Health & Beauty

Asthma UK is urging people with asthma to be vigilant in winter as data shows the number of people who die because of an asthma attack peaks in January and remains high in February and March. Data from the Office for National Statistics highlights that asthma is the cause of proportionately more excess winter deaths than other conditions and respiratory diseases were the underlying cause of death in more than a third of all excess winter deaths in 2014/15. It’s thought that cold weather and viruses like cold and flu may be partly to blame; 90% of people with asthma report that cold and flu...

Over half of people in the South West have someone in their family with risk factors that put them greater risk of heart disease, according to new statistics released ahead of the British Heart Foundation’s (BHF) Wear it. Beat it. campaign to get the nation wearing red to fight heart disease on Friday 5th February.

The BHF poll revealed over half of people in the South West (53%) fear that a loved one could be struck down with a potentially life-threatening heart attack or stroke in the future. Over two fifths (41%) have already lost someone or know a loved one affected by heart...

A new clinical imaging method developed in collaboration with a University of Exeter academic may enable doctors to tackle one of the main killers of patients with weakened immune systems sooner and more effectively.

The spores of the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus are tiny, everywhere in the air and breathed in by humans every day.

They do not usually cause a problem for healthy people as their immune systems kill the spores before they can grow and infect the body. But in patients with an immune system weakened by leukaemia or bone marrow transplantation, the fungus faces...

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) is calling for a ban on all junk food TV advertising before 9pm, as part of the Government’s Childhood Obesity Strategy, to help improve children’s health.

Millions of children across the UK are being exposed to junk food adverts during popular shows such as the X Factor and Hollyoaks.

Analysis by the BHF shows that weak regulations are creating loopholes that mean that food companies can advertise junk food - high in fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt - during programmes watched by children in the South West.

Shockingly, 13 junk...