Author: Hill Castle

Are you feeling the heat? I don’t mean just being hot and sweaty – you may also have noticed your feet and even your fingers becoming puffy and swollen.Every time there’s a hot spell in the UK – or when people start jetting back from summer holidays – I start seeing a familiar pattern in my patients. They come in puzzled, a little alarmed, describing puffy ankles, rings that won’t come off their fingers, or feet that seem to have expanded by the end of the day. Often they’re convinced something is seriously wrong. Most of the time, thankfully, it isn’t.But knowing…

When I was at medical school, a close friend took me aside one evening and told me something I’ve never forgotten. He could feel nothing during sex.Here was an articulate young man in his 20s, close to tears, telling me that something most men never think twice about had been taken from him before he could even speak. Because he’d been circumcised as a baby.Around the time he confided in me, he’d just got his first girlfriend and found himself suddenly confronted with the problem, with no idea what to do about it. He wasn’t expecting me to fix it.…

For more than a decade, Kendall Platt worked as a crime scene forensic investigator – a job she found rewarding but also intensely stressful.The 40-year-old mother of two says she would often lie awake at night thinking about the horrific images she had seen that day. Her sleep, unsurprisingly, suffered.’I would have bad dreams most nights and wake up sweating,’ says Kendall, from Reading. ‘And once that happened, I’d struggle to get back to sleep.’So when, last year, Kendall changed career to become a professional gardener – offering what she describes as horticultural therapy to women – she expected her…

Weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound have benefitted millions of consumers by helping them shed pounds and become more metabolically healthy.But as more time passes since their explosive entry into the weight-loss market, possible adverse or downstream effects become clearer.Groundbreaking GLP-1 drugs mimic a hormone in the body that signals to the brain when to stop eating while slowing stomach emptying. This results in fewer calories — and fewer bone-boosting nutrients — taken in during the day.When a person loses weight by restricting calories, they lose more than just fat and muscle tissue; they also lose crucial dense bone…

Experts are warning of the risks of so-called wellness rituals after the death of a British man who took part in a ‘detox’ treatment using poisonous frog skin.Kristian Trend, 40, died of suspected poisoning after taking kambo – a drug most commonly found in South American ‘cleansing’ ceremonies, but now growing in popularity across Europe.The ritual, which sees a poisonous substance taken from the skin of giant tree frogs applied to small sores on the chests and legs of participants, has been used by indigenous Amazonian tribespeople for centuries. But endorsements from celebrities such as Lord of the Rings actor Orlando Bloom…

A deadly and little-understood strain of Ebola is spreading rapidly across central Africa with no protective vaccine in sight, sparking fears of a major worldwide health crisis. World Health Organisation officials have upgraded the public health risk of the outbreak from ‘high’ to ‘very high’, with the virus now detected in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda.More than 900 suspected cases and 119 deaths have been reported in DRC – including three Red Cross volunteers who are thought to have contracted the virus while managing dead bodies.All flights to and from Bunia – the eastern DRC city where most…

It is a widely held belief that, as we age, desire fades. Yet that may be far from the truth, if eye-opening new research is to be believed. A University of Oslo scientist, who interviewed older adults aged between 65 and 85, found many still had active and varied sex lives.Strikingly, she found some women experienced their first orgasms later in life, and others took lovers after decades of abstinence.Perhaps less surprisingly, many older men admitted they continued to enjoy intimacy with the help of erectile dysfunction medication or injections. Most also said they welcomed the rare opportunity to talk candidly what…

Whether mixed with mayonnaise and served in a sandwich, stirred into a pasta bake or dolloped on a baked potato, tuna is a simple yet versatile store-cupboard staple.No surprise then it’s the second most eaten fish in the UK, falling only behind salmon. And despite multiple scares about overfishing and high levels of mercury, sales of the tinned fish have soared over the last two years.New figures released by Tesco have revealed how demand for the humble tinned fish has soared over the last two years. Sales are up nearly 18 per cent – the equivalent of more than two million…

For millions of people, tinnitus is more than an occasional ringing in the ears.It is the relentless whistle that cuts through the silence at night; the phantom buzzing sound like electrical static; the deep mechanical hum that follows sufferers from the moment they wake until they finally fall asleep.In the US alone, more than 27 million adults are thought to live with the condition, while in the UK there are eight million. Even celebrities from Chris Martin to Barbra Streisand and Steve Martin have publicly said they were affected at some point. For many, it can become so intrusive that it impacts sleep…

Dr Sylvie Stacy’s patient seemed like the model employee. Working in white collar corporate America, he was outgoing and personable with his clients, always willing to meet their needs at a moment’s notice. His to-do lists finished themselves in no time, and his coworkers envied his impeccable time management skills.But over the next several months, the man’s colleagues caught onto a more concerning pattern. He started rambling and stumbling over his words, bouncing between calm and increasingly paranoid. For long stretches of the day, he seemed to disappear.The man’s work performance was still stellar, but in the background, his sleep, finances and…

The NHS is now diagnosing thousands of lung cancer cases early, thanks to its supermarket screening initiative, new figures show. Since the programme began in 2019, 10,678 lung cancers have been detected – the majority of which were caught in its earliest stages.Early diagnosis is crucial, with those diagnosed at the earliest stages nearly 13 times more likely to survive their disease for five years than those who catch it late. The programme, which involves testing patients in mobile screening trucks, was launched in a bid to improve Britain’s poor lung cancer survival rates, with the disease being the biggest cancer killer…

It’s a life skill that everyone cherishes, the ability to jot thoughts, shopping lists or ideas down quickly onto a piece of paper.But now, a new study warns that starting to write slowly could be an early warning sign of dementia.Researchers in Portugal measured the handwriting speed of 58 adults in their 80s, including 38 individuals who had mild cognitive impairment, a potential precursor to dementia.They found that all participants had the same writing speed when they were asked to draw 10 horizontal lines or at least 10 dots within 20 seconds. They also had similar results when they were…

A young mother was terrified when her baby girl suddenly began experiencing seizures at just six months old.Ellie Richards, 22, took her daughter Minnie Mae to the GP, who thought the newborn could have a genetic disorder.But tests revealed her child was born with an extremely rare condition affecting fewer than 500 people worldwide, with only 52 cases recorded in the UK.Minnie Mae, now three, was diagnosed with haploinsufficiency syndrome, a ‘profoundly challenging neurodevelopmental disorder’.The condition affects the toddler’s ‘brain, muscles, sleep and digestion’. She was diagnosed with epilepsy at 13 months old and suffers from a weakened immune system,…

Eating grapes daily changes how skin genes behave, helping protect against the aging and damaging effects of the sun. New research found that eating three servings of grapes daily for two weeks changed gene activity in the skin, and the pattern was unique to each person. One of the clearest effects was a drop in malondialdehyde, a marker of oxidative stress, after skin was exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light.Less malondialdehyde means less cell damage from the sun. This finding shows that grapes provide protection at the biological level, even when no visible change in sunburn resistance is seen.Grapes also boosted genes involved…

Whether it’s a bacon bap for breakfast or a ham sandwich for lunch, around one in five Britons eat a sandwich containing processed meat at least three times a week.It’s cheap, filling and tasty – but in recent years, research has revealed that preservatives such as nitrates, which are added to make pork pinker and increase shelf life, could cause deadly cancers. Currently, up to 90 per cent of bacon and ham sold in the UK is thought to contain nitrites.And this is why, since October 2015, it has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen – placing it in the same risk category as tobacco…

For more than a decade, Kendall Platt worked as a crime scene forensic investigator – a job she found rewarding but also intensely stressful.The 40-year-old mother of two says she would often lie awake at night thinking about the horrific images she had seen that day. Her sleep, unsurprisingly, suffered.‘I would have bad dreams most nights and wake up sweating,’ says Kendall, from Reading. ‘And once that happened, I’d struggle to get back to sleep.’So when, last year, Kendall changed career to become a professional gardener – offering what she describes as horticultural therapy to women – she expected her…

Gemma Farquhar will always remember the exact ages of her children in April 2020: four and six.’I remember them distinctly because I thought, “I’m never going to see another milestone,”‘ she tells the Daily Mail.At the time, Gemma was 35 with a busy but happy life and a successful career in human resources. That all changed when she received a devastating prognosis.After visiting her doctor with complaints of ‘excruciating pain’ in her abdomen, she was sent for a CT scan and, within an hour, received a call from her doctor.’She called me and said, “You need to go to the…

Millions of Americans look forward to hopping into a hot shower to wash off the grime of a long day and ease tired muscles. In fact, a recent Harris Poll found just over half of US adults prefer warm showers, while 17 percent crank the heat up as high as they can handle. The occasional blistering hot shower is likely harmless, but experts have warned consistently turning up the heat may raise the risk of heart disease, cardiac arrest and stroke.Exposure to hot water widens the blood vessels, a process known as vasodilation, to push warm blood to the skin’s surface. At the…

Let’s talk about something many women, particularly from their late 30s onwards, notice in the bathroom mirror – but rarely bring up in polite conversation: those stubborn, wiry chin hairs that seem to appear overnight.It can feel mildly horrifying the first time you spot one. One day your chin is smooth, the next you’ve discovered something that looks like it belongs on an older male relative rather than your own face.But before you panic, this is extremely common and, in most cases, completely normal – tweezing the occasional rogue hair is also absolutely fine.Train your brain to be 18 years younger, learn your…

Just one in three Britons realise they can reduce their risk of developing dementia despite most worrying about getting it, a poll reveals.Six in ten adults (59 per cent) say they stress about a diagnosis, with four in ten (43 per cent) regularly looking for symptoms.It means one in five (20 per cent) even get alarmed when they simply forget something, such as their keys or a person’s name.Concern about the disease is likely to have increased in recent years as more than half (56 per cent) say the Covid-19 pandemic made them more health-aware.Meanwhile, 50 per cent of us…

By DR ELLIE CANNON, MAIL ON SUNDAY COLUMNIST AND GP Published: 06:45 EDT, 24 May 2026 | Updated: 06:48 EDT, 24 May 2026 I have suffered stressful dreams and nightmares for 20 years. How can I make them stop?Dr Ellie replies: Disturbing dreams and nightmares over many years are likely to be linked to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).This is a response to trauma in which the brain continues to replay a distressing event long after it has passed. As well as nightmares, it may cause flashbacks, anger, low mood, relationship issues and feelings of worthlessness.There is also a related condition…

The public could soon be urged to exercise for up to 90 minutes a day after major new research suggested current targets fall far short of what’s needed to significantly cut the risk of heart disease.While the NHS recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, the study found higher levels of exercise were linked to a far greater reduction in the risk of heart attack, stroke and heart failure.Researchers from China, writing in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, said their findings suggest a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to exercise may need to be reconsidered.The team from Macao Polytechnic…