Irish Independent12 children infected with E.coliBelfast TelegraphTwelve children in County Armagh have been infected with the E.coli bug, the Public Health Agency (PHA) has confirmed. Seven who attend the Holly House nursery in Dollingstown were infected with the potentially dangerous 0157 strain of the bacteria. ...Lurgan nursery shut after E-coli outbreakU.TVall 20 news articles »

PARIS (Reuters) - French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis would be prepared to moderately raise its $69 per share offer for Genzyme if the U.S. biotech agreed to negotiate, Dow Jones reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh issued a red alert on Sunday over an outbreak of anthrax which has infected nearly 300 people and killed about 150 cattle in the north of the country in the past two weeks.

Sky NewsMichael Douglas 'faces battle to survive cancer'WalesOnlineONE of Wales' leading cancer specialists has warned movie legend Michael Douglas is in the fight of his life to beat cancer. His wife – Swansea-born stunner Catherine Zeta-Jones – has been left fuming after doctors in the US first dismissed his ...Catherine Zeta Jones in agony over Michael Douglas's throat cancerDaily News & Analysis31 Days in the Life of a Throat Cancer PatientABC NewsZeta-Jones' Fury At Cancer DoctorsSky NewsTopNews United Kingdom (blog) -ABC Online -The Money Timesall 196 news articles »

TopNews United Kingdom (blog)George Osborne's unemployed brother buys £1million townhouseMirror.co.ukChancellor George Osborne's disgraced brother has bought a £1million townhouse - even though he doesn't have a job. Dr Adam Osborne, 34, was barred by the General Medical Council from working as a doctor for six months after ...Escort girl drug doctor 'can practise again'BBC NewsBan on Chancellor's brother liftedThe Press AssociationGeorge Osborne's doctor brother ruled fit to workExpress.co.ukTopNews United Kingdom (blog) -TopNews Singapore (press release)all 10 news articles »

Health tourists travel the world and spend thousands, but their hopes of being cured are likely to be dashedFor the past decade stem cells have sparked huge excitement among scientists, dramatic media coverage about breakthroughs that could mean a cure for some of the nastiest diseases, and hope – sometimes desperate – among patients that the reality will match the hype. That has fuelled a booming trade in stem cell tourism – people heading to clinics abroad and forking out large sums for what are called stem cell treatments but which are unlikely to work and possibly do harm.It is, as some of the UK's leading stem cells experts warned last week, a world of unproven therapies, patient optimism and predatory clinicians. Despite the lack of reliable evidence underpinning the treatments being offered, the number of people resorting to stem cell tourism is growing. Experts voiced their fears and frustrations after finding that many patients, often desperately ill, were asking their advice on whether to travel overseas."I've made some very strong comments which could potentially land me in court, but people still go to these clinics," said Professor Peter Coffey, director of the London Project to Cure Blindness at University College London. There are now several hundred clinics around the world which claim to have turned the potential of stem cells into effective treatments. They lure those suffering from diabetes, multiple sclerosis, heart failure, Parkinson's disease, autism, HIV, eye problems, spinal cord injuries and much else besides.Several thousand people from around the world so far are estimated to have spent up to £20,000 or more in such places. Yet while stem cells could transform medicine, there is as yet scant actual proof of their efficacy. But still the tourists come.The fact that scientists believe it is likely to be 15 to 20 years before the continuing worldwide flurry of trials and tests results in reliable treatments has not stopped clinics from offering exactly that already. Strong regulation means there are no such places in the UK or America. But the experts did single out the XCell Centre in Düsseldorf, Germany, and Beike Technology, which runs one in Shenzhen in China.In 2008 the Multiple Sclerosis Society warned sufferers not to be taken in by Integrated BioSciences, a company registered in the Turks & Caicos Islands, which had offices in the Seychelles, Persian Gulf and Oxford, because there was no scientific backing for the claim that stem cells could cure the condition.People's willingness to trust their savings and their health to such clinics recently prompted the International Society for Stem Cell Research to launch a website to educate patients about the risks involved. Anyone thinking about going would be well advised to check it out and think again.Medical researchHealth & wellbeingHealthcare industryHealthMultiple sclerosisParkinson's diseaseDenis Campbellguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Voyeuristic, sensationalist, revolting… Embarrassing Bodies is accused of being all of these. So why are people prepared to share their unsightly medical problems with a record-breaking TV audience?A sweaty morning at Thorpe Park, and the smell of sunblock and ketchup hangs heavy in the air. In the shade of Saw, a freefall rollercoaster based on the torture-porn franchise, and beside a grey but warming lake, a crowd is gathering by the Embarrassing Bodies truck. For one day only, Dr Christian Jessen and Dr Dawn Harper will be consulting in the back of their well-lit van, a televised surgery open to anybody passing between rides. Provided, of course, that they're within the 70% of the population suffering from an embarrassing illness – varicose veins, excess hair, stretchmarks, alopecia, IBS, obesity. Something that oozes, preferably. Something swollen.Rosie and Kelly are 13 years old, and so excited to be in the presence of Dr Christian that they're quivering, visibly. As fans of Embarrassing Bodies, the Channel 4 show that offers contributors lengthy medical attention in exchange for a close-up of their glittering piles, they're recalling their favourite episode from the three series so far. Was it the episode with the interior designer's oversized labia? Was it the one about the woman with the udder-like breasts? The one with Christina's anal warts? They remember all of those, but their favourite was the episode where Dr Christian stood in a locker room to compare the penis sizes of a whole rugby team. "It was brilliant," they say. "He was brilliant. I'd definitely go on the show, if I had something wrong." Then I ask Rosie and Kelly, as I will ask many people over the next few days, the question most asked about Embarrassing Bodies: if the problem embarrasses them, why do patients choose to go on telly with it? They answer, but I'll come to that.Embarrassing Bodies, produced by Maverick TV, first appeared on Channel 4 in 2007, an explosion of incontinence and skin rashes, with Ashley Jensen's voiceover explaining the statistics around the illnesses shown. In the Evening Standard, Victor Lewis-Smith wrote that the show was "admirable, unpalatable, fascinating and repulsive in roughly equal measure". Since then it's become furiously successful, the most watched programme on Channel 4 this year, consistently winning audiences of up to four million, double the average ratings for its 9pm time slot.The show has covered 120 different conditions to date. After last month's special episode, about a nine-year-old girl called Charlotte who visited the clinic with extreme verrucas – her feet were covered in molluscs – and was found to need a bone marrow transplant, the Anthony Nolan Trust reported a 4,000% increase in enquiries. Embarrassing Bodies's Bafta-award-winning website is responsible for 42% of Channel 4's web traffic, and its STI checker has, at last count, been used by one million people. More than 150,000 viewers took their online autism spectrum test, creating the world's largest test of its kind.The website is also used as an example of how television is moving towards a "multiplatform" future – spikes in Embarrassing Bodies's web traffic during the show proved viewers are watching with their laptops open, tapping their own questions into the message boards, clicking through the "vulva gallery" or applying to be on the show. Adam Gee, cross-platform commissioning editor for factual programming at Channel 4, explains, "It was the first evidence that multiplatform for factual could work and find an audience."Along with Drs Dawn Harper and Pixie McKenna, Dr Christian Jessen is the face of Embarrassing Bodies. The face, the arms, the muscular chest, the skin of which can often be seen peeking from a carelessly buttoned polo shirt, the colour of cured meat and the size of a healthy bottom. We meet as he comes off the rollercoaster Colossus, where he's been testing his heart rate for a piece about stress levels. He happily poses for photographs for fans and gives me an apologetic grin as he signs another autograph.Last year Jessen hit the headlines when Gordon Brown's spin doctor, Damian McBride, sent an email to Labour blogger Derek Draper, suggesting they spread the unfounded story that David Cameron had suffered from a sexually transmitted disease. He also suggested "inserting [a] picture of Dr Christian Jessen", implying the Embarrassing Bodies doctor, also a practising Harley Street GP, had treated the now Prime Minister."I can't say I've never met David Cameron," Jessen said at the time, also unable to deny it. "It's interesting, because if you say, 'No, someone's not a patient', is that also a breach of confidentiality?" His main gripe with the story, he said, was the suggestion that treatment for an STI could have brought down a government. "I was particularly disappointed because there I am, slogging away, trying to make people feel more comfortable talking about these things, and then this idiot undoes it all in one email by implying it is shameful and embarrassing. It made me very cross."Jessen is very posh, very clever and very charming. He grew up in Fulham, west London, went to boarding school and graduated from UCL in 2000, when he moved to Kenya and Uganda to research HIV and malaria in children. Now 32, he lives with his partner and miniature Pinscher in London.When he joined the show, he didn't think it would last. "I didn't think piles and verrucas would be exciting to a Channel 4 audience," he says, "but I soon realised that people hadn't seen the novelty of haemorrhoids before, because we're usually pretty crap about talking about this stuff. Yes it's a bit gross, but we never treat it in a sensationalistic way. It's good, practical telly, and that's why it works." I can't help but comment on his muscles. They're glinting in the sunlight, swelling like hams in my sightline. He thanks me. "I like it when people think I don't look like a doctor – that's why we were cast. We're not bow-tied, spectacled, dull. There's a need for normal-looking people in the medical profession I think, a crying need for doctors who are approachable." On screen, they're referred to as Dr Christian, Dr Dawn. "It's a very closed business, very secretive and reverential. And our harshest critics are other doctors."Dr Dee Dawson, medical director of the Rhodes Farm eating disorder clinic, has watched Embarrassing Bodies from her London sofa. She says the show "sensationalises serious illnesses and pleases ghoulish audiences with its tabloid format". But, she continues, "in doing that, it also alerts them to potential problems, and I'm sure people are more likely to see their doctors after watching an episode relevant to them, in the same way that we saw a spike in smear tests after Jade Goody talked about her cervical cancer. It's horrendous," she says, "and so overly dramatic, but it's a positive thing, in the end. In fact, my father only had a melanoma diagnosed after watching a medical programme on TV."Inside the Embarrassing Bodies truck, a screen separates the surgery set and a tiny waiting room, where a bowl of pink orchids erupts on the coffee table. The first patient to walk in from the park is 23-year-old Natasha, who wants to talk about irritable bowel syndrome. Her boyfriend, Peter, waits patiently by the fence. "We love the show," he tells me. "My mother died of skin cancer this year and the programme showed me the warning signs to look out for. Plus all the blokes with their tackle out – they ask questions I wouldn't dare!"As the cameras roll, Dr Christian asks Natasha about her loose stools. "The message," he says, after a brief conversation, "is don't panic, but be insistent. Fight for help, and find a GP that will ask for more tests."Outside in the sunshine Natasha is elated. "That was so fantastic," she says. "He gave me the confidence to go back to my doctor. And yes, it's an embarrassing problem, but when you finally talk about it you feel so much better."Why did you decide to go on TV with it?"Well," she says, "I lovethe show. And I love that the doctors make themselves so approachable. GPs, usually, are so busy they don't have time to listen. And I honestly think the show is changing young people's views on how they communicate about their bodies."Rosie and Kelly, still lurking for another glimpse of Dr Christian, agree. They say that their friends wouldn't laugh at them if they appeared on Embarrassing Bodies because the fact it's on TV legitimises the problem – takes the shame away.Dr Dawn Harper, who's an NHS GP in Gloucestershire when not filming, says one of the reasons people decide to take their problems on the show is the brand recognition. "They've seen us on TV, so they trust us. Plus, there's a huge sector of society that thinks: 'If it's not life threatening, I mustn't bother my doctor', or they've felt a lack of sympathy from them in the past. And while women are always registered with the doctor for their smear test, men are often still registered at their mum's GP. Viewers feel like they know us a bit. They've seen how we interact with patients so they know what to expect. And we have support from more and more specialists as the show grows, so there's the availability of things that aren't offered on the NHS."I hear all Harper's reasons repeated by patients as the day goes on.Kelly Coulter, who's brought her 18-month-old son to the truckstop to talk about a problem with his gums, says she'd "absolutely get my breasts out on the show if I was guaranteed a boob job". Plastic surgery is a subject often broached in the programme. Jessen (who talked to the Daily Mail about his hair transplant in May) tells me, "I'm for plastic surgery, as long as the industry doesn't take advantage and prey on us."One of the surgeries Jessen recommended on an episode in 2008 was a patient's labioplasty. In her book Living Dolls, Natasha Walter details how uneasy this made her feel. "[In this episode] a young woman consulted a doctor about the fact that her labia minora extended slightly beyond her labia majora and that this caused her embarrassment. Instead of reassuring her that this was entirely normal, the doctor recommended, and carried out, surgery on her labia. The comments left on the programme's website showed how this decision to carry out plastic surgery to fit a young woman's body to a so-called norm made other young women feel intensely anxious. 'I'm 15 and I thought I was fine, but since I've watched the programme I've become worried, as mine seem larger than the girl who had hers made surgically smaller! It doesn't make any difference to my life, but I worry now that when I'm older and start having sex I might have problems!' one girl said."This idea that there is one correct way for female genitals to look is undoubtedly tied into the rise of pornography… If the rise of pornography was really tied up with women's liberation and empowerment, it would not be increasing women's anxiety about fitting into a narrow physical ideal," wrote Walter.I ask Jessen whether this patient's referral was a difficult decision. "It's a hugely controversial subject, but she was having dreams about cutting off her labia. To me, that justifies the treatment – she was grossly psychologically disturbed." Is he concerned that with this decision he might encourage female viewers to seek surgery when there's no medical problem? He sighs. "It's our job to show all available treatment. And if it creates a forum for girls to talk about their bodies… We try our best – there's no malice in what we do."A few days later, in their Birmingham clinic/studio, a set lit so whitely it feels like a 1960s vision of heaven, I meet John. I'd heard about John. Once, over lunch, a friend told me about the programme she'd watched the night before. Wide-eyed, she used her hands to describe an operation they'd shown, where, in order to cure the man's perianal abscesses, they'd stretched his anus open with metal pegs, so that, square, it filled the TV screen neatly. The image stays with her still. When John, now 27, returns to Embarrassing Bodies, it's after 15 operations; he says he's feeling "the best I have in four years".The problem began when he was 23, and a prison officer in Nottingham. One night, an inmate threw a television from the floor above – it landed inches from where John was standing and he had a panic attack. He took a week off due to stress and it was then that he noticed the first swelling. When the abscess burst inside him, it spread. The pain, he says, was like "being kicked in the spine", and once it caused him to black out. But worse than the pain, he says, was the humiliation of asking his girlfriend, who he'd met while recovering from his eighth operation, to regularly clean his seeping wounds. "He'd had to wear a nappy in his pants," Dr Pixie McKenna tells me. "It was so, so sad."The episode of Embarrassing Bodies which concentrated on Charlotte Wilson's verrucas inspired John to seek them out – John chased their truck stops around Britain, finally getting a walk-in appointment with Dr Pixie when he'd just come off a night shift."I saw that they'd saved that little girl's life, so I wanted them to fight my corner," John tells me. "And I thought if they could help me out, then showing my backside on national TV would be a small price to pay." When John's episode aired, he found out later, his prison colleagues had thrown an Embarrassing Bodies party, where, during the screening of his operation, someone had thrown up on their pepperoni pizza.Today, after shyly admitting that his girlfriend has agreed to marry him, he's happy to drop his trousers and show his scars to Dr Pixie, who gasps with pleasure. "That is not the same bottom that I first met!" she cries.Michelle, 45, is birdlike, and woke at five to drive down from Lancaster, where she's proud to live in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. When she told her 19-year-old son she was thinking of approaching Embarrassing Bodies about her constipation after a post- hysterectomy prolapse, he said he wasn't happy about it, but that if it would help, he'd support her. Sitting in the surgery, camera angles mean she must answer Dr Pixie's question – "Do you get any soiling?" four times. Her examination is over in seconds – a rectocele is diagnosed – and the screen where I'm sitting fills with an internal HD image. "Embarrassing Bodies doesn't believe in pixilation," the executive producer, Steph Harris, tells me. "It implies shame."I talk to Michelle over a cup of tea. "I was very apprehensive, yes," she says. She's sitting up straighter than she was before she entered the surgery – she seems to take up more space, somehow. "I was especially scared about the young cameraman, but he made me feel completely at ease. There was no pressure and lots of explanation. I'm so happy to have come."But why choose to broadcast your problem, I ask. "I come from a nursing background and this is one of my favourite shows, so I knew I'd get an honest consultation. And if nothing else, I wanted to highlight how common this problem is to other women. I'm not the only one of my friends to watch it either – I have a friend who's in hospital today after diagnosing herself with carpal tunnel syndrome when she saw it on the programme."For all the reviews pointing out Embarrassing Bodies's "crypto-pornographic nature", the criticism of the show's relationships with cosmetic surgeons, and the format, which relies on suspenseful ad breaks and the promise of genital close-ups, it's the patients who convince me that the programme does good, helping viewers talk about worries they'd otherwise hide.Dr Dawn tells me about a recent event she went to with her NHS colleagues. "They tease me, of course they do, but that night 40 out of the 60 doctors there told me they'd seen patients purely off the back of the show."Interestingly, I think this is the only show in the makeover genre to include both male and female contributors. And while the occasional woman's saggy belly is hacked away by surgeons, the overall message is one of practical medicine: less about how you feel about your body, more about the body itself. And it's the only programme on telly where the haemorrhoid's the star.Embarrassing Bodies series four begins on C4 on 17 September. Can I Just Ask? (Hay House, £12.99) by Dr Christian Jessen, a collection of questions doctors are asked when off-duty, is published on 1 NovemberCharlotte's storyThe case which turned the show into a national treasureIn the autumn of 2008, nine-year-old Charlotte Wilson's mother, Sofia, led her into Dr Christian's clinic, seeking help for her verrucas. When he saw her feet, he was briefly speechless, but viewers saw his brain whirring into action. Verrucas, a common viral infection which most people's immune systems can quickly defeat, covered her toes in a terrifying crust. Dr Christian realised that this was an indication that Charlotte's immune system was losing the battle. She was referred to Great Ormond Street Hospital where the diagnosis was confirmed. The immunologist warned that in time Charlotte would be vulnerable to life-threatening infections. She needed a bone marrow transplant. Luckily, blood tests revealed that her sister Isabelle was a perfect match. Charlotte received chemotherapy in an isolation room, and after months away from home, she celebrated her 10th birthday in hospital, waiting for the bone marrow to take root.When the show aired, the Embarrassing Bodies website encouraged viewers to sign up for the Bone Marrow Register and the following day the Anthony Nolan Trust received 1,400 requests for information, as opposed to the usual 30. This week, the show's producer received an email from Sofia Wilson. "Charlotte looks fantastic," wrote her mother. "Lots of curly hair and a suntan... [Recovery] is going to take longer than we thought (Charlotte has to learn to stick a needle under her skin so that she can do her gamma-globulin infusion herself), but you saved our daughter's life".TelevisionHealth & wellbeingChannel 4Television industryMedical dramaEva Wisemanguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

'Today' presenter Justin Webb, whose son suffers from diabetes, explains how he was brought close to tears by an item on stem-cell treatment.

Patients have threatened to sue a doctor after paying £10,000 for a stem cell treatment that did not work.

Cockroaches and locusts contain powerful antibiotic molecules in their brains that could be used to develop new treatments against MRSA and E-coli, scientists have discovered.

Daily MailCouncil decision 'wheelie stupid', say residentsWiltshire TimesFRAIL pensioners are being told to drag their wheelie bins up to 100 yards along a potholed road in Trowbridge – because refuse lorries won't drive down it to protect their workers. The residents of the unadopted section of ...Council forces pensioners to drag wheelie bins 100 yards - so DUSTMEN aren't ...Daily MailNOW 'POTHOLES' STOP DUSTMEN EMPTYING BINSExpress.co.ukResidents Want Binmen to Collect Bins from Outside Their HousesTopNews United Statesall 6 news articles »

Los Angeles TimesMalaria Drug Candidate Holds PromiseWall Street JournalAn international team of scientists has identified a promising drug candidate that represents an entirely new class of medicines to treat malaria, one of the biggest killers in the developing world. The new drug was shown to be effective ...Now, single-dose malaria drugTimes of IndiaExperimental Novartis drug shows malaria promiseReutersScientists closer to malaria cureFinancial TimesAFP -Medical News Today -Hindustan Timesall 281 news articles »

MedIndiaWelsh lawyer urges breast implant gel testingWalesOnlineWomen fitted with a faulty French breast implant have been told the silicone gel is not toxic. Preliminary tests by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency found the material used in the common PIP implants is not a potential cause of ...Dodgy breast implants may not explodeTimes of IndiaBreast implants tests 'encouraging'The Press Association'No evidence' implants are toxicBBC NewsTheMedGuru -TopNews United Statesall 38 news articles »

Weston & Somerset MercuryService easing load for Leeds cancer sufferersYorkshire Evening PostCoping with cancer is difficult enough, but money worries can add to the burden even more. That's the situation Steve and Glennis Prout found themselves in last year. Mr Prout was undergoing treatment for bladder cancer when he was made redundant from ...Boots store team cycle 100 miles to raise charity cashBoston StandardBond girl to appear in WestonWeston & Somerset MercuryBoots staff getting into stride for cancer charitySwindon AdvertiserThe Press, York -This is Somerset -Medical News Today (press release)all 15 news articles »

TopNews New ZealandSurgeon dies on snorkelling tripBBC NewsTributes have been paid to a "dedicated" and "very valued" surgeon from the Wirral who died while snorkelling in the Maldives. Ali Bakran, a consultant transplant and vascular surgeon at the Royal Liverpool Hospital, was on holiday with his wife Diane ...UK transplant surgeon dies while snorkeling at MeedhupparuMinivan NewsTributes paid to Royal Liverpool Hospital surgeon Ali BakranLiverpool Daily Postall 18 news articles »

'I soon learned never to express hunger around them and to eat in secret, thereby developing an inextricable emotional link between what I ate and my ability to be loved'In my head I am thin. I just haven't quite got there yet. As I was growing up, it was made clear that the fat me wasn't welcome, that a thin person was expected and awaited, and impatiently so. Of my parents' four children, I was always known as the "fat one". They had longed for a girl, following two boys born in quick succession, and were thrilled when I finally arrived. As I well know, having longed for a daughter myself, when one dreams of having a girl one does not picture a fat one – no one does. Hopeful parents picture a sweet, pretty (regrettable, but true), adorable little thing who'll be cuddly and affectionate in the way boys, post-babyhood, are rarely expected to be.As retold by my parents, their close friends and relatives, for the first few years I duly fulfilled the hopes and dreams they'd harboured when hankering for a daughter: I was cheeky, vivacious and "utterly charming". If the photos are anything to go by, I wasn't particularly pretty, and certainly not thin. I was a solid toddler, as one might expect since I'd weighed 11½ pounds (5.2kg) at birth. Clearly my personality made up for the fact that my looks weren't as fine as they might have hoped for. All well and good – except when I started to get plump at around nine years old.I have no memory of suddenly eating more or exercising less; there is no logical explanation for the increase in size. I wasn't enormous, but I was plumper than my peers and my siblings, and this began to concern my parents greatly. I recall once complaining to my father about the discomfort I experienced when the tops of my thighs rubbed together, causing sore, red patches, to which he replied, characteristically obliquely, "Try pushing yourself away from the table." At the time, as children tend to, I took him literally.On one memorable evening it was made clear to me I needed to deal with my weight and, moreover, that my parents found it intolerable. The whole family sat down for a supper of mince and mashed potatoes. (In itself this was memorable, since we very rarely ate all together. In the 60s, when I grew up, adults always ate separately, differently and inevitably better than kids.) Before we began eating, Dad stood up, looking a bit uneasy, cleared his throat and announced, "Arabella won't be having potatoes because she's fat." I remember feeling overcome with rage and indignation – why should I be punished for something that was out of my control? I only ever ate what my siblings ate. It wasn't my fault if my body processed it differently. I wasn't doing this on purpose to annoy my parents. However, it would appear this was exactly what my parents thought was going on. My oldest brother, Andrew, protested on my behalf, drawing attention to his own (albeit very slight) plumpness. "That's different, you're a boy," my father said.Our parents were highly educated, left-leaning and shared many social values, including our mother's distaste for housewifery – while Dad expected to enjoy a well-run home, he did not expect it to be at the cost of Mum's intellect or sense of fulfilment – yet neither of them saw any paradox in separating a boy's physical requirements from those of a girl. The message was loud and clear: girls need to be pretty, boys don't.Needless to say, neither of them then went on to educate me in the ways of dieting or exercising more. In order not to annoy them and be more lovable, I simply needed to be less fat. Unsurprisingly, this method did not work. I soon learned never to express hunger around them and to eat in secret, thereby developing an inextricable emotional link between what I ate and my ability to be loved. From then on, if I eschewed pudding, potatoes and biscuits in their presence, they were pleased and congratulatory – they did love me more. If I ate anything "bad" in front of them, the reaction was guaranteed: a flamboyant roll of the eyes, heavy sighs or loud cries of, "Do you do this on purpose to annoy me?" or "Have you any idea just how fattening that is?" My mother's favourite line was, "Watching you eat is like having hot knives stuck into my eyes!" The link between worthiness and abstinence – or, in reality, thinness – was unmistakably demarcated.This belief has never been more evident than it is today. Society prizes a girl for being thin more than anything else she might bring to the table. With this pressure in mind, and acutely aware of the trap into which my parents had fallen (I know they loved me, but they also never denied loving me more the less I weighed), when I had children, I made a decision to avoid investing food and eating with anything other than love and ease. And that's when I found out that feeding your children is a minefield – much harder than one might think before becoming a parent and, I reluctantly admit, even harder if you have a girl when you yourself are a girl with "eating issues".I'm not letting my parents off the hook, but I now know that attempting to nurture a healthy and relaxed approach to eating is hard. My parents' generation's benchmark was simple: Fat Equals Bad. These days not only do we have that message shoved down our throats, we are also bombarded with horror stories of child obesity and the huge rise in popularity of sedentary children's activities (favoured because they'll be abducted if they're allowed to play out, so we're led to believe), plus the five-a-day fruit-and-veg diktat. (I literally break into a sweat if their bedtime approaches and I've failed to meet the target – many is the night I've tried to persuade them to eat a selection of crudités in bed.)Little wonder it's harder than ever to foster a stress-free approach to eating. And this is particularly true for women, to whom the relentless task of providing family meals almost always falls. Women are told we need to be thin to "count", while at the same time being charged with ensuring our children eat well but not too much; that a chocolate biscuit or two is OK, but eating the whole packet is not; that being skeletal is neither healthy nor attractive. Simultaneously, we must also aim to develop in them, the next generation, an egalitarian attitude to size and gender. It's a tall order. We have to be on high alert all the time.I've got a boy and a girl; their parents are a boy and girl (me). The boys eat more than the girls, yet aren't overweight. My 11-year-old son never thinks about what effect eating might have on his body – if he wants something, he eats it. So far, food has no emotional value for him at all. And that's just how it ought to be. My daughter, who is 12, thinks about fashion as much as most girls of her age. She eats well and healthily, the same food as her brother, but less of it. Their father and I have avoided saying anything negative when more ice-cream, chocolate, biscuits, cake, is inevitably demanded. "Everything in moderation" is the aim; nothing is off limits, just the amount. So far, so good.But I don't know what I'd do if one of my kids began to gain weight. Naturally I'd look to myself first, and check what and how much I was providing; but what if the weight gain was the result of food they were eating outside the home, for example, chips with their mates on the way home from school? In an ideal world, I'd bite my tongue and ride this phase out, hoping it was just that – a phase. During which a loving parent, desperately trying as I am not to attach any emotional value to food, is required to stand by and let their child make their own mistakes. But I can't say that would be right, either. I wish my parents hadn't made me feel that how I looked was linked to how much they loved me. But I do also see how hard it must be to see your child pile on the pounds and trust they'll find their own way back to a healthy weight.Being able to be around food and never wonder if there'll be enough for you, never to worry if you'll be judged for what and how much you're eating – to be able to expect and enjoy good food and to feel entitled to it – is a fantastic gift. But, like any gift worth having, in the first place someone has to give it to you.• The Real Me Is Thin, by Arabella Weir, is published by Fourth Estate, priced £16.99. Order a copy online for £11.99 with free UK p&p, at the Guardian Book Shop.FamilyHealth & wellbeingObesityWomenChildrenArabella Weirguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

He won't eat veg, he loves junk food and he won't exercise. So why is my husband in the least bit surprised that he's getting rather flabby?'I'm fat," announces my husband."That's OK, Toryboy," I say. "Our relationship has never been built on raw physical attraction, but on a kind of sick, intellectual curiosity and an emotional masochism on both our parts that neither of us had hitherto suspected. Your expanding girth will hardly change that.""But being overweight leads to heart disease, diabetes and untimely death," he says."That's OK, too," I say soothingly. "Haven't I always told you that the only good Tory is a dead Tory?""But you don't want me to be incapacitated before I go," he says. "Think how nursing me would cut into your Will & Grace repeats-watching time."The man has a point. I pause Will & Grace to look at him properly. A paunch is definitely present."How does one lose weight?" he asks."Well, there are two ways," I say. "You can exercise more… ""No.""Or you can eat less.""No."After prolonged discussion, during which he is persuaded that I am not hiding some secret third way perhaps involving the weight being licked off by kittens, he eventually plumps (as it were) for dietary emendation.His ignorance – his swirling, fathomless, pitch-black ignorance – of what this entails is only gradually revealed, however. "I'm just having a sandwich for lunch," he reveals proudly the next day. I am impressed – usually it's pasta with a Super Noodles starter – until I see that said "sandwich" is a giant pot of prawn cocktail mix emptied into a bap. I remonstrate."But it's brown bread," he says."That doesn't make a pint of pink mayonnaise a healthy snack.""What about the fact that it's cold and not what I really want?""That is what should count in our favour on all diets," I say with a sigh. "But never, ever does."The next day, he wants to eat a pork pie on the grounds that it's "just pork and a bit of pastry". He appears to be under the impression that the meat in his 79p purchase from the local chain bakery is as pure a piece of porcine goodness as was ever carved off an organic Gloucester Old Spot, rather than a dollop of mashed pig lips and fat mechanically recovered from the abattoir floor. And that the pastry is made from fruit.Starvation sets in over the next few days because he won't eat vegetables. Doesn't like them, won't eat them.I'm sorry, did I not mention I am married to an eight-year-old boy?He cannot or will not grasp the difference between calorific value and ability to satiate. In vain do I draw diagrams and construct equations that seek to show how a carrot can be more filling than a cake at less calorific expense.Eventually, I invent the Salad Deviation Scale."You accept – even though you won't eat it, because you 'don't like leaves' – that salad is good for you, yes?" I ask him.If he doesn't say yes, I promise myself, I will stab him through his engorged and overstrained heart, and put us both out of our misery."I am convinced that this is, at least, the prevailing wisdom," he replies.This is enough – just – to stay my hand."OK then," I say. "So, before you put anything on your plate or in your mouth, you must ask yourself the following question: 'How different is this from salad?' So, if it's fruit?""Not very different.""And you may eat. Anything with fat dripping off or scattered in lumps throughout it?""Very different. And I must not eat it."I don't know about him, but I, at least, am a shadow of my former self.RelationshipsMarriageObesityHealth & wellbeingLucy Manganguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

'To be happier you have to turn sad thoughts and feelings into happy ones. Right?'The pastime of shooting fish in a barrel has been unfairly maligned – like falling off a log, it's a hobby with a high success rate, which instils a sense of confidence and self-esteem – so I make no apology for turning briefly to The Power, the new sequel to the absurdly bestselling self-help book The Secret. Rhonda Byrne's first book revealed the one "great secret" of wealth and happiness, previously closely guarded by Plato, Galileo, Einstein and a few others: "Whatever you dream of can be yours," she claimed, "when you use the Secret." In what is sure to strike readers as a radical change in direction, The Power reveals "the greatest power in the universe – the Power to have everything you want". One can, Byrne implies, use the Power in combination with the Secret, though she never specifies how. (Probably you need a special adapter.) "Everything in the universe is magnetic," she says, so by exuding good feelings, you're guaranteed to attract good fortune, "like a magnet". As the Italians say, the mother of idiots is always pregnant; The Power would make an excellent christening gift.To be fair to Byrne – who declined to be interviewed, as she has done since becoming embroiled in various lawsuits with new age celebrities featured in the movie of The Secret – the new book makes concessions to changing economic times. Where The Secret argued that vigorously upbeat thinking would lead sports cars and luxury homes to manifest in your life, The Power recognises that happiness isn't solely a matter of materialism. (On this, it frequently quotes Jesus, identified each time as "Jesus, founder of Christianity". Thanks, Rhonda!) Beyond that, it's just an ultra-extreme version of a positive-thinking philosophy much attacked in recent years as hopelessly unrealistic, pseudoscientific, politically questionable and liable to trigger worse mood crashes when it fails to deliver as promised.What struck me, though, was a more fundamental problem that The Power shares with many far more credible approaches to happiness. It's not the fixation on making your every thought burst with positivity. Rather, it's the notion that manipulating the content of thoughts and feelings is the path to a better life. That's a basic assumption of much psychology, even the down-to-earth, evidence-based kind. Indeed, it seems tautologically true: to be happier, you have to turn sad thoughts and feelings into happy ones. Right?Maybe not. Take one recent study, which found that while Russians are more likely to brood over problems than Americans, that brooding is less likely to lead to depression; indeed, for Russians, brooding seems to protect against depression. The hypothesised explanation? Russians brood from a "self-distanced perspective", as if watching events, and their responses, from a distance. The content of their thoughts is negative, but it's their relationship to their thoughts that's different.Meditation teaches a similar lesson, as does the still youthful field of "acceptance and commitment therapy", outlined in Russ Harris's excellent book The Happiness Trap. The point isn't to improve your thoughts and feelings, or stamp out negative ones, so much as to "unhook" from them; to stop being a puppet they jerk around. This isn't a Secret, nor really a Power. It's more of a Useful Insight. Somehow, I doubt that'll be the title of Byrne's third book.oliver.burkeman@guardian.co.uktwitter.com/oliverburkemanHealth & wellbeingOliver Burkemanguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Can I drink alcohol while taking antibiotics? Is there a link between drinking milk and prostate cancer?Is it a myth that you shouldn't drink alcohol while taking antibiotics? I often do and haven't felt remotely nauseous. If this is the case, why do doctors tell us to refrain?It isn't a rule for all antibiotics, only for those that react chemically with alcohol to produce unfortunate side effects. The two that matter most are metronidazole (Flagyl) and tinidazole (Fasigyn) that are prescribed for certain bowel infections, including the notorious C diff, caused by anaerobic bacteria (bacteria that thrive in the absence of oxygen). If you drink alcohol with either of them, you will convert it into acetaldehyde, a noxious chemical that causes nausea, vomiting, flushing, headache and palpitations. The only other interaction between an antimicrobial drug and alcohol is with cycloserine, an anti-tuberculosis drug – the two together increase the risk of convulsions. It seems that alcohol doesn't pose a problem with other antibiotics, provided you don't drink too much. Then forgetting the dose, vomiting it up, and your liver failing to process the drug may come into play.I read that there is a link between prostate cancer and drinking milk – should I stop drinking it or drink less? I'm male and in my 40s, and my father has been successfully treated for prostate cancer.Keep drinking the milk. But make sure you eat plenty of green and root vegetables as well. They contain phytoestrogens that have been claimed to be the cause of the low incidence of prostate cancer in the south-east Asia. The milk and red meat link with prostate cancer was reported in the US, where the regions in which people ate the most fats and dairy products had the highest level of prostate cancer. One suggestion was that high fat intake reduces our ability to absorb vitamin A, which is thought to prevent prostate cancer from developing. Hence the advice to eat plenty of vegetables (a good source of vitamin A) if you eat a lot of dairy products and red meat. However, I suspect that you don't drink as much milk as the American study subjects. Stopping drinking it is overdoing things. A varied diet, as always, is the healthy way to go.• Got a medical query for Dr Tom Smith? Email doctordoctor@guardian.co.ukHealth & wellbeingDr Tom Smithguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Wearing a programmable wristwatch could help children manage their daytime bladder control problems, a new study suggests.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A biotechnology company's genetically engineered salmon are as safe to eat as other Atlantic salmon, U.S. regulators said as they weighed approval of the first DNA-altered animal for Americans' dinner plates.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - An antidepressant drug delivered through a patch on the skin is no better than placebo for helping smokers kick the habit, new research shows.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Kids who spend their earliest years in day care may be at higher risk of eczema than kids cared for at home, according to a new study from Germany.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Older adults who have a colonoscopy performed by a family doctor, internist or general surgeon are somewhat more likely to need another one within a year compared with those who have the procedure done by a gastroenterologist, a new report finds.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Older adults who have a colonoscopy performed by a family doctor, internist or general surgeon are somewhat more likely to need another one within a year compared with those who have the procedure done by a gastroenterologist, a new report finds.