Health News

Alaina Shaw, 33, from London paid £4,500 for weight loss surgery in a private hospital and was left fighting for her life after suffering a complication that left a gastric balloon stuck in her bowel. The former accountant says it felt like she was going to die after the balloon ended up stuck inside her after it moved from her stomach to her intestine.

It's used to enhance the texture, appearance and shelf-life of food, it's in 95 per cent of pastries, buns and cakes, ice creams and yogurts, and almost 80 per cent of confectionery in the UK. But emulsifiers are suspected to cause irritable bowl syndrome, increase symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease and even increase the risk of bowel cancer .

From control pants that pull in your tummy to tights that perk up your bottom and full-body underwear that compresses thighs and arms, the popularity of shapewear is booming. Global sales are forecast to reach almost £3billion in 2025, up from almost £2billion in 2019. While most people (43 per cent) want to make their waist look slimmer, others (17 per cent) want to slim down their overall shape and 11 per cent want to smooth their hips, according to a survey by fashion company Kaleidoscope. But could there be a price to pay when it comes to our health?

Analysis of more than 13 million UK patients show rates have risen sharply yet around a third of sufferers do not have potentially lifesaving EpiPens. Pre-school children carry the biggest risk with 4 per cent of under-fives having a suspected allergy, compared to around one per cent of adults. Experts said its rising prevalence showed the importance of ensuring GPs and other community staff - such as nurseries - are sufficiently trained to care for those at risk of severe food allergy. Food allergy occurs when the immune system overreacts to certain foods, such as peanuts, eggs, cows' milk or shellfish.

Jennifer Pamplona, 31, has received heartbreaking news after having too many filler injections. This is her dire warning to other young women.

Kirsty Huxter, 46, from Essex suffered so badly with long Covid she was 'scared' to move in case she had 'a heart attack' despite having three vaccines against the virus. She went from being a budding writer who volunteered at her local church, to barley being able to move without going into 'tremours'. The only time she got out of bed was to go to the toilet.

Defined by party animal antics, the 'Brat' trend encourages women to accept their imperfections, reject being held to certain standards and instead embrace the chaos. Earlier this month, Deutsche Bank even advertised it was 'looking for a brat in finance'. And MailOnline can reveal a 'BRAT' diet - which has, in fact, been around for more than a century - has long been backed by health professionals. The diet is specifically designed for those unlucky enough to experience diarrhoea and other stomach issues.

Elise Seal, from Birmingham , noticed Esmae's right eye had turned from its usual green and brown colour to dark brown, while they were on holiday in June last year. But it was only when they returned home days later she also spotted it had an unusual white 'glow'. The 25-year-old booked an opticians appointment for her then three-year-old, who was referred for further tests and checks. Scans showed she had retinoblastoma - a rare type of eye cancer - which just 44 children in the UK and 300 in the US are diagnosed with every year.

Stood in my garage, I threw the barbell over my head and pictured my six-year-old son, Logan's cheering face. Next came thigh-burning squats, deadlifts, and a core routine before I finished my rigorous workout with sweaty sprints up the hill outside my house in Truro, Cornwall. I was in training for an important event; the infamous school sports day 'mums' race'! Until a pulled muscle brought utter turmoil to our family life.

A woman diagnosed with ovarian cancer has claimed she was 'gaslit' by medics after they dismissed her pelvic pain as just 'part of being a woman'. Keesha Walden, from Norfolk, began suffering shooting pains on her left side in early 2023, aged 26. But by March she experienced agonising aches in her lower abdomen and irregular periods. Yet she claimed she was told by her GP she should simply watch what she was eating and exercise. It was only after her symptoms worsened she was sent to gynaecology as an urgent cancer referral in September that they found what they believed to be a cyst on her ovary.

Ariatna Lizeth Mata Esparza, from Torreón, Mexico , suddenly dropped to the floor while doing barbell squats in a local gym on Friday 16 August. Paramedics rushed to the scene but were unable to revive her, with the youngster pronounced dead - and her body then sent for a postmortem. A spokesperson for the local Attorney General's Office said they found she had suffered from anoxaemia - a condition where there is too little oxygen in the blood - which they said, reports Telediario , may have been caused by over-exertion.

Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal , 58, said the sleeplessness he suffered earlier in his career may have been an early sign of bipolar disorder. The chef who was also diagnosed with ADHD in 2016, recalled experiencing mental and physical changes during his crisis last October sparked by a desire to 'save the world'.

Current mpox vaccines were used during the 2022 global outbreak against the milder strain of the virus, known as clade 2 but they have yet to be tested against the more potent strain. Professor Marion Koopmans, director of the pandemic and disaster Centre at the Erasmus Medical Centre in The Netherlands said experts just don't know how the new clade 1b mpox virus would react to current jabs. 'The honest answer is we do not know yet,' she said.

A top dermatologist has warned patients to pay close attention to their nail beds, as a subtle change could indicate melanoma - the deadliest form of skin cancer. Dermatologist Lindsey Zubritsky, who goes by @dermguru on Instagram, warned her 1.2million followers to watch out for the streaky dark marks under the bed of the finger and toe nails. 'If you have a dark pigmented vertical streak going down your nail, this absolutely should be checked,' she said. That's because the dark lines could be a subungual melanoma - a rare type of the disease that develops under the nail.

She is the movie star the internet can't stop talking about. Blake Lively, 37, has sparked controversy with the press tour of her recently released movie, It Ends With Us, due to her 'offensive' and 'inappropriate' comments said to downplay the severity of the film' subject matter of domestic violence. Viral clips show the actor, who is married to Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds , encouraging people to watch the dark and 'triggering' film by saying, 'grab your girls and wear your florals!' But it's not just Lively's attitude that's attracted attention; cosmetic surgeons have been focused on her face, too. Or rather, how its changed over the years.

Sven-Göran Eriksson - who said in January he had 'best case a year' to live after his diagnosis - was the first overseas boss to lead the England national team in 2001. He led the talented squad to quarter-finals of the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, and at the 2004 European Championships. Last week Eriksson issued a public farewell in a new Amazon Prime Video documentary SVEN looking back at his life and career. A larger-than-life character, worries about his health first surfaced when he resigned from his sporting director position at Swedish club Karlstad in February 2023.

Stark figures show 47 per cent of Year 6 pupils in Knowsley, Merseyside, are classed as either overweight or obese. For comparison, this is nearly twice the levels logged in leafy areas such as Surrey and Richmond-upon-Thames , according to the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. Experts labelled this significant variation across parts of England, a 'postcode lottery', with the government forced to admit that Britain was in the grip of a 'childhood obesity crisis'. Nationally, the rate still stands at over a third, despite having fallen slightly since Covid began.

A 16-year-old girl who is fighting cancer has been forced to fundraise for her own treatment after being told she is both too young and too old to be eligible for it on the NHS. Faith Shone suffers from leukaemia, which was caused by the heavy doses of chemotherapy she received two years ago to treat a leg tumour. Doctors say heavier doses of chemotherapy could cause her heart to fail, which means her only options are stem cell and CAR-T therapies as part of a trial.

The £375,000-a-week striker Erling Haaland marked another landmark over the weekend as he took his Manchester City tally to 94 goals in 101 games, helping earn the Premier League champions a win against Ipswich Town. The 6ft 4in 24-year-old, dubbed 'the terminator' has followed a host of quirky health routines for years, credited with giving him an edge over his rivals. These include eating beef heart and liver, using mouth tape and even installing a £50,000 cryochamber in his house to help his body recover. Now the top goalscorer has also shared extra insight into his daily routine, last week sharing photos of a £15,000 red-light therapy bed. But are there any benefits to this device? And health effects does his quirky routine actually provide? Here, MailOnline asks the experts and breaks down the science behind Erling Haaland's success.

When radio presenter Iain Dale was rushed into the emergency department at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in July, he was told he'd need to undergo an invasive surgery as soon as possible. The 62-year-old, who helms the Evening Show on LBC Radio, had been suffering severe pain down the right-hand side of his abdomen for several days and had repeatedly been sick. Within minutes of being seen, a doctor diagnosed a perforated gallbladder, and told him that the pear-shaped organ would need to come out the moment an operating room became available. The condition usually occurs when the opening to the gallbladder becomes blocked, leading to inflammation and swelling. Left untreated, it can lead to life-threatening infections. He was told that due to the record length of the NHS waiting list for surgical procedures, he would not be able to get his gallbladder out once the necessary six weeks had passed. Instead, Iain would have to wait 18 weeks before his severely damaged gallbladder could be removed - meaning the procedure would not happen until December.

Amy-Louise Beaumont, from Oswestry, in Shropshire, was an otherwise 'very healthy' and physically fit teenager. But at just 17-years-old she suddenly began experiencing tics and bodily twitches, affecting her sleep and even how she walked. After visiting her GP twice in just five days, she was rushed to hospital where scans showed she had functional neurological disorder (FND) - which can begin without warning and impacts how the brain and body send and receive signals. Tests also revealed she was suffering from hyperkinetic movement disorder (FHMD), which can trigger abnormal involuntary movements. Now 19, Amy-Louise requires 24/7 care suffering seizures almost every day  sometimes up to six per day. Forced to use a wheelchair as she cannot walk far on her own, her speech is also often slurred.

I was 29 years-old the first time I had orgasm. I was, to put it delicately, alone at the time. And it was a revelation. It was as if I'd opened a compartment of life that had been tightly locked, and now so many things suddenly made sense. This must be why everyone makes such a fuss about sex, I thought. Until that evening, when I cancelled plans to spend time alone in bed, the thought of touching my own body made me uncomfortable. I'd spent my teens and early 20s harbouring a deep dislike for my appearence. It meant I was turned off by my body, and didn't feel as though I deserved to feel pleasure.

Several MPs have confessed to taking the 'game changing' weekly injections. Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick revealed he took weight-loss drug Ozempic 'for a short period of time' in a bid to shed the pounds. However, he's not the only politician who has confirmed to dabble in the weight-loss jab.

Charleigh Boyne, 28, a dance teacher from Manningtree, Essex, developed a flesh-eating disease days after giving birth. Husband Liam, 28, (pictured left) rushed her to hospital where a CT scan revealed she had necrotising fasciitis (NF) and it was 'eating away her abdomen'. Following a six-hour operation, she was put into an induced coma for two days.

Janusz Racz, from London , was given a heartbreaking diagnosis of just four to five months to live in May after the disease was spotted during a colonoscopy. Told chemotherapy and radiotherapy would only give the scientist, 67, a 35 per cent chance of surviving over five years, he opted to take part in the pioneering trial. The vaccine, codenamed BNT116, is made by BioNTech using the same mRNA technology that underpinned its highly effective Covid jab. Doctors believe the treatment - which is custom built for patients to stop their cancer returning - will herald a new era in fighting the disease. Designed to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common form of the disease, they say it is far more precisely targeted than chemotherapy.

Nansi Alys, from Criccieth in Gwynedd, Wales, was taken to the doctor when she was just three-years-old after her mum Leila Evans noticed a small lump on her toe, in May 2021. Doctors told Ms Evans that the lump was a wart, but in the months following, the lump continued to grow. Eventually she was diagnosed with a rare-type of tumour that only affects about five in a million people.

Fans first speculated about 43 year-old hitmaker's appearance back in May, following a performance in Mexico in which she seemed to have 'travelled through time', sporting an ultra-slim and youthful look. Their immediate conclusion was that the Genie in a Bottle singer had fast-tracked her way to dramatic weight loss using injections of blockbuster slimming drug, Ozempic. 'Ozempic ages everyone terribly but it's honestly working wonders for her. She looks incredible,' one fan speculated. 'Best Ozempic results. She looks great', another agreed, with a third adding: 'That's Ozempic Aguilera.' Now, cosmetic doctors have weighed in, suggesting the singer's new look is indeed likely a result of a 'miracle' weight loss jab, as well as facial surgeries.

I am standing with a group of seven nervous strangers in the drawing room of the pretty Georgian manor house of Combe Grove, where the evangelist Methodist cleric John Wesley used to preach. These days however, this 70-acre estate on the edge of Bath is home to a new evangelism, one that promises to transform health and lives - which is why we're all here. Combe Grove is a health centre specialising in transforming poor metabolic health (the umbrella term used to describe poor health caused by such conditions as high blood pressure, high blood sugar levels, high cholesterol and a large waist) which significantly increases your chance of developing heart disease, type 2 diabetes, dementia and having a stroke. They won't, however, be offering us medication to get our health back on track. Instead, the approach used here is part of a wider movement that focuses on a lifestyle approach to tackling chronic health problems.

When Jake Spencer, a then 17-year-old from Ashford, Kent started experiencing pain in his left thigh while learning to drive, he assumed it was muscle strain from using the clutch. But the real cause of the mystery ache was a rare form of cancer that nearly cost the now 26-year-old his limb. However, it would take three years for medics to uncover that the disease was the real culprit and if it had taken much longer he would have needed his leg amputated. And even then, it would return to haunt him again.