Better and quicker cancer care for patients is the aim from a single treatment route and target.

A study of a pilot scheme finds there were two online consultations per 1,000 patients.

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Who says belly rolls are something to cover up? Certainly not KhrystyAna. The model recently took to Instagram, where she has over 70,000 followers, to make a powerful statement about body positivity.

Last week, KhrystyAna posted a photo that embraced her stomach rolls—with a twist on the Chamillionaire song "Ridin' Dirty". The model changed the lyrics to put a positive spin on the body part she says used to bother her: "They see me rollin' they lovin'," KhrystyAna wrote on her belly. The image has since gone viral, with more than 4,000 likes and countless comments praising the model for her inspiring statement of self-love.

In an interview with Yahoo Lifestyle, the model explained that she has had a "roller coaster" relationship with her stomach. "My belly was the very last part of my body that I had to learn to love again," she told the website. "Because even in the plus-size fashion industry, a perfectly curvy hourglass-shaped model with a leaner stomach is usually preferred."

Now, KhrystyAna uses her position to advocate for more realistic images of women in media. "When I shoot with a photographer I always make sure to ask them, 'Don't Photoshop my 'pride and joy,' please," she tells Yahoo.

A follow-up photo, the model posted an image of her smiling face with the caption, "Rolls are so high fashion! You know it."

In an earlier post, the model also embraces her stretch marks, calling them "marks of stretched out love."

"It took me a while to start liking my rolls because the industry opinion shaped my own negative opinion of myself," the model says. "[U]ntil the day I️ said, ‘Screw it! Dear Tummy, you are here whether people like you or not! We’re in this together and we’re gonna make it work! Who said a belly isn’t cool and sexy? Nope, not us, not any more!'”

We see you rollin', KhrystyAna, and we like what we see!

But there is no reason to start drinking coffee for health reasons, the BMJ study found.

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Health leaders warn tough choices will have to be made despite the chancellor’s promise of extra money.

Drinking just a couple beers throughout the week may be hurting your health more than you think: Even moderate drinking can damage your brain, new research from the University of Oxford in the UK suggests.

In the study, researchers recruited 550 people, tracked their weekly alcohol intake and measured their performance on brain tasks over a 30-year period.

Then, they performed MRIs on them to analyse their brain structure.

Read more: 8 surprising things that happen to your body when you stop drinking booze

They discovered that people who drank moderately – 14 to 21 units of alcohol per week – were three times as likely to have deterioration in the right side of their hippocampus than those who abstained from alcohol.

That’s important, since that area of the brain affects your memory and spatial navigational skills. Atrophy there is also a marker of Alzheimer’s disease, the researchers say.

Here’s what that means for your pub visits: Each unit contains 8g of alcohol, and a standard drink is roughly 14g of alcohol.

That’s 355ml of regular, 5% alcohol beer, or 148ml of 12% alcohol wine. So that means drinking between eight and 12 beers a week would put you in that risk category.

Read more: This is the best type of alcohol to drink if you’re trying to lose weight

People who drank more – at least 17 beers a week – showed even more deterioration in that brain region. They were nearly six times as likely to show atrophy in their hippocampus than those who didn’t drink at all.

Interestingly, there was no link between light drinkers and brain deterioration, showing that there doesn’t seem to be any brain benefit to drinking just a little bit.

Plus, the more alcohol people drank, the poorer their density of white matter – a part of the brain necessary for cognitive function – and the greater their decline in specific language skills.

Alcohol and its byproducts are toxic to nerve cells in your brain, and can cause structural damage in important areas of your brain like the hippocampus that are used in daily mental functions, the researchers say.

Read more: Here’s why booze can make your face red, flushed and swollen

This suggests that even drinking within the recommended alcohol guidelines – no more than two drinks a day for men – may still contribute to some brain problems.

This article was originally featured on www.mh.co.za

Image credit: iStock

In 1999, Joburg-born Claire McFarlane was a 21-year-old working part-time in a bar to fund her entry into L’Ecole des Beaux Arts, where she hoped to study fine art.

One night, she left her workplace at 3am to take a taxi home – which was nothing out of the ordinary. Sadly, she never made it to the taxi. The man who grabbed and violently attacked her made sure of that.

“I knew what was going to happen. Stealing my bag wasn’t his intention,” McFarlane recalls. “I fought hard to get away, but it didn’t help, because the attack became more violent.”

Then, she remembered a self-defence course she’d attended at high school in Australia. A rape survivor had suggested other ways to escape a dangerous situation.

“I started talking to him instead. I lied: I told him I was terminally ill and I was dying. Not only did it change the dynamic… I think that’s what ultimately saved my life.”

Fast forward to 2014, and McFarlane finally shared the story of her brutal rape in a newspaper article. When she did, she realised she could have a positive impact on the lives of other survivors.

Rape isn’t often discussed, because it tends to make people feel uncomfortable. But the fact is, more and more women are travelling alone – and some of them are runners. It’s important they know how to stay safe, and where to go for help and what their rights are if something bad does happen.

Due to the severity of her injuries, McFarlane had to stay in Paris for a further three months, her dream of studying fine art shattered in the aftermath of her harrowing ordeal.

In an attempt to piece her life back together, she returned home to Australia, and filled every waking moment with something to do. She convinced herself everything was okay.

But in 2009 the past came back to haunt her. Her attacker had reoffended and a DNA match had been found. McFarlane was living in Europe at the time and was called upon to return to Paris and identify him in a police line-up.

Standing face-to-face with the man, she remembered him so clearly – and realised she hadn’t healed at all.

“France’s legal system isn’t the same as South Africa’s,” McFarlane explains. “The victim is a civil party in criminal proceedings, as opposed to a witness for the state. That means you have to find your own lawyer; and if you’re a foreigner, you have to pay for the lawyer.”

McFarlane’s legal battle cost her AU$50 000 (around R530 000) and was a long, drawn-out process. Her case dragged painfully through the French justice system for six years, culminating 16 years after the attack itself. And in the end, her attacker only served three and a half years of his sentence.

Sadly, she is now to afraid to return to the city where she came of age, where the artist in her blossomed.

Healing

During the legal process, McFarlane used running as a restorative and empowering tool – in particular, she found running on the beach a positive experience. And as she grew physically stronger, she felt safer.

She also felt strong enough to share her story. “I wanted people to know what had happened to me in France, and how the justice system works there. The expectation is that France is a forward-thinking country, and that therefore, victims are treated well; but in my case, that couldn’t have been further from the truth.”

McFarlane’s story ran in an Australian newspaper in 2014, and then spread to Africa, the UK and the US. It gave other survivors the courage to break the silence. They reached out to her, eager to share their own stories of sexual violence, whether through rape, assault or child abuse.

McFarlane noticed that some of the taboos and shame that surround rape had shifted – and perhaps, she thought, these survivors would now be more likely to follow through with the criminal process. Inspired, she wondered how she might keep the conversation going.

“Sexual violence and rape is a subject that’s difficult both to talk about and to listen to; but it’s a huge, silent epidemic that affects one in four women, and one in six men. Just talking about it wasn’t going to work. I had to find another way…”

McFarlane thought about the role beach running had played in her own healing, and how she could use it as an example to others that there is life after trauma. In addition, sport has a way of uniting people – so why not use it to bring women together to talk about their experiences?

As part of her initiative, Footsteps to Inspire, McFarlane aims to run 16km of beach in every coastal country of the world, in support of rape survivors: that’s 3 500km, 230-plus beaches, barefoot where possible, in under four years. She will be the first person – and woman – to do it.

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McFarlane began her journey in South Africa on 18 July 2016, and has so far run on 30 beaches in 29 countries, including New Zealand, India, Japan, Scotland Namibia and Kenya. She’s planning a symbolic end to her journey, in France, on 18 July 2020.

“I got food poisoning the night before I was supposed to run in Taiwan and I thought it would be the hardest of the bunch,” she recalls. “It was a surfer beach – if you can imagine a Chinese surf town! The sand was beautiful, warm, soft and black, and I was running with lovely people. And I ran 16km, as if charged with all the energy in the world.

“I’m a real example that it’s possible to run in remote areas alone, but safety is key. I make sure I know people on the ground, and ask questions about where is safe, and where isn’t – there are some places where you just can’t run alone,in which case I ask the locals to accompany me.”

A learning curve

Besides running in each country she visits and sharing her story with survivors, McFarlane connects with NGOs, services and community groups.

She aims to help governments to understand the issues faced by survivors all over the world.

“While there’s no doubt South Africa has one of the highest number of rape cases in the world, lots of other countries have the same rate of sexual violence, McFarlane has observed. “In the UK, half a million people are sexually violated every year; and in the US, someone is assaulted every 90 seconds.

“Rape culture perpetuates silence and shame: victims tend to blame themselves or feel guilty about what’s happened, and they don’t want to talk about it. In some countries, women are actually punished for opening up.”

Adding to that, from her own personal experience McFarlane knows all too well that sometimes the law fails victims completely. It’snot all bad. In some countries, McFarlane has observed positive steps being taken to ensure survivors are supported.

“Malaysia is a country that surprised me: they have one of the best one-stop crisis centres I have ever seen. Taiwan is equally progressive.

“Over the next 10 years, South Africa plans to roll out sexual violence courts across the country. Professionals will be trained to apply the law properly, so that victims will have a better outcome. I hope that society will stop blaming the victim, and instead ask why someone would decide to harm another person.”

McFarlane has been invited to speak at TEDx twice, and some of the countries and communities she has visited have pledged to hold an annual beach run to raise even more awareness about sexual violence.

“This journey is about acknowledging the issues,” McFarlane says. “Once we know what’s really happening, we can find a solution.”

This article was originally featured on www.runnersworld.co.za

Image credits: Supplied

Lisa Abdellah