Life Style

    Do you know what the symptoms of a heart attack are? When asked to describe a heart attack, many people would conjure the image of someone keeling over, clutching their chest in pain. And, for men, that's pretty accurate. However, when women have heart attacks, it looks much, much different... Heart disease is one of the most common killers of women worldwide – so knowing the signs and symptoms of a heart attack is absolutely essential. But the stereotypical signs tight chest, numbness in one arm are actually only true for men. Research has shown that the symptoms of heart attack in women are completely different. And, scarily, they're harder to spot. So what should you look out for? A study conducted in 2009 revealed that the most common symptoms of heart attack ...

    The breakdown of a relationship is undoubtedly going to be hard on children caught in the crossfire, but sometimes the hardest change comes later when parents move on and find new partners. These new partners may already have children of their own they want to bring into the household, in fact statistics show one in nine families in Britain is now ‘blended’ or incorporating children who have different genetic parents. Lizi Jackson-Barrett, 40, split from the father of her eight-year-old twins in 2012 and in the six years since has remarried and acquired a stepbrother and stepsister for her kids. She told HuffPost UK that her twins found getting used to a new family dynamic tough. “At first they found it upsetting, but as time has gone on it’s actually helped them l...

    A mum has warned parents to be aware of a sign she believed was a symptom of flu in children, so should mums and dads look out for it? Brodi Willard, from the US, explained that her son came home from school with hives - a rash that can appear anywhere on the body - and they appeared even more every time he scratched them. After calling her paediatrician, Willard took her son into doctors and he tested positive for influenza B. ″[My son] has had no [other] symptoms,” Willard wrote on Facebook. “No fever, no cough, and no runny nose. He only has hives. Please keep watch on your children so if they develop hives, please call the doctor. I have never heard of this symptom but it is obviously something to be on the lookout for.” Brodi Willard/Facebook But are hives a...

    Back pain is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide, supposedly affecting as many as one in ten people. However, the exact causes of lower back pain are not always clear, and it's not uncommon for osteopaths, physiotherapists, chiropractors and even GPs to come up with some pretty out-there hypotheses as to why someone may be suffering. Having said that, there are a few myths that floating around that really need to be busted. Here, our osteopath Anna Roberts takes a closer look... Myth 1: It's your posture Bad posture has been drilled into society as being a terrible thing. Many modern interventions always seem to be focused on correcting posture such as desk-based assessments. But the link between posture and pain really isn't clear-cut. In fact, po...

    The worlds tallest man and shortest woman have met in Egypt for an incredible photoshoot.   And the difference between them is just astonishing as in one photo Amge looks to be the same size as Kosen's foot. According to the Guinness World Records, Sultan Kosen, 35, from Turkey is the tallest man on the planet measuring a massive 8ft 1in. And Jyoti Amge, 24, from India, has been named the shortest woman at just over 2ft tall. They both won their records in 2011. The pair posed for photographs in front of the Pyramids after being invited by the Egyptian Tourism Promotion Board. And they can be seen putting their differences aside as they pose side by side with big smiles on their faces. Kosen, 35, was the first person to be measured by the record organisation in...

    The latest news on that front is that it can make us more creative. In the journal Food Quality and Preference, Yan Huang, from the Psychological and Cognitive Sciences Department of Peking University, illustrates how his 50 subjects performed better when “trying to come up with a cool name for a noodle bar”, among other tasks, when given a cup of tea instead of a glass of water. As marvellous as this info is for the noodle bar franchising industry, the health and cognitive benefits of tea certainly don’t end there. We’ve all had the debate about how to make the tastiest cuppa. But what about the healthiest? Here are some tips: Use cheap, bagged tea Theanine, an amino acid, is at the core of how tea relaxes us. It is extraordinarily useful: good for anxiety, for hi...

    Breastfeeding for six months could reduce type 2 diabetes risk Scientists have discovered a big health benefit for women who breastfeed after analysing the results of a 30-year study on over 1,200 women. It seems as if breastfeeding for six months or more may reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, the team from US healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente's division of research has concluded. In fact, the team found that breastfeeding for six months or more cut a woman's chances of getting the disease by almost half (47%), compared to those who hadn't breastfeed at all. And, those participants who breastfed for less time than six months still had a 23% reduction in diabetes risk. We found a very strong association between breastfeeding duration and lower risk...

    In recent decades, prompted by concerns that men's sperm quality is declining, researchers have looked at things they suspect of potentially disrupting the body’s endocrine system from chemicals in water bottles to WiFi laptops to wearing tight underwear instead of boxers. You can add ibuprofen to the list. In a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that a concentrated dose of the over-the-counter painkiller taken by young, healthy men appears to be linked to a testicular condition that typically only appears at middle age and has been linked to infertility. The experiment involved 31 men under 35 in Denmark and France who were split into two groups, with the first taking 1,200 milligrams of ibuprofen each ...

    Most people simultaneously object to telling lies and then go and do it anyway, whether its with honourable or more devious intentions. But imagine how easy life would be if you could spot the difference between honesty and mistruths. Pamela Meyer, who wrote the book Liespotting, gave a TED talk about how she uses scientific knowledge to spot deception. Lying is so deeply ingrained in our culture of online personas, partisan media and spam emails that we are surrounded by deception, according to Meyer. “We are all liars,” she says. While some of us think that telling the odd porky is harmless, evidence shows that telling white lies leads people down a slippery slope towards more serious dishonesty, as the brain becomes accustomed to it. Research has f...

    1. Andaman Islands Think of the Andaman Islands as the new Maldives – except much more off-grid. The Indian archipelago consists of 300 uber remote islands characterised by palm-fringed sandy beaches and lush rainforest. Whereas the Maldives now has hundreds of resorts vying for your attention, the Andamans are only set to get its first luxury resort in March 2018 when the Taj Exotica opens. The 75-villa beachfront hotel will be set on the crescent-shaped Radhanagar Beach on Havelock Island, which is perfectly perched between dazzling coral reefs and jungle. 2. Belfast, Northern Ireland Provided by Evening Standard Limited Titanic Museum in Belfast (Lonely Planet) Belfast has been quietly reinventing itself in a post-Troubles era as a city break destination with...