Jo Waters

Following the recent banning for under- 16s in Australia, other nations, including the UK, are considering their options – but is the genie already out of the bottle? Journalist Jo Waters reports.
A clampdown on social media, banning it for children under a certain age, is one of the options out for consultation by the UK government. This is all very recent and fast-moving, with the consultation announced at the end of January (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and Depa...

Glaucoma cases in the UK are predicted to rise by 60% to 1.6 million by 2060, according to new research published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.
It’s a complex eye disease that becomes more common as we age – glaucoma is six times more common in the over-60s.
Glaucoma explained
What is glaucoma and what causes it?
“Glaucoma is a common eye condition that damages the optic nerve – which connects the eye to the brain – causing irreversible loss of vision if untreated,” explains Alex D...

Until recently, fibre was very much the forgotten nutrient. While people get concerned about their protein levels, very rarely do you hear them worrying about their fibre intake. However, multiple surveys have shown that we don’t get enough fibre in our daily diets in the UK.
The National Diet and Nutrition Survey 2019 to 2023 found that only 4% of those polled were getting the 30g a day recommended. Older people in the 65-to-74 age group had an intake of 16.9g a day – just over half of what ...

Parkinson’s is the world’s fastest-growing neurodegenerative condition, with cases predicted to double by 2050, according to one global study.
There are currently 166,000 people in the UK estimated to be living with Parkinsons according to the charity Parkinson’s UK, a number that is predicted to rise to 173,000 by 2030.
What is Parkinson’s?
The condition means the brain can’t make enough dopamine – a chemical needed in movement – and causes around 40 symptoms including tremor, muscle stiffne...

The sudden need to itch her palms and soles of her feet that hit Jayne Pilkington one night was so maddening she scratched them until they bled.
‘It felt like something was crawling deep in my veins beneath my skin,’ recalls Jayne, 46.
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An inflammation of the lungs that’s usually caused by an infection, severe pneumonia kills 25,000 people a year in the UK. Milder types, such as the so-called “walking pneumonia”, however, can sometimes go undiagnosed.
For most healthy people, a bout of pneumonia is no more than a nasty chest infection that passes in a couple of weeks or so, sometimes needing antibiotics if it’s caused by a bacterial infection.
“The less severe your symptoms are then the less likely you are to be diagnosed wi...

Whether coughs are tickly, hacking, dry, or chesty ones that bring up phlegm, they can have a big impact – disrupting sleep at night, causing social embarrassment, exacerbating incontinence and spreading infection. But when do they become something to worry about?
Persistent coughs lasting more than eight weeks affect an estimated five to 10 per cent of the UK’s adult population, according to some estimates.
“Coughs are one of the most common medical complaints that patients see a doctor for,...

Cholesterol-lowering statins don’t cause the vast majority of possible side effects listed in pill package leaflets after all, according to a landmark new study.
The findings compared side effects reported in people who took statins with those who took a placebo (dummy pills) in 19 large randomised controlled trials and found only four out of 66 possible adverse effects had higher rates in patients who took statins.
The team led by Oxford Population Health found that for the vast majority of ...

As a lecturer at a university, my husband admits he sometimes struggles to hear his students at the back of the class, but like me he doesn’t want to wear a hearing aid for fear of being labelled “past it”, so he walks around the room when he doesn’t quite catch the question the first time.
He’s blaming ear wax and paying £70 every six months to get them irrigated – as no syringing is available on the NHS locally. If your family is shocked at how loud you turn the TV up and exasperated by you...

Moments That Count is a disease awareness campaign initiated, created, developed and fully funded by Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd. This article was created and funded by Novartis.
Patients living with incurable advanced breast cancer are the focus of a campaign to bust myths about what it’s like to live with a terminal diagnosis of the disease.
Just over one in five people diagnosed with breast cancer will experience a recurrence of it¹, and around 61,000 people in the UK – mostly women – ...

Vitamin D is crucial for good health, including building strong bones and muscles, as well as maintaining a robust immune system. But surveys suggest that one in 10 people over the age of 65 in the UK are vitamin D deficient.
“We don't have enough sunlight in the UK during the winter months for our bodies to make enough vitamin D,” says Susan Lanham-New, professor of human nutrition at the University of Surrey, and a leading authority on the vitamin.
In the six months between October and Marc...

Three million people aged 80 and above will now be able to get the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine for the first time, after the Department of Health and Social Care finally changed its mind this week.
All older people living in care homes will also become eligible for RSV jabs when the spring vaccination campaign kicks off on 1 April in England. Details of the expansion roll-out in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are expected to be announced very soon.
There will be no upper a...

1. Ditch fizzy drinks to avoid bloating
(and why spirits are better than beer)
Canapes and glasses of fizz are hard to resist in party season, but too many seasonal treats can upset your gut, causing acid reflux and heartburn, bloating, constipation and diarrhoea.
Add in stress, alcohol and over-indulgence, and you have a perfect storm for gut problems when you least need them, says Professor Peter Whorwell, consultant gastroenterologist at Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester, and author of Take...