My Black Farmer Christmas Day TV ad will shine a light on small charities

When I decided to fund a TV commercial on Christmas Day, I didn’t realise it would lead to the start of a campaign to ask large businesses to change their approach to charitable giving and support small charities.

Here’s how that came about.

After I was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, which left me in need of a gruelling stem cell transplant, I spent the best part of 2014 in hospital. While there I benefitted from the amazing work that charities do, so when I left hospital I wanted to give something back.

I not only wanted to give the gift of funding but of awareness. I settled on a Christmas Day TV advert to highlight the work of a specific charity, as well as advertising on product packs. But when I approached some of the UK’s leading charities, I was shocked to be made to feel as if I had to prove myself and my brand to earn their approbation. Sadly I was too small for them, and they were too big to care.

Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones. Photograph: The Black Farmer

The experience made me look beyond these big, well-known charities to the smaller ones doing extraordinary work on a shoestring. They are overlooked when it comes to big corporate giving but their work is just as important, if not more so. I vowed then and there to do something to help.

I have written and directed a two-minute TV commercial (with no mention of the products I sell) and have secured a prime time spot on Channel 4 on Christmas Day, timed to air just after the Queen’s Christmas broadcast. This is the advert I wantto use to shine a light on these small-time heroes.

I approached a small, Tetbury-based national charity called Hope For Tomorrow, which works tirelessly to provide mobile chemotherapy units to local NHS Trusts so patients don’t have to travel for hours for treatment. The charity leapt at the chance to work with me because such opportunities to raise awareness of their work don’t come their way often, and I was thrilled to be involved with such a great cause.

But I was shocked by the huge gap between big and small organisations in the charity sector. The larger charities get the lion’s share of corporate giving, leaving the smaller ones scrabbling for scraps.

This is a flaw in the charity sector, and much of the problem comes from an unbalanced relationship with business. Large organisations mainly work with large charities that already have a global level of awareness. It’s almost as though businesses are glory hunting when it comes to charity partnerships, to the detriment of smaller charities.

I have launched a campaign calling for large corporations to support small charities and shout about the ones they are already supporting. So whatever your cause, please sign my pledge and help to make a change this Christmas.

I have also dedicated a page on my Black Farmer website to help businesses and small charities find each other. As businesses, it’s important to show that we care for bigger things than just the products we sell.

Talk to us on Twitter via @Gdnvoluntary and join our community for your free Guardian Voluntary Sector monthly newsletter, with analysis and opinion sent direct to you on the first Thursday of the month.

My Black Farmer Christmas Day TV ad will shine a light on small charities

Small acts of kindness ... but it"s not enough for women in refugee camps

In a refugee camp near the Greek city of Thessaloniki, I treated a Kurdish woman in her early twenties for a throat infection. Before she left, the translator asked her if there was anything else we could help her with. She broke down in tears. She had four children who she was struggling to look after and keep clean. She showed us a photograph of her children, just one year ago, well dressed and smiling. This woman was not only tired and desperate, she was ashamed of her living conditions. The food was bad, toilets revolting and she could not properly look after her family.

This refugee crisis is the worst in living memory. The UNHCR currently estimates that there are 65.3 million people displaced from their homes by conflict and persecution globally. Many are women and 41% are children.

Women were deliberately not drinking water so they could avoid a trip to the revolting portable toilets

In times of crisis women bear the brunt. All refugees are marginalised, but the women are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and physical and sexual harm. Many are victims of unimaginable atrocities as they flee their home countries. Pregnant women and those with small children are uniquely vulnerable on the dangerous journey to Europe. Throughout these camps there are widespread reports of gender-based violence.

In the camps women are under extraordinary pressure. Many have young families to provide for. Living in small tents they need to look after their children, feed their families, keep them clean and try to retain some normality with dignity.

Women are hit hardest by poor access to sanitation and water. Washing clothes for large families in a refugee camp becomes an impossible task. Summertime Greece is hot, in the camp where I worked women felt they could not keep clean and were deliberately not drinking water so they could avoid a trip to the revolting portable toilets; just six for a camp housing 600. They were risking dehydration and kidney and urine infections. One woman cried as she described the shame she felt about having to urinate in a bucket inside a tent that she shared with her large family.

Small acts of kindness do not solve the problems but they do give some comfort and dignity. Photograph: Hannah Mitchell

Asides from the issue of sanitation, the toilet area was poorly lit and women felt afraid and unsafe going there at night, with reports of intimidation and fights.

In the rush to respond to the large numbers of refugees arriving, many of the camps have sprung up in previously abandoned warehouses. They were not designed for human habitation. However, provision of clean, well-lit sanitation facilities, which a large number of people can use is not a difficult task and something that could be easily addressed in the camps.

Another recurring theme was that women did not want to be intimate with their partners. Many felt pressured into having sexual relations and there were newly pregnant women in the camps. Women have distinct health needs that can easily be overlooked in the response to acute medical needs. Provision of good maternity care and being pragmatic about access to family planning should be prioritised.

Many of the women had previously assumed the role of carer in their family, and many were deeply upset by their inability to carry out that role in the camps. The UNHCR emphasises that women must be involved specifically with the management and distribution of resources. There was little evidence of this on the ground in the camps. Unfamiliar and unpalatable food was given out. Many of the women complained that by the time it arrived it was hardly edible.

We need to empower women in the camps

Central to the humanitarian response should be empowering these women who have lost everything. Many of the women felt they weren’t being listened to. Here simple, pragmatic things can make a huge difference; volunteers in one of the camps organised distribution of fresh fruit and vegetables, which were needed to cook traditional meals from back home. Another gave out cooking utensils. Many of the women were delighted by this. Another volunteer gave pillows to each of the tents. These small acts of kindness do not solve the problems but they do give some comfort and dignity.

These women see no solution to their problems … They wait with their children for their lives to start again

However, the painful reality is that these women see no solution to their problems within reach. They wait with their children for their lives to start again. They are terrified for their children’s future as they have no access to formal education. One said that a prison sentence would be better than being in the camps, because at least then they would know when they would get to leave.

The responses of local people in the towns hosting the refugees was mainly one of kindness and compassion. The volunteer response, though at times chaotic, shows some of the large amount of goodwill towards refugees in Europe. The response of some of the European countries to the refugees is shameful, especially the failure of the UK to provide a safe haven for the many unaccompanied child refugees.

The world has been slow in its response to the refugee crisis, but this is an issue that will affect us all for many generations. These women have faced the most appalling conditions with the utmost of resilience and dignity. As the refugee crisis slips down the news agenda and out of the public’s mind, these families are going nowhere. If Lebanon, a country with a population of under 5 million can host 1.5 million refugees, then surely the rest of the world can play its part too.

Translation by Nada Sarsour, Amer Sawaf, Mohamad Abou Ras, Mariam Saleh and Mohamad Namo.

Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @GuardianGDP on Twitter. Join the conversation with the hashtag #SheMatters.

Small acts of kindness ... but it"s not enough for women in refugee camps

Learning to love my small penis – Close Encounters sex podcast

Alix Fox is on a mission to get Britain talking openly and constructively about sex, one person at a time. In this third edition of Close Encounters, our series of podcasts about real, revealing and revelatory stories of sex and relationships, we meet Ant, who tells how it’s taken him a long time to appreciate his body, and how he’s now attempting to make the rest of the world embrace theirs, too.

Not long ago, Ant wrote and performed a poem about living with a small penis that got the media talking about male body image, and led thousands of other men to offer their support. Now he’s using that momentum to build even grander projects. Find out what Ant is up to at the moment at antsmith.net.

Share your story: if you have a question about what you’ve heard, or want to share a tale about your own encounters, email us in confidence at closeencounters@theguardian.com.

• A Rethink Audio / Guardian production. Close Encounters’ end theme, Bells, by Secret Circuit, is available now on Emotional Response.

Learning to love my small penis – Close Encounters sex podcast

Double hand transplant: "It"s a small miracle, looking at what nature has allowed us to do"

It was a moment that mingled triumph with relief as the UK’s first double hand transplant patient awoke from a painstaking 12-hour operation with two new sets of fingers.

“It’s better than a lottery win because you feel whole again,” said Chris King as he recuperated at the Leeds General Infirmary. “They look absolutely tremendous,” he added. “They’re my hands. They really are my hands.”

But despite his joy at the successful surgery, the real test for King may just be beginning. Experience from previous such transplants suggests that the psychological challenges of bearing another person’s hands can be hard to cope with.

Clint Hallam, the patient who received the world’s first hand transplant 1998, claimed that he felt “mentally detached” from the new limb and had it removed three years later in a secret operation.

Nadey Hakim, a surgeon at Imperial College London who was involved in that operation, agrees that for some the psychological impact can be considerable.

Related: World-first skull and scalp transplant gives Texas man ‘new lease on life’

“For someone to use someone else’s hands to hold his wife, his kids – it is not easy,” he said. “I don’t think they will ever get used to it fully- they might claim they are used to it, but it is a very difficult task for anyone, even [for those which are] the strongest psychologically.”

King lost the four fingers of each hand in an accident three years ago. He received the double transplant in a lengthy operation conducted by a team of eight surgeons, led by Professor Simon Kay.

While around 80 hand transplants have taken place worldwide, King’s is the first double hand transplant to be carried out in the UK, and the first such procedure to be undertaken since the NHS launched its new hand transplant programme earlier this year.

Kay also carried out the UK’s first single hand transplant in 2012 when Mark Cahill, a former pub landlord, received a new right hand after his own became badly affected by gout and infection.

Cahill is enthusiastic about King’s operation. “I think it is fantastic, I am so happy for him,” he told the Guardian, adding that he hopes that the publicity will result in an increase in the number of donors to the hand transplant programme. “We have got plenty of people wanting hands, but not enough donors,” he said. That, he points out, could be down to the very visible nature of hands, which might make it especially hard for grieving families to give consent for donation. “I imagine it is heartbreaking,” he said.

Since his own operation, Cahill says that not only has he been able to carry out everyday tasks and drive again, but just six weeks ago used his new hands to give CPR to his wife after she suffered a heart attack. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it without my transplanted hand because my other hand was so deformed, I wouldn’t have been able to put any pressure on her,” he said.

As well as taking immunosuppressants, Cahill has been undergoing physiotherapy since the operation to improve the movement in his new hand. But, he says, he has not had any problems in accepting his new appendage.

“I think I was in a fortunate position,” he said. “I had [one] hand amputated and another one put on, so I was never without a hand. It is probably more difficult for people who lose a hand.”

Indeed, doctors stress that how patients feel about the operation is crucial. “The psychological point of view is very, very important,” said Professor Jean-Paul Meningaud of the University Hospital Henri Mondor in Paris. “Otherwise you can have a patient that [is] going to stop taking the treatment.”

For Hallam, the psychological implications post-transplant were apparently so overwhelming that he was unable to live with his new hand. In contrast to King and Cahill, Hallam had been without a hand for many years when he was selected for the operation. He lost it after an accident in prison – where he was serving a sentence for writing bad cheques. One minute he was climbing a ladder with a circular saw, the next he was sprawled on the flood minus his hand. Surgeons attempted to reattach it, but the limb lost sensation and dexterity and had to be removed.

Related: Firefighter receives full face transplant in surgery called ‘historic’

But Hakim rejects Hallam’s claim that he felt psychologically detached from the replacement limb after the later surgery .

“[The hand] was removed 2.5 years [after the transplant], requested by the patient, because he did not have the means to pay for his immunosuppressants,” he said. “The arm itself was in good condition until he stopped taking his anti-rejection medication.”

Other transplants have proved more successful. Another of Hakim’s patients, who underwent a double arm transplant in the US in 2000, is said to be doing extremely well. “He still has, after 16 years, an excellent function of both hands,” said Hakim.

But Meningaud, who has conducted a number of face transplants, as well as the world’s first face and double hand transplant, says the drugs used to prevent rejection are a cause for concern.

“You are going to suffer the side-effects of the immunosuppressant treatments your whole life,” he said, adding that such drugs put patients at increased risk of certain cancers as well as other health issues, while large doses to combat acute rejection can result in kidney damage.

Meningaud says his opinion on face transplants has changed over time, having seen problems with rejection, infection, and even a suicide attempt by a patient. “At the beginning I did not imagine the toll would be so important,” he said.

For King though, the operation has been life-changing. “I could shout from the rooftops and celebrate it big time, which is what I’m going to do,” he told reporters after the operation.

For the surgeons too, the procedure can bring feelings of awe. “You see a dead hand which is completely white, no blood supply to it, no viability, all of a sudden getting the colour of a normal hand. It is incredible,” said Hakim. “It is a small miracle which truly you are looking at in ecstasy, looking at what nature has allowed us to do thanks to modern surgery.”

Double hand transplant: "It"s a small miracle, looking at what nature has allowed us to do"

£10m venture to produce small robot hand could transform spina bifida surgery

Scientists have launched a £10m undertaking to create a small surgical robot hand that could transform the remedy of youngsters with spina bifida and other congenital situations.

The aim of the study, which is getting carried out by engineers at University University London (UCL) and KU Leuven in Belgium, is to generate a minuscule gadget that would provide 3D images of a foetus even though it is nonetheless in the womb which will also act as an automated robot hand. This could carry out delicate surgery or provide stem cells to an unborn child’s damaged organs.

“The aim is to develop significantly less invasive surgical technologies to deal with a broad assortment of illnesses in the womb, with substantially much less risk to both mom and infant,” mentioned the project leader, Professor Sebastien Ourselin, from the UCL centre for health-related image computing.

A prime priority for the undertaking, which is currently being funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Engineering and Physical Science Analysis Council, is to revolutionise the treatment of youngsters with spina bifida. About a single in 1,000 babies are born with myelomeningocele spina bifida, the most significant type of the problem. This is brought on when the spine of an unborn infant does not form appropriately and amniotic fluid leaks into it. Germs in the fluid can then spread up the spinal column until it reaches the brain and inhibits its development. As a consequence, infants born with spina bifida typically endure serious neurological problems. The solution, medical professionals have concluded, is to try out to patch the gap once it has appeared in the baby’s spine.

Such surgery requires opening the mother’s abdomen and uterus and incurs a important threat of triggering premature birth, however. As a end result, operations like these are seldom carried out. “They are really harmful,” explained project manager Jenny Nery. “There is a quite significant threat to the mother’s well being.”

In addition, surgical treatment on the unborn can only be carried out when the foetus is at least 26 weeks outdated. By that time, significant harm may possibly currently have been carried out to the child’s increasing brain. “We want to discover a way to block up the gap in the baby’s spine at a considerably earlier stage in the foetus’s growth,” added Ourselin. “Ideally, it ought to be completed around sixteen weeks. The earlier the treatment, the more efficient it will be.”

At present, such operations are impossible. The goal of the Wellcome-funded project is to produce instruments – based on the most recent developments in optics and robotics – that will make them achievable.

The engineers and doctors concerned in the venture envisage creating a very thin, hugely versatile probe that would be inserted into the womb of a woman carrying a youngster with spina bifida. The head of the probe would have one particular strand fitted with a tiny camera that would use laser pulses and ultrasound detection – a combination acknowledged as photo-acoustic imaging – to produce a 3D photograph within the womb. These photos would then be used by the surgeons to guidebook the probe to its target: the gap in the foetus’s spine.

The probe’s other arms would also be fitted with tiny instruments which would carry a piece of gel or patch that would then be inserted over the gap in the baby’s spine. “It will be like a plaster,” added Ourselin. “If we can do that, there will enormous achieve for the foetus while there will be little chance to the mom.”

At present, most patterns for the robot foetal surgeon envisage a 3-pronged gadget that has one arm fitted with a camera and two that are fitted with pincers or other instruments.

“We are still in the design stage, so we could end up with a device with 4 or 5 arms in the finish,” additional Ourselin. “Nor would it be utilised simply to place in patches. It could carry out delicate surgery or provide stem cells to damaged organs.”

In addition to the spina bifida cases, the device could also aid in the treatment method of many other foetal circumstances, this kind of as twin-to-twin-transfusion-syndrome (TTTS) in which there is an unequal, life-threatening provide of blood twins within the womb.

“Working on babies in the womb should not be undertaken lightly,” extra Ourselin. “We need to have the quite ideal surgical tools to do one thing like this, and this project will make certain we have them in the subsequent handful of years.”

£10m venture to produce small robot hand could transform spina bifida surgery

Small is best. The NHS demands to be broken up | Simon Jenkins

‘Even when David Cameron swore he would not introduce any far more meddlesome leading-down restructuring he pushed through an additional.’ Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Hundreds of asthma victims die needlessly “simply because NHS guidelines are routinely neglected”. Diabetic children’s “lives are at danger since physicians miss threat”. Eleven thousand heart individuals every year “died due to the fact of bad care”. Ten thousand cancer sufferers “die needlessly because of blatant ageism between medical doctors”. And this is just last week. Is this our dear old NHS, or has it become a morticians’ conclave?

All NHS news appears bad. “Cuts are forcing twice the amount of mental individuals” to travel out of spot as two years in the past. 1 in 5 hospitals is dealing with a deficit. GP surgeries are “approaching crisis” with millions left with out a medical doctor. A quarter of walk-in centres are closing. Half the senior posts in A&ampE are now “left vacant”, driving emergency wards “beyond capability”.

The public may reasonably ask if the scandals at Morecambe Bay, Colchester, Mid Staffs and now Panorama’s Old Deanery are exceptions or the norm. Two knights of the NHS, Sir David Nicholson and Sir Bruce Keogh, have the two been scathing in their attacks on the service’s leadership and quality: the former castigated politicians for “wasting many years” on reform and demanded far more “painful change” the latter for the NHS’s inefficiency and ”lack of compassion”. Doctor in the House has given way to Green Wing.

Back in January, the stories had grown so terrible that “crucial NHS chiefs” wrote to the Guardian pleading for an end to the “bash-the-NHS culture”. Little can they have anticipated how futile was their cry. The services is utterly at the tabloids’ mercy, the place a well being story now indicates “Alfred, 69, left sleeping in a chair with dried blood on him … his clothes not altered … soaked in urine … heart assault on the way house”. On Tuesday came a suggestion that the greatest cure for numerous ills might be Buddhist “mindfulness”. It might apply to the NHS.

The public used to profess a quasi-religious faith in the NHS on a par with the monarchy and the British army. Anybody who went to a hospital and was truly cured was not the beneficiary of what a hospital is supposed to do, but of some heroic miracle. The NHS was Britain’s Lourdes, its personnel priests and acolytes (with consultants as bishops). For many years their practices, monopolies and privileges had been divinely ordained and as a result went unchallenged.

That state of grace could not final. At least given that the 1980s, the NHS has been in turmoil as politicians of the two parties struggled to adjust it. Modify grew to become a ruling obsession. There need to be as a lot of “change managers” in the NHS as there are heart surgeons. Even when David Cameron swore he would not introduce “any a lot more meddlesome leading-down restructuring” he pushed through yet another. The surest way to enrage a physician is to inquire if the NHS is now in the appropriate form.

It have to be debilitating for any profession to see its failings trumpeted nationwide, its requirements attacked and its practitioners dismissed as grasping and uncaring. Several hospital trusts encounter economic ruin. As for the pride of the latest reform, primary care, it seems to hover in between meltdown and seize-up.

An growing amount of individuals – like Labour’s former overall health minister Norman Warner – propose the unthinkable: charging something for care, farming out basic exams and procedures to the personal sector, even letting nurses perform straightforward operations. Anything to break the logjam.

Nevertheless one topic that is unmentionable – and as a result untouchable – is the dimension of the NHS itself. A public services that, for a generation, has effectively nationalised its virtues finds it has now nationalised blame for its vices. The place glory after shone down on the Commons dispatch box, now there is only scandal.

It have to make sense that, when every conceivable reform – devolution, centralisation, purchaser-supplier split, inner markets, fundholders, commissioners – has been tried and seen to fail, somebody must challenge the really idea of a central service. It might be worth searching at how other people do it, and not smugly concluding that the public likes the NHS the way it is.

The well being services is not useless or uncaring or that undesirable at generating people far better. It is just also big. Aneurin Bevan was wrong to nationalise it back in 1948 – and his excellent foe, Herbert Morrison, was appropriate in wanting a new service based mostly on charitable and municipal hospitals, as remains the situation virtually all over the place in the world.

Bevan mentioned he desired “a maximum of decentralisation to neighborhood bodies and a minimal of itemised central approval”. No government ever achieves that. Nationalisation led inevitably to the pricey shambles of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and to a £12bn IT program that by no means worked.

Men and women, particularly the bad, obviously need support with their healthcare. The wealthy are voting with their feet and going personal. But there is no reason why Britain could not go the route of other European countries, with overall health cover becoming a national obligation but with the services presented at the neighborhood, charitable or private degree. What has failed is not care as such but the attempt to regulate, fund and administer what was when a single of the world’s most extravagant industries, overall health, from that apogee of inefficiency: a Whitehall division.

Caring for a human entire body is a individual, intimate issue. It is like teaching and policing, an in essence regional services. Centralise it and turn it into a transaction and its incentives get distorted. Care comes to depend on targets, contracts and a futile struggle against “postcode lotteries”. EF Schumacher was appropriate. Small is gorgeous. The NHS wants to be broken up and returned to surgeries and local hospitals, postcode lottery and all. As the Danes have shown, only a little number of hospital specialisms need to have national interest.

No big nationalised business dismantles itself, particularly one now investing a staggering £15bn on administration alone. People that try out, such as British Rail and nuclear energy, see governments reinventing them in other varieties. As lengthy as shrouds and bleeding stumps are waved more than the Commons, ministers will sense that “anything need to be accomplished” and intervene. It does not work. Denationalisation is now the only model of a public wellness service not tried.

Small is best. The NHS demands to be broken up | Simon Jenkins

The small keys to immortality

Telomeres are simple in structural terms, but play a crucial role: they’re not genes, they don’t code for anything, but cells cannot reproduce without them. They are also key to ageing.

“Every time the cells go through a division and the chromosome is reproduced, it loses telomeres,” Rutherford explains. Our cells find it hard to copy the very tips of chromosomes and, slowly, the aglet is worn away from the end of the lace; the telomeres are depleted through repeated division.

“This seems to be a key part of why cells die during the ageing process,” Rutherford says. This eventual death of cells is called senescence, from the Latin senex, meaning old man. “When a cell gets to the point that it has no telomeres left, it won’t be able to divide again. Or if it does, it’ll be messed up.”

So the next question is, if we can restore the telomeres in elderly cells, might that stop them – and us – getting old?

That’s been the goal of researchers for a while. In the Nineties, Dr Elizabeth Blackburn and colleagues at the University of California won the Nobel prize for the discovery of telomerase, an enzyme that replenishes the telomeres in cells. The enzyme is usually “switched off”, but there is one kind of cell in which it demonstrates its potential in an often lethal way. “In cancer cells,” says Dr Kat Arney, a scientist at Cancer Research UK, “telomerase is switched on. And they become immortal.” Cancer cells can divide repeatedly without ever growing old, but this sort of uncontrolled growth has the unfortunate side-effect of killing the organism it’s growing in.

Telomerase may have a role to play in future treatments, according to Rutherford. “Telomeres are undoubtedly a key part of ageing, and the discovery of telomerase was a significant moment in understanding why cells don’t continue to reproduce forever, why they’re not immortal. If we could target that process of losing telomeres, with drugs or whatever, you could possibly maintain a longer shelf-life for a cell, it could continue reproducing far longer than its natural life. I don’t think it’s just science fiction; I think it’s genuinely a worthy topic of research with therapeutics in mind.”

In the shorter term, says Arney, telomere research may play a part in the fight against cancer. Since telomerase is found in cancer cells, some scientists thought they could target cancer cells in this way. “There was a massive trial into a vaccine against telomerase, called TeloVac, training the immune system to recognise it so that it would detect it in cancer cells,” says Arney. The trial showed no improvement over the standard chemotherapy treatment for the pancreatic cancer it targeted, but there is hope for other treatments in future.

Second, telomere loss is itself associated with cancers. When a cell’s telomeres are depleted, the chromosomes’ ends flap loose. “Cells hate loose ends of DNA,” says Arney. “If they come across some, they try to stitch them together, because they assume something’s gone wrong.” And if they stitch two flapping chromosomes together, “you get all sorts of mutations”, often causing cancer. Understanding telomerase could help prevent this.

As the function of telomeres becomes better understood, some private companies including Telomere Health and Life Length have begun offering to measure an individual’s chromosomal length, and so determine their “biological age”, as opposed to the chronological age. It is known that people with shorter telomeres are more likely to suffer various diseases, including diabetes, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and tend to die younger. One study found that people with shorter telomeres were eight times more likely to die from an infection and three times more likely to die from a heart attack.

The trouble is, says Rutherford, that the history of biology warns us that things are always complicated. “In biology, there is never one thing. For every rule that we have, we find a bunch of exceptions to it. And with genetics in particular, we’ve revealed a picture of complexity, rather than simplicity. In physics, things tend to get simpler the more we understand them. In biology, they tend to get more complex. Biology is messy.”

Telomeres “aren’t the only show in town”, says Rutherford, and there are many other research projects under way, from the serious to the seriously wacky. Research, again at the University of California, found that the lifespan of the roundworm C. elegans could be doubled by modifying two genes involved in cell repair, while this year the maverick scientist Craig Venter began a huge project sequencing human genes to find the ones that control longevity. And restricting the calorific intake of mice has been shown to extend their lives, sometimes dramatically. “Humans are trying that – there’s a weird cult in California of calorific restriction people, who eat some desperately low number of calories a day,” says Rutherford. There are two problems with this: one, individuals tend to be severely immuno‑compromised because of poor nutrition and get ill very easily, and two – “they all look absolutely miserable,” he says. “They eat about four pieces of lettuce a day. They might live forever, but they’re going to have an awful quality of life.”

There is a question, of course, over how far we would want to extend life. As Rutherford points out, merely extending old age would not be much of an achievement – the goal must be to extend the healthy years of life. And even if we can manage that, there would be ethical questions; life expectancy is already linked to class and wealth, but this would make that link direct and explicit. Of course, the world is already struggling with overpopulation and ageing societies.

That won’t stop scientists, though, and to date they agree that telomere research is the most promising avenue for extending life. “If we can slow the process of telomere loss, the fundamental cap on how often your cells can reproduce might be removed, or at least reduced,” Rutherford says.

It’s not an elixir of life; there will be no elixir of life. But this is the best science can do at providing one.

The small keys to immortality

Political interventions in NHS make small difference across Uk, review finds

The Nuffield Trust and the Wellness Foundation compared NHS performance in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland considering that devolution. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

Healthcare has improved across all four countries of the Uk in recent many years, even though waiting lists in Wales have lengthened following cuts in NHS spending, according to an authoritative report.

The Nuffield Believe in and the Wellness Foundation have in contrast NHS performance in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland considering that devolution. They uncover that, in spite of political mudslinging, variations in the operating of the NHS across the four countries, like higher or lesser involvement of the personal sector, have produced tiny distinction to outcomes.

“Our review period coincided with the biggest sustained injection of cash the 4 overall health techniques have ever noticed, so it really is maybe unsurprising that personnel numbers have improved and efficiency has enhanced,” said Andy McKeon, senior policy fellow at the Nuffield Trust.

“But what is interesting is that, despite hotly contested policy variations in framework, targets, competitors, patient selection and the use of non-NHS providers, no one country is emerging as a constant frontrunner on health technique functionality.”

Dr Jennifer Dixon, chief executive of the Overall health Foundation, stated it was very great news that the high quality of healthcare was improving everywhere. “But what is also humbling for politicians is that so far no one policy cocktail appears to be more powerful than another on NHS overall performance. This is despite all the rhetoric about the advantages or otherwise of introducing competitors amongst companies.”

England does marginally better than the other folks, but the gap has closed considering that 2010, when the Nuffield Believe in last assessed the discipline. The most significant distinction is the lengthening waits for typical surgical procedures such as hip and knee replacements in Wales given that 2010, as austerity spending budget-cutting set in. In 2012-13 a normal Welsh patient waited about 170 days for a hip or knee substitute in contrast with about 70 days in England and Scotland.

But spending is slowing everywhere and it is as well quickly to assess the real influence of austerity measures across the entire of the United kingdom, says the believe in. Above the three years from 2010-11 to 2012-13, Northern Ireland spent 2% a lot more, England and Scotland one% a lot more and Wales lowered spending by 1%.

The report seems at spending and final results in excess of the last two decades, from the 1990s – a period when there was significant investment in overall health. Between 2000/one and 2012/13, investment doubled in money terms – unadjusted for inflation – and much more staff have been hired. But Scotland took the choice to invest almost £900m earmarked for overall health on other solutions, including totally free personalized care for older people. Wales also spent £450m on other companies.

England nevertheless scores a little better than elsewhere on some measures such as amenable mortality – avoidable deaths – existence expectancy and ambulance response occasions, but the other nations have narrowed the gap. Scotland, which after trailed on targeted measures such as waiting occasions, is now undertaking broadly as nicely as England. Northern Ireland has enhanced in most respects but has increased MRSA charges than England and Wales.

The report also looked at NHS functionality in the north-east of England, as the area most broadly comparable with the devolved nations. It discovered that the north-east was undertaking properly, benefitting from a lot more than typical investment in wellness – £2150 per head in 2012/13 compared to £2115 in Scotland, even though the English average was £1912. In the 2000s, it had marked enhancements in therapy costs and hospital staffing. Its mortality rates and existence expectancy were equivalent to Scotland, but in the last couple of many years have been greater.

Dixon stated the report showed that clear targets and effective efficiency management can generate outcomes, for instance, in minimizing waiting instances, “but we do know that this regime will only operate in a little quantity of areas of overall performance.

“The progress of the NHS towards better good quality of care depends on nearby conditions as well as the degree of funding available. There is no shortage of enthusiasm and talent in the NHS, notably at the coal face. Supporting neighborhood clinical teams is most likely to be the greatest long phrase technique to improve the good quality of care.”

Labour mentioned the report showed that David Cameron and the Tories have been incorrect to assault the Labour administration’s dealing with of the NHS in Wales. “This crucial study shows the NHS produced great strides underneath the final Labour government and these who look for to run it down would do properly to research its conclusions very carefully,” mentioned shadow overall health secretary Andy Burnham.

“David Cameron should be embarrassed by this report. It exposes his merciless attempts to run down the NHS in Wales, when the facts present it’s been producing much more progress than England in recent many years. Cameron has been caught out putting politics just before individuals.”

Welsh government health minister Mark Drakeford mentioned Wales did well in some important locations mentioned by the report and 62% of individuals quite pleased with the NHS, compared to 53% in England. On hip and knee surgical treatment, he said the common waiting time in February was 15 weeks, against a target of 26 weeks. “We have invested £65m in orthopaedic providers more than the final three many years and individuals are also supplied a range of therapies and discomfort management,” he mentioned.

A Department of Health spokesperson said the report showed “the English NHS has accomplished fantastic perform in latest many years, specifically in keeping waiting occasions and ambulance response instances minimal and lowering needless deaths.

“These findings reaffirm the significance of safeguarding the NHS price range in England – which is allowing us to deliver back the hyperlink among GPs and their elderly sufferers, and join up wellness and social care companies so that we continue to improve and get maximum benefit for sufferers from every single pound we devote.”

Political interventions in NHS make small difference across Uk, review finds

Abortions are not for small disabilities, says minister

The Government is preparing to problem new advice to medical doctors on the Abortion Act and how it is being interpreted by health-related experts.

In 2012, two,692 foetuses have been aborted on the grounds that there was a “substantial risk” that the babies would be “seriously handicapped”. Of individuals, 160 took spot soon after 24 weeks of gestation.

In a debate in Parliament, Mrs Ellison pointed to proof that situations such as a cleft lip and palate could be “an indicator of far much more significant problems”.

Even so, she stated: “Concerns have been expressed… that abortions are taking place for abnormalities that are rectifiable soon after birth.”

She explained that the Government would seem at the scale of the problem in the nation. Fiona Bruce, the Conservative MP for Congleton, told MPs: “When mothers and fathers hear the information about a child’s diagnosis with foetal disability, it is important that they are provided information about the spectrum and about their choices.”

In an emotional speech, Mrs Bruce spoke of her son, Sam, who was born with a club foot.

She stated: “My son had physiotherapy every single day for the initial year of his existence. He wore a calliper in his early years and he had two operations, but now no a single would by no means know.

She extra: “Yesterday, Sam was 21, and in the past few days has heard that he has been admitted to Oxford University. It is tough to consider that such a treatable disability could have deprived him of existence, and he is far from alone.”

Mrs Ellison stated that she would now raise Mrs Bruce’s worries with the Royal University of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

The guidance comes following ministers ordered a new survey of birth ratios in Britain amid fears that sex-selective abortions are taking area in Britain.

Abortions are not for small disabilities, says minister

A small girl"s gesture to cease kids with cancer from "feeling sad"

First haircuts are, to some mother and father, specific events. But this video of a 3-yr-outdated girl’s first trim is far more particular than most.

Emily James, from Innisfil, Canada, made the decision to chop of 7 inches of her hair so she could donate it to kids suffering from cancer soon after seeing of them with no hair.

“What I want to do is give them my hair due to the fact I have lengthy hair. I want to minimize some of it off and give it to somebody,” says Emily, who also asks her own doll will get a matching bob.

A small girl"s gesture to cease kids with cancer from "feeling sad"

The Undiet and Small Alterations Strategy to Wellness

As a extended time overall health nut I like to show people the rewards of a few factors of living a healthful way of life. We all are mindful of the outstanding alterations that happen to the body by just adding more fruits and vegetables to the diet regime, reducing meat consumption and limiting sodium intake. These adjustments have served my household well. Here are a number of other straightforward adjustments you may apply to dwell healthier and a lot more energized.

Commence a Little Natural Garden 

Natural generate is extremely lower in harmful pesticides. Because standard farming depletes soil of healthy microbes that give plants required nutrients for a healthful diet, eating organic food is the only way to get optimum nutrients. Allergy symptoms, problems digesting gluten, and other wellness troubles are prevalent due to the fact of inefficient soil.

Start off little by getting a tiny planting box and expand two of your favourite greens together. Maintain in thoughts that specific greens and herbs grow much better with each other. Try out these pairings:

• Basil and tomatoes


• Beets and garlic


• Carrots and onions

Sugar Snaps and Strawberries: Simple Remedies for Producing Your Very own Little-Space Edible Garden

Get on an “Undiet”

Fad diets may aid you lose bodyweight, but they are challenging to follow and could impact your wellness in the long run. You must adjust your way of life steadily and adopt a nutritious diet plan. Eating healthier is about residing a healthier lifestyle for lengthy-term outcomes, NOT getting a swift repair for a lifetime of bad living routines. The best way to lose bodyweight is to consume a plant based diet. I eat 2-three servings of veggies every single day and drink natural beet and spinach juice.

Exchange Junk Foods with “Healthy Junk Food”

About nine in 10 grownups eat junk food each and every day. French fries, potato chips, and processed snacks are rich in saturated excess fat, salt, sugar and preservatives, so they should be averted at all charges.

• Change potato chips with homemade kale chips or pickles.


• Change cookies or brownies with baked sweet potatoes sprinkled with Himalayan salt or sea salt.


• Substitute sour cream with fresh kefir mixed with Himalayan salt or sea salt.

Improve Bowel Overall health by Detoxing

Most people really don’t speak about the importance of getting regular bowel movements. It’s needed for excellent health and is how your entire body gets rid of harmful toxins.  If you eat plenty of fresh greens then there is no want to do a heavy detox. If you eat a great deal processed foods then I advise detoxing each two months.

Drink half a gallon of water a day. Drink filtered water with fresh organic lemon juice or herbal tea (with no sugar). Drink 8 ounces 1st issue in morning ahead of you consume your 1st meal.

• For normal bowel movements drink a glass of water mixed with a teaspoon psyllium husks each and every day.


• For detoxing soon after a spell of consuming poorly, drink 4 cups of scorching water with lemon and fresh cayenne pepper for two-3 days. (This is a modified model of the Master Cleanser diet program which involves employing Grade B maple syrup.)

 Ditch the Hormones in Meat

If you’re a meat eater, try out to cut consumption by 50 % and change with raw greens. Cutting down on how considerably meat you eat will support you afford to eat only organic farm-raised chicken or beef from a neighborhood co-op or farm to keep away from hormones. Hormones flood the female systems with extra estrogen and brings about plenty of problems. It leads to youthful ladies to start menstruation as younger as 9 years old.  Hormones can lead to uterine fibroids.   Eat bison considering that it has less fat and calories than beef. Each after in a even though I’ll eat a hamburger. I eat chicken possibly as soon as every single two months.

Consume Fish Responsibly

Eat at least two servings of (ideally), wild caught fish a week to stop heart disease, diabetes and large cholesterol. These fish are higher in omega-three fatty acids:

•           Mackerel

•           Salmon

•           Sardines

Take care not to consume the following fish due to overfishing:

•           Bluefin Tuna

•           Orange Roughy

•           Grouper

 Fresh and Raw Are Very best

Fresh, natural raw veggies are the most nutritious way to accomplish wonderful well being. Processed foods include trans-fats and saturated fats that can ruin your excess weight reduction efforts and cause cardiovascular difficulties. Stay away from purchasing canned or packaged meals. Twice a week I eat only mostly raw veggies with roasted veggies in the mix.

Dee Doanes is the founder and editor-in-chief of Health Plus Type, an option overall health lifestyle website. She’s passionate about spreading the philosophy of the entire body, thoughts, and spirit connection. Her motto is, “Be free, be open, be satisfied!”

The Undiet and Small Alterations Strategy to Wellness

Review: It really is Not As well Considerably Wish, But Too Small Self-Manage That Gets Us In Difficulties

Picture a seesaw in your brain. On one particular side is your want method, the network of brain locations associated to in search of pleasure and reward. On the other side is your self-management system, the network of brain locations that throw up red flags prior to you engage in risky conduct. The difficult concerns facing scientific explorations of conduct are what helps make the seesaw hefty on either side, and why is it so difficult to attain balance?

A new study from University of Texas-Austin, Yale and UCLA researchers suggests that for several of us, the situation is not that we’re too hefty on desire, but rather that we’re too light on self-control.

Researchers asked examine participants to play a video game made to simulate danger-taking although hooked up to a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. The game is called Balloon Analogue Threat Activity (BART), which previous study has shown correlates effectively with self-reported danger-taking such as drug and alcohol use, smoking, gambling, driving with out a seatbelt, stealing and engaging in unprotected intercourse.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) series of a human head (Photograph credit score: Wikipedia)

The research team used specialized software program to search for patterns of activity across the entire brain that preceded a person’s making a risky option or a protected option while enjoying the game.

The software program was then used to predict what other subjects would pick for the duration of the game primarily based solely on their brain action. The outcomes: the software accurately predicted people’s alternatives 71 % of the time.

What this implies is that there is a predictable pattern of brain activity linked with picking to take or not consider hazards.

“These patterns are reputable ample that not only can we predict what will happen in an added test on the identical individual, but on folks we haven’t seen ahead of,” said Russ Poldrack, director of UT Austin’s Imaging Investigation Center and professor of psychology and neuroscience.

The specially intriguing part of this review is that the researchers had been able to “train” the application to recognize particular brain areas linked with chance-taking. The results fell within what’s typically acknowledged as the “executive control” regions of the brain that encompass issues like psychological emphasis, working memory and interest. The patterns identified by the computer software suggest a lessen in intensity across the executive control areas when someone opts for danger, or is just contemplating about doing some thing risky.

“We all have these desires, but no matter whether we act on them is a function of handle,” says Sarah Helfinstein, a postdoctoral researcher at UT Austin and lead author of the research.

Coming back to the seesaw analogy, this analysis suggests that even if our want method is level, our self-control method appears to slow down in the face of danger less intensity on that side of the see noticed naturally elevates intensity on the other side.

And that’s beneath normal problems. Include variables like peer strain, rest deprivation and drug and alcohol use to the equation, and the imbalance can only grow to be more pronounced.

That is what the next phase of this study will focus on, says Helfinstein. “If we can figure out the variables in the world that influence the brain, we can draw conclusions about what actions are best at assisting men and women resist risks.”

Ideally, we’d be in a position to stability the see saw — enabling healthful discretion as to which risks are really worth taking. Whilst it’s evident that too much publicity to threat is dangerous, it’s equally true that as well little publicity to risk leads to stagnation.

We are, after all, an adaptive species. If we’re never ever challenged to adapt to new hazards, we stop learning and building, and sooner or later we sink into boredom that, ironically, sets us up to consider ever much more radical risks. And that way, we’re sensible to bear in mind, madness lies.

The research seems online this week in the journal Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences.

You can discover David DiSalvo on Twitter @neuronarrative and at his web site, The Everyday Brain. His most current guide is Brain Changer: How Harnessing Your Brain’s Power To Adapt Can Adjust Your Daily life.

Review: It really is Not As well Considerably Wish, But Too Small Self-Manage That Gets Us In Difficulties

Ground Cherries: Sweet Small Fruits Bursting with Nutritional vitamins

Ground cherries (also called husk cherries and cape gooseberries) are tiny, orange fruits that grow within thin, lantern-like husks. They belong to the nightshade family, and are native to temperate and subtropical regions during the globe, such as North America. Regardless of their identify, ground cherries are much more closely related to tomatoes than cherries, and their sweet, refreshing taste – comparable to that of strawberries – lends them properly to salads, desserts, jams, and juices.

Ground cherries are common with gardeners because they increase in most types of soil (such as poor good quality soil), even though they are equally cherished for their well being benefits.

Rich in vitamin A – one hundred grams of ground cherries incorporate 720 international units of vitamin A, which is 14 percent of an adult’s suggested daily intake. Vitamin A is necessary for sustaining excellent vision and skin well being, boosting immune function, and gene transcription. It is also an antioxidant, which means that it can neutralize the damaging effects of free radicals, thereby shielding us from cancer and degenerative diseases like macular degeneration, rheumatoid arthritis, and cystic fibrosis.

Very good supply of vitamin C – 100 grams of ground cherries provide us with eleven milligrams of vitamin C, which is 18 percent of our RDI. Vitamin C is a water-soluble nutrient that is required for collagen production (which, in turn, quickens the body’s ability to fix wounds), reducing blood stress, guaranteeing the correct dilation of blood vessels (therefore protecting us from ailments like atherosclerosis and congestive heart failure), fighting cataracts, and boosting the immune program. Like vitamin A, vitamin C is also an antioxidant that guards us from totally free radical damage.

B-vitamin complex – one hundred grams of ground cherries include various amounts of specific B-vitamins, including thiamine (.110 milligrams, or seven.3 percent of our RDI), riboflavin (.040 milligrams, or two percent of our RDI), and niacin (two.800 milligrams, or 14 percent of our RDI). Despite the fact that the B-vitamins work as a team, they do have particular functions: Thiamine is needed to maintain a wholesome nervous technique (and is thus nicknamed the “anti-stress” vitamin), riboflavin is needed to facilitate cell growth and fix, and niacin is necessary for DNA restore and sustaining vitality levels.

Fat loss properties – 1 a hundred gram (three.five ounce) serving of ground cherries offers us with a mere 53 calories and a single gram of excess fat. As a end result, you can freely add as a lot of of these cherries to your diet regime with no worrying about excess weight obtain. Also, like all fruits, they incorporate respectable ranges of fiber, which tends to make you come to feel fuller and significantly less inclined to overeat.

A single 100 gram serving of ground cherries also gives us with 9 milligrams of calcium (a single percent of our RDI), one milligram of iron (6 % of our RDI), 40 milligrams of phosphorous (4 % of our RDI), and 1.9 grams of protein. The cherries are also free from sodium and cholesterol, and incorporate a minimal glycemic index score, generating them appropriate for diabetic and pre-diabetic folks.

Michael Ravensthorpe is an independent writer whose investigation interests include nutrition, substitute medication, and bushcraft. He is the creator of the internet site, Spiritfoods, by way of which he promotes the world’s healthiest foods.

Ground Cherries: Sweet Small Fruits Bursting with Nutritional vitamins