The expert's guide to what microplastics do to your body - and 22 ways to minimise your risk
'Microplastics are the tiny plastic particles that you often can't see, as they're less than five millimetres, but they're everywhere,' explains Dr Liza Osagie-Clouard, a former surgeon and now founder of Solice, a preventative healthcare clinic.
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The Independent
3 minutes ago
- The Independent
Health authorities fear mosquito-borne disease deaths could surge
Bangladesh has recorded 101 deaths and 24,183 confirmed cases of dengue fever so far this year, with public health experts warning of a significant surge in the coming weeks. The mosquito-borne disease has seen a rapid increase in fatalities, with 19 deaths in the first 10 days of August alone, following 41 in July, placing immense pressure on hospitals. Experts attribute the escalating outbreak to a combination of warm, humid weather, intermittent rainfall, and climate change, creating ideal breeding conditions for Aedes mosquitoes. Prof Kabirul Bashar warned that hospitals could be overwhelmed without aggressive intervention, predicting August cases might triple July's numbers and peak in September. Recommendations for control include nationwide mosquito-control drives, community clean-ups, removal of stagnant water, and restructuring healthcare to strengthen district hospitals and expand testing.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Reshuffling canteen menu can help diners choose greener, healthier meals
Reshuffling a canteen's weekly menu can be a 'sneaky' way to encourage diners to choose meals that are healthier and more environmentally friendly, researchers said. A study led by researchers at the University of Bristol found that simply reordering an existing set menu to change which dishes were 'competing' each evening in a student halls of residence canteen cut the carbon footprint of diners' weekly meal choices by nearly a third overall. Saturated fat levels also fell by a significant amount, the research found, while the changes seemed to go unnoticed by diners. The researchers, whose study is published in the journal Nature Food, said the technique could be used to help the 42% of UK workers who report eating at a canteen, as well as those in schools and universities, make healthier, more environmentally-friendly diet choices. It could be another route to influence diet choices, which are mostly shaped by either restricting or disincentivising choice such as alcohol sales policy or the sugar tax, or by providing people with information about the impacts of what they choose. For the study, the researchers took two pre-existing weekly canteen menus with three dishes each day for five days, which produced 113,400 menu combinations when one vegan meal had to be served each day. The team used data collected separately from students on their dish preferences to calculate the number of times each dish would be chosen and then used the information to calculate a projected total weekly carbon footprint and saturated fatty acid intake. They identified an optimised menu – which contained the same 15 dishes as the original menu with only the combination of dishes offered each day changed – and tested it without telling the students. The scheme works on the basis that each person can only choose one dinner option each night, so organising the menu so that more carbon intensive, fatty meals compete with each other on one night boosts the uptake of healthier, more planet-friendly meals on other evenings. Dr Annika Flynn, senior research associate at the University of Bristol, said: 'Whether we choose a healthy dish will depend on whether it's more or less appealing than other dishes served that day. 'We figured if we swap which dishes are available across days, then this will change how dishes 'compete'. 'So by number crunching competition across the entire week, we worked out which swaps would be needed to promote healthier and greener choices. We tried this and, amazingly, it worked.' And she said: 'Since diners can only choose one evening meal per day, we found it is best to cluster the meals that have a high carbon footprint and saturated fat such as lasagne and chicken Kiev on the same day so these more popular options compete against each other. 'That means greener options – like lentil chilli and cauliflower curry – are more likely to be chosen across the week. 'The net effect is that people's total weekly carbon footprint and saturated fat intake is reduced.' She added: 'The scale of benefits generated by our relatively simple intervention of weekly menu manipulation, which didn't change the actual dishes or recipes themselves and seemed to go unnoticed, were really surprising.' The researchers said one of the weekly menus was shown to reduce the overall carbon footprint by 31.4% and saturated fat intake by 11.3%, while the other lowered the overall carbon footprint by 30% and saturated fat intake by 1.4% across some 300 diners. And while they were not able to ask the students directly about whether they were happy with the various menus, due to the 'blind' nature of the test, auxiliary data suggest the changes did not cause a dramatic change in consumer satisfaction, the researchers said. Dr Flynn added: 'This sneaky technique could be a game-changer in many different kitchen menu settings, especially given people's growing appetite to make healthier decisions and the increased drive to reduce carbon emissions globally.'
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
I was 'terrified' I'd hurt my baby: bestselling novelist Sarah Vaughan shares secret battle with mental health condition that affects 1 in 6 new mothers
Bestselling author Sarah Vaughan revealed her battle with maternal OCD on the latest episode of the Mail's The Life of Bryony podcast, describing how the condition inspired her novel Little Disasters. Maternal OCD is a condition affecting up to 16% of new mothers, causing unwanted intrusive thoughts about harming their baby alongside compulsive behaviours intended to shield them from harm. Vaughan's novel Little Disasters explores maternal OCD from the perspective of a woman whose insecurities about parenting spiral after she is accused by those closest to her of injuring her child. The novel, published five years ago, has been recently adapted into a blockbuster television series starring Diane Kruger, now streaming on Paramount+. You can listen to this episode of The Life of Bryony by clicking the player below or here 'I didn't realise I was writing about my own maternal OCD until I finished my first draft', Vaughan told columnist Bryony Gordon. 'I had experienced this sort of gaslighting of yourself, and it was terrifying. 'You know on one level that you're not really throwing your baby down the stairs. That was my thing, I thought I'd drop my baby – which is very common. 'But you can always see that vision in your mind's eye. That makes it sound like psychosis, it's not that – but it's like the fear of it is so intense you constantly anticipate another reality.' Despite the 'terrifying' thoughts, experts say mothers with maternal OCD pose no risk to their babies - the condition actually stems from an overwhelming desire to protect them. Before novel writing, Vaughan worked for The Guardian as a senior news reporter and health correspondent. She said her background in journalism, covering high-profile child murder and abduction cases, sowed the seeds of her maternal OCD. 'I had a little niche of doing really dark cases', Vaughan explained. 'I covered Sarah Payne, the little girl who was snatched from a cornfield in West Sussex. I covered the Soham murders and a boy who was murdered by a paedophile in Norfolk. 'Whenever I would come to my husband with fears, he would say, well that's never going to happen. 'And I'd always say, well there was this case, this news story. Those cases are so rare, but you are led to believe they are more common than they are because you reported on them.' Looking back, Vaughan said a 'pressure cooker of circumstances' caused her to develop OCD after the birth of her second child. 'I had about six different triggers', she said. 'I collapsed in the street 19 weeks into my second pregnancy. I was pushing my child in a buggy. I had something called symphysis pubis disorder, where basically a big baby causes your ligaments to stretch. 'I had been behaving like I was invincible… then I was bedridden for the rest of that pregnancy. 'At the same time, my husband had to move across the country for his job, and I joined him: pregnant, with a toddler, not being able to walk. 'I then took voluntary redundancy at The Guardian after a consultant said to me, if you think you can commute to London, you're mad. 'So, I was in chronic pain. I couldn't walk. I was isolated with no friends, and my husband was working long hours in this new job. 'There's a line from my book: there's nothing lonelier than being at home with a screaming baby and a mind that's unravelling.' Listen to The Life of Bryony podcast Ever feel like everyone else has it together while you're barely hanging on? Join Bryony Gordon for honest, unfiltered conversations about life's messier moments – from anxiety and heartbreak to addiction and loss. Listen wherever you get your podcasts now. Vaughan said that at her worst, she would struggle to let her children out of sight, because of worries they would be snatched. The novelist also remembered struggling to walk up and down flights of stairs with her new baby, fearing she would drop them. She believes the illness fed into her 'perfectionist' nature, which had served her well in journalism but proved destructive as a new mother. 'I never got my baby to take the bottle. I was obsessed with this idea: how do I know if it's sterile? I would spend hours and hours sterilising everything. 'It really kind of impacts people who are perfectionists… everything had to be immaculate. 'I was trying to validate myself for not having a job by becoming a domestic goddess, but not a forgiving one.' A combination of CBT therapy and setting herself the goal of finishing her first novel eased Vaughan's anxieties. She urged mothers experiencing similar 'catastrophising' thoughts about parenthood to seek help if they feel overwhelmed or immobilised. Vaughan said: 'When I had my baby, I think it was something like 2% of mothers had postnatal OCD. Now it's as high as 16%. 'That's a lot of women experiencing this and there are organisations out there that can help you.' To listen to the full interview with Sarah Vaughan, search for The Life of Bryony now, wherever you get your podcasts.
