Jo Waters

Given a choice, would you rather take a pill or tweak your breakfast? We all know that a balanced diet forms the basis of good health. But for a growing number of people, what and how they eat is doing more than that — it is helping them combat chronic conditions.
Using food as medicine in this way is the focus of a brilliant new series, starting next week in the Daily Mail, by world-renowned expert Dr William Li, a Harvard biochemist and medical doctor. He will outline how you can eat to bea...

Niggly knees affect one in four of us at some point, be it arthritis, a sports injury or referred pain from your back, hips and feet.
Here, Sammy Margo, a physiotherapist in North London, and Dr Rod Hughes, a consultant rheumatologist at St Peter’s Hospital, Chertsey, Surrey, give the lowdown on gadgets and remedies for the pain. We then rated them.
This reusable gel bead pack can be kept in a fridge or warmed in a microwave to provide hot or cold compression
THERAPEARL COMPRESS
£13.74, amazo...

As a presenter on ITV’s Loose Women, no topic is off-limits for Nadia Sawalha.
The daytime TV show is famous for the full and frank exchanges and confessions of its panellists on everything from divorce to bullying and boob jobs.
‘I’m a professional oversharer: I share absolutely everything,’ says Nadia, 54, who lives in London with her husband, Mark Adderley, 47, a television producer and director, and their two daughters, Maddie, 16, and 11-year-old Kiki-Bee.
‘However, when I agreed to be a...

When model Thom Evans noticed tiny, unsightly growths in the corners of both eyes, close to his nose, he worried they might eventually affect his sight.
‘I was also concerned they may show up in close-up shots in my modelling and acting work,’ says Thom, 34, a former Scottish international rugby player, who famously broke his neck in a Scotland v Wales Six Nations match in 2010.
‘They were particularly noticeable when I was tired and run down — I guess they were red and sore as people would a...

When model Thom Evans noticed tiny, unsightly growths in the corners of both eyes, close to his nose, he worried they might eventually affect his sight.
‘I was also concerned they may show up in close-up shots in my modelling and acting work,’ says Thom, 34, a former Scottish international rugby player, who famously broke his neck in a Scotland v Wales Six Nations match in 2010.
‘They were particularly noticeable when I was tired and run down — I guess they were red and sore as people would a...

When we asked Daily Mail readers to volunteer, you answered the call in droves. The influx boosted Helpforce’s army by 44 per cent to 112,000. Since our Christmas campaign, Helpforce has matched more than 21,000 readers with volunteering opportunities in roles that range from running refreshment trolleys to encouraging stroke patients to speak again. Here, we tell the stories of just a few of those amazing people who signed up to give the NHS a helping hand . . .
I’m a hand-holder for eye op ...

When Joe Booth was bending over to pick up a heavy shopping bag, there was a sharp jolt in his lower back.
‘I just felt something go and wondered what had happened, but it wasn’t initially painful,’ recalls Joe, 65, an export sales manager, who lives in Aldringham, Suffolk with his wife, Susan Debnam, 60.
‘But when I woke up the next day, the pain in my lower back was so excruciating I struggled to get out of bed.
Joe Booth, 65, was bending over to pick up a heavy shopping bag, there was a sh...

To many men, it’s a wonder drug that has helped halt their baldness.
Others, however, say it has had a devastating effect on their lives, causing a range of crippling side-effects including impotence, infertility, insomnia, anxiety, depression and, in some cases, suicidal thoughts — even years after they stopped taking it.
The drug is finasteride, sold under the brand name Propecia, which is used to treat male pattern baldness. Donald Trump and Wayne Rooney are reportedly two of the millions ...

Sex problems are a known side-effect of depression pills — but one that affected patients say they weren’t properly warned about by their doctors.
Worse, for some, these problems can last for years, even after they’ve eventually come off their medication.
Yet campaigners say patients’ complaints have largely fallen on deaf ears, with the medical profession and drug companies either saying that the symptoms were not connected to the tablets, or assuring patients their problems would disappear ...

Six years after Helena Stone thought she would be able to shrug off a ‘minor’ knee sprain, she is still in agonising pain.
Helena, then 16, was kayaking when she capsized her boat, catching her right foot.
The knee pain took her by surprise. ‘It was really swollen, red and inflamed, but I assumed it would settle down over a few days,’ says student Helena, now 22 and living in North London.
When it didn’t, Helena — who had been talent-spotted as a potential Olympic kayaker — went to her GP, wh...

Streaming, itchy eyes, sneezing and blocked noses: the symptoms of hay fever lead to months of misery for an estimated 15 million people in this country.
Cases, caused by the body mistakenly reacting to pollen, have been steadily growing for decades. In the Seventies, only 10 per cent of the population had it, but these days around 30 per cent of adults and 40 per cent of children are affected.
‘We are selling more antihistamines year on year,’ says Sultan Dajani, a community pharmacist in Ea...

People assumed that Alyson Johnson must be a heavy drinker when she told them she had a liver problem. ‘But nothing could be further from the truth — I’ve never been a drinker, having at most maybe one or two beers a week,’ she says.
‘My liver problems were actually all down to being overweight and taking no exercise,’ adds Alyson, 52, a digital project manager.
In 2017, her liver was so badly damaged that she was told that unless she lost weight, she’d be dead within two years.
At the time s...

Fibromyalgia is a chronic long-term condition which causes pain for millions but is poorly recognised and under-researched, says Jo Waters
Kirsty Young’s decision to take a break from Desert Island Discs last summer because of her struggle with fibromyalgia put the little understood condition into the spotlight.
But the BBC Radio presenter isn’t the only famous name to battle this long-term illness.
Lady Gaga is another high-profile fibro sufferer. The singer was so badly affected she had to ...

Article on fibro for magazine.

At crisis levels — that is how some experts describe the increase in the numbers of people being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
New data published last week revealed there were more than 200,000 new cases diagnosed in England and Wales alone in 2017, the equivalent of one diagnosis every three minutes.
'In an average GP practice clinic, it's not unusual for every second or third patient to have either type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes,' says Dr Campbell Murdoch, a Somerset GP and chief medical...