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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
I'm a doctor and want everyone over 30 years old to stop eating after 7pm
A longevity expert claims you should close the kitchen by 7pm if you want better sleep, balanced hormones, and a slimmer waistline - especially once you hit your thirties. Dr Poonam Desai, a former ER doctor who specialises in preventative health, says late-night meals wreak havoc on the metabolism, disrupt hormones, and set you up for morning sugar spikes that leave you feeling tired and hungry. 'When you eat after 7pm, you may convert calories into fat faster than you ever thought,' Dr Desai, a hormone and nutrition specialist, explained in an Instagram post. That's because melatonin - your sleep hormone - doesn't play well with insulin, the hormone that helps regulate blood sugar. Together, she says, these hormones create 'a recipe for trouble' when it comes to late-night eating - and men and women over 30 are more sensitive to it. Eating late forces your metabolism into overdrive, raising your heart rate and body temperature. This not only affects your waistline, but also makes it almost impossible to fall into deep, restorative sleep. Without that, your body misses crucial repair time, leaving you feeling drained and unproductive the next day. The melatonin-insulin clash can also cause you to wake up starving because poor sleep raises ghrelin, the hormone that tells you you're hungry, while lowering leptin, which signals fullness. 'You wake up craving unhealthy foods, and the cycle begins all over again,' Dr Desai said. Research shows poor sleep can cause a 23 per cent increase in morning blood sugar levels due to cortisol - your stress hormone. Late-night eating also keeps cortisol elevated, which can promote belly fat and disrupt your body's circadian rhythm, particularly when combined with screen time and low daylight exposure. Hence, Dr Desai says late dinners often spiral into Netflix binges, poor sleep, hormone chaos, weight gain and frustration. But the fix can be surprisingly simple. 'Clients who close their kitchen at 7pm often find they shed fat more effectively and get much better sleep,' she said.


The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
The Guardian view on RFK Jr's vaccine cuts: an assault on science from a politician unfit for his office
Science is not black and white. It's more complicated and more exciting. It's a constant process of exploration. An adventure into the unknown. Scientists come up with theories about what might be going on, and then test them. They don't always get it right. Far from it. But inch by inch, testing, failing and trying again, they make progress. Robert F Kennedy Jr, during Senate confirmation hearings for the role of secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), seemed to get that. Those who feared what a vaccine sceptic might do in that role breathed again. 'I'm going to empower the scientists at HHS to do their job and make sure that we have good science that is evidence based … I'm not going to substitute my judgment for science,' he said. Yet now, without good explanation or sound science, he is cutting $500m of research funding for mRNA vaccines, claiming that they 'fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like Covid and flu'. In fact, no Covid vaccine fully protects against infection, but they have been shown to prevent deaths in billions of people. The 22 contracts that will be cancelled include one with Moderna for a vaccine against bird flu, which many fear could trigger the next human pandemic (and there will be one). Instead, federal funds will go to vaccines developed in more traditional ways. Either Mr Kennedy lied to Congress or he has a different understanding of science and evidence from most scientists, unpicking what they thought was uncontestable. The childhood vaccine schedule is being reconsidered, and mandating the measles vaccine is being questioned in spite of fatal outbreaks in the US. He has sacked the Centers for Disease Control vaccine advisory panel and replaced it with many people known to have sceptical views. Mr Kennedy is particularly hostile to the mRNA vaccines against Covid-19, panning them in 2021 as the 'deadliest vaccines in history', wrongly claiming that half those suffering the rare side-effect of myocarditis would die or need heart transplants within five years. The vast majority have quickly recovered. Until 2023, he chaired an anti-vaccine organisation called Children's Health Defense, where he petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to rescind the licence of all Covid-19 vaccines and compared mandating vaccines to Nazi oppression in the second world war. This is the stuff of internet scares; labyrinthine tangles of misinformation dotted with odd inaccurate nuggets of quasi-science. It doesn't compare with the evidence base for mRNA vaccines, which went through clinical trials on hundreds of thousands of people and have since been used to vaccinate billions. Experts agree that the mRNA vaccines were a stunning breakthrough that allowed people to be protected in record time from Covid-19. They contain messenger RNA, a tiny bit of genetic code that teaches the immune system to fight the virus. No need to grow the virus in hen's eggs, which takes months. The 'plug and play' technology can be adapted against other viruses, such as flu, including some that devastate populations in poor countries. The inventors won the Nobel prize in 2023. Mr Kennedy's cancellation of funding not only stymies much research but also feeds worldwide doubt in mRNA vaccines. We are all the losers. Humanity needs these vaccines. Other countries need to step up with money and reassurance to try to heal this latest breach between science and nonsense. And Mr Kennedy is clearly unfit for the job he holds. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.


The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
Hospital acquisitions of private practices are increasing patient costs, study says
A new study by the National Bureau of Economic Research indicates that hospitals acquiring private physician practices leads to reduced competition and increased costs for patients. Between 2008 and 2016, hospital ownership of physician practices rose by nearly 72%, resulting in significant price increases without a corresponding improvement in the quality of care. Experts suggest that reduced competition due to these mergers can not only drive up prices, but also potentially diminish the standard of care. The study found a scarcity of federal investigations into these consolidations, despite their impact on healthcare markets. While hospitals are major consolidators, private equity firms are also increasingly acquiring practices, leading to similar concerns about rising costs and declining quality, though some argue hospital integration can offer benefits like improved access to resources and specialized procedures.