drinks.

These sorts of bacteria were entirely absent in the junk food group, but in the supplement group they increased rapidly. The mice which received the supplement experienced no extra wear on their joints when compared tocontrol group and had lowering levels of the inflammation.

While the next round of trials will be needed to determine which bacteria can produce the same response in humans, the authors said their findings show osteoarthritis is “another secondary complication of obesity,” with inflammation as a root cause.

The beauty industry is awash with new innovations in the wellness sector, promising healthier, glowier skin. This even extends to the foods we eat: whether it's bone broth as the go-to cure of a common cold, mushroom-infused skincare for calming and curing angry skin and Kombucha being hailed the ultimate gut-settler, boosting your digestion and overall gut health[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/beauty/body/looking-gut-could-transform-health/] . Previously, taking "supplements" involved a single multi-vitamin daily and perhaps an omega fish oil if you really wanted to boost your overall health. Now? I personally, take six different supplements to help with my beauty woes and that's little compared to some.

Beauty supplements are entering a whole new era as many women and men are wanting to take a more holistic approach to beauty. According to Mintel, research reveals 11 per cent of UK consumers who have taken vitamins, minerals or dietary supplements in the last 12 months say they take vitamins to benefit their appearance. Mintel also estimates the entire UK vitamins and supplements market to be worth £420 million and growing.

It's therefore no surprise that many brands have extended their existing skincare ranges to include a beauty-health supplement to be part of such a fast-growing market. Many existing nutritional brands are infusing the market with supplements that have a beauty spin and encourage an inside-out method to enhance and target complex matters such as hair health, skin luminosity, acne and even gut health.

10 essential supplements and why you should take them[https://cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk/3da4e30b-6100-4857-afc0-bd49250f7bb3.html] "Supplements are a great way to help balance any deficiencies we have," says dermatologist Dr Barbara Sturm, who has an eponymous skincare range. "Our lifestyles mean that our bodies find it hard to absorb and function as they were originally programmed. Vegetarian and vegan-type diets can result in extreme deficiencies of essential nutrients like iron and calcium, proving supplementation to be a great cure," says Sturm.

Lorraine Peretta, Head Nutritionist of Advanced Nutrition adds, "our lifestyles put great stress on our nutritional status. Pollution, stress, eating on the run and UV light, from not only from the sun but also computer screens, all take their toll on any vitamins and minerals we may ingest through our diet alone," says Peretta. Back in prehistoric times, a person would consume around 4000 calories a day to fuel the body, now? The average female consumes around 2000 calories a day. "We’re much less active so get less nutritional value from food," says Peretta."The amount of nutrients (a nutrient is a vitamin, mineral, key oil, and plant nutrient) in 2000 calories is much less than 4000 calories. Modern farming has also stripped out much of the natural nutrients that even our grandparents enjoyed, hence the need for supplements is ever growing.

How to start

When building a supplement regime for the first time there are some basics to include as there are so many out there, it can be overwhelming. "The best supplements to take have a very high quality and have been produced by someone you trust," says Sturm. There are a lot of supplements on the market so it's always important to check what you are actually taking. "If it's for medical reasons, make sure to follow up with your doctor about how your body takes the supplementation and monitor your levels closely," advises Sturm.

Peretta recommends a multivitamin to cover basic everyday nutritional support. If you want to enhance your regime, "look to add an adequate vitamin b, as it's primary function is to convert food to fuel so is essential for a healthy digestive system. Your dose of vitamin C is super important too and should be around 1000mg." Why? "Vitamin C is a large vitamin so it’s impossible for a multivitamin to contain 1000mg of vitamin C in a size that you could swallow," says Peretta. It's multi-functional benefits make it an all rounder health enhancer.

Opt for two omegas, three and six. Omegas are a fat and are difficult to include in a dry tablet or capsule so you’ll rarely see omegas included in a multivitamin. "As we live in the UK where most people are low in vitamin D, I would recommend taking a vitamin D3 supplement (even in the summer) as the sun doesn’t get strong enough this far north to stimulate vitamin D3 in the body," advises Peretta.

Once you have the basics covered you can tweak your beauty regime with beauty supplements that aid hair loss, skin luminosity and other woes. Supplements should be part of a 360-degree approach to a healthy diet and lifestyle, and taken under the supervision of a doctor. Here are some of our favourite beauty supplements.

Dr Barbara Sturm Repair Food £82[https://www.niche-beauty.com/en-de/products/dr-barbara-sturm-repair-food/307-023?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1KrLybvB2gIVxEPTCh04vgcFEAYYASABEgJi8fD_BwE]

Repair Food is a concentrated and potent anti-inflammatory supplement that works to repair cellular function from the inside out. These supplements have been created to combat the aging culprit inflammation throughout the body, improving function of the joints, muscles and organs.

Rms beauty Within Probiotic and Prebiotic £60[https://www.cultbeauty.co.uk/rms-beauty-beauty-within-probiotic-prebiotic.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIipCWjbzB2gIV1OcbCh0awgcgEAQYASABEgIlHvD_BwEvariant_id=15509ef_id=WqpDfQAAATQAfEmn:20180417140014:s]

Taking this super supplement helps the gut to restore its proper balance of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bacteria, in turn supporting healthy digestion, a strong immune system and proper metabolism.

Advanced Nutrition Programme Skin Accumax, £39.95 [https://www.advancednutritionprogramme.com/skin-accumax?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrMSbxrzB2gIVkRbTCh2a3gJkEAAYASAAEgLCDPD_BwE]

It contains a unique patented combination of vitamins A, C, E plus a plant nutrient found in broccoli and other dark cruciferous vegetables. This patented formulation delivers a synergy among these nutrients that helps to support skin clarity and health.

Lumity Day and Night Nutritional Supplements, £90[https://lumitylife.co.uk/products/lumity-anti-ageing-supplements?utm_source=googleutm_medium=cpcutm_campaign=Q4_2017_Mediautm_term=%2Bbeauty%20%2Bsupplementsutm_content=TB_8_24gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2JnD08LB2gIVrhbTCh0W9AR1EAAYASAAEgK5K_D_BwE]

Lumity's smart ingredients work around-the-clock through their unique two-step formula. They target nutritional supplementation to support your health and vitality. Beautiful skin, hair and nails stem from strong inner nutrition.

Dr Jack Skin Shake £65[https://integrativebeauty.co.uk/products/skinfood]

SkinShake is a complete and nutritious skin-boosting formula which targets the multiple requirements of the skin as it ages.

Murad Hydro-Glow Food Supplements, £50[https://www.murad.co.uk/hydro-glow-food-supplement?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjZCKwsjB2gIV4ynTCh1OxAJcEAQYAiABEgI_ZPD_BwE]

Based on Murad’s Cellular Water Principle, these supplements are designed to help boost cellular hydration levels for youthful-looking skin with a healthy glow.

Nue Co Debloat Food Prebiotic, £55[https://www.net-a-porter.com/gb/en/product/899660/the_nue_co/debloat-food--100g]

A study of microbial DNA from dogs has revealed similarities with humans

The idea that dogs resemble their owners may be more accurate[http://www.mirror.co.uk/science/dogs-good-reading-moods-were-11674963]than is generally thought.

Genes from the dog gut "microbiome" - the community of vital bacteria that support digestion and metabolism - show many similarities to those of humans, scientists have found.

A study of microbial DNA from 129 dog stool samples shows it is more human-like than its equivalent from pigs or mice.

The researchers created a catalogue of more than a million gut microbiome genes based on 64 dogs from two breeds - beagles and retrievers.

They also discovered that dietary changes had a similar effect on the gut bacteria of both dogs and humans, irrespective of dog breed.

Dogs really CAN sense fear - people who are anxious around pooches more likely to get bitten, study claims[https://www.mirror.co.uk/science/dogs-really-can-sense-fear-11953389]

Lead scientist Dr Luis Coelho, from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, said: "We found many similarities between the gene content of the human and dog gut microbiomes.

"The results of this comparison suggest that we are more similar to man's best friend than we originally thought."

Studying dogs could help scientists better understand the impact of diet on human gut microbes and its effect on health, he added.

"Many people who have pets consider them as part of the family, and like humans, dogs have a growing obesity problem," said Dr Coelho.

Dogs are good at reading our moods but we're 'shocking' at reading theirs, study finds[http://www.mirror.co.uk/science/dogs-good-reading-moods-were-11674963]

"Therefore, it is important to study the implications of different diets."

The research is published in the open access journal Microbiome.

Dogs taking part in the study were split into two groups, one of which was given a high protein, low carb diet and the other a high carb, low protein diet.

IN the '50s and '60s, our vision of food innovation was quick and convenient TV dinners, or meal-replacement pills a la "The Jetsons." Now, the focus is on problem solving with natural ingredients, sustainable production and, thankfully, great taste. We checked out some of the most popular and novel foods in development, or recently developed, on Kickstarter - including "tuna" sushi made from tomatoes and fermented coffee - to see what the future of eating might be. Have a look.

Sushi made from vegetables

The idea for Ahimi, a tomatobased ahi tuna substitute, came to James Corwell on a trip to Tokyo. In giant warehouses of sushigrade tuna he saw how in-demand sushi had become, in spite of growing concerns about overfishing: "I had to do something," says the co-founder of New York City's Ocean Hugger Foods. Corwell knew that, like meat, tomatoes contain high levels of glutamic acids, which help impart a savory flavor. His secret recipe combines tomato with soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil in a manner that remarkably, mysteriously mimics the texture of raw, fatty tuna. Unami, an eggplant-based eel alternative, and Sakimi, a fake salmon made from carrots, are in the works.

How it tastes: Like a soy-sauce-soaked umamibomb with a texture that's shockingly close to tuna.

Funding: The Kickstarter launched in 2014 with a goal of $10,000, and raised $21,196.

Where to buy: After a recent expansion, Ahimi is now available at nearly every Whole Foods in NYC. Unami and Sakimi are expected to hit stores this summer.

Ketchup in solid form

Slice of Sauce is a dehydrated ketchup product that looks like a red Kraft Single, but creator Emily Williams insists it's not just about "mess-free convenience," it's also about health. The slices are free of the GMOs, high fructose corn syrup and preservatives common in traditional ketchups, and they last up to a year in the pantry.

How it tastes: Bo's Fine Foods, the company behind Slice of Sauce, was unable to provide a sample.

Funding: The Kickstarter launched in March with a goal of $15,000, and has raised almost $28,000.

Where to buy: Slice of Sauce is working toward a full launch online and in grocery stores this summer.

Coffee that's easy on your stomach

Afineur, a "custom fermentation studio" based in Brooklyn, hopes to make your daily cup of java easier to digest and more delicious with its Cultured Coffee. Founder Camille Delebecque, who holds a Ph.D. in microbiology, knew probiotic microorganisms could be key in minimizing coffee's unpleasant side effects, such as acid reflux and jitters.

Many coffees are fermented once during "processing" when the bean is removed from the "cherry." Cultured Coffee's ethically sourced beans are fermented again, approximately 48 hours before roasting, in small batches using a carefully curated bath of microbes.

How it tastes: Like a smooth, medium roast, with less acerbic aftertaste.

Funding: The Kickstarter launched in 2015 with a goal of $15,000, and went on to raise more than $51,000.

Where to buy: Five-ounce bottles of whole beans can be purchased online at Amazon or at EatCultured.com for $19.99 each.

Better than butter

It's hard to make a butter substitute that's delicious and works for baking, but Brooklyn-based Fora Foods thinks they've done it - using chickpeas. Their FabaButter is made from aquafaba - the thick liquid you get after cooking or canning chickpeas - as well as coconut oil, sunflower oil, nutritional yeast and sea salt. The product is said to taste just like dairy butter and it has a higher smoke point, making it better for pan-frying and sauteing. "It ranks as the best nondairy butter I have tried," says chef Brad Farmerie of Noho's Saxon + Parole.

How it tastes: Uncannily similar to unsalted butter.

Funding: The Kickstarter launched in March with a goal of $15,500, and has raised more than $22,000 so far.

Where to buy:

Though he won't disclose pending deals, CEO Aidan Altman says they're preparing for a national retail and restaurant campaign with some "exciting" chef partnerships, beginning in early summer.

Healthy jerky from the sea

Courtney Boyd Myers' father created and helped market the Burger King Kids Meal, and that inspired her to invent healthy foods. "I grew up knowing [what my dad was selling] was wrong," says the 33-year-old pescatarian and co-founder of Akua's Kelp Jerky.

As an adult working in tech and startups, Boyd Myers longed for a vegan, protein-rich snack and came across kelp. After testing it in everything from burgers to pasta, she hit upon turning it into jerky.

"A lot of [meat] jerky is geared toward men," says Boyd Myers, who splits her time between NYC and Portland, Maine. "Women want plant-based, high protein, low-sugar snacks [too]." How it tastes: Like seaweed covered in strong, savory spices, with a tough, chewy texture that's surprisingly close to animalbased jerky.

Funding: The Kickstarter launched in March with a goal of $25,000 and raised more than $71,000.

Where to buy: On IndieGogo, you can preorder a variety pack of sea salt and sesame, rosemary and maple barbecue, and turmeric Thai and coconut flavors for $26, plus shipping. The estimated delivery is in July.

A snack that prevents allergies

In Israel, puffed peanut butter snacks are quite popular, and the country has one of the lowest rates of peanut allergies in the world. That fact led entrepreneur Greg Murphy to add to his Puffworks snacks line by creating peanut butter corn puffs meant to expose young children to peanuts in small increments for allergy prevention. Puffworks Baby is formulated along new pediatric guidelines from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the American Academy of Pediatrics, which recommend feeding small doses of peanut foods to infants as early as 4 months old to reduce the chance of allergies.

How it tastes: Like a Cheetos puff but with a salty, peanutty flavor.

Funding: The Kickstarter launched in March with a goal of $10,000, and has raised just over $1,000 so far.

Where to buy: Portland, Ore.-based Puffworks plans to begin distribution through Amazon this month, and expand its East Coast presence later this year.

Nutrition bars made from bugs

In recent years, a number of companies have tried to make consuming crickets - a diet staple in parts of Asia, Africa and South America - popular in health and wellness circles. EAT:EM, a Swedish producer of cricket-based foods, hopes to finally make insects mainstream in Europe and the US with a bar made from just a few natural ingredients - cocoa beans, nuts, dates, coconut oil and roughly 32 ground crickets per serving.

"It's very hard to get that much complete protein at that [low of a] cost to the environment," says founder Martin Strid of the bar's 8-plus grams of sustainable protein.

The noisy arthropod is also rich in iron, zinc, vitamin B12, magnesium and calcium, and tastes somewhere "between hazelnuts and nutmeg," according to Strid. While EAT:EM is not the first to make a cricket bar, theirs is notable for its short list of ingredients with no added sugar.

How it tastes: EAT:EM was unable to provide a sample by press time.

Funding: The Kickstarter launched in February with a goal of 50,000 in Swedish krona, and raised SEK 77,238, or $9,263.

Where to buy: Currently available for worldwide shipping on IndieGogo for $41 for a 12-bar box. That's 384 crickets!

TORONTO -- Doctors have long advised women to avoid vaginal douching because of the risk of infection and other adverse effects, but a new study suggests other feminine hygiene products may be just as harmful.

The University of Guelph-led study found that 95 per cent of almost 1,500 Canadian women surveyed about their use of over-the-counter sanitizing gels, anti-itch creams, moisturizers, sprays and wipes had used such products at least once in their lifetime.

But the study also found that women who use feminine hygiene products are three times more likely to experience some type of vaginal infection. In some cases, women purchased a product to address an existing vaginal issue.

"The study does not establish whether it is the products causing the infections or whether women are using the products in an attempt to address the infection," said principal researcher Kieran O'Doherty, a social psychologist at the university.

"However, the results do provide important evidence for strong correlations that need further research."

For example, women who used gel sanitizers - whether externally of internally - were eight times more likely to have a yeast infection and almost 20 times more likely to have reported bacterial vaginosis, an overgrowth of certain bacteria that occurs when the natural balance of microbes in the vagina is disturbed.

"These products may be preventing the growth of the healthy bacteria required to fight off infection," said O'Doherty, noting that emerging evidence has linked disruption of vaginal microbial systems with health problems.

Pelvic inflammatory disease, cervical cancer, reduced fertility, ectopic and pre-term pregnancies, and bacterial and sexually transmitted infections are among the problems related to an abnormal vaginal microbiome, he said.

The study, published in the journal BMC Women's Health, found that women who used vaginal moisturizers and lubricants had 2.5 times higher odds of reporting a yeast infection and 50 per cent higher odds of a urinary tract infection, or UTI, compared to those who didn't use those products.

Women using feminine washes were almost 3.5 times more likely to have reported a bacterial infection and 2.5 times more likely to have had a UTI. Feminine wipes were associated with double the risks of a UTI.

Dr. Chelsea Elwood, a reproductive infectious diseases specialist at BC Women's Hospital and Health Centre, said the study is one of the first to look at the use of these products in the Canadian context and it reaffirmed that their use is becoming more commonplace.

Elwood, who was not involved in the research, stressed that the study found an association between use of vaginal hygiene products, but can't determine whether they caused increased infections.

As a general rule, Elwood said she recommends that patients give feminine hygiene products a miss.

GRAPHICS: APR 17TH

GRAPHICS: GOOD MORNING AMERICA

COHEN, DANIELS, HANNITY, DERSHOWITZ

COHEN, TRUMP, HANNITY

GRAPHICS: SEAN HANNITY FIRES BACK

GRAPHICS: FOX HOST NAMED AS MICHAEL COHEN'S MYSTERY CLIENT

TRUMP, HALEY, RUSSIA, SANCTIONS

RUSSIA, HACKING, MANFRA

BUSH, HEALTH

MCCAIN, SURGERY

GRAPHICS: JOHN MCCAIN RECOVERING FROM SURGERY

GRAPHICS: SENATOR STABLE AFTER PROCEDURE TO TREAT INFECTION

STARBUCKS, PROTEST

REISS, MANHUNT, MARCENO

GRAPHICS: MANHUNT FOR GRANDMOTHER ON THE RUN

GRAPHICS: ACCUSED OF KILLING HUSBAND & LOOK-ALIKE

LAMAR, PULITZER PRIZE, "DAMN"

GRAPHICS: RIGHT NOW

COMEY, "A HIGHER LOYALTY", TRUMP, MCCABE

SUN COUNTRY, HOBICA, SNOWSTORM, GARNETT, BERGLUND

LINDEN, FLANAGAN, BOSTON MARATHON

LAMPKIN, GOSPEL, CHOIR, FRANCIS MARION UNIVERSITY

SAMUELSSON, CHEF, HARLEM, "NO PASSPORT REQUIRED"

BOWE, "THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN"

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) We're back now with dermatologist Dr. Whitney Bowe. She's got a brand-new book out called "The Beauty of Dirty Skin," taking a look at the science behind looking and feeling radiant from the inside out, focusing on what she calls the gut/brain/skin connection. Please welcome Dr. Bowe back here to "GMA." Good to see you again.

DOCTOR WHITNEY BOWE ("THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN")

Thank you for having me.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) Wonderful to have you here. This is what I love about you. First of all, brilliant book, read it cover to cover. You get into the science.

DOCTOR WHITNEY BOWE ("THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN")

Oh, yeah, there's over 100 references in the back of there.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) So tell us about the science of how, when you hear about dirt or things like that, you're like, that can't be good for us.

DOCTOR WHITNEY BOWE ("THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN")

There is groundbreaking new science showing that the secret to gorgeous, glowing skin and a thinner waistline might have to do with our good bugs. So right now, we're all covered in trillions of microscopic bacteria, and not just all over our skin, they're in our guts, and you know, if we keep these bugs happy and healthy and in the right balance, they actually can act like tiny warriors. They help fight serious skin conditions like acne and eczema but they also appear to slow down the signs of aging.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) Really?

DOCTOR WHITNEY BOWE ("THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN")

Like wrinkles, give us a little bit of that glow.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) Oh, that got your attention. Yeah, they're like, okay. All right. And you have a three-week program.

GRAPHICS: GET THE BOWE GLOW: FOCUS ON THE GUT

DOCTOR WHITNEY BOWE ("THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN")

I do. I do. So week one, week one focuses on the gut. Because an unhappy gut leads to unhappy skin, so this is a typical American breakfast. This may look healthy, but the refined carbs and sugars in the cereal. In apple juice or orange juice, the artificial sweeteners, all of those have been shown to trigger hormonal changes and inflammation in the skin. So go ahead, turn that baby around...

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) So what do you suggest?

DOCTOR WHITNEY BOWE ("THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN")

During week one, you want to load up on whole, unprocessed foods. Low in sugar. Rich in healthy fats, probiotics. So you want to have omega-3 eggs and veggies and you want to have, you know, Kombucha, yogurt, actually milk, really important, so here, almond milk and coconut milk are okay for your skin, but dairy milk, if you're having fat-free milk or any kind of dairy milk, has been shown to trigger inflammation in the skin.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) So (inaudible) difference between those two. So we've got the diet and now it's about adapting some lifestyle changes.

DOCTOR WHITNEY BOWE ("THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN")

Yes, so week two is all about things like sleep, exercise, meditation, and we all know those are good for us, but a lot of people don't know how much time to spend on each. And I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Spin that around.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) Oh, boy. Oh, come on. I see what the answer is here. (Inaudible)

DOCTOR WHITNEY BOWE ("THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN")

So when it comes to sleep, we want to aim for at least seven hours a night. Exercise, 30 minutes appears to be the magic number. This, actually, a recent study that came out shows if you exercise 30 minutes a day, it can make your skin look decades younger under the microscope, crazy, and meditation, even five minutes can make a difference. And you don't have to be an expert in meditating, you're just focusing on your breathing, can dial down inflammation in the skin.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) I've started meditating a couple years ago and it really, truly has made a - big difference. Okay, we have a viewer question asking a little bit about this. Especially when it comes to exercise. Here it is.

VIEWER (FEMALE)

I know you say exercise can help maintain healthy skin, so my question is, can one exercise help more than another?

DOCTOR WHITNEY BOWE ("THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN")

So, Robin, it's really variety is key. You don't want to do the same thing every day. You want to mix it up. It's that balance of strength training and cardio that really delivers the results.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) Okay, now let's get to the skin. Let's talk about it.

DOCTOR WHITNEY BOWE ("THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN")

Yes, so week three is all about skin care. So let's take a look at a typical skin care routine that is ruining your skin.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) What's the matter with this? What are you?

DOCTOR WHITNEY BOWE ("THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN")

These buff puffs, these loofahs are literally rubbing and scrubbing away your good bugs. This has to go. Okay.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) All right. So what do we use instead?

DOCTOR WHITNEY BOWE ("THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN")

Anti-bacterial soap, studies show no more effective than plain soap and water, but it can mess with your hormones, lead to antibody resistant bacteria. Hand sanitizers should be used as a last resort if you actually cannot access soap and water. So spin it around. What do we want to do during week three? You can use a gentle washcloth, a gentle scrub to exfoliate your skin twice a week, but the rest of the time, fingertips only and use a gentle cleanser, so look for words like hydrating or gentle on the label, and week three is a really fun time to start experimenting with some of these new skin care products that are made with probiotics.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) Okay. Do we have time to ask another? One more from the audience. Here we go.

VIEWER (FEMALE)

Hey, doc, I've been wondering, which one is better for your skin, bar soap or liquid soap and why?

DOCTOR WHITNEY BOWE ("THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN")

Good question. So either one is fine, so long as it doesn't leave your skin feeling squeaky clean and tight. That's a sign it's a little too harsh for the skin, it's probably killing off your good bugs. Got to get a little dirty to glow.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) (Inaudible) get a little dirty. So give us the bottom line.

DOCTOR WHITNEY BOWE ("THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN")

You do not have to spend a fortune on expensive creams and in-office procedures to have gorgeous skin. In 21 days, you can transform your skin from the inside out and the outside in on any budget.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) And we have seen that. Okay. And look how she does this at the end. So cute. Thank you, Dr. Whitney Bowe, we appreciate that. "The Beauty of Dirty Skin" is out now, wait a minute. Everyone in our audience is going home with her book. Everybody in the audience. So am I.

DOCTOR WHITNEY BOWE ("THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN")

Awesome.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) And head to our Facebook page and Dr. Bowe will take your questions live. We'll do that as well.

DOCTOR WHITNEY BOWE ("THE BEAUTY OF DIRTY SKIN")

Bring it on. All your questions on Facebook now.

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

(OC) We'll be right back.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

ROBIN ROBERTS (ABC NEWS)

Back by popular demand already, Francis Marion University YGB Choir is gonna sing us off into our Tuesday. Jeffrey, take it away. Have a great day, everybody.

PERFORMANCE BY MARION UNIVERSITY YGB CHOIR

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High in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Spain, an international team of researchers set out four buckets to gather a shower of viruses falling from the sky.

Scientists have surmised there is a stream of viruses circling the planet, above the planet's weather systems but below the level of airline travel. Very little is known about this realm, and that's why the number of deposited viruses stunned the team in Spain. Each day, they calculated, some 800 million viruses cascade onto every square meter of the planet.

Most of the globe-trotting viruses are swept into the air by sea spray, and lesser numbers arrive in dust storms.

''Unimpeded by friction with the surface of the Earth, you can travel great distances, and so intercontinental travel is quite easy'' for viruses, said Curtis Suttle, a marine virologist at the University of British Columbia. ''It wouldn't be unusual to find things swept up in Africa being deposited in North America.''

The study by Dr. Suttle and his colleagues, published earlier this year in the International Society of Microbial Ecology Journal, was the first to count the number of viruses falling onto the planet. The research, though, is not designed to study influenza or other illnesses, but to get a better sense of the ''virosphere,'' the world of viruses on the planet.

Generally it's assumed these viruses originate on the planet and are swept upward, but some researchers theorize that viruses actually may originate in the atmosphere. (There is a small group of researchers who believe viruses may even have come here from outer space, an idea known as panspermia.)

Whatever the case, viruses are the most abundant entities on the planet by far. While Dr. Suttle's team found hundreds of millions of viruses in a square meter, they counted tens of millions of bacteria in the same space.

Mostly thought of as infectious agents, viruses are much more than that. It's hard to overstate the central role that viruses play in the world: They're essential to everything from our immune system to our gut microbiome, to the ecosystems on land and sea, to climate regulation and the evolution of all species. Viruses contain a vast diverse array of unknown genes -- and spread them to other species.

Last year, three experts called for a new initiative to better understand viral ecology, especially as the planet changes. ''Viruses modulate the function and evolution of all living things,'' wrote Matthew B. Sullivan of Ohio State, Joshua Weitz of Georgia Tech, and Steven W. Wilhelm of the University of Tennessee. ''But to what extent remains a mystery.''

Do viruses even fit the definition of something alive? While they are top predators of the microbial world, they lack the ability to reproduce and so must take over the cell of a host -- called an infection -- and use its machinery to replicate. The virus injects its own DNA into the host; sometimes those new genes are useful to the host and become part of its genome.

Researchers recently identified an ancient virus that inserted its DNA into the genomes of four-limbed animals that were human ancestors. That snippet of genetic code, called ARC, is part of the nervous system of modern humans and plays a role in human consciousness -- nerve communication, memory formation and higher-order thinking. Between 40 percent and 80 percent of the human genome may be linked to ancient viral invasions.

Viruses and their prey are also big players in the world's ecosystems. Much research now is aimed at factoring their processes into our understanding of how the planet works.

''If you could weigh all the living material in the oceans, 95 percent of it is stuff is you can't see, and they are responsible for supplying half the oxygen on the planet,'' Dr. Suttle said.

In laboratory experiments, he has filtered viruses out of seawater but left their prey, bacteria. When that happens, plankton in the water stop growing. That's because when preying viruses infect and take out one species of microbe -- they are very specific predators -- they liberate nutrients in them, such as nitrogen, that feed other species of bacteria. In the same way, an elk killed by a wolf becomes food for ravens, coyotes and other species. As plankton grow, they take in carbon dioxide and create oxygen.

One study estimated that viruses in the ocean cause a trillion trillion infections every second, destroying some 20 percent of all bacterial cells in the sea daily.

Viruses help keep ecosystems in balance by changing the composition of microbial communities. As toxic algae blooms spread in the ocean, for example, they are brought to heel by a virus that attacks the algae and causes it to explode and die, ending the outbreak in as little as a day.

While some viruses and other organisms have evolved together and have achieved a kind of balance, an invasive virus can cause rapid, widespread changes and even lead to extinction.

West Nile virus has changed the composition of bird communities in much of the United States, killing crows and favoring ravens, some researchers say. Multiple extinctions of birds in Hawaii are predicted as the mosquito-borne avipoxvirus spreads into mountain forests where it was once too cold for mosquitoes to live.

When species disappear, the changes can ripple through an ecosystem. A textbook example is a viral disease called rinderpest.

The Italian army brought a few cattle into North Africa, and in 1887 the virus took off across the continent, killing a broad range of cloven-hoofed animals from Eritrea to South Africa -- in some cases wiping out 95 percent of the herds.

''It infected antelope, it infected wildebeest and other large grazers across the whole ecosystem,'' said Peter Daszak, the president of Ecohealth Alliance, which is working on a global project to catalog viruses likely to pass from animals to humans.

''The impact was not just on the animals. But because they are primary grazers and they died off in huge numbers, vegetation was impacted, and it allowed trees to grow where they would have been grazed away,'' he said.

''The large acacia trees on the plains of Africa are all the same age and were seedlings when rinderpest first came in and the wildlife died,'' Dr. Daszak said. In other places, far less grazing created a hospitable habitat for the tsetse fly, which carries the parasites that cause sleeping sickness.

''These kinds of ecological changes can last for centuries or even millennia,'' Dr. Daszak said.

Combined with drought, large numbers of people died from starvation as rinderpest spread. An explorer in 1891 estimated two-thirds of the Masai people, who depended on cattle, were killed.

''Almost instantaneously, rinderpest swept away the wealth of tropical Africa,'' wrote John Reader in his book ''Africa: A Biography of a Continent.''

With intensive vaccinations, rinderpest was completely wiped out, not only in Africa but globally in 2011.

The beneficial effects of viruses are much less known, especially among plants. ''There are huge questions in wild systems about what viruses are doing there,'' said Marilyn Roossinck, who studies viral ecology in plants at Pennsylvania State University. ''We have never found deleterious effects from a virus in the wild.''

A grass found in the high-temperature soils of Yellowstone's geothermal areas, for example, needs a fungus to grow in the extreme environment. In turn, the fungus needs a virus.

Tiny spots of virus on the plant that yields quinoa is also important for the plant's survival. ''Little spots of virus confer drought tolerance but don't cause disease,'' she said. ''It changes the whole plant physiology.''

''Viruses aren't our enemies,'' Dr. Suttle said. ''Certain nasty viruses can make you sick, but it's important to recognize that viruses and other microbes out there are absolutely integral for the ecosystem.''

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SEOUL (Reuters) - A discotheque hidden among the back alleys of eastern Seoul is packed with hundreds of gray-haired couples on a Monday afternoon, dancing to local hits from the 1960s in a basketball court-sized hall.

Kim Sa-gyu, 85, calls it his "playground."

"What else would I do all day? My family is busy with work. I hate going to senior centers cause all they do there is smoking," said Kim, wearing a beret as he sat on a bench at the edge of a dance floor decorated with fairy lights and mirror balls.

Seven days a week, he gets up at 5 a.m., has breakfast with his son and two grandchildren, gets an hour of massage therapy to relieve knee pain, then hops on a bus. His destination is the daytime disco for the elderly in New Hyundai Core.

Kim, who has been jobless since retiring as a hospital administer 20 years ago, is among about 1,000 customers each weekday at the disco, called a colatec. It is one of nearly 1,000 such facilities around the country.

Almost 2,000 people visit on a weekend day, said owner Choi Jung-eun.

Colatecs, a portmanteau of cola and discotheque, have arisen to serve South Korea's rapidly ageing population, as a growing number of lonely, impoverished and ailing people rediscover ways to entertain themselves after decades of hard work.

Some are here because they simply don't feel welcome at home.

"My wife yaps at me for breathing if I stay home. I love this music and no one minds me here," a gray-haired man who identified himself only as 'white boots' said, after paying an entrance fee of 1,000 won (90 cents) - a fraction of what swanky clubs in Seoul's affluent Gangnam charge their youthful clientele.

Well-dressed patrons can pay another 500 won for coat-check service. And despite the name, the disco's best-selling beverage is 2,000 won probiotic yogurt, not cola.

ELDERLY AND DEPRESSED

The generation that helped rebuild Asia's fourth-largest economy from the ruins of the 1950-1953 Korean War is now the poorest and most depressed among member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The relative poverty rate of South Korea's elderly stood at 49.6 percent in 2013, four times the OECD average, according to the latest available data. The elderly suicide rate rose from 35 per 100,000 persons in 2000 to 82 in 2010, also far above the OECD average of 22.

South Korea is aging faster than any other developed country, yet there are few post-retirement jobs, or even cheap leisure, available for the elderly.

By 2050, there will be 71 people aged 65 and over for every 100 people aged 15-64 in South Korea, up from just 17.3 per 100 in 2014, according to OECD forecasts. That will make it the third-oldest country in the world about wealthy nations, behind Japan and Spain.

Heading to a colatec is now they only way many senior citizens can find room to breathe, several customers told Reuters.

Kim In-gil, still haunted by painful memories related to his failed businesses during the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, says two hours of dancing four times a week helps rid him of "suicidal thoughts" from time to time.

"If you have music and a partner, you can put all other thoughts out of your mind," Kim said as beads of sweat dripped off his nose.

MATCHMAKER, DANCING TEACHER

Colatecs began to spring up in the late 1990s as a no-alcohol dancing club for teens, but soon started to attract the elderly as their main customers.

Jitterbug instructor Song-ah's online videos about how to dance at a colatec sparked interests after she appeared in a TV commercial for insurer LINA's pension products.

A cable TV channel offering dancing tutorials for the elderly, called Silver-I, is also popular.

At the New Hyundai Core colatec, a dance instructor walked around the dance hall searching for dancers who looked lost or lonely. Three full-time matchmaking ladies helped dancers who were too shy to find a partner.

"Those helpers sometimes take me to new woman and put our hands together to dance. I buy them a bottle of Will during our tea breaks," the 85-year-old Kim said, referring to the in-house cafe's best-selling drink, a local probiotic yogurt.

Song-ah, the jitterbug dance instructor, says she is always on the lookout for dating-related elder fraud at colatecs.

"Sometimes I see young cougars in their 50s asking really old grandpas out for a dance. I report them to the owner and separate them," she said, adding that lonely seniors can be taken advantage of by strangers.

But for the most part, colatecs do more good than harm, says Joo Won, an economist at the Hyundai Research Institute.

"We have one unhappy aging society that needs support both from the public and the government. Places like colatecs need to be nurtured," Joo said.

Choi, the owner of New Hyundai Core colatec, said her business made her feel good too.

"My take from running this place is knowing that these old people have a place to go to when they wake up. They can't afford to go travel abroad or play golf every day," Choi said.

She added that she had some senior-friendly expansion plans.

"I also plan to open a acupuncture clinic upstairs, so that my customers can take care of their joints before and after dancing," she said.

 Jeanette Calliva works in PR and lives in london. She is single and has three children, Jade, Curtis and Bella, and one grandchild.

EARLY BIRD BOTOX

I had Botox for the first time 15 years ago — as I was self-conscious about the deep creases in my forehead. If I hadn't, I think they'd be worse today. I'm a firm believer in the benefits of preventative treatments to stop facial muscles creating deep wrinkles early on. Now, I top it up every six months (£500), with a non-surgical 'Ultralift' (£700) for an extra boost. It uses ultrasound technology to stimulate skin-firming collagen.

GET A HEALTH MOT

It is worth investing in your health. Every month, I visit a naturopath for a general health MOT. She gives bespoke advice on everything from probiotics for a healthy gut, to facials and vitamin IV drips that keep my skin healthy. I always come away feeling amazing after a vitamin C infusion (£150).

REAL HOLLYWOOD SMILE

Our smile is so important: no expensive outfit or makeover is complete without it. After spending time in LA, however, I decided that I prefer a more natural look. I haven't had my teeth whitened in eight years. Instead, I visit my dentist every three months for a scale and polish (£60) to keep them in good condition.

REFLEXOLOGY SLEEP TRICK

Once a week, I also get a reflexology treatment (from £100). My therapist uses a special ion machine to stimulate cell regeneration and reboot my system. I've always struggled with sleep, as I lead a very busy life. But this leaves me feeling vital, restored and calm — so I drift off to sleep quicker. I go more often if I need to beat jetlag.

ON TREND TRAINERS

When I was younger, everything had to be designer. But now I care more about quality: how something looks and feels. I'm obsessed with trainers and wear them a lot in the day. I have a gorgeous pair of beige Nike Air Max trainers (£110) with a chunky heel, so they still feel glamorous — but I can do anything in them. The key is to pair them with something chic, like a statement coat or handbag.

* Do you look good for your age? Reveal your secrets to inspire@dailymail.co.uk

© Daily Mail

Life, if you're lucky, is divided into thirds, my father used to say: youth, middle age and ''You look good.'' The dawn of that third stage is glinting right at me.

It isn't simply that at this point more life is behind me -- behind any middle-aged person -- than lies ahead. Middle-aged? Who am I kidding? Who do you know who's 144?

It's not just about aging. By the time you've worked long enough, hard enough, real life begins to reveal itself as something other than effort, other than accomplishment. Real life wishes to be left to its own purposeless devices.

This isn't sloth. It isn't even exhaustion. It's a late-arriving awareness of consciousness existing for its own sake.

The to-do list that runs most lives through middle age turns out, in this latter stage of existence, to have only one task: to waste life in order to find it. Who said that? Or something like that. Jesus? Buddha? Bob Dylan? Somebody who knew what's what.

Mine was the first year of the notorious American baby boom, 1946. The year three of our recent presidents were born: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Donald Trump. ''You're a boomer!'' we were always told, as if we were named for the bomb, that midcentury annihilator.

We got all the good stuff.

The postwar hope and determination of our Depression-era parents was piled upon us, the fossil fuel of earlier generations we burned up without a care. We had a preposterously long sense of our own youthfulness.

But now the boomers are approaching the other side. Not death necessarily (though the time has begun when no one will say we were cut down too early). We're reaching the other side of striving.

''You should try meditating or maybe yoga -- yoga's good,'' someone said when I mentioned my fevered to-do lists, the sometimes alarming blood pressure readings, the dark-night-of-the-soul insomnia.

But meditating is just another thing. Yoga? Another task, another item for the to-do list.

This battle between striving and serenity may be distinctly American. The struggle between toil and the dream of ease is an American birthright, the way a Frenchman expects to have decent wine at a reasonable price, and the whole month of August on vacation.

Maybe it goes all the way back to the Declaration of Independence, our founding document. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How proud I've always been, through the years of protesting, the radical this and progressive that of my 1960s generation, to think of those words.

That unlikely word -- happiness -- made me proud to be an American, not just for my own sake, but that everyone was enjoined to find a personal project of delight. Of course happiness is an illusion. Still, I'll pledge allegiance to it.

But happiness is the only word in the Declaration of Independence triad that doesn't stand alone. Happiness is not, like life and liberty, a given. Happiness in the American credo is a job. It must be pursued. It may not be clear what happiness is, but you better get hold of it. Your fault, sucker, if you can't somehow nab it for yourself.

The essential American word isn't happiness. It's pursuit.

This is where the struggle is engaged, happiness as a national enterprise. Its pursuit is the loneliness coiled within the heart of the American dream.

Even a postmodern to-do list is not the answer. Go ahead -- meditate, do yoga, eat probiotic foods, all that.

But how about just giving up? What about wasting time? Giving up or perhaps giving over. To what? Perhaps what an earlier age called ''the life of the mind,'' the phrase that describes the sovereign self at ease, at home in the world. This isn't the mind of rational thought, but the lost music of wondering, the sheer value of looking out the window, letting the world float along. It's nothing, really, this wasted time, which is how it becomes, paradoxically, charged with ''everything,'' liberated into the blessed loss of ambition.

Other cultures labor, but what other nation implores each citizen to tackle happiness as a solo endeavor, a crazy paradox of a hunt for something that cannot, after all, be earned but can only be bestowed from the mysterious recesses of life? Give it up. Waste the day.

That's what that great American lounger Whitman did. ''I loaf and invite my soul,'' he wrote. ''I lean and loaf at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.'' In this way he came to his great conception of national citizenship for Americans, ''the dear love of comrades.'' His loafing led to solidarity.

It's no coincidence that our most American poet handed out this contrary notion -- to loaf -- amid what he called our ''democratic vistas.'' There's not much said about American vistas these days. Instead, there are plans to militarize a wall on our southern border.

Loafing is not a prudent business plan, not even a life plan, not a recognizably American project. But it begins to look a little like happiness, the kind that claims you, unbidden. Stay put and let the world show up? Or get out there and be a flâneur? Which is it? Well, it's both.

Maybe this is what my father's third stage of life is about -- wondering, rather than pursuing. You look good -- meaning, hey, you're still alive, you're still here, and for once you don't really need to have a to-do list.

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If you can't stop grappling with the nagging feeling that you always feel hungry, you're not alone. So what gives? It might be one or more of these four reasons:

You forgot the protein: As the Washington Post points out, protein contributes greatly to the feeling of being satisfied. Indulge in some protein at every meal and you will stay full longer.

Your gut got confused: If the microbes in your gut aren't diverse enough, they may send the wrong signals to your brain. As the Post notes, about 20 minutes after a meal, certain bacteria in your gut should send signals that you've had enough to eat by stimulating the release of a hormone linked to feelings of satiety. If you don't have a diverse mix of gut bacteria, you may not get that signal. Experts suggest supping on a diet rich in fiber and probiotics to get back on track.

You didn't get enough sleep: When you are exhausted, you tend to eat more to keep your energy up. In one University of Chicago study, sleep-deprived people ate more than 50 percent more calories than when they had a good night's rest.

You're dehydrated: Sometimes you are really thirsty but you mistake that feeling for hunger. The confusion happens in the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that regulates appetite and thirst, according to health.com. When dehydration sets in, the wires get crossed in the hypothalamus and you start munching when what you really need is a cool glass of water.

* * *

RESEARCH POINTS TO PCOS, MENTAL HEALTH DISORDER LINK

According to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, women with polycystic ovary syndrome are prone to mental health disorders, and their children face an increased risk of developing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder. PCOS, the most common hormone condition among young women, affects 7 to 10 percent of women of childbearing age and is the most common cause of infertility in young women. Elevated male hormone levels associated with the condition can cause a number of symptoms, from irregular periods to excessive body hair. Researchers from the Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute at Cardiff University assessed the mental health history of nearly 17,000 women diagnosed with PCOS. When compared with unaffected women, matched for age and body mass index, the study found that PCOS patients were more likely to be diagnosed with mental health disorders, including depression and bipolar disorder. Children born to mothers with PCOS were found to be at greater risk of developing ADHD and autism spectrum disorders. The findings suggest that women with PCOS should be screened for mental health disorders, to ensure early diagnosis and treatment.

* * *

BACTERIA A GROWING THREAT

Health officials say that "nightmare bacteria" with unusual resistance to antibiotics of last resort were found more than 200 times in the United States last year, a sign that these rare cases are growing as a public health threat. The numbers come from a first-of-a-kind hunt by the nation's public health labs last year, and the true number is probably higher. The problem mostly strikes people in hospitals and nursing homes who need IVs and other tubes that can get infected. Some patients had traveled for surgery or other health care to another country where drug-resistant germs are more common. The situation was described in a report published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

* * *

A LITTLE HELP NEVER HURTS

Looking to work on your wellness but need a little assistance? Check out the National Institutes of Health's "Your Healthiest Self" tool kits, which are free and available online. The kits, which have virtual flip cards with information and can be printed, cover a number of topics, including "Your Feelings," "Your Body" and "Your Disease Defense." Find them at bit.ly/2GPSnuv.

* * *

STUDY EXPLORES 'WEALTH SHOCK,' HEALTH SHOCK

A new study suggests a big financial loss may shorten your life. Middle-aged Americans who experienced a sudden economic blow are more likely to die during the following years than those who didn't. About one in four people in the study faced what researchers called a "wealth shock," or a loss of 75 percent or more in net worth over two years. Researchers analyzed two decades of data on nearly 9,000 people and tried to control for other health risks. They found suffering a big financial loss was tied with a 50 percent greater risk of dying. This type of study can't prove cause and effect, but the new finding underscores well-known connections between money and well-being. The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

* * *

WANDERLUST 108 IS HEADED BACK TO TAMPA

Wanderlust 108, billed as a "mindful triathlon," will be returning to Tampa for a day of running-walking, yoga and guided meditation. There also will be live music and local craft and food vendors. The event takes place Nov. 3 at Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park, 1001 North Boulevard. Tickets are on sale now at wanderlust.com/2018-108s.

Q. How can foods like oats, which don’t contain gluten, advertise themselves as “gluten-free”?

A. While oats do not inherently contain gluten, they may carry the gluten-free label to allay concerns about cross-contamination with gluten-containing grains. Although most people can enjoy gluten-containing foods without issue, unintentionally consuming even small amounts of gluten can pose health risks for individuals with celiac disease.

“Commercial oats are often grown in fields that have previously grown wheat, transported by methods of transport where other grains are transported, and frequently milled in facilities that mill other grains,” said Dr. Peter Green, a professor of medicine who directs the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University. Cross-contamination can also occur in storage silos or via shared harvesting devices or production equipment.

Gluten is a term for the proteins found not only in wheat but also in rye, barley, wheat varieties[https://celiac.org/live-gluten-free/glutenfreediet/sources-of-gluten/] like farro and spelt, and triticale (essentially a cross between wheat and rye). Malt and brewer’s yeast also contain gluten. In addition to oats, other inherently gluten-free grains — such as millet, sorghum and corn — also have the potential to come into contact with gluten-containing grains, Dr. Green said.

In order to carry the gluten-free label[https://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/Allergens/ucm362880.htm], a manufacturer must assert that a product’s gluten level is below the regulated threshold of 20 parts per million, a standard set by the Food and Drug Administration in 2013. But because use of the gluten-free claim is voluntary, many foods that are in fact gluten-free might not be labeled as such.

The regulation applies to products regulated by the F.D.A., including packaged foods made without gluten-containing grains or ingredients and dietary supplements, as well as to products like fresh produce and bottled spring water that are innately gluten-free. (Dr. Green said he considers the labeling of products like water that are, by nature, free of gluten “nonsensical,” noting that “one lady told me she was in Rhode Island and saw gluten-free sneakers.”) But it does not include meat, poultry or some egg products, which are regulated by the Department of Agriculture, or most alcoholic beverages, which are regulated by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

There are two main ways manufacturers can produce oat products that are free of gluten. One is to grow, transport and mill the oats in dedicated facilities. Another method to ensure that a product contains less than the 20 parts per million limit is to mechanically or optically sort the oats from any gluten-containing grains. Such a sorting technique can be useful because commercial oats may contain as much as 2 percent “impurities,” meaning stuff other than oats, such as dirt and rocks along with other grains, according to Dr. Joseph A. Murray, a professor of medicine who directs the celiac disease program at the Mayo Clinic.

Dr. Green said there’s no “gluten police” that tests food product manufacturers’ gluten levels in the United States, the way the government has done in Canada, but unless a celiac disease patient experiences symptoms after consuming an oat product, his recommendation is, generally speaking, to trust the label.

Indeed, a recent randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29478494] among children in Italy confirmed the safety of oats for most celiac disease patients. Most experts encourage those with celiac disease[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28431885] to eat oats that are free of gluten because of their many nutritional benefits[http://www.nasscd.org/files/Oats-Statement-NASSCD-April-2016(1).pdf], which include high amounts of antioxidants and fiber that may have benefits for blood sugar and cholesterol levels.

* Is There a Downside to Going Gluten-Free if You’re Healthy?[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/12/well/eat/gluten-free-grain-free-diet.html]

* When Athletes Go Gluten Free[https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/when-athletes-go-gluten-free/]

* Many Probiotics Taken for Celiac Disease Contain Gluten[https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/many-probiotics-taken-for-celiac-disease-contain-gluten/]

* A Downside of Gluten Free[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/well/eat/a-downside-of-gluten-free.html]

Update -- 11:43 a.m. Fixes language in headline

(CNN) -- This feature is part of CNN Parallels, an interactive series exploring ways you can improve your health by making small changes to your daily habits.

A lot of us drink. Too many of us drink a lot.

Worldwide, each person 15 years and older consumes 13.5 grams of pure alcohol per day, according to the World Health Organization. Considering that nearly half of the world doesn't drink at all, that leaves the other half drinking up their share.

While the majority of the world drinks liquor, Americans prefer beer. The Beverage Marketing Corp. tracks these things: In 2017, Americans guzzled about 27 gallons of beer (or 216 pints), 2.6 gallons of wine and 2.2 gallons of spirits per drinking-age adult.

But Americans are lightweights in any worldwide drinking game, based on numbers from the World Health Organization. The Eastern European countries of Lithuania, Belarus, Czechia (the Czech Republic), Croatia and Bulgaria drink us under the table.

In fact, measuring liters drunk by anyone over 15, the US ranks 36th in the category of most sloshed nation; Austria comes in sixth; France is ninth (more wine) and Ireland 15th (yes, they drink more beer), while the UK ranks 18th.

Who drinks the least in the world? The Arab nations of the Middle East.

With all this boozing going on, just what damage does alcohol do to your health? Let's explore what science says are the downsides of having a tipple or two.

Counting calories

Even if you aren't watching your waistline, you might be shocked at the number of empty calories you can easily consume during happy hour.

Calories are typically defined by a "standard" drink. In the US, that's about 0.6 fluid ounces or 14 grams of pure alcohol, which differs depending on the type of adult beverage you consume.

For example, a standard drink of beer is one 12-ounce can (355 milliliters). For malt liquor, it's 8 to 9 fluid ounces (251 milliliters). A standard drink of red or white wine is about 5 fluid ounces (148 milliliters).

What's considered a standard drink continues to go down as the alcohol content goes up. But what if that changes? Let's use beer as an example.

It used to be that light beer came in around 100 calories while regular beer averaged 153 calories per 12-fluid ounce can or bottle -- that's the same as two or three Oreo cookies.

But beer calories depend on both alcohol content and carbohydrate level. So if you're a fan of today's popular craft beers, which often have extra carbs and higher alcohol content, you could easily face a calorie land mine in every can. Let's say you chose a highly ranked IPA, such as Sierra Nevada Bigfoot (9.6% alcohol) or Narwhal (10.2% alcohol), and you've downed a whopping 318 to 344 calories, about as much as a McDonald's cheeseburger. Did you drink just one?

If you pour correctly, white wine is about 120 calories per 5 fluid ounces, and red is 125. If you fill your glass to the brim, that might easily double.

Liquor? Gin, rum, vodka, tequila and whiskey cost you 97 calories per 1.5 fluid ounces, but that's without mixers. An average margarita will cost you 168 calories while a pina colada weighs in at a whopping 490 calories, about the same as a McDonald's Quarter Pounder.

A 2013 study in the US found that calorie intake went up on drinking days compared with non-drinking days, mostly due to alcohol: Men took in 433 extra calories, while women added 299 calories.

But alcohol can also affect our self-control, which can lead to overeating. A 1999 study found that people ate more when they had an aperitif before dinner than if they abstained.

Take heart. If you're a light to moderate drinker, meaning you stick to US guidelines of one "standard" drink a day for women and two for men, studies have shown that you aren't guaranteed to gain weight over time -- especially if you live an overall healthy lifestyle.

For example, a 2002 study of almost 25,000 Finnish men and women over five-year intervals found that moderate alcohol consumption, combined with a physically active lifestyle, no smoking and healthy food choices, "maximizes the chances of having a normal weight."

However, it appears that heavy drinking and binge drinking could be linked to obesity. And that's a problem. The numbers of binge drinkers -- defined as five or more drinks for men and four or more drinks for women within a couple of hours at least once a month -- has been rising in the United States.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says one in six adults binge about four times a month, downing about eight drinks in each binge.

In the UK, where binge drinking is defined as "drinking lots of alcohol in a short space of time or drinking to get drunk," a 2016 national survey found 2.5 million people admitted to binge drinking in the last week.

Alcohol, of course, has no nutritional value and contains 7 calories per gram -- more than protein and even carbs, which both have 4 calories. Fat has 9 calories per gram.

All those empty alcohol calories have to end up somewhere.

Heart disease and cancer

The prevailing wisdom for years has been that drinking in moderation -- again, that's one "standard" drink a day for women and two for men -- is linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. But recent studies are casting doubt on that long-held lore. Science now says it depends on your age and drinking habits.

A 2017 study of nearly 2 million Brits with no cardiovascular risk found that there was still a modest benefit in moderate drinking, especially for women over 55 who drank five drinks a week. Why that age? Alcohol can alter cholesterol and clotting in the blood in positive ways, experts say, and that's about the age when heart problems begin to occur.

For everyone else, the small protective effect on the heart was evident only if the drinks were spaced out during the week. Consuming heavily in one session, or binge drinking, has been linked to heart attacks -- or what the English call "holiday heart."

Also, a 2018 study found that drinking more than 100 grams of alcohol per week -- equal to roughly seven standard drinks in the United States or five to six glasses of wine in the UK -- increases your risk of death from all causes and in turn lowers your life expectancy. Links were found with different forms of cardiovascular disease, with people who drank more than 100 grams per week having a higher risk of stroke, heart failure, fatal hypertensive disease and fatal aortic aneurysm, where an artery or vein swells up and could burst.

In contrast, the 2018 study found that higher levels of alcohol were also linked to a lower risk of heart attack, or myocardial infarction.

Overall, however, the latest thinking is that any heart benefit may be outweighed by other health risks, such as high blood pressure, pancreatitis, certain cancers and liver damage.

Women who drink are at a higher risk for breast cancer; alcohol contributes about 6% of the overall risk, possibly because it raises certain dangerous hormones in the blood. Drinking can also increase the chance you might develop bowel, liver, mouth and oral cancers.

One potential reason: Alcohol weakens our immune systems, making us more susceptible to inflammation, a driving force behind cancer, as well as infections and the integrity of the microbiome in our digestive tract. That's true not only for chronic drinkers but for those who binge, as well.

Diabetes

The connection between alcohol and diabetes is complicated. Studies show that drinking moderately over three or four days a week may actually lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. However, drinking heavily increases the risk. Too much alcohol inflames the pancreas, which is responsible for secreting insulin to regulate your body's blood sugars.

If you have diabetes, alcohol may interact with various medications. If you take insulin or any pills that stimulate the release of insulin, alcohol can lead to hypoglycemia, a dangerously low blood sugar level, because alcohol stimulates the release of insulin as well. That's why experts recommend never drinking on an empty stomach. Instead, drink with a meal or at least some carbs.

And, of course, because alcohol is made by fermenting sugar and starch, it's full of empty calories, which contributes to obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Mood and memory

Because alcohol is a depressant, drinking can drown your mood. It may not seem that way while you "party" your inhibitions away, but that's just the drink depressing the part of the brain we use to control our actions. The more you drink, say experts, the more your negative emotions, such as anxiety, anger and depression, can take over.

That's why binge drinking or drinking a lot in one sitting is associated with higher levels of depression, self-harm, suicide and violent offending.

Binge drinking is also associated with severe "blackouts": the inability to remember what happened while drunk. Blackouts can range from small memory blips, such as forgetting a name, to more serious incidents, such as forgetting an entire evening.

Alcohol does this by decreasing the electrical activity of the neurons in your hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for the formation of short-term memories. Keep up that binge drinking, and you can permanently damage the hippocampus and develop sustained memory or cognitive problems.

Adolescents are most susceptible to alcohol's memory disruption but less sensitive to the intoxicating effects. That means they can easily drink more to feel as "drunk" as an adult would, causing even more damage to their brains.

How you look

Last but certainly not least, alcohol can have a significant effect on your good looks. First, it dehydrates you. That can leave your skin looking parched and wrinkled. It's also linked to rosacea, a skin condition causing redness, pimples and swelling on your face.

Do you know you can stink while you're drinking? During the time your liver is processing a single drink, which is on average an hour but varies for everyone, some of it leaves your body via your breath, urine and sweat.

Another reason drinking can affect your looks has to do with sleep. Although even a little bit of alcohol can help you fall asleep quickly, as the alcohol is metabolized and leaves the body you may suffer the "rebound effect." Instead of staying asleep, the body enters lighter sleep and wakefulness, which appears to get worse the more one drinks.

A lack of sleep leads to dark circles, puffy eyes and stress. Keep it up, studies say, and you're likely to see more signs of aging and a much lower satisfaction with your appearance.

So the next time you head to the pub for tipple or two, remember: You could be paying a price for all that fun.

CNN's Mark Lieber contributed to this report.

But it is possible to reintroduce dairy to your life

We live in a time when it seems like every other person is cutting something out of their diet.

From gluten and wheat to dairy and sugar, it’s increasingly common to have dietary requirements nowadays - and increasingly difficult to throw a dinner party as a result.

And while people with genuine intolerances have no choice, those of us who cut out foods purely for lifestyle reasons could be doing ourselves more harm than good.

Read more

Seven non-dairy foods you didn’t know contain calcium

One of the most problematic in this vein, is dairy.

Many people avoid dairy because they believe it makes their skin worse and is fattening.

However if you’re not actually intolerant to dairy-products, going the whole hog (or cow) and cutting all dairy out of your diet could actually make you lactose-intolerant.

It’s true that a large proportion of the world’s population are “lactose maldigesters,” which means they struggle to digest lactose.

This is because their bodies don’t produce much lactase, which is the enzyme that breaks down lactose.

Young children (under the age of five), generally have high levels of intestinal lactase, but as we get older, our levels decrease.

However, the more dairy you consume, the more lactase your gut bacteria produces.

“The bacteria in our colon need to be fed in order to survive,” Dennis Savaiano, PhD, Meredith Professor of Nutrition Policy at Purdue University, told Well + Good[https://www.wellandgood.com/good-food/quitting-dairy-lactose-intolerant/slide/3/]. “So whatever you feed them, those bacteria are going to prosper.

Read more

Toddler with dairy allergy left fighting for life after eating ‘vegan’

“Individuals who are used to eating lactose in their diet have more lactase enzyme [than people don’t eat lactose-containing foods]—we think six to eight times more—and are more efficient at digesting it so they don’t get symptoms.”

While there are plenty of dairy alternatives on offer these days - Innocent is the latest to enter the market with a new range of almond, oat and hazelnut ‘milks’ - is there anything better than thick, creamy Greek yoghurt or salty halloumi?

Don’t deny yourself these foods if you don’t have to - life’s too short, and dairy is too delicious.

But if you give up dairy and then try and reintroduce it to your diet, you may struggle to digest it having possibly built up an intolerance and thus have some negative symptoms.

That doesn’t mean you can never have a latte or scoop of ice cream again though - you can actually retrain your body to break down lactose efficiently.

A post shared by Aslıhan Demirel (@muzlumarshmallow)[https://www.instagram.com/p/BhgeepAnLEs/] on

Apr 13, 2018 at 3:34am PDT

The trick is to start with small amounts of lactose and gradually build up the amount you’re consuming. Savaiano also recommends pairing high-lactose foods with other foods so as not to overload your digestive system.

It’s also important to note that not all dairy products contain the same amount of lactose - yoghurt and hard cheese are actually very low in lactose, whereas milk is higher.

So don’t go dairy-free unless you need to, and if you’ve already done so and wish you hadn’t, just reintroduce dairy products to your diet gradually.

When it comes to a taste marketers know consumers will crave, sour is the new sweet.

Consumers are puckering up for sour food and drinks of all sorts. Sometimes they are rewarded with a sweet burst. Sometimes not.

The latest entrant in the sour sweepstakes is the popsicle-like version of Sour Patch Kids candy, arriving just in time for the warmer weather of spring. Sour Patch Kids Flavored Ice Pops will be sold in retail and club stores throughout the U. S.

Like the candy, the ice pops start out with a sour taste then turn sweet. They'll come in a variety of fruit flavors.

"What makes this product shine is the sour swirl we infused into a sweet, frozen base, giving Sour Patch Kids candy fans the perfect 'sour, then sweet' flavor profile," Jerry Law, J&J Snack Foods' senior vice president, said in a statement. J&J is launching it in conjunction with Sour Patch maker Mondelēz International.  

More: Which is healthier: A hot dog or hamburger?

More: Foods you didn’t know were totally Americanized

More: Japan really, really loves this candy

Lately, sour products have turned up across the food industry - from candy to fast-food. Even Starbucks got into the act.

Starbucks, in fact, probably got the most notice last year with a limited-time drink it called the Unicorn Frappuccino.

The purple beverage had a taste "that is sweet and fruity," Starbucks said in a statement at the time. "But give it a stir and its color changes to pink, and the flavor evolves to tangy and tart. "

Not to be outdone, Pepsico is bringing back the Baja Blast version of Mountain Dew for summer. It was last in stores in 2016 and has been available at Taco Bell drink dispensers since. Pepsico officials say it was flooded with requests by fans to have it back in the soft-drink aisle.

Descriptions vary, but Baja Blast is described as a more limey, tangy - some would say sour - version of the famous sugary Mountain Dew.

"We posted a question across social media saying what would (fans) do to bring Baja Blast back," said Chauncey Hamlett, senior director of marketing.  He said 17,000 responses poured in over 72 hours, including people who offered to cut or dye their hair. "Baja Blast is for Dew consumers who just want to have a damn good time. "

Sour Patch Kids fans even have a icy-cold treat to enjoy. Last week, Walmart began selling a new Nestle Dreyer's ice cream flavor, called Sour Patch Kids Red, White and Blue. It's available exclusively at the big-box retailer through the end of the year.  

Also thrilling those who love all things sour is kefir, a fermented milk drink that is growing more popular among mainstream consumers. The American public is increasingly turning to fermented foods, thanks to the widening awareness of probiotics' health benefits.

"Sour is like a highlighter, an off-key note that makes other on-key notes sound better. It’s a bit of dissonance," said David Sax, the author of The Tastemakers: Why We’re Crazy for Cupcakes but Fed Up with Fondue. "That's why we squeeze lime on our taco or lemon on our fish. "

But the ultimate in sour flavor is what Sonic Drive-In plans to launch nationwide in June for a limited time -- a Pickle Juice Slush.

"Quite simply, pickle juice is fun," Scott Uehlein, the chain's vice president of product innovation and development, said in a statement.

A taster from Food & Wine magazine described it as "sweet and tangy," adding that the "only gripe is that the slush is a bit too sweet, as if overcorrecting for the acidity, but maybe this is what has to happen for America to acclimate to - and embrace - a pickle-flavored soft drink. "

Sounds like America is ready.

USA Today reporter Zlati Meyer contributed to this report.

In the development of health and disease, there are key moments where future trajectories are established. This early programming sets the stage for long-term health and also the prevention of future diseases.

These so-called critical windows were originally known as the Barker Hypothesis. In 1990, British epidemiologist David Barker proposed an association between fetal malnutrition and hypertension later in life. Other examples are breast and colon cancer. High birth weights are associated with an increase of these cancers partially due to intrauterine exposure to high levels of growth hormones.

During the past decade, the microbiome has emerged as a major contributor to human health. The organisms found in the gut matter a great deal more than we ever realized in how they impact the rest of the body.

This emerging science is relatively young, but exciting discoveries continue to be made. I use the analogy of ancient explorers who sailed west from Europe, not knowing what they were about to discover. Bit by bit they found out about new continents. Similarly, scientists continue to discover the importance of critical windows.

The human microbiota is composed of 10 to 100 trillion microbial cells and viruses. These organisms play a huge role even before birth. (Initially, it was thought that the intrauterine environment was sterile. However, non-pathogenic bacteria have since been detected by molecular techniques in the amniotic fluid and the placenta of healthy infants) The gut microbiome of the fetus is influenced by various factors such as the mother's diet, gestational diabetes, the mother's blood pressure, the birth weight, preterm birth, the administration of antibiotics to the mother - both prenatally and postnatally - and the method of delivery. These factors may partially determine if a baby will go on and develop allergies, obesity, inflammatory illnesses and neurodevelopmental illnesses.

Premature babies are at risk for developing necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a condition where the bowels are severely damaged to the point of not allowing any nutrition via the mouth. Antibiotics are used to treat NEC. These medications then disturb the gut microbiome further. The idea of using probiotic supplementation to help restore the microbiome to a more ideal environment did not exist until recently.

Many doctors are also more aware of the role caesarean sections play. Babies born by caesarean section are deprived of the opportunity to pass through the mother's birth canal, where they get colonized by good bacteria provided by the mother. This may impact their risk for allergies later in life. Research is underway to determine if recolonizing infants delivered by caesarean sections within two minutes of birth may be able to partially restore the microbiota, thus reducing the risk for illnesses later in life.

When medical students were taught about the benefits of breastfeeding in the past, their teachers never mentioned how breastfeeding impacts the human gut microbiome. Now we know that breastfeeding greatly benefits it. The good bacteria are derived not only from the breast milk, but also from the skin of the mother's areolar area.

The role of neonatal stress has been studied in animals. When rat pups were separated from the mother, the composition of the gut microbiota changed. Treating the rat pups with probiotics countered the resulting elevated cortisol caused by stress. Much more research is needed before we can demonstrate the same effect in humans, but the role of stress and how it impacts gut health (microbiome) will no doubt be a factor.

The causes of common conditions such as allergies, asthma, eczema, obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, depression, autism and attention deficits are complex and multi-layered. Being more aware of the critical times of establishing a healthy microbiome may help reduce the risk of these conditions.

Practically, it means that we need to pay even more attention to what mothers eat while pregnant. Caesarean sections must be done for the right reasons; maternal antibiotics and antibiotics to newborns can save lives, but the role of probiotics after the use of antibiotics must not be forgotten or ignored; breastfeeding for as long as possible assists the maturation of the gut microbiome; and the use of antibiotics early in life should be carefully considered and used only appropriately.

From an ethical standpoint, I find this science both disturbing and exciting. Disturbing in that some humans may now be paying the price later in life because doctors were not aware of the importance of protecting the gut microbiome more aggressively and some mothers may have guilt that they did not eat better during pregnancy. But it is also exciting to know that we can reduce the risk of future problems by paying closer attention to the gut microbiome - especially during these critical window moments. Dr. Peter Nieman is a pediatrician, author and health coach. For more information, visit drnieman.com.

MINNEAPOLIS -People lined up to fill water bottles from the Fredrick-Miller Spring in Eden Prairie. Although a sign warns that the city can't guarantee the safety of the water, "raw water" fans think that it tastes better than tap water, and some think that it's healthier.

The sight of cool water emerging mysteriously out of the deep-delved earth has long fascinated humans who once believed some springs were sacred, with the power to inspire poets or miraculously cure diseases.

Now some people believe there are "probiotics" in water that comes straight out of the ground.

Rebranded as "raw water," "live water," "real water" or "unprocessed water," untreated spring water is commanding a high price in places such as Silicon Valley, according to a New York Times article published in December.

The article noted that a grocery store in San Francisco frequently is selling out its stock of unfiltered, unsterilized spring water. A 2 1/2-gallon container costs $36.99.

Raw water fans say they avoid municipal water - or "dead water," as some call it - because they want water free of the chlorine and fluoride often added to tap water. Some argue that raw water has healthy bacteria.

"They're nut cases. You can quote me on that," said Stew Thornley, a Minnesota Health Department health educator. Thornley said tap water is the safest, most thoroughly tested water available.

Spring water, in contrast, is susceptible to contamination and can vary rapidly in quality depending on changes in the environment or land uses around the spring, according to the Health Department.

Dr. Donald Hensrud, medical director of the Mayo Clinic Healthy Living Program in Rochester, Minn., said he's unaware of any health benefits of untreated water. But there are some health risks, such as the potential presence of nitrates or giardia.

"People have this idea that natural is better with regard to water," Hensrud said. "It's kind of analogous to the immunization issue."

Thornley said, "We definitely don't recommend this raw water movement."

That isn't deterring fans of the Fredrick-Miller Spring, a historic spring converted into a free public tap on land owned by the city.

Vehicles frequently line up in the small parking lot next to the constantly flowing outdoor spigot as people fill up their jugs and water bottles despite a city sign nearby warning: "The quality of the water from this spring can change quite rapidly so even though the water is tested, we cannot assure its safety at all times."

A recent test of the spring showed low levels of nitrate, no bacteria and some naturally occurring fluoride. But the water at the Fredrick-Miller Spring is tested only once a month, said Rick Wahlen, the city's utilities manager. Municipal water systems are tested much more frequently.

Still, spring water fans say it tastes better than tap water, that it makes better coffee, pasta or home-brewed beer and that even their plants and pets prefer it.

"It's pure, pure, pure," said Kevin Thoresen, a Shakopee resident who recently filled up bottles with water from the spring. He said he uses the spring water, which he stores in brown glass bottles, to make Essiac tea, an herbal tea used by some as an alternative treatment for cancer.

"You're talking cancer? I've had it three times," said Marilyn Schroeder, a St. Louis Park, Minn., woman who also was waiting to fill her water bottles at the spring. "I do not drink city water. I don't believe in fluoridation."

Forget about giantslippery mushroomsbetween two buns, these burgers will even charm the greatest meat-lover

Until recently, burger joints could get away with murder when it came to non-meat options. A giant slippery mushroom slathered in ketchup between two buns, or even worse, a nondescript sweetcorn mush reminiscent of deep-fried baby food.

But with around half a million people in the UK now identifying as vegan, rabbit food patties just don’t cut the mustard anymore.

Here are some of the best places to get a vegan burger in the UK, if you want to go meat free.

Vurger Co

In your face Wednesday  yes you really can get this in your face today and everyday  what a perfect shot of our Auburger ❤️ thank you @kippysnacks  See you all soon for all of this ☝ #humpdayfeels #macncheeseplease #thevurgerco #plantbased #auburger #burgersandfries #vegansofldn #vegansofig #instafood #foodie #foodgasm #londoneats #veganfoodshare #foodshare #veganfood #veganeats #veganeats[https://www.instagram.com/p/BhbVuPXn49b/]

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Apr 11, 2018 at 3:41am PDT

It’s all in the name at Vurger[http://www.thevurgerco.com/], where the burgers are vegan, and made out of vegetables, seeds, nuts and grains. They get pretty whacky, with the best-selling Tabasco Auburger made from aubergines, chickpeas, red onion and vegan cheese. Try the superb mac’n’cheese on the side too.

Then for those that really want to push the boat out, wash down your patty with a famous Vurger shake, and trust me, you’ll feel like a healthy million dollars.

Vurger opened their first permanent site in Shoreditch on 24th March.

Cut + Grind

Cut + Grind[https://www.cutandgrindburgers.com/] are famous for their meat burgers, grinding the mince up to four times a day to keep it fresh. Winner of the National Burger Awards this year, they even offer burger-making masterclasses at their restaurant in Kings Cross.

But unlike many conventional burger restaurants, they’ve made a splash on the vegan scene too. The miso-glazed aubergine, with sesame slaw, sweet pickles and homemade ketchup rivals any traditional patty, and hits the spot with the chargrilled broccoli. Maybe throw in an Oreo milkshake too for good measure.

Mindful Burger at Yeotown Kitchen

A fast food staple reimagined by Yeotown: your all-American burger made healthy & vegan ⠀ ⠀ It's the Yeotown Burger, made with beluga lentils, carmelized onions and local quinoa on a flax sundried tomato bun with probiotic aioli catsup with roasted sweet potato fries. Comfort food for your mind & body ⠀ ⠀ We named it after one of the most important character traits - Honesty. It's a very special trait, too, as it requires a lot of courage, respect, responsibility and a need of being true to yourself and others. Honest people lead fulfilling lives and are considered to be trustworthy. ⠀ ⠀ Next time you're at Yeotown Kitchen - ask for our Honesty Burger!⠀[https://www.instagram.com/p/BaG2Vd3BtfE/]

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Oct 11, 2017 at 5:02am PDT

If being vegan isn’t doing enough for your soul, how about trying Yeotown Kitchen[http://www.yeotownkitchen.com/main-page/], London’s first mindfulness café, for your next meat-free hit.

Their Bounce Back Cheeseburger boasts beluga lentils, caramelised onions, vegan cheddar, quinoa, walnuts and cumin catsup. And don’t forget the roasted sweet potato fries and vegan aioli on the side.

If that isn’t too much of a mouthful, guests are invited to sip green juice and settle into a meditation pod for a quick mindfulness session afterwards. Or if you’re feeling a bit more indulgent I’d opt for some banana and coconut ice cream for pudding.

Patty & Bun

In the past vegans would have steered well clear of Patty & Bun[http://www.pattyandbun.co.uk/]. Heaven for carnivores, their menu has always been pretty beefy, with an impressive deep fried cheese fritter as the veggie alternative.

But last month they changed their tune and introduced the phenomenal Whoopi Goldburger. It’s a tempeh and mushroom fritter, topped with pickled cucumbers, diced onion, double smoked vegan cheese, mustard, ketchup and lettuce, in a tasty Bonsoy bun.

The burger is currently only available at Patty & Bun’s Redchurch Street (London) and Brighton locations.

Redemption Bar

Our pulled jackfruit burger epitomises our philosophy: To spoil yourself without spoiling yourself... win win! Photo by @thenuttynoodle[https://www.instagram.com/p/BglfR2bH_Kk/]

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Mar 21, 2018 at 5:46am PDT

If you want a real health kick of a burger, try Redemption Bar[http://RedemptionBar.co.uk].

Founded by two female entrepreneurs who wanted to create the healthiest restaurant in London, their motto is ‘spoil yourself without spoiling yourself’.

Based in Shoreditch and Notting Hill, Redemption serves up all vegan, sugar-free and wheat-free food.

Their Buff Burger is a protein packed fibre-boosting shiitake mushroom, black bean and ruby beet burger in a gluten-free bun with tomato, lettuce and caramelised red onion marmalade.

There’s also a probiotic superslaw made of kohlrabi and coconut kefir dressing if you want to get really wholesome.

Biff’s Jack Shack

Hell-bent on serving the filthiest vegan food in town, the Shack[https://biffsjackshack.com/home] was founded last year when Biff was trying to cut out meat, but couldn’t find enough junk food to hit the spot.

Biff’s offers London’s first crispy fried jackfruit burgers, and wings with a sugarcane 'bone' if you’re up for some artful meat imitation.

Their most famous burger is the Samuel Hell Jackson. Made with the signature jackfruit patty, it comes with homemade maple chipotle hot sauce, lime slaw, vegan burger cheese and jalapeños, all sandwiched in a toasted seeded vegan brioche bun.

Mildred’s

The bleeding burger craze has taken LA by storm, even though the name could make even the most bloodthirsty carnivore feel squeamish.

Now it has arrived in London, with vegetarian chain Mildred’s[http://www.mildreds.co.uk/] adding the Moving Mountains B12 burger to its menu.

Totally plant-based, potatoes, peas, wheat and soy are used to create the patty. But despite these ingredients it looks like a rare beef burger, oozing beetroot juice for that Halloween fake blood effect.

Mooshies

Mooshies [https://veganburger.org/]began as a vegan supper club, started by husband and wife John and Nelly. Their plant-based burgers proved so popular that they soon moved to an old curry house on Brick Lane to bring their patties to the masses.

The Pulled Mooshie is made of barbequed jackfruit, while the Fillet-Om-Phish does vegan seafood with battered aubergine, nori seaweed, vegan cheese, Mooshies tartar sauce and lettuce.

Go for some guacamole and plantain chips while you’re waiting, and a matcha brownie if you’ve still got room at the end.

Vx

Founded as the first 100 per centvegan shop in London, Vx’s mission is simple: promoting a cruelty-free vegan lifestyle without sacrificing taste.

No quinoa in sight, their menu serves up supersize cheesy chips, vegan doner kebabs and soya BBQ ribs. But the Vx Burger is the pièce de résistance, a wheat burger patty with vayonnaise, tomatoes, gherkins and ketchup.

And with oreo donuts to top it all off, Vx is the hungover vegan’s paradise.

Though it originally opened in London[https://www.vx-london.com/], this vegan piece of paradise recently opened in Bristol [http://www.vxbristol.com/]too.

Forget Lemsip, pass us the vino

When you’re suffering from flu – cue a sore throat, fever, cough and stuffy nose – and want to stop it in its tracks, the answer typically lies with Lemsip, a heavy dose of vitamin C and getting plenty of rest.

But, according to new research, the best remedy could be hidden in your wine rack, or be as simple as brewing a cup of tea.

The study, conducted by scientists at the Washington University School of Medicine, has found that a compound found in foods such as red wine, black tea and blueberries could help gut bacteria fight infections and prevent severe influenza.

Read more

Drinking wine makes people more creative

Published in the journal Science[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6350/498], in their test on mice, the researchers explained that flavonoids found in these products worked with a particular gut micriobiome – clostridum oribiscidens – to create a metabolite that boosts the immune response.

As a result, flu symptoms lessen and the time it takes to return to health is reduced.

“For years, flavonoids have been thought to have protective properties that help regulate the immune system to fight infections,” said Ashley Steed, the study’s author.

“Flavonoids are common in our diets, so an important implication of our study is that it’s possible flavonoids work with gut microbes to protect us from flu and other viral infections. Obviously, we need to learn more, but our results are intriguing.”

Read more

Vitamin D supplements 'the key to beating colds and flu'

But before you use this an excuse to get through a few bottles of your favourite plonk, it’s important to note that this research is yet to be carried out on humans with flu symptoms.

And as such, the definitive effect that foods containing flavonoids, like wine, tea and blueberries, has on actually making you feel better remains unclear.

Local investors banked on skyr being a big cheese in the US market, too

CAMBRIDGE — A good entrepreneur has the foresight to identify largely undiscovered product or idea, recognize that it fits today's zeitgeist, and present it in a way that people can't resist. A great entrepreneur can do that across many different industries. Over and over again. Jon Flint and Terry McGuire, who are among the partners at Polaris Founders Capital, the Boston-based investment firm, are great entrepreneurs.

Flint, who lives in Lincoln, and McGuire, who's in Weston, first founded Polaris Partners in 1996 and had tremendous successes with ventures like Living Proof, the haircare brand that Unilever acquired in February 2017 for an undisclosed sum, and deCODE, an Icelandic genetics research company that was founded in 1996, long before 23andMe and Ancestry advertisements became ubiquitous. Now they're diving headlong into the dairy industry. Their company, Icelandic Provisions, created a skyr with a dairy co-op in Iceland and, having launched in the beginning of 2016, today it's the fastest growing yogurt product in the United States, according to Nielsen.

“The timing is always good for food that's healthy, delicious and doesn't need preparation. But the timing for anything Icelandic is particularly good now. Nordic food has been just so popular in the past few years and Iceland is such a hot destination, not least because of their food and healthy outdoor traditions," said Flint, noting that celebrated Icelandic chef Gunnar Gislason opened Agern, a Michelin-starred restaurant in New York's Nordic Food Hall, located in Grand Central Terminal, in spring 2016. Gislason actually helped the Icelandic Provisions team develop its newest flavor, cherry-black currant, which launched in February. Scandinavian food and drink is easy to come by in New York these days. Fika, a Swedish coffee chain, has been opening stores throughout Manhattan at a steady clip over the last few years. Mikkeller, a longstanding Danish brewer known for creative, eccentric beers, opened a brewery/gastropub at the Mets' Citifield in Queens in March.

Indeed, if you recognize skyr in the grocery store, chances are you've been to Iceland. The creamy yogurt-like product, which is technically classified as a cheese, is to Iceland what ramen is to Japan or what bratwurst is to Germany, which is to say it's deeply entrenched in the national culture, it dates back centuries, and it's available everywhere throughout the country. Moreover, it's something that's easy to get hooked on when you're traveling and even easier to crave when you get home. Iceland has seen a tremendous spike in tourism in the last few years. According to the Icelandic Tourism Board, the country saw a total of 2,195,271 visitors in 2017. To put that in perspective, the population of Reykjavik is around 118,800 and the entire country is home to about 334,000. Couple that with the fact that bargain airlines are adding routes to the island country (Icelandic airline Wow Air launched service from Boston to Iceland in March 2015). Moreover, skyr has a lot of assets to boast to an increasingly health-conscious shopper. It's higher in protein than most yogurt products and lower in sugar. With all of that in mind, it's easy to see why the partners determined the time was ripe for acting.

For Flint, the idea for starting a skyr brand was prompted by his own travels, having spent so much time in Iceland when working with deCODE. He was particularly drawn to its health benefits.

Skyr is not necessarily new to American grocery stores, so, Flint says, they knew that they had to find a way to differentiate their skyr off the bat. To that end, they connected with MS Iceland Dairies, a co-op of 600 family-owned farms headquartered 15 minutes southeast of Reykjavik, to develop a brand new product.

To hear Flint tell it, they followed the approach that made Living Proof a success. (The brand's founders created their own unique molecules for the haircare products.) The key here was similarly focusing on the essential building block component: the cultures. Icelandic Provisions skyr is made with heirloom cultures.

“It's analogous to a baker using heirloom wheat or a brewer using hyper-specific hops. It determines everything, from flavor to texture," Flint explained.

Skyr is not protected by an appelation of origin, the geographic indicator of legal production. It doesn't have to be made in Iceland the way Champagne has to come from France's Champagne region or Scotch has to come from Scotland. Icelandic Provisions is made in upstate New York with cultures sent from Iceland.

But no product is going to sell itself, especially if it's a product so seemingly exotic that some might not even know how to pronounce it. To help get Icelandic Provisions on Americans' radars, the group conscripted Steve Platt, who'd played several key roles at Danone Group, which is commonly known as Dannon in the United States. His roles there included VP of brand marketing and chief marketing officer for YoCrunch. Platt said when Icelandic Provisions reached out, the siren song of something relatively new in an overcrowded marketplace called to him.

“Yogurt is one of those categories that's been reinvented over and over. Big dairy companies really chase trends — whether that's weight loss, kids' yogurts, probiotics, or Greek yogurt," said Platt. “One thing I can say about Skyr that's so special is that this really isn't actually innovation. It's tradition. It's been around for thousands of years. It's something of a national treasure in Iceland. We're here to share tradition, not create something new. It's almost like bringing brie to the United States when all you could eat otherwise is cheddar."

Liza Weisstuch can be reached at liza.weisstuch@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @livingtheproof.

Credit: By Liza Weisstuch Globe correspondent

Caption:

Liza Weisstuch for The Boston Globe

Britt Marie Hermes was a committed practitioner in America’s multi-billion-dollar complementary medicine industry. Then she found her clinic’s herbal treatment for cancer was potentially illegal – and overnight became a highly vocal sceptic

Sometimes disillusionment creeps in one small letdown at a time. But for Britt Marie Hermes, the transition from alternative medicine practitioner to sceptic occurred over the course of a weekend.

After an unsettling discovery at the Arizona clinic where she worked four years ago, Hermes turned her back on everything she had believed in and set out to expose what she describes as the dubious and unethical underbelly of her former profession. Hermes’ blog, Naturopathic Diaries[http://naturopathicdiaries.com/], has gained a huge following in the sceptic community. But it has also angered some proponents of alternative medicine: Hermes is being sued for defamation by an American naturopath called Colleen Huber, in a case that is due to be heard in a German court later this year. So enthusiastic is the sceptic community that within nine days an international fundraising campaign had raised $50,000 (£36,000) to cover Hermes’ legal fees[https://www.naturopathicdiaries.com/legal-defense-fund-update-raised-e50k/].

So how did a former proponent of natural therapies come to take on America’s powerful alternative medicine establishment?

Naturopathy, Hermes explains, encompasses a wide variety of complementary therapies – homeopathy, herbal supplements, dietary restrictions, acupuncture and faith healing would all be included – and promotes an overarching philosophy of “nature knows best”.

After obtaining her undergraduate degree in psychology from San Diego State University[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_State_University] in 2006, Hermes applied to a four-year post graduate programme in naturopathic medicine at Bastyr University, near Seattle. “It’s set up to look as much like medical school as possible. The school claims they teach basic science courses at a medical level for the first two years,” she says. “Except there’s no entrance exams required.”

While in the UK alternative therapies have only a narrow intersection with conventional medicine, in the US the boundary is sometimes blurred. Twenty-three states and US territories have licensing systems that permit the use of the title “naturopathic doctor”. The roughly 6,000 registered practitioners are allowed to perform some medical tests, make diagnoses and prescribe certain medicines, as well as offer complementary cures and dietary advice. Some health insurers also cover naturopathic care.

So, Hermes recalls, it did not seem exceptional that the clinic where she was working in 2014 was treating cancer patients with a herbal compound called Ukrain[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1180428/]. Shipments of the drug, stored in glass ampules that were broken open and sucked up into syringes, regularly arrived at the clinic. Cancer patients would pay for treatment in cash. One Friday, however, the Ukrain shipment had failed to materialise. When patients began to get agitated, Hermes brought the matter to the attention of her boss. “He mentioned that he suspected the FDA [US Food and Drugs Administration] had confiscated the shipment,” she says. “I found that statement really bizarre and it prompted me to read up more about it.

“I discovered immediately that [Ukrain] was not FDA-approved,” she says, adding that the meaning of this was not immediately obvious, as most naturopathic cures are not FDA-approved. But then she realised that it was potentially a federal crime to administer such a drug to cancer patients. “Once I realised that, everything changed virtually overnight,” she says. She spent much of the weekend on the internet reading critiques of her own profession. “By Monday morning I had hired a lawyer and I quit the practice.”

Shortly after leaving, Hermes started a blog, detailing her own journey of re-evaluation and increasingly publishing take-downs of alternative remedies. However, she says she did not initially find kindred spirits among the sceptic community. “My impression was that it was a group of old, white, grumpy men,” she said. She recalls reading words like “quack” and “fraudster” and finding these descriptions hard to reconcile with the people she had known in the sector.

In Britt’s experience, people typically turn to alternative therapies after a negative experience with a doctor or when conventional treatments have little to offer. As a teenager, she herself had encountered an unsympathetic doctor (“a jerk”) while seeking treatment for psoriasis. “I started taking dietary supplements in addition to the steroid cream,” she says. “I really felt that it was the supplements that were making my skin better and developed this narrative that natural is better.”

Later, naturopathy seemed a logical career choice. “It was definitely the emotional experience with alternative practitioners that really spoke to me,” she says. “I really wanted to offer that hope and kindness and empathy to patients of my own.” Her PhD project, at Kiel University’s department for evolutionary genomics, focuses on the skin microbiome in the context of inflammatory skin diseases.

Providing emotional support, she argues, is the one aspect in which mainstream medicine might learn something from alternative therapists. “They spend a lot of time with patients. They talk about emotional wellness and the details of how you’re sleeping and the quality of your sleep, so you form these close connections,” she says. “That can be really therapeutic.”

Hermes says the potential shortcomings of conventional medicine are seldom acknowledged as a motivation for people to seek out alternatives. And sceptics and the scientific community often focus only on debunking quack remedies rather than trying to understand why people seek alternatives in the first place.

Hermes thinks her poacher-turned-gamekeeper perspective explains the popularity of her writing, among both sceptics and people interested or working in naturopathy. “A lot of people like me – or like who I used to be – can look at my profile and sympathise,” she says. Her blog offers a mixture of personal insights (“It is surprisingly easy to sell snake-oil. I know, because I’ve done it.”) and warnings about the potential dangers of alternative therapies. “Don’t let a naturopath near your vagina,” warns a recent post about the dangers of a herb-based paste called “black salve” that has been promoted as a treatment for HPV infections.

The post that prompted Colleen Huber’s legal action focused on her clinic’s claims about its alternative treatments for cancer. Its website states[https://natureworksbest.com/] : “85% of patients who completed our treatments and followed our food plan went into remission”. Huber is suing over comments on Hermes’ blog suggesting that she was misleading “vulnerable” cancer patients, and that her treatment was “fraudulent”.

In an email, the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP) states that for serious illnesses such as cancer, naturopathy can play a complementary role but should not replace conventional treatments. “Like all licensed medical providers, naturopathic doctors do not treat everything and are also trained to know when to refer,” a spokeswoman tells me. “They often work in collaboration with conventional healthcare providers or other specialists as determined by the patient’s condition and specific needs.”

There is evidence that alternative medicine is on the rise. According to the AANP, 38% of adults in the US are using some form of complementary or alternative medicine and last year three more states – Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island – introduced licensing systems for naturopathic practitioners. In the UK, surveys have found that around 40% of adults have used alternative therapies in the past year[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23681857], with herbal medicine tending to be the most popular, followed by homeopathy, aromatherapy, massage and reflexology. Alternative cures are popularised by wellness and “clean eating” bloggers and celebrities including Gwyneth Paltrow.

Globally, one market analysis last year projected that the complementary medicine market would expand to have a revenue of nearly $200bn (£143bn) by 2025[https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/aternative-medicine-therapies-market]. “The alternative medicine industry in general seems to be on the rise in North America and I think in the UK as well,” says Hermes. “The political environment is ripe for that. There’s a feeling that experts aren’t necessarily the best people to trust, whether they are experts in medicine or in another field. When you have figureheads doubting the credibility of mainstream medicine, it creates a ripe breeding ground for the rise of pseudoscience.”

Most people who use alternative treatments, though, are capable of distinguishing between minor ailments and serious physical illness, which requires a doctor. If someone takes an arnica pill, is there really any harm in that?

“I’ve personally experienced the slippery slope,” says Hermes. “I went from cleaning out my diet, taking fairly harmless supplements, fish oils, to – over the course of 10 years – becoming totally immersed in naturopathy to the point where, had I been diagnosed with a serious illness I might have pursued natural therapies. So I take a pretty firm stance and say ‘no’ to all of it.”

* The standfirst of this article was altered on 10 April to correct a reference to “Britt Maria Hermes”.

Acne is no longer just associated with teenagers and puberty. Cases of acne are on the rise with women in their 30s and beyond struggling with the condition. In fact,"45-50% of women in the UK suffer from some sort of adult acne in their life time," says Dr David Jack, who works in a Harley Street clinic. "There are also 2.4 million GP appointments each year for acne problems," says skin microbiome expert, Richard Martin.

Expert skincare brand La Roche Posay, who operate within the L'Oreal group, have long been on a mission to cure acne. After 25 years of research, seven published clinical testings and thirteen studies later, there is finally an affordable high street product that works. And the best thing? It's £16 - a refreshingly approachable price, given the amount of costly acne treatments on the market.

They have just launched their third edition of the stalwart treatment Effaclar Duo+, a new formulation with a bacteria-balancing active that controls the skin’s microbiome. One is sold every three seconds worldwide, proving it to be the best-selling acne treatment product in expert skincare.

What is a microbiome?

"Our skin is covered in an invisible layer of over 100,000 bacteria," says Martin. "This layer is unique to each individual, like with DNA, and when this layer is naturally balanced, skin is healthy. Various things can disrupt this natural bacterial balance, such as using harsh skincare, a changing environment or taking certain medications. When the bacterial balance is disrupted, the strength of the skin’s barrier is compromised, making it more vulnerable to conditions such as acne.

"Each persons microbiome is different; it is the body’s first line of defence when it comes to acne, and it is constantly communicating with our immune system. A healthy microbiome self-manages its communities of bacteria, ensuring no bacteria becomes too dominant," advises Martin. Hence La Roche Posay have re-formulated Effaclar Duo + as a treatment that targets and controls bacteria. Put simply, if you control bacteria production, you can control and cure acne.

What your spots say about you beauty face[https://cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk/98d2fbd1-98a1-47bb-9284-8c9c14f1c195.html] The key bacteria

L'Oreal's recent studies have revealed that staphylococcus, a bacterium genus, is a major catalyst for acne-infected skin and if controlled can reduce inflammation and acne lesions. Unique to their formula is patented LA Roche Posay Water than contains Aqua Posae Filiformis (APF) bacteria, a classic inhabitant of spa water dating back to Roman times. It is especially good for the skin, controls staphylococcus bacteria and is uniquely cultivated by La Roche Posay to charge their formulas. It also re-balances the skin by arming bacteria with anti-microbial peptides to stop pores from getting clogged up.

How to conceal spots[https://cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk/11b30aaf-1688-42f7-85d0-c398e231f9bc.html] “As a dermatologist I always try where possible to prescribe a skincare solution over antibiotics when treating acne patients," says Consultant Dermatologist Dr Justine Hextall. "As Effaclar Duo (+) respects the skin microbiome it is a great long-term solution for maintaining healthy skin and one I will often recommend to my patients." Effaclar Duo+, £16.99 is available here.[https://www.laroche-posay.co.uk/effaclar-duo-plus]

The Second Genome RADIO 4, 11.00AM ? Best not to listen to this while eating lunch: it begins with analysis of a faecal sample taken from BBC Health and Science correspondent James Gallagher, in an attempt to discover what the microbes living inside his body tell us about his overall health. Current research suggests that the genes in our microbiome, the contents of our gut, affect everything from how we react to disease, to obesity, to mental health. This documentary hears how the research could fundamentally change the practice of medicine.

BBC World Hacks WORLD SERVICE, 8.00PM ? The town of Frome in Somerset is taking great leaps forward to address the problem of loneliness, which can rapidly deteriorate the health of sufferers. By focusing on improving community links, Frome is proving what many of us have long suspected, that the decline in traditional community values can be disastrous. All's not lost, though: a focus on socialisation, and the introduction of groups such as lunch clubs and choirs, have led to a dramatic reduction in hospital admissions. The future looks bright.