Health & Beauty

A popular hospital which just 18 months ago was threatened with closure, has turned its situation around to such an extent that it is developing a third operating theatre and an endoscopy suite.

Peninsula NHS Treatment Centre opened in Plymouth in April 2005 and treats NHS patients only – it is part of the choice offered to local NHS patients by their GPs when treatment is needed. It was one of the first independent sector treatment centres in the country and started out providing orthopaedic surgery and treatment to NHS patients across Devon and Cornwall. Since then it has...

Since April this year, more than 6,500 people have borrowed mental health and wellbeing titles from libraries across Devon, including 2,500 young people, Libraries Unlimited has revealed. The news comes as Libraries Unlimited, the social enterprise responsible for the running of Devon’s Libraries, marked World Mental Health Day (10 October), with the launch of 200 special talks, workshops and events focused on mental health and wellbeing during November. The popular Reading Well Books on Prescription scheme, part of the Public Libraries Universal Health Offer in support of mental health...

Tomorrow (Tuesday 11 October) is World Obesity Day, and today the British Dietetic Association pushes for junk free checkouts as new figures from the World Obesity Federation indicate that 3.28 million school aged children in the UK will be overweight or obese by 2025. On current trends, obesity-related diseases will increasingly affect school-children, including 43,000 with type 2 Diabetes and 296,000 with hypertension by 2025.

The British Dietetic Association (BDA), founded in 1936, is the professional association and trade union for dietitians (the only legally regulated...

Meditate on the word meditation and it is likely that certain images will come to mind. A Buddhist monk perhaps in saffron robes, or a lycra-clad young woman folded into the lotus position.

In the last couple of decades, meditation has risen from the realm of Eastern spiritual practice to emerge as a stress-busting antidote to modern life. Science has corroborated what Zen masters have known for years; that regular meditation helps people cope with stress, illness and chronic pain as well as promoting wellbeing and a host of other benefits. In fact, regular meditation practice is...