Should I give a four-month-old baby solids?

When should babies start solids? My first child was gobbling up runny baby cereal at three months. Two decades later (my child-bearing was spread out), the rules had changed to…

Why eating more fruit and veg doesn’t always help you lose weight

Will eating more fruit and vegetables make me thin? Want to get thin? Eat more fruit and vegetables – they’re a low-calorie way of filling up, right? The health site…

Why walking is good for you

Pilates, yoga and the classic treadmill get all the attention when it comes to popular ways to stay healthy. There is, however, a more unassuming workout that might not get…

Text neck: how smartphones are damaging our spines

Are smartphones a pain in the neck? According to new research carried out by a US doctor, they are far worse – “text neck” is becoming an epidemic that could…

Vampire of the uplands

At first I thought it was a thorn from a rose. I ran my hand up the back of my calf and could feel it caught in my skin. Something…

How to cure my allergy

It was an egg biryani that started it. I had spent Easter hooked up to an intravenous drip in India – after a curry turned out to be housing a…

Eat, drink and be … healthy?

It is a bright, autumnal Tuscan morning. Woodsmoke rises poker-straight into the sky, the village church jangles the quarter-hours and green-cloaked hills wrap the horizon. I’m in the walled garden…

Teeth problems are top reason for young children’s hospital admissions

The number one reason for primary-school-aged children being admitted to hospital is to have multiple teeth taken out, newly released figures show. The number of children aged from five to…

Exercise is good … but it won’t help you lose weight, say doctors

Being dangerously overweight is all down to bad diet rather than a lack of exercise, according to a trio of doctors who have reopened the debate about whether food, sedentary…

Cocoa, fruit and tea can help keep heart healthy, study says

Substances found in cocoa, fruit and tea could help healthy people keep their heart and circulation in good working order as they get older, according to researchers in Germany. Healthy…