Health News

Nigel Hunt was nipped on the stomach by his arachnid assailant while lying in bed at home at St Mary's on the Isles of Scilly just hours before flying to Egypt. Thinking it nothing more than a mild irritation the 59-year-old embarked on his holiday regardless. But the trip away would soon turn into a potentially deadly nightmare. Mr Hunt, a window fitter, became violently sick a few days into his holiday as the site of the spider bite started to grow bigger. Egyptian medics told Mr Hunt he was likely the victim of a bite from a false widow (top right) or a brown recluse spider (bottom right)

Henrietta Paxton, 40, from Salisbury, Wiltshire, was in the middle of a set of squats when the barbell started to slip backwards causing a 120kg barbell to crush her spine. The mum-of-two had suffered a complete spinal cord injury meaning she is paralysed from the waist down.

Semaglutide, available as Ozempic and Wegovy, has been hailed as a monumental breakthrough in the war on obesity. But there have also been growing concerns about the number of normal weight and underweight patients taking them for cosmetic reasons. Now, the drug is attracting fresh attention after Lottie Moss today revealed she was rushed to hospital after suffering an Ozempic overdose using too high a dosage. Here, we reveal how the jab - when misused - can wreak havoc on the body within just minutes of injecting, leaving some users at risk of a coma.

A Kent mother has told of her astonishing birth story, which saw her son Luca 'born twice' - once at six months, and again and just under nine months. Lisa Coffee, 23, was told early on in her pregnancy that Luca had developed the birth defect spina bifida, which causes malformation of the spine and spinal cord. Specialists opted to remove Luca from his mother's womb at 27 weeks - six months - and perform an operation to fix repair some of the defect.

A 26 year-old woman has revealed how she's been left wheelchair bound and her life  'destroyed' after developing what she thought was a stomach bug. In the summer of 2018, Sophia Cucchiara started suffering frequent waves of nausea, coupled with intense fevers, and lost a significant amount of weight. The former student nurse thought little of it, assuming a stomach bug had taken hold. But Ms Cucchaiara then developed swollen lymph nodes in her neck, joint pain and a rash, which prompted visits to several doctors in order to get to the bottom of her diagnosis.

Official data paints a grim picture of the service millions of Brits rely on for both emergency care and routine treatments and checks that ward off long-term disease. This website's fascinating analysis follows a damning report by Lord Darzi, a pioneering surgeon and former Labour health minister, concluded the NHS is in a 'critical condition'. His 142-page report reveals waits for routine care and A&E have got longer, people have got sicker, and progress in tackling some major conditions has stalled.

A research team in Pisa, Italy, from the BioRobotics Institute developed the robotic hand that uses no wires no electrical connection, only magnets and muscles to control movements. The bionic hand was successfully tested on the first patient a 34-year-old Italian named Daniel, who used the prosthesis for six weeks. He claimed using the prosthetic felt like 'moving [his] own hand'.

An 11 year-old Yorkshire schoolboy has been diagnosed with an ultra-rare, fatal disease than sees him age backwards - and gradually lose the ability to walk, talk and move. Jayden Skidmore, 11, was diagnosed with Duchenne's muscular dystrophy - a genetic condition that weakens the skeletal and heart muscles - at the age of five. Just two years after diagnosis, he stopped being able to walk - due to muscle weakness in his legs.

Pancreatic cancer, famed for subtle and symptoms that means for the vast majority of cases are only caught in its later and deadlier stages, kills almost 10,000 Brits each year. But a new tool hopes to turn the tide and boost survival rates for the disease. Charity Pancreatic Cancer UK, with the support of NHS England, are launching The Family History Checker an online resource which helps people assess their genetic risk of pancreatic cancer. One person who knows all too well the fear of inheriting pancreatic cancer is Rachel Smith (left). The 42-year-old has seen both her father and brother been hit by the disease. Tragically, for her brother Jim (tope right) the diagnosis turned out to be a fatal one.

Some reading this may believe the act is something extreme or, to put it delicately, extremely niche. But the intimate behaviour could be putting a strain on your love life or even prove a relationship deal breaker, according to sexual health experts. MailOnline quizzed three experts on the adventurous habits Brits should avoid to prevent wrecking their relationship. One, however, could take 'relationships to a whole new level'.

Alex Macgillivray, from Wrexham in Wales, took up the flexible hobby in January in a bid to relieve the pressure on her back. But by June it had intensified and she began experiencing constant bloating and constipation that made her 'look pregnant'. It was only after visiting the GP, who referred her to hospital thinking it was appendicitis, that tests showed she had two ovarian tumours measuring 12cm and 8cm - roughly the size of grapefruits. Now the 26-year-old bride-to-be is undergoing grueeling chemotherapy to blast the tumours, in the hope she can keep her ovaries and fertility .

Dale Lockwood, from Birstall in West Yorkshire, returned home from work as a primary school deputy headteacher on October 10, 2023 to find his childhood sweetheart Ruby lifeless in their bed. The cause of Mrs Lockwood's death was inconclusive following a post-mortem examination and the family had to hold her funeral and cremate her without knowing how she died.

Videos highlighting the seemingly remarkable benefits of glutathione have racked up hundreds of thousands of views. Users rave about its 'transformative' effect, which has helped them boost energy levels and even strengthen the immune system. Some have even nicknamed it a 'master detoxifier'. The drips, rumoured to be used by Kim Kardashian, Kendall Jenner, Gwyneth Paltrow and Hailey Bieber are marketed at aesthetics clinics for around £75. But it can also be taken as a jab or bought online easily as a supplement for as little as 55p per pill. Yet experts today warned it was 'irresponsible' to label glutathione anti-ageing and raised concerns over the 'very little evidence' of its effectiveness.

In an interview with Vanity Fair on Monday Selena Gomez claimed she had 'tools and protocols' to take care of herself, which included using temperature as a 'healing mechanism'. Gomez, who has suffered with depression , anxiety and panic attacks, confessed she finds 'cold water or space heaters to be soothing'.

As a former secretary of state for health, Norman Fowler thought he was knowledgeable enough to recognise instantly if he was ­having a heart attack. 'I assumed if I had one it would be ­dramatic, painful and I'd collapse in a heap - but it wasn't like that at all,' says Lord Fowler, who spent six years as health secretary in the 1980s during Margaret Thatcher 's premiership. The tall, lean 86-year-old suffered the heart attack - where the blood supply to the heart is partially or completely blocked as a result of a clot in one of the main coronary arteries - at his West London flat in May. He recalls slumping into a hallway chair after 'suddenly feeling pressure on my chest'. His wife Fiona, 78, immediately realised something was amiss.

Flow, a pulsating headset which claims to treat depression by sending electric shocks to parts of the brain responsible for regulating mood, is being hailed as a success in reducing the risk of suicide by the NHS. A trial found the wearable device helped patients stabilise quickly with positive changes in mood showing within two to three weeks of treatment.

Sam Hayden-Harler, from Kent, first noticed a problem in early 2021 after struggling to open bottle tops without effort. But even when he began experiencing pain in his wrist and hand he put it down to carpal tunnel syndrome or repetitive strain injury. It was only after the 37-year-old two time London Marathon runner visited his GP who referred him a physio, that he discovered the issue was likely neurological. In March 2022 - just over a year after first noticing symptoms - he was diagnosed with MND, of which the most common type is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

As a mother of four school-age children, Jennifer Barton has become a master of making sure uniforms are clean, that homework gets done on time and that everyone leaves for school each day with a healthy packed lunch. But every year, especially at this time when children are once again in close contact with each other in classrooms, she struggles with head lice. They affect thousands of UK households every year and while cases dropped during the pandemic, they are now soaring - if the market for head lice products is a guide (Superdrug reported that sales of treatment spray surged by 121 per cent compared with a year ago).

Melissa Crawford, 30, from Belfast, first thought about going to Turkey to undergo a 'liquid BBL', but she thought this would be too 'dangerous' and she instead decided to find a salon closer to home. She forked out £1,700 to undergo a non-surgical butt lift and a round of eyebrow filler - but she has now been 'put off filler for life' and left with 'holes' in her buttocks.

A bowel cancer treatment that gives hope to people with the same aggressive form that hit Dame Deborah James (above left) has been approved for use on the NHS. The drug combination - two medicines called trifluridine-­tipiracil hydrochloride and bevacizumab - will be introduced following a US trial which found that for patients who had run out of treatment options it bought nearly an extra year of life. And in some rare cases, it gave patients up to seven more years.

Household kitchens are well-known to be a source of bacteria contamination, with 40 per cent of all outbreaks of foodborne infections in Europe occurring at home, according to the Food Standards Agency (FSA). Here, Sylvia Anderson, one of the UK's leading food safety experts, tells MailOnline how often we should be washing and replacing our kitchen utensils to avoid the stomach churning risks.

The family, from Nottingham, suspect the bottle of sunscreen they purchased in Cape Verde may have been 'out of date' or counterfeit and have issued a warning to other families. Awful photos show 10-year-old Hector Harvey looking like he had 'hot water thrown on him' with massive yellow blisters and huge sections of his skin peeling off. Hector was holidaying in Cape Verde, an archipelago off the African coast with his family on what should have been a trip of a lifetime in August this year. He jetted off with his mother Natalie Harvey, 47, alongside her partner Ben Limbrick, 40, and Hector's brother Hugo, 15.

Johnny Depp shocked fans this week after a new video emerged appearing to show he'd undergone major dental work. The Pirates of the Caribbean star, 61, flashed a whiter than usual smile in the social media clip posted by a bartender in the Bahamas. As he jumped behind the bar, the Oscar-nominated actor smiled broadly showing off what seemed to be a new set of veneers, a far cry from even a year ago when fans described his yellow teeth as 'rotting.' But Depp is not the only celeb to have undergone an astonishing dental transformation.

Jennifer Pickering, 39, from Liverpool suffers from life-threatening lung collapse every time she has her period - claims it's caused by a rare from of endometriosis. She led an active lifestyle until September 2023 when she thought she pulled her shoulder blade at the gym. But after suffering for two days in pain, an x-ray revealed her right lung had collapsed.

The highly infectious virus 'spreads like wildfire', warns Professor Helen Bedford, Professor of children's health at Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. Symptoms include sneezing, coughing, aches and pains as well as the measles rash, but the virus can lead to serious complications including pneumonia and meningitis.

Lotti McKenna, from Walthamstow in East London , noticed Beatrix had a 'small cloud' in the middle of her left eye at just 10 weeks old. But it was only after she rushed her now 12-month-old to hospital that medics discovered she had a congenital unilateral cataract. This rare condition, which affects around three in every 10,000 babies born in the UK each year, can cause serious vision problems or blindness without urgent treatment. Beatrix has now thankfully undergone surgery to remove the lens in her eye. But she will have to wait until she is at least eight years old before she can have an artificial lens fitted. Even then, there is still a chance she may still go blind in her left eye.

Viewers of Lady Gaga 's tell-all documentary, which aired in 2017, will be familiar with the life-wrecking health struggles she's faced over the past decade. In Four Foot Two, the megastar offered a heartbreaking window into her battle with chronic pain caused by the long-term condition, fibromyalgia. The singer, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, has spoken widely about her struggles since, telling Oprah in 2020 that she was 'in head to toe pain' during their interview. But now, the illness - for which there is no cure - appears to have subsided for Germanotta, 38.

The pre-packaged items, which are often made with numerous additives, emulsifiers and flavourings, make up 57 per cent of the British diet, studies show. However, increasing evidence suggests not all ultra-processed foods should be tarred with the same brush - a study published this week found only two of 10 UPFs studied are bad for our heart. Now, one nutrition guru has taken social media by storm with a similar approach, finding healthy UPFs on supermarket shelves. 'Health fixer' Sunna van Kampen has attracted 604,000 Instagram followers to his channel where he shares his tours of ASDA, Tesco and Lidl that see him scout out the least processed bargains.

Diet guru Professor Tim Spector warns so-called 'healthier' alternatives such as honey and brown sugar are just a 'gimmick'. Both products will cause your blood sugar to rise, teeth to rot and you to pile on the pounds. So, instead the top nutrition expert and founder of the ZOE diet app suggests just opting for traditional white sugar, which won't break the bank.

A young man has shared the horrifying moment his nose began leaking fluid after a popular 'liquid nose job' procedure. Oliver Davis, 19, spent £160 on the injectable treatment, which typically lasts between a year and 18 months, and involves placing filler in the nose to manipulate the shape. Oliver had sought the treatment in order to make the tip of his nose more defined. But one week after undergoing the procedure, his face began to ooze liquid. Despite expecting a bit of pain and swelling, he knew something was horribly wrong. 'I was left so baffled and confused when I felt this wet drip on my hand,' Oliver, from Northamptonshire, said.

Connor Wilton was hospitalised when his dad, Jamie Wilton, 53, found him 'collapsed' on the floor in November 2022 after using nitrous oxide. The 27-year-old from Shirebrook, Derbyshire, suffered from severe nerve damage that left him paralysed after the drug starved his body of oxygen and B12 vitamins. After spending three months bed bound in hospital and four months in a neuro rehabilitation unit, Mr Wilton will 'never be able to stand up straight' and is forced to use crutches and a wheelchair while taking around 30 tablets a day.

Supermodel Elle MacPherson shocked fans with the announcement of her breast cancer diagnosis earlier this week - as well as her controversial decision to opt out of chemotherapy treatment. But also surprising - for a woman who has spent most of her adult life in the public eye - is that MacPherson, now 60, kept her illness a secret for seven years. Many celebrities in the public eye, however, choose to keep their cancer battles private and separate from their careers. Others recovered from the disease decades a go, so rarely speak of their experience. Here, MailOnline reveals the celebrities that you may be surprised to learn have had cancer.

Sugary drinks and processed meats are the only two ultra processed foods associated with a higher risk of heart attacks and strokes, Harvard researchers have discovered. The scientists used data collected from nurses and health professionals to test the risk of cardiovascular disease, heart disease and strokes from eating a range of different ultra-processed foods. But although they have long been vilified not all ultra-processed food (UPF) is made equal. In fact, yoghurt, wholegrain bread and savoury snacks were shown to slightly reduce the risk of the diseases.

Cancer is very divisive: when you have that diagnosis, people are either thoughtful or thoughtless, kind or unkind, courageous or cowardly, which is what happened when my husband Harry was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer in 2012 at the age of 71, writes Mary Gold (left; and right with Harry).

Queen guitarist Brian May today revealed he suffered a stroke, telling social media followers of one symptom: he's temporarily unable to use his left arm. In a video shared to social media, the legendary musician, 77, said he was currently 'not allowed to go out' after the medical emergency last week. But Sir Brian, who looked animated and well in the clip, confirmed he could now still play guitar despite the 'little health hiccup'. While many people remember stroke symptoms under the four-letter acronym FAST - face, arms, speech, time - other just as common signs often fall under the radar. Two experts revealed to MailOnline why signs including sudden vertigo and even a severe headache should not be dismissed.