Lose weight and achieve a summer beach body

With exactly one month to go until the official beginning of the summer season in the UK, perhaps now is the perfect time to start thinking about achieving that body fit for the beach you have always dreamed about, but not quite done much about!

During winter and even early springtime, it is easier to cover up those extra pounds with a bulky sweater and jeans, but when the temperatures start to soar and it simply becomes too hot to bear, shorts and t-shirt are more appropriate to survive without pouring with sweat. Unfortunately, this means there is just nowhere for the fat to hide.

The thousands of patients Medical Specialists™ Pharmacy help each and every year will already be aware of the fact we have a fantastic range of weight loss treatments such as Alli, XLS-Medical and Xenical, which for suitable patients can work with a healthy diet plan to really shed the pounds and give you your confidence back.

However, there are also a number of alterations to your lifestyle that you can implement today – a month before summer begins – to help you lose weight and achieve a body to be envied on the beach! So when you hear the dreaded words ‘beach season’, you need not book the earliest flight to Siberia, where nobody dares to venture outside unless covered head to toe in thick clothing.

Here Medical Specialists™ run through some useful tips to lose weight and tone up:

. Plan your meals

If you speak to any weight loss expert, they will undoubtedly tell you planning what you are going to eat and when, has been proved to help dieters stick to their goals. By mapping out your meals it will enable you to manage your time more efficiently and make preparing the meals easier. It can be the difference between a stressful week and one which is stress-free. The process of preparing your weekly meals is so important that fitness experts and those involved in fitness competitions, consider it an absolute necessity.

. Don’t skip breakfast

Make sure to fill yourself up at the start of the day with a well-balanced breakfast that consists mainly of carbohydrates and protein. This will help to keep hunger pangs at bay so you don’t gorge on junk food come dinner time. Your metabolic rate is slowed down as a result of you obviously not taking in any food during sleep and by eating breakfast, you will wake up your metabolism and get it revved for the rest of the day.

. Snack smartly

It was previously thought that snacking in-between meals was an absolute no-no, however health experts now state it is far better to satisfy hunger between meals with a healthy snack such as fruit, instead of ignoring the hunger and risking a junk food binge later on. Fruit also contains plenty of water and good carbohydrates, meaning you will feel full for much longer.

. Watch your alcohol intake

Those few beers after work may help you to unwind after a stressful day at the office, but have you considered hitting the gym instead to help distress and release endorphins; aka ‘happy hormones’. There are hundreds of empty calories in alcohol that do no good for your waistline. Did you know that drinking just 5 pints of lager each week equates to around 44,200kcal over the course of a year – roughly the equivalent of eating 221 doughnuts. Alcohol can also induce massive hunger cravings for fatty junk food, which only adds potentially thousands more calories – Have you ever wondered why all those takeaways are packed out after your night out on the town?

. Consider high intensity exercise

Want to get fit and quick? It might be worth engaging in some high intensity interval training (or HIIT for short) exercises. HIIT exercises result in a big calorie burn within a short time period. Don’t be fooled though, HIIT workouts are far from easy and require you to give three or four times more effort in the 20 to 30 second bursts that such exercises are comprised of. The hard work here means your body is unable to bring in sufficient oxygen and a ‘debt’ is built up that must be accommodated for after exercising has finished so normality is resumed. This means your metabolism is boosted for hours after you leave the gym!

Viagra-like cream in development – with none of the side effects!

Men suffering with erectile dysfunction are spoilt for choice currently, with Pfizer’s Viagra and Eli Lilly’s Cialis as just two options out there to treat impotence.

Unfortunately there are a few patients who complain about the side effects associated with such phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitor medications, usually an end-product of the enzyme that helps to stimulate blood flow throughout the body and directly to the penis.

Side effects from the most popular of the ED drugs – Viagra – can include nausea, headache, a dry mouth, facial flushing, blurred vision and indigestion.  In addition, the drug is not suitable for men with angina or have recently suffered with a heart attack or stroke.

It must be stressed though that not every man who takes Viagra actually experiences these side effects and some can happily take it for years without ever having even a mildly unpleasant side effect.

But for those that are bothered by the slight bothersome aftereffects of Viagra, you may be delighted to learn that a topical cream could be released in the future to treat erectile dysfunction.
U.S. biotechnology firm Strategic Science and Technologies are developing the new cream which contains the same active ingredient as Viagra; sildenafil citrate.

The cream, which is intended to be an over-the-counter product and will thus will not require a prescription, has been tentatively given the name SST-6006. The creators say it is applied directly to the entire penis, where it then passed through the skin and into penis tissue, before being absorbed into the blood.

The Phase 1 trial was designed to test the “safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics of SST-6006” and involved 60 healthy men who were asked to apply the topical formulation of sildenafil. Though it was successfully absorbed into the bloodstream, it was found that with the topical cream there was an estimated 20-times reduction in the amount of the drug in the patient’s bloodstream compared to a Viagra pill taken orally and as a result, less side effects.

“With a growing concern about systemic side effects associated with the current oral forms of PDE-5 inhibitors, a topical treatment approach such as SST-6006 could enable patients with erectile dysfunction to benefit from a local therapeutic dose of sildenafil directly into the penile tissue while reducing the risk of unwanted systemic side effects,” commented Dr Irwin Goldstein, Director of Sexual Medicine at Alvarado Hospital and Director of San Diego Sexual Medicine.

“This is a novel delivery technology to positively impact sexual health in both men and women.”
The researchers have admitted though that tests conducted so far have yet to definitely confirm if the cream actually boosts sexual function. The main discovery so far has been the fact the cream successfully transfers into penile tissue when applied directly to the skin and is safe to use.

Wales schoolboy left brain damaged following asthma attack

A young family from Wales has had their lives shattered after their son has been left brain damaged following an asthma attack.

The family of 11-year-old schoolboy Geraint Richards from Tondy, near Bridgend, have decided to speak out and warn others about the seriousness of the lung condition asthma in the same week it was reported that a high volume of asthma deaths could have been avoided.

The National Review of Asthma Deaths — the biggest single study looking into the circumstances involved with asthma deaths — found 1,250 asthma related deaths in 2012 where 800 of those could have been prevented with better monitoring from doctors, as well as patients taking the condition more serious and using their brown preventer inhalers.

Geraint fortunately survived his experience, but after suffering a near-fatal asthma attack during the short walk home from school on 31 January this year, his and his family’s lives have been left devastated and possibly changed forever.

After suffering the asthma attack, Geraint was rushed to Bridgend’s Princess of Wales Hospital where a team worked tirelessly for five hours to stabilise his condition and bring it under control. However, the schoolboy had a panic attack and later went into a cardiac arrest and it took 14 minutes for medics to revive him.

However, Geraint was struck with severe debilitating injuries from the lack of oxygen. During a cardiac arrest, blood supply to vital organs is prevented and if blood does not get to the brain, it results in severe neurological damage, as seen with Geraint. Since the traumatic ordeal in January, the youngster has had to spend three weeks in intensive care at the University Hospital of Wales, another week on the high dependency unit and until the present day he has been cared for at the Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital in Cardiff.

His parents Chris and Julie say their son will have a long road ahead of rehabilitation and therapy, but they both have remained strong for Geraint, barely leaving his bedside in the last four months and are now facing up to the fact their son as they used to know him, may have gone forever.

Geraint’s father Chris, 44, said: “He has always suffered with asthma and it was under control. He was under a consultant and he was really pleased with him. In fact, the week before this happened we had discussed the possibility of him being discharged from his regular check-ups because we were worried about him missing school.

“The day it happened was just a normal day – he went to school. He rang my wife at about 1pm saying he felt a bit ill. She said she finished work at 2pm and, if he still felt ill, to call her and she would pick him up. She never heard from him, so presumed he was okay. But when school finished, he phoned to say he was feeling unwell, his chest was tight and that he’d run out of his inhaler. The school is only a short walk from our home, but by the time my wife got to him in the car, he was practically sat on the floor struggling to breathe. She knew straight away it was bad, so she took him to the nearby surgery where she works.”

Geraint was initially treated with a nebuliser, but this failed to have much effect and he was rushed to hospital in Bridgend.

His father says: “They tried back-to-back nebulisers and an injection in to the vein, but nothing worked.”

It got to 11.30pm with no signs of improvement and an intensive care team transferred Geraint to Cardiff. It is here he went into cardiac arrest and suffered the life-changing injuries.

“He’s communicating by blinking and making noises, but we hope that one day he will get his speech back. The only way I can explain it is that he’s the same boy with the same memories and sense of humour, but he’s trapped in a body that he can’t move and he can’t talk.”

Mr Richards added: “It’s totally turned our lives upside down. Our daughter’s been absolutely fantastic and is trying to be so strong, but we don’t have any quality time with her. The worst bit is that it’s so hard to believe that in this day and age that asthma can be so devastating. Geraint was just a normal boy who loved his sport, Xbox and fishing. But then he was so close to dying. In fact, he was clinically dead for 14 minutes.”

Mental Health Awareness Week highlights Britain’s anxiety woes

Monday saw the beginning of Mental Health Awareness Week which will run until the 18 May. Ran by the British charitable organisation Mental Health Foundation, this year’s specific theme is a problem that is spiralling all over the UK; anxiety.

Anxiety is a problem has that has got progressively worse over the last few decades and is recognised as one of the leading causes behind mental ill-health all around the world. With this week it is hoped more awareness is raised about anxiety, the leading causes of the condition and what steps you can take to live more easily with it.

The majority of us will experience some form of anxiety during the course of our lives. The stresses at work, or raising a family, trying to ride through the recession, or preparing for a job interview will all result in some degree of anxiety.

In addition, Medical Specialists™ Pharmacy have spoken to thousands of patients who are suffering with severe anxiety caused by health issues that have a huge detriment to their confidence and self-esteem. Problems such as erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, hair loss, acne, obesity and much more can all result in long-term anxiety without the necessary treatment(s), which can all be obtained from Medical Specialists™.

When anxiety becomes excessive, persistent and overwhelming, this is when it becomes so problematic that your daily life is effected and is also the primary symptom of a number of conditions, including phobias, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and social anxiety disorder (social phobia).

According the Mental Health Foundation, levels of anxiety are on the rise. Currently around one in five in the UK feels anxious most or all of the time. A survey carried out by the charity also found nearly half of Brits now feel more anxiety than they did in the past. The survey defined anxious as “generally feeling worried, nervous, or uneasy”.

An estimated three-fifths of the 2,330 British adults questioned by YouGov admitted they feel anxious on a daily basis and 7% would not hesitate to see a GP due to their feelings of anxiety. Just one in 20 say they never feel anxious.

So what exactly is on the nation’s mind and causing us sleepless nights? Well, perhaps unsurprisingly given the state of the economy, money problems were cited as the main cause of anxiety.

Of those polled, 45% said money/finance/debt was the main cause, 36% said the welfare of their children and loved ones, whilst 27% said work problems – i.e. long hours – were causing the most anxiety.

Older people were found to be less worried about finance, but women and older people were more concerned for loved ones. Even though there are a large number of people battling anxiety, almost a fifth of respondents admitted to doing nothing to deal with it.

“Anxiety is one of the most common mental health problems in the UK and it is increasing, yet it remains under-reported, under-diagnosed and under-treated,” said Jenny Edwards, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation.

“A good ability to cope with anxiety is key to our resilience in the face of whatever life throws at us. However, experiencing it too much or too often means we risk becoming overwhelmed. Anxiety at this level can have a truly distressing and debilitating impact on our lives and impact on our physical as well as mental health. As individuals and as a society we need to be more anxiety aware. If we truly recognised the cost anxiety has on society, as well as the mounting distress it causes to individuals, communities and employers, we would act now.”

To help people understand anxiety in greater depth, the charity has compiled a new guide titled Are You Anxiety Aware?, which explains the different types of anxiety, the main reasons that can result in feelings of anxiety, in addition to the physical signs that could occur with anxiety (fast breathing, sweating, rapid and/or irregular heartbeat, etc.).

Contraception carelessly shunned by women over 40 leading to more abortions

Although the menopause typically hits women at about the age of 50, a good number of women experience this ‘change of life’ in their 30s or 40s, where their ovaries no longer produce eggs, monthly periods are no more and it is very unlikely the woman will become pregnant.

Therefore, this could be behind an increasing number of women in their 40s undergoing abortions, as their attitude towards contraception and fertility becomes more lax in comparison to women in their 20s.

According to abortion provider The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), over four in ten women over the age of 40 who undergo an abortion have carelessly not been using any contraception. Despite being younger and viewed as potentially more immature, less than one in three women in the 20 to 24-year-old age bracket found to not be using contraception then went for an abortion.
In 2002 there was 6,531 abortions carried out for women aged between 40 and 44, but by 2012 this had soared to 7,737.

BPAS say a large number of women are under the impression that by their 40s, it is so difficult to fall pregnant that they can avoid using any contraception altogether. This is inexplicable and quite absurd when considering the wide variety of options out there for women in the present day, such as Dianette, Marvelon, Yasmin, Zoely, or the Levonelle 1500 morning after pill – an emergency contraception pill that can be taken within 12 hours of unprotected sex and no later than 72 hours after.

In addition, experts also say that as women are commonly warned about a lower chance of motherhood in their 30s due to declining fertility, this message has been taken to extremes and now means women older than this are simply foregoing safe sex in the assumptions they will not become pregnant.

Prof Neil McClure, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Queen’s University Belfast, says: “Women should not rely on their increasing age as a method of contraception.”

BPAS are responsible for conducting the majority of abortions in Britain paid for by the NHS, with more abortions seen for women aged over 35 than for females under the age of 18.

Ann Furedi, bias Chief Executive said: “Over the past few years we have seen much scaremongering about older women’s fertility. From ‘career women’ leaving it too late to older women ‘banking on IVF’ to conceive, these stories lead many women to dramatically underestimate their own fertility later in life.

“At bpas we see more women over 35 with unplanned pregnancy than we do women under 18. We know from speaking to women that stories and campaigns suggesting it’s hard to get pregnant after 35 – even if well intentioned – are having a real impact on women’s perception of their own fertility, and therefore their use of contraception. Women deserve accurate, impartial information to make their own choices about family planning in their 30s. Fertility does decline as you get older, but the drop is not as great as we are sometimes led to believe. For women who don’t want to fall pregnant the message is simple: use contraception until you have passed your menopause.”

Prof McClure added: “The message needs to be that fertility is lower in older women when compared with younger women, that fertility does decline after the age of 35 but women over the age of 35 are still fertile and need to use contraception right up to the menopause if they do not want to conceive.”
Data from the Office of National Statistics show that since 1990 there has been more than a double rise in the conception rate for the over-40s, jumping from 6.6 to 14.0 conceptions for every thousand women. The number of over-40s becoming pregnant increased from 12,032 in 1990 to nearly 29,000 by 2011, whilst conception rates in women aged 35 to 39 almost doubled in the same time frame.

Fear of weight gain preventing smokers from quitting

Most people are in agreement that smoking is bad. There are thousands of toxic chemicals contained within just a single cigarette that can cause a variety of different types of cancer and heart disease, not to mention the soaring cost of actually buying the cigarettes at a time of financial struggle in Britain.

However, a new study suggests some people are forgetting how dangerous smoking is to themselves and those around them (via secondhand smoke) and are reluctant to quit smoking due to fear of piling on weight after they have stopped. Nicotine serves as an appetite suppressant, so after quitting smoking it is fairly normal for your appetite to increase and nicotine also raises your metabolic rate – heavy smokers can burn as many as 200 extra calories per day.

Researchers from the Penn State College of Medicine assessed 186 smokers that had sought help for quitting smoking – determined by their involvement in a smoking cessation treatment study – and 102 smokers that were not interested in treatment, avoiding the treatment study altogether. Each smoker went through at least five cigarettes on a daily basis.

Participants were quizzed by the researchers about any previous attempts they had made to quit smoking, any instances they had done so and put weight on, and if they were worried about gaining weight if they successfully stopped smoking in the near future.

Fear of gaining weight was equal amongst the two groups but previous episodes of weight gain appeared to impact the urge of the smokers to seek treatment again after this.

Around half of those involved in the study had put weight on when trying to quit smoking and the same people were more likely to not bother attempting to seek smoking treatment again.

Those behind the study say that patients should receive more help from doctors and be asked about their experience with weight fluctuations as well as reassure the patient there are weight management ideas that can be included in their treatment for stopping smoking.

This worrying trend of smokers continuing their habit due to the fear of gaining weight is clearly an issue that needs tackling. Despite their being an abundance of benefits to be had from stopping smoking, few want to trade in a nicotine addiction for a food addiction.

However, rest assure that not everybody gains weight after they have kicked cigarettes into touch. You are more at risk if you are a heavy smoker, a heavy drinker or are already overweight. Those that do gain a few pounds need not panic too much as there are strategies you can undergo to help you control your weight.

For instance, regular exercising may help to avert half the expected weight in the initial year after stopping smoking. By gradually building up to around 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise each week (fast walking, cycling or swimming) this will help to burn off calories and keep the cigarette cravings to a minimum.

Smoking cessation medications such as Pfizer’s Champix can also help tremendously, actually doubling your chances of successfully stopping smoking and can help to limit weight gain in the first few months.

Asthma deaths could be avoided – The importance of brown preventer inhalers

Preventer inhalers for the respiratory condition asthma usually comprise of a steroid drug and are used daily to prevent symptoms from developing by working to reduce inflammation in the airways. As the inflammation has subsided, there is less risk of the airways becoming narrow and causing symptoms like wheezing.

The brown preventer inhaler is usually taken twice a day. Your doctor may advise you to use the brown inhaler more often if you are experiencing a regular flare-up of symptoms. Medical Specialists™ Pharmacy have noticed a worrying trend of asthma patients very rarely or even not using their brown inhalers at all and over-using the blue reliever inhaler.

You should always remember it can take between 7 to 14 days for the brown preventer to build up its effect, or sometimes as long as six weeks, and will not give immediate relief of symptoms like the blue inhaler offers. Basically, the impact of the brown inhaler is built over time and will decrease the chance of an asthma occurring by slowly building resistance to triggers.

In fact, you may find your asthma is well controlled by regular use of the preventer and find you need to use your reliever inhaler less often, if at all.

This is particularly significant following a national review claiming that around two thirds of UK deaths from asthma in the UK — including nearly all cases where a child is involved – could have been averted if there was less complacency amongst doctors, carers and the patients themselves, with a quarter of sufferers receiving unsatisfactory care.

The report, led by the Royal College of Physicians, found a shocking number of needless deaths that experts described as “a tragic waste of life”.

Only Estonia and Spain has higher death rates than the UK in the Western world, and there are huge concerns about the increasing death toll. For instance, in 2012 there were 1,250 asthma related deaths – a 10% increase over the previous three years. The new review states 800 of those could have been prevented with better care.

The National Review of Asthma Deaths — the biggest single study looking into the circumstances involved with asthma deaths — examined 195 deaths within the UK. It was discovered that in about a quarter of the cases, care was not of a satisfactory standard and in 83% of cases, there was room for improvement.

Dr Mark Levy, a GP and one of the authors of the report, said ‘complacency’ was a fair word to describe the situation.

“We have known about the identifiable or preventable factors relating to asthma deaths since 1966,” he said. “The shocking and surprisingly sad thing about this report is that we still find preventable factors in over 70% of cases, some of which are pretty serious. For instance, 45% of those who died did not call or obtain help, which indicates that either these patients weren’t too worried about their asthma or they’d never been told how to recognise the danger signs.”

Those who died tended to over-use their blue reliever inhaler to subside the symptoms of an asthma attack as these inhalers help to open the airways for easier breathing. They do not treat the underlying problems however, and this is something many asthma patients do not realise.

“They don’t address the inflammation,” said Levy. “It’s like painting a rusty pipe.” Unsurprisingly, the study found an alarming under-use of the brown preventive inhalers.

The review has called for each hospital and GP practice around the UK to have a specified doctor in charge of asthma services and who should work at improving asthma care. In addition, patients need to be monitored more thoroughly according to the review, so that action is taken at the first instance if it is apparent that a patient’s asthma is no longer under control.

It is recommended that each asthma patient should keep a personal asthma action plan to help them realise when the condition begins to get worse and when to seek further help.

If you seek help from Medical Specialists™ for your asthma, you can be assured of an efficient and discrete service. We offer a wide range of both blue reliever inhalers, such as Ventolin Evohaler and brown preventer inhalers, such as Qvar Easi-Breathe.

Patient care is at the core of our aims and our GMC-registered doctors will carefully review your consultation to decide your suitability for that medication and then also assess the frequency of your orders with us thereafter. This is essential as if mentioned earlier, you are requiring too many relievers, it could be a sign of underlying problems with your asthma and we would recommend you see your own GP for further monitoring as you may need to undergo a lung function test. This is essential to determine if your asthma is getting worse or to check if your asthma is improving with treatment.

Viagra or Cialis could treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy

Erectile dysfunction (ED) medications for adult males such as Viagra and Cialis could be beneficial for boys suffering with the muscle disease Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), according to the findings of a new study.

The small study – published online May 7 in the journal Neurology – included 10 boys between the age of eight and 13 with the disease, and the researchers discovered that popular male impotence drugs Viagra and Cialis worked at boosting blood flow to the impaired and weakened muscles in the boys.

“Boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy have a blood flow abnormality – delivery of blood and oxygen to their muscles – that does not increase the way it should during mild exercise,” commented lead researcher Dr Ronald Victor, the associate director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles.

Not a commonly known ailment, DMD is a genetic condition that may be inherited which causes muscle weakness and begins during childhood. Signs of DMD are when the child has difficulty standing up, climbing or running. It primarily effects boys in their early childhood and unfortunately they can only expect to live into their 20s or 30s. Some girls may also carry the Duchenne gene.

Treatment with medication such as corticosteroids can slow down muscle degeneration and provide protection for heart and lung function, but they have no impact on the abnormal blood flow. In addition, there are more than a quarter of patients unable to tolerate steroids or their side effects.

For the study, scientists based at the Cedars-Sinai Institute looked at the impact ED medications had for the 10 boys with DMD and experiencing blood flow problems. All the boys were initially using steroids and they were subsequently compared against 10 healthy boys in the same age group.

Those with DMD were still able to walk, but some used a wheelchair or scooter too. Their blood pressure was taken during rest and whilst performing a handgrip exercise. Despite taking steroids, the boys with Duchenne were found to have abnormal blood flow.

Tests were conducted again after the boys were given a single dose of either sildenafil (commonly known as Viagra) or tadalafil (commonly known as Cialis). After a fortnight, those given sildenafil were switched to tadalafil, and vice versa, with tests carried out yet again.

Treatment with both drugs resulted in improved blood flow in the boys with Duchenne, even equalling that of the healthier boys.

In regards to side effects from taking what are obviously adult-only medications, Dr Victor says: “A few boys in our study had erections after taking these drugs. The erections were not painful and not dangerous and resolved spontaneously without treatment.”

It is not known if the anti-impotence drugs will slow progression of the disease and Dr Victor believes a much larger trial could help solve this mystery.

“The findings in this small study led to a large clinical trial, which is enrolling now in the U.S. and abroad, to see if 48 weeks of treatment with once-daily Cialis will slow the decline in walking ability in 7- to 14-year-old boys with Duchenne. The findings offer some hope, but we need to wait for the results of the large treatment trial to see if daily treatment with Cialis has a clinically meaningful benefit for boys with this form of muscular dystrophy.”

Change4Life aims to get the nation happier and healthier!

Obesity in the UK is a major growing health concern and is consistently found to be one of the leading causes of preventable death in Britain. In 2007 Forbes listed the UK as number 28 in the fattest countries in the world and other estimates predict that half the population could be obese by the year 2050.

Earlier this year, statistics were released that show the total proportion of people in areas across England are either overweight or obese, and it is an alarming similar trend around the country:

By region

1. North-east (68%)
2. North-west (66%)
3. West Midlands (65.7%)
4. East Midlands (65.6%)
5. Yorkshire and the Humber (65.4%)
6. East of England (65.1%)
7. South-east (63.1%)
8. South-west (62.7%)
9. London (57.3%)

Clearly the problem of managing the nation’s weight is something that needs to be tackled in the current day and not only taken seriously 36 years into the future.

Fortunately the government and the NHS are at the forefront of such measures and there are a number of initiatives that aim to promote healthy lifestyle changes to be sustained in the long-term for you and your children. One of these is Change4Life , an England and Wales public health programme ran by the Department of Health that encourages people to adhere to six healthy lifestyle changes:

• 5 A Day – Advice on how to achieve the recommended 5 daily portions of fruit and vegetables.
• Watch the salt– How to cut down on salt intake and keep it under 6g per day for adults.
• Cut back fat – Information about primarily the saturated fat in foods and how to cut down. It is worth remembering the average male should not consume over 30g of saturated fat per day, whilst it is just 20g of saturated fat per day for women.
• Sugar swaps– Information about sugar in foods and healthier alternatives.
• Choose less booze – Advice on how adults can meet the government lower-risk guidelines, with a free downloadable app to track your drinking.
• Get going every day – The importance of an active lifestyle and how both children and adults can keep active easily and inexpensively.

Those wanting to get involved with Change4Life will receive plenty of useful information, recipes, tools, tips, and games for the kids. After you have registered you will also get a free welcome pack – one for the whole family, or one just for you.

For those unsure where their local groups or clubs are for fun activities that will keep you fit and healthy, there is an excellent facility for finding such activities on the Change4Life website. Here you can tick what specific interests you want to get involved in, such as Adventure/Outdoor (e.g. Archery, Cycling & more) or Watersports (e.g. Canoeing, Diving & more) within a specified distance and the search results will provide an A-Z list of nearby venues to get active.

The NHS Choices website also offer a fantastic comprehensive A-Z guide to common health topics, such as weight loss, within the Live Well area of the website.

In the weight loss area of the NHS Live Well website, you can find information about the many different diet plans out there, such as the 5:2 diet and the Paleo diet, there are tips on how to understand food labels in order to make healthier choices when shopping, a list of the worst culprits for added sugar in our diet and there is also an interactive body mass index (BMI) tool to see if you are a health weight for your height. Those wanting to lose weight can also sign up for free email support and help stay motivated in their goals.

Weekend excesses linked to most internet health searches on a Monday

Following a heavy weekend of boozing and feasting on fatty takeaway food, it is only natural to be more worried about our health come Monday, as the realisation of our excesses starts to hit home.

Therefore, it should come as little surprise to learn that new research has shown that Google searches for a variety of health concerns actually peak on the first working day of the week and again are still quite high the following day on Tuesday.

However, psychologists at San Diego State University say that as the week progresses on, our health worries seem to subside considerably in comparison to Monday and Tuesday.

According to calculations, there are an incredible 160 million health-related searches on Google alone each and every day of the year. Researchers at the University decided to investigate any potential link between peak times of health concerns and sickness patterns each week.

For instance, there have been studies that demonstrate a spike in heart attack rates on a Monday. Binge drinking at the weekend is added to the stress of going back to work on a Monday, creating unneeded strain on the heart.

Meanwhile, other evidence points to Wednesday being our most miserable-feeling day of the week – perhaps because it is right in the middle of the week and furthest away from the weekend!

The American team painstakingly assessed each health related search that was conducted on Google 2005 and 2012. Once the data was broken down into a percentage of overall search volume, it was discovered that health searches on Monday and Tuesday were 30% higher than the rest of the week combined.

Studying further, the team found the number of searches dropped slightly on Wednesdays, by 3%, before falling 15% on Thursdays, nearly by a half on Fridays and then plunging by around 80% on Saturdays.

Our health worries seem to increase by Sunday – possibly as many are nursing a hangover – before peaking on Monday. In an accompanying report, the researchers say their analysis corroborate with past studies showing that high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes and infectious conditions all peak at the beginning of the week. This is often referred to as circaseptan rhythms.

In their report, the researchers say one theory is that Monday is ‘akin to a mini New Year’s day’, whereby weekend excesses result in more need to seek health information.

They add: “Poor health choices during the weekend may promote a desire to cleanse come Monday. There is strong potential for improving public health.  Health promotion campaigns could immediately be made more cost effective by targeting the population early in the week rather than uniformly across the week.”

Did Kurt Cobain suffer with irritable bowel syndrome before his death?

Last month saw the 20^th anniversary of Nirvana singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain’s death from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

However, fans who participated in tributes at his home city of Seattle, US, claim the grunge icon may still be alive today if doctors had properly diagnosed and treated the stomach problems that had blighted him in the years leading up to his untimely death, and a source of clear distress for Cobain – evident in his published journals.

One theory being suggested is that the blonde rocker was suffering with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) – an umbrella term that spans several gastrointestinal disorders, but many of which involve similar symptoms such as stomach cramps, abdominal pain, bloating, constipation and diarrhoea.
Other IBS symptoms people may experience include: loss of appetite, nausea, tiredness, backache, headache, belching, quickly feeling full after you have eaten food, heartburn, and bladder problems due to an associated irritable bladder.

Although IBS unfortunately does not have an absolute cure, there are a number of over-the-counter and prescription-only treatment options that can ease symptoms for some sufferers and these include: Mebeverine, Buscopan IBS Relief and Colpermin.

Overall, IBS diagnoses and treatments are much more advanced in the present day compared to back in 1994 when Cobain died. His suicide was estimated to have occurred on 5 April 1994 after an electrician had found him slumped in the greenhouse at his cabin by Lake Washington on 8 April.

Toxicological tests concluded he had a massive amount of heroin in his system when he died, and many people are speculating if Cobain had been given a proper diagnosis and received effective treatment for his debilitating stomach ailment, he may not have been driven to that tragic end at the age of just 27.


By choosing to end his life at that age, Cobain joined the “27 Club”; members of the music industry who had passed away at the tender age. In addition to Cobain, this group now includes: Jimi Hendrix, Janis ­Joplin, ­Rolling Stone Brian Jones, Jim ­Morrison of the Doors and Amy Winehouse.

A TV interview recorded only months before Cobain’s death is now attracting renewed interest. In the interview Cobain angrily hits out at the doctors he says have failed him “during six years of being in constant pain”.

Cobain adds: “They never figured out what it was. Most gastro-intestinal doctors don’t know anything about stomach diseases. They just have PhDs, get paid a lot of money for ­pretending and prescribing drugs. It’s a total scam.”

Los ­Angeles-based Dr Morris Mesler, who has treated countless famous faces, is one of the many who believes Cobain was suffering with IBS and even pointed to study that connected IBS-associated pain with an increased risk of suicide.

Dr Mesler said: “While IBS is a grab-bag term that covers a multitude of symptoms and conditions, there is a great deal we can do today that we couldn’t do then.

“Tests could have established if he had a genetic condition such as coeliac ­disease. Or it could have been something much more simple like lactose or gluten intolerance that we just weren’t really aware of 20 years ago.

“Endoscopies are also much more advanced, so we can actually see what’s going on in the stomach much more clearly now. I believe we could have established pretty quickly if he was ­suffering from something physical, organic or even psychiatric.

“It might merely have been a ­question of slightly altering his diet.”