Health News

Jo Prance, from Surrey, was diagnosed with a minor perineal tear - damage to the tissue between the vaginal opening and anus - during the birth of her son in 1998. But the severity of her tear and extent of the injury was missed by medics, she claimed. Now 48, Ms Prance has since had to undergo 19 separate operations to help tackle the resulting urinary incontinence, severe pelvic pain and even pelvic organ prolapse. Having lived a life 'dictated by access to toilets' for two decades, Ms Prance - who was also forced to have a stoma and mesh sling - is now fighting to lift the stigma of incontinence.

Tazmin Blight, 19, who vaped the equivalent of 50 cigarettes a day, was taken to hospital after suffering 'tightness' in her chest. She'd initially put down the discomfort to 'trapped wind', but doctors told her a small air pocket that had formed in her lung had burst, causing it to collapse. Remarkably, the episode mirrored problems that had hit Tamzin's younger sister Kyla, 17, just weeks earlier. Their dad Mark, of Egremont, Cumbria, recently appeared on ITV 's Good Morning Britain to discuss Kyla's experience after it was revealed by Mail Online .

The news of the sad and untimely death of Dr Michael Mosley last month prompted an outpouring of grief from around the world. Thousands stepped forward to sing the author and Mail columnist's praises and shout about the ways in which his advice - always clear, concise, delivered with great enthusiasm and backed by robust science - had changed their lives for the better. Many even believe following Michael's advice could have saved their lives. Whether it was weight loss or better sleep, reversing diabetes, boosting fitness, balance or brain-power, Michael had an encyclopaedic knowledge of research and an armoury of clever tricks up his sleeve - most of which he'd tested on himself.

Health chiefs say Covid lockdowns have fuelled England's unprecedented epidemic of pertussis, nicknamed the '100-day cough' because it's notoriously hard to shake off. More than 7,500 cases have already been recorded in 2024 - almost nine times the level seen across the entirety of 2023. Nine babies have died since November. All were under the age of three months. Vaccination rates have also slumped in the wake of the pandemic in a trend experts blame on growing jab scepticism.

Leah Denney, from Kettering in Northamptonshire, was an otherwise healthy adult. But in late 2022, the now 28-year-old was struck down with body aches, a high temperature and struggled to keep any food or fluids down. Worried that cold medication had failed to shift the infection, she visited an out-of-hours urgent care centre. Yet, she claims she was told it was merely a UTI and was prescribed antibiotics. A second appointment saw her given more pills, despite experiencing sharp stabbing pains in her chest and aches in her side, she says. It was only after attending A&E with a 'gut instinct' her cold was 'something worse' that doctors discovered she was suffering from a combination of flu , Strep A , pneumonia and kidney infection that had led to sepsis.

During an episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians , the 43-year-old told her mother Kris Jenner on set, 'I got salmon sperm facial with salmon sperm injected into my face.' As well as Botox-like effects, salmon sperm injections - also known as polynucleotides - are said to give customers a 'baby face' and rejuvenated skin. The beauty trend can leave your skin bruised and covered in specs of blood, according to advocates of the wrinkle-defying tweakment.

Nurse and mum-of-three Rose Fuentebaja, 40, from Stratford-upon-Avon, had been in hospital for a week when she suffered a cardiac arrest and died in June 2017, which solicitors argue was 'avoidable'. She had previously been 'fit and healthy' but collapsed at home in Stratford-upon-Avon, in Warwickshire, leading to an ambulance being called on May 23, 2017. But even when paramedics carried out an ECG, which showed disturbances in her heartbeat, she was told her fainting was probably caused by anxiety.

In the study British researchers compared levels of cotinine in blood samples taken from children in various US households divided by smoking and vaping status. They found youngsters exposed to second-hand vape clouds have five times the level of nicotine in their bodies compared to normal. However, kids exposed to e-cigarette vapour had 84 per cent less of the addictive substance in their systems compared to those exposed to traditional second-hand smoking from cigarettes. Researchers in the study looked at cotinine levels in children, the substance made by the body as it breaks down nicotine and tests for it are considered the gold standard for detecting exposure to nicotine.

We spent an estimated £7billion on chocolate confectionery in the UK last year, according to data firm Mintel - that's about £105 for every adult and child in the country. If you are partial to picking up a sweet treat when you pay for petrol , or slipping a multipack in your shopping basket, read on. The bar you choose, from dark to milk or white, could make all the difference to your health and waistline. We asked Lucy Diamond, a dietitian at oviva.com - an NHS-approved, online weight and health management resource - to assess ten popular products, which we then rated.

England's patient safety commissioner Dr Henrietta Hughes (left) said the patient 'is the canary in the coal mine' of what is happening in the NHS and is 'the thing that tells us there's something going wrong'. She added: 'But too often we hear about patients who have raised concerns being gaslighted, dismissed, and fobbed off.' Her comments come after an extended catalogue of NHS care scandals, with multiple shocking inquiries into the state of maternity care at some Trusts. In an interview with the British Medical Journal , Dr Hughes, who took up her role in 2022, said women in some cases had been patronised and had their concerns dismissed. The Patient Safety Commissioner is also currently overseeing the implementation of Martha's Rule . Described as 'one of the most important changes to patient care in recent years' Martha's Rule is an established formal right for families to get a second opinion from medics, if they feel their concerns about a relative aren't being taken seriously. It is named after 13-year-old Martha Mills (right) who died of sepsis while under the care of King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in south London in 2021.

Luke Tarrant quit his job in investment banking last September to embark on the voyage of a lifetime, riding from the US to Antarctica. The 28-year-old said he knew motorbiking could be dangerous and felt that 'something was bound to happen eventually'. He said: 'I've always had a passion for motorbikes and this was the dream trip I'd been planning for a while. I left my job for it and was having an amazing time.'

A boy spent four nights in hospital after coming into contact with Britain's most dangerous plant and now must stay clear of the sun for a whole year. Michael Taylor, 13, was rushed to Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle and must keep his legs out of sunlight for the next 12 months after having a brush with giant hogweed. The plant, usually seen between June and August, is one of the UK's most dangerous plants. Its sap can cause painful, blistering burns which can recur over months and even years. Michael's brush has seen him miss two weeks of school. His mother gave a stark warning to other children and parents of the phytotoxic plant's dangers.

The singer has thrust the condition back into the spotlight. Now, two other Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS) sufferers have come forward to reveal their battle with the condition. Carrie Robinette, 45, from San Diego (left), said she had been battling a strange illness for years - before doctors finally diagnosed SPS. She now can't walk further than 50ft without help and says some days can be good while during others she is doubled over with agonising symptoms.

Theo Bradley had to be resuscitated following delays in his care at King's Mill Hospital in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottingham, in September last year. Mum Amelia Bradley, 26, said she called for help in agony several times but heard maternity staff chatting- including one saying: 'I can't believe how many Haribo's I've had tonight.' An inquest heard numerous midwives were sat around the desk when Ms Bradley should have been assessed within 15 minutes of arriving at hospital.

Eye yoga, championed by Beatles star Sir Paul McCartney, who has long claimed the eye exercises helped his vision, aims to workout the eye muscles we don't use when we are sat at a computer all day or just watching TV. Routines online suggest rotating your eyes and moving them side to side to 'wake up' our 'tired' muscles and improve our eyesight. But opticians aren't convinced these bizarre eye workouts will help and warn there is no scientific evidence that it will improve your eyesight or stop you from needing glasses.

Just ten days after his first birthday, Lucas Garcia-Batalla was diagnosed with a grade 3 anaplastic ependymoma - a fast growing malignant tumour. Initially his parents David Garcia Jurado, 42, and Laura Batalla, 38, from Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire assumed he had a stomach bug when he became lethargic, didn't stop vomiting and lost his appetite.

Getting out on a long walk or taking part in outdoor activities without having to wrap up warm against the elements is one of summer's great pleasures. But with rising temperatures predicted for later this month and the holiday season on the horizon, it's a good time for us all to remember the very real dangers of heatstroke. Far from being simply a matter of feeling hot, it's a massively underestimated condition that can quickly cause irreversible damage to our organs and kill.

The device, worn as a headband, zaps the brain for 20 minutes with small electrical pulses to block pain signals. This, in theory, targets menstrual pain and cramping as well as mood instability without the need for medication, according to Samphire Neuroscience - the London-based start-up behind the product. Studies suggest women who tried the Nettle device saw average pain decrease by 53 per cent and low mood symptoms improve by a third in as little as a month. The gadget, which is managed through a mobile app, is targeted at women aged 25 to 45. It can cause a 'tingling' and 'itching' sensation but the manufacturer insists it is safe.

Dr Brian Smith, from the UK, previously worked with Coca-Cola, Kellog's and Ferrero among others to make the taste and texture of their foods more appealing. But - after getting some distance from the foods - the philosopher says he now tries to avoid them entirely and is encouraging others to do the same. He has unintentionally lost weight since, and says he now also feels better and is fuller for longer between meals.

American scientists pit the two drugs, which work by mimicking a hormone that makes people feel full, in a study of more than 18,000 adults who took one of the weekly injections for a year. At the end of study, patients taking tirzepatide, the ingredient in Mounjaro, were 224 per cent more likely to have lost about a sixth of their body weight than those on Ozempic.People on Mounjaro, made by US pharma giant Eli Lilly, also lost up to 7 per cent more weight on average than those on semaglutide, the ingredient in Ozempic. Researchers also found there was no increased risk of adverse side effects like diarrhoea between the two medications. In the study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine , experts compared health data from two cohorts of adult patients with type 2 diabetes taking the jabs for up to a year. Of the 18,386 patients, half took Mounjaroand the other half took Ozempic

A nationwide shortage of key ­pharmaceutical drugs is forcing NHS patients to import them via friends living abroad, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Some are looking as far as India to access drugs - from sources which may not be safe - according to ­campaigners who argue this dangerous situation is a result of the Government's failure to tackle the ongoing crisis. The warning follows the launch of a Mail on ­Sunday drive to ease the shortages for some of the most vital drugs in the country, after new data revealed that, over the past two years, half of patients have struggled to get essential medication they have been ­prescribed.

In what experts are describing as a 'hugely significant cultural shift', the latest statistics suggest one in three under-25s, known as 'Gen Z', are shunning alcohol completely, while the rest are drinking significantly less than their elders. Compare that with 2005 when - amid concerns about Britain's 'binge-and-brawl' drinking culture - just 18 per cent of 16- to 25-year-olds didn't drink alcohol.

Esther Shoebridge has never been someone to trouble her GP without reason. A gym-goer and long-distance walker, the 59-year-old former optician, from Beverley in East Yorkshire, prides herself on being fit and independent. But when a nagging ache in her neck in the autumn of 2020 wouldn't budge, Esther did seek a medical opinion and was reassured it was nothing serious. It was another five months before Esther discovered the shocking truth - that she had broken a bone in her neck. But there was much worse news. The fracture, doctors at Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham told her, was due to the fact she had an incurable blood cancer which would almost certainly kill her within five years.

Perhaps it's the odd bottle of wine after work in the evening. Or a few pints with friends in the pub. But while some of the dangers associated with excessive drinking are obvious, others can appear much more subtly. Leading experts have rowed about the harms of moderate drinking for decades. The NHS recommends people drink no more than 14 'units' of alcohol - around six glasses of wine, or pints of beer - per week. This itself has been watered down over the past few decades in light of studies illustrating the health dangers of alcohol. So how do you know when your drinking has slipped into something more harmful? We ask the experts…

Some 4,913 outpatient appointments and 1,391 pre-planned procedures have been postponed at range of NHS hospitals in London, NHS England has said. Officials said that most services were at 'near normal' levels and they hoped to be 'fully operational as quickly as possible'. But pathology services were operating at 54 per cent of the capacity they had prior to the cyber attack. Urgent and emergency services had remained available as usual. On June 3, cyber criminals targeted pathology services provider Synnovis with a ransomware attack. Last week, NHS England confirmed data stolen in the attack had been published online. According to the BBC, Russian cyber gang Qilin shared almost 400GB of data, including patient names, dates of birth, NHS numbers and descriptions of blood tests, on their darknet site and Telegram channel.

Men with prostate cancer face the reality that they may never get an erection again. Dr Ellie Cannon says more than two-thirds of men undergoing prostate cancer treatment suffer erectile dysfunction. Adding that it's a problem that can affect self-esteem, relationships and quality of life. But doctors say there are a few methods that can help get your sex life back on track.

Mia Robins, 21, from Liverpool, was finishing her first year of university when she found herself crawling on her bathroom floor in pain. Doctors said it was a UTI but later scans revealed it was a 'melon sized' cancerous tumour. Ovarian cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the UK. The disease kills around 11 women every day in Britain, on average, or 4,000 a year. It also kills three times as many women in the US every year, figures show.

Britain's advertising watchdog told the trio of brands their future advertisements mustn't make claims that food, in their case a supplement, could prevent, treat or cure human disease. A paid-for Facebook ad in April for Aspire Nutrition stated: 'The secret weapon parents of ASD (autism spectrum disorder) kids swear by'. Text in the form of a review attributed to 'Tara K. Verified Buyer', also read: 'This has helped my five year old with Level 2 autism so much. 'Within the first week his melt downs decreased by 80 per cen. He is communicating so much better...he is starting to show kindness and empathy to his little sister.' Further text read: 'As parents of children with autism, we all share the same dream: to see our children thrive in school.' Another paid-for Facebook ad in January, for Drop Supplements, stated: 'For people with stress, anxiety, brain fog, ADHD...Happy Mind Drops - your new secret adaptogen against stress! Prepare yourself to unleash your true potential and banish your mental barriers.' A third paid-for Facebook ad for Spectrum Awakening stated: 'My five year old son Scout is diagnosed with receptive expressive language disorder and sensory disorder. Until I found Spectrum Awakening he could barely put a sentence together with very limited speech and words and lots of jargon.' It went on: 'The first supplement we tried was Power & Focus and within the first three days he started using way more words. Within a week he was speaking sentences. I'm absolutely amazed that I can't wait to order more.'

Mother-of-three Joan Davies regularly washed her husband David's overalls after his long days working in power stations between the 50s and 80s. But these dusty garments were covered in deadly asbestos which both David, and by doing the laundry, Joan were breathing in a fact that would eventually kill them. Their children recalled their father coming home covered in dust from drilling into deadly asbestos at the power station. Then their mother would shake out of his overalls before washing them in the garage - not realising she was also breathing in the cancerous dust. David died aged 89 from mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung linked to asbestos exposure- with Joan herself dying 10 years later at 89, with the same condition. Their son Jeff Davies, 63, took legal action to investigate how their mum was exposed to the deadly material and has now been awarded compensation.

Debra Dillo, 58, from North Carolina [pictured with her husband Todd], has been taking Addyi to correct her low libido, which can occur with age. She now calls it her 'happy pill.' It has transformed their sex life. The non-hormonal pill balances the brain chemicals dopamine and norepinephrine, which may lead to lower sex drive and decreased levels of serotonin, which is known to impact a person's libido.

Jonathan Meijer, from the Netherlands , is estimated to have donated sperm on a mass, unregulated scale at least 550 times, defrauding dozens of parents and eleven clinics across the globe. In an explosive Netflix documentary investigating this 'murky world', women told how they felt 'betrayed' and 'angry' after discovering how many other children the now 43-year-old musician has fathered. But in an interview Meijer, who has also been labelled a 'public health risk' and 'narcissist' today claimed he had 'no protection' as a private donor making him 'very vulnerable'. And he argued there was 'absolutely nothing wrong' with fathering hundreds of children.

Antonya Cooper, from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, said her lad Hamish had stage 4 cancer and was in 'a lot of pain' before his death in 1981. The brave youngster had been battling neuroblastoma -  a rare cancer that affects children - since the age of five, having been given just three months to live. And despite 16 months of 'beastly' cancer treatment at London 's Great Ormond Street Hospital, Hamish's incurable illness had left him in constant agony. Now facing her own battle against terminal cancer, Mrs Cooper has described in heartbreaking detail how she helped her son die after he begged her to ease his pain. 'On Hamish's last night, when he said he was in a lot of pain, I said: 'Would you like me to remove the pain?' and he said: 'Yes please, mama',' she said.

Debbie Morrison, from Bury in Manchester, claimed Shaylisha and her twin sister Chardonnay had both suffered constipation from birth which she reported to medics. However, she was told instead to simply give them plenty of 'fruit, vegetables and water' to help ease the issue, she said. In May, Shaylisha was forced to take time off school suffering days of diarrhoea and vomiting. But after falling asleep on the sofa one evening her panicked father Eddie went to check on her later and discovered her unresponsive. Despite CPR attempts by both neighbours and paramedics she was unable to be saved.

A young vaping addict was found to have hazy areas on her lung scans, signaling to doctors that her e-cigarette habit had inflamed her lungs and damaged tissue there. After ruling out Covid and bacterial pneumonia, doctors diagnosed her with E-cigarette or Vaping Product Use-Associated Lung Injury (EVALI).