Latest from The Australian
The Australian
an hour ago
- Sport
- The Australian
Brad Waters' Sale tips: Thursday, July 31, 2025
News Corp form analyst Brad Waters looks at Thursday's eight-race card at Sale, presenting his best bets, jockey to follow and lay of the day. • PUNT LIKE A PRO: Become a Racenet iQ member and get expert tips – with fully transparent return on investment statistics – from Racenet's team of professional punters at our Pro Tips section. SUBSCRIBE NOW! ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ BEST BET WALK OF FAME (Race 7 No.8): The Danny O'Brien-trained mare has gone well in two spaced runs this time in. She'll be fitter again and the class drop will be perfect for her. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ NEXT BEST KAMPOR (Race 3 No.10): Gave a start before running on well behind an impressive winner at Wangaratta on debut. She'll be much better for the experience and has drawn perfectly. CLINCHED (Race 5 No.5): The seven-year-old is hard fit and racing in terrific form in the Gippsland area. He has a tricky gate but his form is more than good enough for this assignment. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ VALUE BET RAVEN'S SILVER (Race 6 No.4): The gelding sprinted well from midfield to win an easier race at Wangaratta first-up earlier this month. He'll be improved and could handle the class rise. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ LAY OF THE DAY SEMELLE ROUGE (Race 2 No. 14 – $2.90): The first-starter has trialled well leading up to her debut but several of her opposition have also shown ability at the jumpouts. The awkward gate also suggests she's under the odds. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ THE JOCKEY – BEN MELHAM Jockey Ben Melham heads to Sale for five rides on Thursday. BEST OF THE BEST (Race 1 No.1), WILLIE SUNSHINE (Race 4 No.6), DO IT NOW (Race 6 No.10), JUSTDOIT (Race 7 No.3), SHEZAVIXEN (Race 8 No.11). Read related topics: News Corporation
The Australian
2 hours ago
- Health
- The Australian
How body fat distribution could be leading to illnesses like psoriasis
The distribution of fat in the body has been shown to affect our risk of everything from brain ageing to type 2 diabetes. The belly is renowned for being the most damaging area to store it, with countless studies showing an association with inflammation and metabolic disease. In fact, the wider your waistline, the greater your risk of general disease: a review of 72 studies in the BMJ suggests that those with 'apple shapes' are at higher risk of early death from all causes than those whose fat is distributed elsewhere. In a new study, researchers at King's College London (KCL) also found a relationship between fat and psoriasis, a chronic inflammatory skin condition that affects about 1.8 million people in the UK and is characterised by flaky, scaly red patches known as plaques. Drawing on data from the UK Biobank, Catherine Smith, a professor of dermatology, and a research team from KCL's St John's Institute of Dermatology, examined 25 measures of body fat, using body measurements and advanced imaging techniques. Their findings, published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, identified belly fat as an independent risk factor for psoriasis, and the association is stronger in women. The link remained consistent regardless of any genetic predisposition to psoriasis. 'As rates of obesity continue to rise globally, understanding how different patterns of body fat influence chronic inflammatory conditions such as psoriasis is important,' Smith says. 'The total amount of body fat is one key determinant of health, but the distribution of fat is also important,' says Javier Gonzalez, professor at the centre for nutrition, exercise and metabolism at the University of Bath, concurs. 'Relatively high amounts of fat on the abdomen are associated with increased risk of cardiometabolic diseases such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes.' Upper body fat, including that around the waistline, 'is more easily stimulated by your own stress hormones to release the fat to the rest of the body compared with lower body fat,' says Fredrik Karpe, a professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Oxford. Once in the bloodstream, these fatty acids can wreak havoc. 'When subcutaneous or visible fat has reached its storage capacity, any excess fat spills over to organs including the liver and pancreas,' Gonzalez says. 'When there is too much fat in these organs, they stop working effectively.' How to tell if your body shape could be harming your health Can I tell much about my body fat by looking in the mirror? 'It is actually a reasonable start to assessing body fat,' Gonzalez says. 'The apple-shape body tends to represent more fat in the abdomen, which is higher risk, whereas a pear shape tends to represent the more protective type of fat storage in the thighs, and is a lower risk.' Karpe and Gonzalez recommend the waist-to-hip ratio as a measure of whether you are carrying too much weight around your middle. Using a tape measure, record your waist circumference in centimetres at the widest point and your hip circumference at the hip bones. Divide the waist measurement by that for the hips to find the ratio. For example, if a person's waist measurement were 50cm and their hip one 60cm, their ratio would be 0.83. A ratio of more than 0.85 for women and more than 0.90 for men places a person at increased risk of some conditions. To assess how much fat you store centrally relative to the rest of your body, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence recommends using the waist-to-height ratio. Measure your height using a piece of string, cut it, then cut this length in half and wrap that section around your waist. If the half-length of string doesn't reach around your middle, it is a sign you are carrying too much abdominal fat. Should I have a Dexa scan? Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scans are used in most large studies, including those of the UK Biobank. 'A Dexa scan measures internal visceral fat but also tells you much more accurately about your upper and lower body fat,' Karpe says. 'The results tell you about your bone mineral density as well as lean to fatty tissue. So there's lots of health-related information from having them.' I am slim but am I storing fat? You could be, Karpe says, especially if you drink more than the recommended limit of 14 units of alcohol a week. 'Alcohol is the big villain here and it can specifically increase dangerous internal visceral fat that settles around the organs – even in slim people,' Karpe says. 'We are preparing to publish a study of 5000 people and there is a clear dose response between alcohol consumed and an increase in visceral fat.' Only a Dexa scan will be able to determine clearly your levels of hidden fat. Do I need to worry about having a meno-belly? Men and women naturally store fat differently during their reproductive years. 'Men tend to store fat around their middle, and it links back to our ancestors who responded well to the stress hormones it releases as it kept them running and able to hunt for food,' Karpe says. 'In contrast, the natural female fat depot in the lower body is sluggish to respond and, in evolutionary terms, sits there until needed to mobilise energy when they need to breastfeed.' After the menopause, when oestrogen levels drop, women undergo a rapid transition. 'They don't tend to lose lower body fat but they gain quite a lot of visceral fat and fat around the middle,' he says. 'Around the menopausal age you also lose muscle – the part of the body that burns fat – so if you continue eating the same, you will put on weight often around the middle.' This shift in fat storage raises the risk of metabolic disease for many women. The good news is that if you lose weight – whether through diet and exercise or weight-loss drugs – the fat will disappear more rapidly from your middle than from elsewhere. 'Fat around the middle is normally the fat with the highest turnover,' Karpe says. Are bigger arms bad news? In isolation, they are not a significant risk factor for metabolic disease. 'But when the fatness of arms is part of a very substantial overall obesity, it is an added indication,' Karpe says. A 2024 study published in the journal Neurology tracking people from middle age found that those with arm fat were 18 per cent more likely to develop neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's, other forms of dementia and Parkinson's disease than than those with higher levels of leg fat. High amounts of belly fat raised the risk by 13 per cent. However, having strong muscles – including in the arms – reduced the risk by 26 per cent, suggesting that working on your biceps and triceps is worth the effort. Last year researchers from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens looked at the distribution of fat beneath the skin in 83 men and women aged over 50, none of whom had been diagnosed with the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis. At the European Congress of Endocrinology they reported that those with fatter upper arms were more likely to have lower bone quality and were most at risk of spinal fracture later in life. 'Surprisingly we identified, for the first time, that the body composition of the arms – in particular the fat mass of the arms – is negatively associated with the bone quality and strength of the vertebrae,' said Professor Eva Kassi, a senior author of the report. What about thighs? A pear shape is a sign that you are to some extent protected against disease: fat around the thighs is metabolically superior to belly fat. 'Whereas fat around the abdomen is strongly associated with fat in the liver and pancreas, leg fat stores behave differently,' Gonzalez says. 'Leg fat seems better able to 'hold on to' and store fat, whereas centrally located fat is more sensitive to hormones such as adrenaline and will release the fat more readily into the bloodstream.' Scientists at Rutgers University found that adults with fatter legs were less likely to have high blood pressure than those with a lower percentage of fat tissue in the thighs. They considered hypertension rates in relation to the percentage of fat tissue in the legs of people mostly in their 30s and 40s, and discovered that those who had higher proportions of leg fat were 49 per cent less likely to have high blood pressure where both numbers were elevated. And men and postmenopausal women with higher leg-fat levels were found to be at lower risk of osteoporosis in another study at the First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University in China. Can slim legs be a bad sign? 'Slim legs on a slim body are not risky,' says Karpe, who is researching the composition of lower body fat. 'But if you have too much weight around the waistline and a distinct absence of fat in the hips and legs, it is a potentially risky situation.' The thighs are key a site for storing fat that comes directly from the liver, Karpe says. 'When it is not possible to store fat in the thighs effectively, the liver may need to retain an excess of fat. That comes with substantial health risks including fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes and liver cirrhosis.' What can neck fat indicate? Research suggests that men with a neck circumference of more than 17in and women with a measurement of 14in or more are at increased risk of various health concerns. Neck fat, says Karpe, carries 'a very high risk' for metabolic disease. It stores a significant amount of free fatty acids that are released into the bloodstream where, according to a 2024 study in the Science journal, they are implicated in the onset of inflammation and metabolic disease. A study of 4093 midlifers by researchers at the University of Boston School of Medicine showed that high levels of fat in the neck were associated with atrial fibrillation, which causes erratic heart beats. 'The larger your neck circumference, the more likely you are to have sleep problems, partly because the pressure of fat stored there obstructs breathing and leads to issues such as sleep apnoea,' Karpe adds. The Times Read related topics: Health
The Australian
2 hours ago
- Business
- The Australian
Investing in EFTs: A guide for beginners
The Australian Business Network They have only been around in Australia for 24 years, but exchange-traded funds have become a popular way to build wealth among investors of all ages. ETFs, as they're usually called, are similar to shares, but instead of buying one share to hold a stake in a single company, each ETF unit can give you a slice of hundreds of different companies. This reduces the risk of holding shares in a single company that can potentially go bust, and it smooths out your ride by holding smaller stakes in many companies. Types of EFTs The most widely held ETFs are known as index funds, because they track an index such as the ASX 200 or the S&P 500 in the US. They are designed to deliver the same return as the index they follow, minus fees averaging about 0.5 per cent annually. You are essentially owning a basket of listed companies. More recently, specialised ETFs have surged in popularity because they focus on sectors, countries or themes. A good example of an index fund is Vanguard's VGS ETF, which tracks an international share index and holds about 5 per cent in Apple, 4 per cent Microsoft and Nvidia, as well as 2.5 per cent of Amazon and many other well-known global companies. The proportions of its shareholdings will change in line with each company's movement in market value. Specialised ETFs offered in Australia include funds focusing on robotics, cybersecurity, defence infrastructure, gold, bonds, currencies and ethical investing. If you want to look at more obscure or emerging investments, you can buy ETFs covering cryptocurrency innovators, digital health and telemedicine, video games and E-sports, US Treasury bonds and individual countries including India, Japan, China or South Korea. Many of these specialised ETF are actively managed, rather than the passive management of index funds, so their annual management fees can be higher, sometimes above 1.5 per cent. History The world's first ETF was launched in Canada in 1990 and the first in Australia was in 2001, a State Street Global Advisors product that tracks the movements of the S&P/ASX 200 index. It's still going today, with the ASX code STW, and has about $6bn of investors' funds sitting in it. If you put $1000 into STW in 2001, today it would be worth more than $2300 (not including distributions), broadly following the ASX 200 index over the past 24 years. There are now more than 360 ETF products available in Australia, and it's estimated that in mid-2025 a quarter of a trillion dollars of Australians' wealth was sitting in ASX-listed ETFs. They have been particularly popular with younger generations, with social media influencers hailing them for their low management costs and ability to diversify people's investment dollars with a relatively small outlay. Warren Buffett loves them, too ETFs have also been popular with the man widely seen as the world's most successful investor, Warren Buffett. One of the richest people in the world, for many years Buffett has advocated for ETFs and has recommended that 'a low-cost index fund is the most sensible equity investment for the great majority of investors'. Index v active If you're tracking an entire stockmarket index, you are not placing individual bets on stocks or sectors that may implode at some point. This strategy means you won't beat the index in the long run, but experts say active investment managers often fail to beat indices even though they're professional stock pickers. says the majority of ETFs in Australia are passive index-based investments that do not try to outperform the market, and warns that the handful of active ETFs may use higher-risk trading strategies. How to buy an ETF Buying into an ETF is like buying a share. You can go through an online stockbroker, full-service stockbroker, investment platform or financial adviser. Just like shares, the settlement of the trade will occur two business days later, and you will probably pay brokerage fees. If you want to skip the middleman, a small number of ETF providers – including Betashares and Vanguard – allow you to set up accounts with them and buy and sell ETFs directly without brokerage fees. EFT risks Diversification is a great positive of holding ETFs, as for a single $500 or $1000 investment you can be exposed to many of the world's most successful companies. Low cost is the other big benefit, compared with traditional managed funds that historically charge higher fees. ETFs also offer transparency as it's easy to discover which shares your ETF holds. However, as with all shares, there are always risks to investors. There is the ever present threat of a stockmarket crash, and currency moves that can affect the prices of ETFs holding overseas shares. Tax implications of EFT investing If you like getting your tax refunds quickly each year, ETFs can make this tricky because you need to wait for your ETF provider to send you their annual tax statement. This sometimes does not arrive until August. It will include information about capital gains, dividends, franking and other tax details, so you don't have as much control as you do owning shares directly. Want to learn more about ETFs? The Australian Securities Exchange offers a free ETFs course at Are ETFs behind Commonwealth Bank's record run? Read related topics: FundsWealth Anthony Keane Personal finance writer Anthony Keane writes about personal finance for News Corp Australia mastheads, focusing on investment, superannuation, retirement, debt, saving and consumer advice. He has been a personal finance and business writer or editor for more than 20 years, and also received a Graduate Diploma in Financial Planning.
The Australian
2 hours ago
- Politics
- The Australian
NT moves to jail more kids despite evidence it creates 'career criminals'
'If you want to make a monster, this is how you do it.' This was the warning three years ago from lawyer turned children's court president Hylton Quail after he examined conditions at Perth's juvenile detention centre. Judge Quail asked for the log books for one boy, a 15-year-old burglar, and learned he had been kept in a glass cell for 79 days over the previous summer. Governments have been busy making monsters all over Australia since then, and rocketing Indigenous youth incarceration rates should terrify us. We are creating career criminals. Angry ones. In the Top End, the public has had enough of youth crime so the Finocchiaro government is bringing back spit hoods. The jurisdiction that has turned failure into a business model wants to jail 10 year olds again. What could go wrong? As the NT parliament prepares to consider legislative change that will make it easier to jail children and jail them younger, they are being urged to look at evidence on what works. The quiet and careful work of crime prevention could be a night patrol in a remote town that takes children off the streets and into the care of youth workers who figure out what is going on in their lives. It could be a family responsibility agreement that delivers help and support to a struggling parent who has made a commitment to work towards change. There must be much more of it. National Children's Commissioner Anne Hollonds acknowledged the angst in the NT about youth crime on Wednesday when she said: 'We all want communities to be safe places where children can thrive'. The NT government's proposed actions, she said, flew in the face of what is known about making communities safer. 'We know that making the justice system more punitive does not work to prevent crime by children. What the evidence shows is that when children are locked up and brutalised by the justice system, they are more likely to go on to commit more serious and violent crimes. This does nothing to make our communities safer,' she said. Last year, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Katie Kiss took the trouble to listen to children from troubled families – many Indigenous – and wrote a report that caught the attention of Coalition Indigenous affairs spokeswoman Kerrynne Liddle. She is enthusiastic about Kiss's Help Way Earlier report for its message from children that authorities should not wait. They should help, way earlier. Back in Perth, the 15-year-old burglar is now 18. And in adult jail. Nobody is at all surprised. Paige Taylor Indigenous Affairs Correspondent, WA Bureau Chief Paige Taylor is from the West Australian goldmining town of Kalgoorlie and went to school all over the place including Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory and Sydney's north shore. She has been a reporter since 1996. She started as a cadet at the Albany Advertiser on WA's south coast then worked at Post Newspapers in Perth before joining The Australian in 2004. She is a three time Walkley finalist and has won more than 20 WA Media Awards including the Daily News Centenary Prize for WA Journalist of the Year three times.
The Australian
10 hours ago
- Business
- The Australian
Inflation data sends ASX to near all-time high on Wednesday
Banks, property and supermarket shares drove the ASX to a near record high on Wednesday after quarterly inflation all but confirmed an interest-rate cut when the Reserve Bank of Australia board meets in August. The benchmark ASX 200 jumped 51.80 points or 0.60 per cent to 8,756.40, with the market lifting after 11.30am on the CPI data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The broader All Ordinaries also traded higher up 48.70 points or 0.54 per cent to 9,015.40. Australia's dollar slid on the news down 0.05 per cent to US 65.09 cents. Six of the 11 sectors finished in the green. The ASX 200 jumped on the back of quarterly inflation data. Photo: Gaye Gerard / NewsWire Shares related to a rate cut jumped on the news. Gains were led by the major banks with bourse heavyweight CBA up 1.55 per cent to $176.99, NAB gained 0.71 per cent to $38.47, Westpac jumped 1.60 per cent to $33.72 and ANZ closed 1.25 per cent higher to $30.70. Woolworths Group added 1.58 per cent to $31.44, Coles jumped 1.72 per cent to $20.65 and Endeavour Group is up 1.23 per cent to $4.12. Stockland shares jumped 2.21 per cent to $5.55, Charter Hall Group gained 1.76 per cent to $20.21 and Mirvac Group gained 2.73 per cent to $2.26. Betashare chief economist David Bassanese said near enough was good enough for a rate cut as trimmed mean inflation fell to 2.7 per cent for the 12 months until June. 'Underlying inflation is inching closer to the middle of the RBA's 2 to 3 per cent target band and so justifies a further easing in what – in the RBA's own words – a still 'modestly restrictive' level of interest rates,' he said. Six of the 11 sectors gained on Wednesday. Photo: Gaye Gerard / NewsWire Josh Gilbert, market analyst for eToro, described it as hard for the RBA to hold rates. 'After the surprise pause in July, today's data means an August rate cut is all but nailed on,' he said. 'Markets are now pricing a 93 per cent chance of a cut, and it's easy to see why. Cost-of-living pressures are easing, and the risk is now skewed towards holding rates too high for too long.' In company news, Rio Tinto half-yearly earnings fell to a five-year low on the back of weaker iron ore prices throughout the previous six months. The major iron ore exporter told the market its underlying profits came in at $US4.8bn for the first six months until June 30, which is down from $US5.75bn ($8.83bn) last year Interim dividends fall to $US1.48 a share versus $1.77 a year ago Embattled casino operator Star Entertainment used its quarterly update to announce the sale of its Queen's Wharf precinct in Brisbane was 'unlikely' to go through by Thursday's deadline. But it also pointed to an improving cash position with Star having $234m in cash and $269m in cash equivalents, as of June 30, up from $44m at the end of March. Shares in Star Entertainment Group slumped 4.35 per cent to $0.11 following the announcement. Pointsbet shares rallied a further 4.2 per cent to $1.25 after rival wagering business Betr upped its takeover offer. Read related topics: ASX
