Category Archives: Uncategorized

Oh Good – Your Inheritance May Include UTIs

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I’ve always thought UTIs were a bit like period pain; they just seem to be the luck of the draw.

The NHS explains that they’re more likely to happen to women, as: “Women have a shorter urethra than men. This means bacteria are more likely to reach the bladder or kidneys and cause an infection.”

Having sex, pregnancy, not drinking enough fluids, a weakened immune system, and “not keeping the genital area clean and dry” can increase your risk, they say, though they add that some people are simply more susceptible to chronic UTIs than others.

But according to Harvard Health, if you get UTI after UTI, “You may be surprised to learn that family history may also play a role.”

How?

It’s down to genetics, which experts think can make you more or less likely to get the condition many times over.

“Having a first-degree female relative (parent, sister, or child) with a history of more than five UTIs means you may be at higher risk for recurrent UTIs,” Harvard shared.

A 2010 study found that “six out of 14 genes investigated in humans may be associated with susceptibility to recurrent UTI in humans.”

Harvard adds that “recurrent” UTIs are defined by someone having three infections or more in any 12-month period, or two infections in any six-month period.

They add that “abnormalities in the urinary tract or trouble completely emptying the bladder may make a person more vulnerable to frequent UTIs.”

The NHS says chronic UTIs may not show up in urine tests and “can have a big impact on your quality of life.”

How can I protect myself against UTIs?

If you have recurrent UTIs, it can be helpful to see your doctor.

For one-offs or less serious cases, the NHS advises we:

  • do not use scented soap

  • do not hold your pee in if you feel the urge to go

  • do not rush when going for a pee – try to fully empty your bladder

  • do not wear tight synthetic underwear, such as nylon

  • do not drink lots of alcoholic drinks, as they may irritate your bladder

  • do not have lots of sugary food or drinks, as they may encourage bacteria to grow

  • do not use condoms or a diaphragm or cap with spermicidal lube on them – try non-spermicidal lube or a different type of contraception.

Instead they say we should:

  • wipe from front to back when you go to the toilet

  • keep the genital area clean and dry

  • drink plenty of fluids, particularly water – so that you regularly pee during the day and do not feel thirsty

  • wash the skin around the vagina with water before and after sex

  • pee as soon as possible after sex

  • promptly change nappies or incontinence pads if they’re soiled.

Participating pharmacists are able to prescribe antibiotics for UTIs ― you don’t need to go to your doctor.

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The 3 Cold ‘Prevention’ Supplements The NHS Says Are Likely A Waste Of Money

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As we head into winter, cold and flu season draws ever nearer.

Those of us trying to prime our immune system for the onslaught of diseases might be reaching for supplements alongside staying active and trying to eat well.

But the NHS says some of those efforts may be in vain.

Though the service advises British adults to consider taking vitamin D in the darker months, their entry on the common cold reads: “There’s little evidence that supplements such as vitamin C, echinacea or garlic prevent colds or help you get better more quickly.”

Why not?!

It can be a tough pill to swallow, even if it means one less actual capsule to gulp down.

But it’s not so much that supplements like these are proven to be bad or even completely ineffective: it’s just that the NHS isn’t convinced by the conflicting evidence that they do work.

Microbiologist Morticia shared a video explaining that “there is actually no such thing as an ‘immune booster’” outside of vaccines, adding that ingredients like vitamin C and ginger root are “not boosting your immune system.”

That’s not to say eating a balanced and varied diet isn’t good for your immune system or even that vitamin C isn’t part of a good immune response, but that vitamin supplements may not act as straightforwardly on our bodies as we think.

Morticia mentions how iron supplements for iron deficiency can take months to work, despite seeming like a straightforward answer to the issue: she also points out that hydrogen peroxide is crucial to white blood cells’ disease-fighting power, but nobody is suggesting drinking that to see us through a sniffle.

A 2013 review of studies by Cochrane found that “trials of high doses of vitamin C administered therapeutically, starting after the onset of symptoms, showed no consistent effect on the duration or severity of common cold symptoms.”

Why is the immune system so complicated?

Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University, told BBC Future that “There are three different components to immunity.”

“There’s things like skin, the airways and the mucus membranes that are there to begin with, and they provide a barrier to infection. But once the virus gets past these defences, then you have to induce the ‘innate’ immune response,” the immunologist explained.

If those fail, Dr Iwasaki added, our adaptive immune system, which provides specific antibodies to fight the disease, comes online: though these antibodies can take “a few days or weeks to emerge.”

That last stage is triggered by infection or vaccines, hence the microbiologist’s comments earlier.

In fact the BBC says most symptoms of a cold “aren’t actually caused by the virus itself. Instead, they’re triggered by your own body, on purpose: they’re part of the innate immune response.”

So truly “boosting” these would more likely lead to a runny nose or muscle aches (a little like some people experience after a vaccine) than glowy skin or a sniffle-free winter.

“Vitamin supplements aren’t beneficial to your immune system unless you are deficient,” Dr Iwasaki shared.

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So THAT’s Why Non-Alcoholic Ginger Beer Is Called ‘Beer’

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Even though my favourite alcoholic beer is actually ginger-flavoured ― and though ginger wine has turned a bit trendy in recent years ― I’ve always wondered why completely child-safe fizzy ginger gets called “beer.”

After all, we don’t call lemonade “citrus ale” or cola “caramel shandy.”

So what’s going on with the name choice?

It’s all to do with history

Town & Country Magazine shared that the traditional version was invented in mid-1800s England.

It was fermented, and was often 11% alcohol ― that qualifies it for the “beer” title, if you ask us.

Brittanica’s online encyclopedia explains this original recipe was “made by fermenting a mixture of ginger, water, sugar, cream of tartar, and yeast. Lemon peel and juice or citric acid may also be added.”

The name simply stuck, it seems.

Traditionally-made ginger beer will use fermentation, making it less fizzy than ginger ale; but nowadays, food site The Kitchn says, “Some ginger beers are brewed with champagne yeast, and some are finished with forced carbonation.”

Therefore non-alcoholic ginger beer can still have about 0.05% booze, a bit like kombucha.

But those are pretty rare craft products: some modern ginger beers are simply carbonated, like ginger ale (which was almost never alcoholic).

Ginger beer’s cloudiness or clarity is determined by its filtering process.

Anything else?

According to Tayport Distillery, ginger beer and ginger ale were both popular during America’s Prohibition because they were good at masking the smell of alcohol.

“This clandestine use further cemented ginger ale’s place in mixology history,” they add.

The distillery says ginger ale, which was not usually fermented, was possibly invented in Ireland and made its way to Canada in the 1900s to huge success.

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Richard E Grant Speaks Out About ‘Appalling’ Treatment Of His Daughter On Set

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Actor Richard E. Grant has spoken out about the team members in a film studio that he feels don’t get the appreciation that they deserve.

The Withnail and I star was asked which job on a film set is the most under-appreciated and without taking a breath, he responded: “The runners.”

He went on to say that they are paid the least, are often the youngest and arrive at the studio at 5am and are still the last to leave at the end of the day.

He then added: “If anything goes, wrong, they get shit on from a dizzy height.

“I know because my daughter was a runner for two years, and was appallingly treated by some well-known household names in England.”

He revealed that these actors “changed their tune” when they found out who his daughter’s father was, adding that this made it worse for him, saying: “It made me damn those people even more.”

Finally, Richard admitted that he did actually confront one of the actors for their treatment of his daughter.

While he didn’t drop any names, it doesn’t appear that he’ll be forgiving them any time soon.

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Fans React To Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Electric Strictly Come Dancing Return After ‘Cult’ Remark

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Back in 2013, Sophie danced her way to the Strictly finals, coming in fourth with her dancing partner Brendan Cole but her appearance on the show came at a heavy price, with the expectations weighing heavily on her.

In her 2021 book Spinning Plates, the Murder On The Dancefloor singer said: “We were asked questions such as: ‘Is this the best thing you’ve ever done?’, ‘How incredible has your dance partner been?’, ‘What will you do to fill the hole after Strictly?’

“And I had the epiphany that, oh my God it’s like a cult! Trigger words and the constant repetition of how much it must mean to you.”

While she was massively grateful and proud of her time on the show, she spoke frankly about the difficulties it came with.

So, a return to the Strictly ballroom probably wasn’t quite what anybody would expect.

However, fans were thrilled to see her back on the sparkly stage.

Strictly Come Dancing is on BBC One on Saturday evenings at 6.25pm.

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Labour Have Enlisted A Former Tory Minister To Help Them Reduce The Prison Population

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A former Tory cabinet minister has been enlisted by Labour to help reduce the size of the prison population.

David Gauke will head up a sentencing review after being drafted in by justice secretary Shabana Mahmood.

Gauke, who was justice secretary himself when Theresa May was prime minister, will report his findings next spring.

The sentencing review comes in the wake of the crisis which saw the government release thousands of prisoners early to free up space in England’s jails.

Gauke, who was one of 21 Tory MPs stripped of the party whip by Boris Johnson after rebelling over Brexit, said: “Clearly, our prisons are not working.

“The prison population is increasing by around 4,500 every year, and nearly 90% of those sentenced to custody are reoffenders.

“This review will explore what punishment and rehabilitation should look like in the 21st century, and how we can move our justice system out of crisis and towards a long-term, sustainable future.”

Gauke, who stood as an independent at the 2019 election but lost his seat to the Conservatives, has previously said that prison sentences of less than six months should be scrapped.

The review will look at “tough alternatives to custody” while also ensuring the worst offenders continue to be locked up, the Ministry of Justice said.

Mahmood said the review “will ensure we never again have more prisoners than prison spaces”.

She said: “I believe in punishment. I believe in prison, but I also believe that we must increase the range of punishments we use. And that those prisoners who earn the right to turn their lives around should be encouraged to do so.

“The sentencing review will make sure prison and punishment work – and that there is always a cell waiting for dangerous offenders.”

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People Are Just Realising What The Spiky Side Of The Grater Is For, And I Never Knew

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I don’t think I could go a week without using my grater. But by “using my grater,” I mean what most of us mean: using the one, coarse grating side that’s perfect for shredding Cheddar.

When I’m making a dressing or baking, the finer testing side does get some use. But the flat, wide, slicing side of my box grater has never been used ― and as for the spiky side, I won’t even touch it for fear of losing a knuckle.

If Reddit’s r/Cooking is anything to go by, it looks like I’m not alone.

Site user u/Hansekins recently posted to the forum asking “What is the fourth side of a box grater for?”

“The one that makes it impossible to hand wash the thing without drawing blood. The side that’s just covered with sharp pointy spikes that do… what, exactly?” they wanted to know.

What DOES it do?

The top comment on the post reads that it’s for “Grating parmesan, ginger, horseradish, garlic… Basically anything you want more of a paste or powder as opposed to shreds.”

But the commenter added that they “usually just end up using the small grater or a microplane for that stuff anyway.”

“You can also grate tomatoes for juice there if you don’t have a food processor,” another Redditor wrote, sharing that it can help to pulverise garlic too.

Others shared that it doubles as a nutmeg grater, which is true (though I’ve never escaped a nutmeg grating unscathed).

Many more people agreed with the hard cheese theory, to which I say, “fear not the Parmesan shard but instead the mangled hand.”

Chef Nathan Lyon confirmed on YouTube that it was historically meant for grating aged cheeses “into a fluffy powder-like substance; the kind that you’d get at the grocery store.”

Still, I’m with commenter jason_abacabb, who wrote: “I believe it exists just to rip my sponge to pieces.”

Turns out it has a name

The side is officially called a “star grater” (ironic, given that it’s usually the last cast member on the billing).

Its raspy texture, which food site The Kitchn describes as “Medieval,” can also be used for coconut, cinnamon, and chocolate.

It CAN. But if you ask us, we haven’t seen convincing enough evidence to prove it SHOULD….

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Cooper Koch Reveals His Initial Reaction To THAT Monsters Episode: ‘I Cried’

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Monsters: Menéndez Brothers star Cooper Koch has revealed what his reaction was when producer Ryan Murphy presented the idea for episode five of the Netflix-topping series to him.

The latest season of the TV super-producer’s true crime series Monsters centres around Erik and Lyle Menéndez, who are both serving life sentences for killing their parents in the late 1980s.

At the time, the siblings claimed they were acting in self-defence after years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse, while the prosecution argued that the Menéndez brothers’ motivations were financial.

Episode five – titled ‘The Hurt Man’ – features a 35-minute single shot of Erik (Cooper Koch) sharing the abuse he and his brother Lyle (portrayed by Nicholas Alexander Chavez) allegedly suffered at the hands of their father José and mother Kitty Menéndez prior to killing the couple.

“I cried,” Cooper told Deadline. “Ryan told me that I got the job, and then on the same day, he told me that I was gonna have that episode. And it was always planned to be that way, it was always one scene and one shot, and it didn’t really change. The script didn’t really change at all from the first time that I read it.”

He also shared that he and co-star Ari Graynor, who plays lawyer Leslie Abramson in the series only rehearsed the scene once prior to filming.

He said: “At the end everybody was very moved and everyone was crying, including myself and including Ari. (Director) Michael just looked to us and said,‘I don’t want to touch it. I just want to shoot it.’”

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Obama Says Trump ‘Ignored’ Pandemic Playbook He Gave To Him

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Former President Barack Obama said he gave ex-President Donald Trump a pandemic playbook when Trump took office — but he disregarded it.

“He ignored it,” Obama said during a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris in Las Vegas on Saturday. “And three years later, a pandemic hits.”

He said the Covid-19 pandemic was a “generational pandemic” and that any president would have had a hard time before noting how the United States’ death rate compared to countries like Canada that responded proactively to the global outbreak.

“But if you look at a country like Canada, their per capita death rate was 40% lower than it was here in the United States. So just do the math. That’s more than 400,000 people,” Obama said. “People’s grandmothers, people’s fathers, people’s moms who would have been alive if Donald Trump had just paid attention and tried to follow the plan that we gave him.”

He continued, saying it does matter and makes a difference to have a president who is “competent,” “cares about you” and “listens to people who are experts in these areas.”

“If you hear somebody say it doesn’t matter, it does matter,” Obama added. “And at some point, it will make a difference to them.”

In early 2020, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican, Kentucky) claimed that the Obama administration didn’t leave any pandemic playbook. Soon after that, Ronald Klain, the White House Ebola response coordinator from October 2014 to February 2015, posted the playbook on social media, while Nicole Lurie, an Obama administration official, confirmed its existence.

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Putin’s UK Ambassador Says 1 Aspect Of Ukraine War Is ‘Worrying’ Kremlin

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The Russian ambassador to the UK has claimed there was one aspect of the Ukraine war which is “worrying” the Kremlin.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Andrey Kelin slammed Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s supposed “victory plan,” which he has been presenting to Western allies, suggesting it was a concern.

The ambassador claimed: “What is worrying us is there is no peace in the peace plan presented by Zelenskyy. He did not want peace negotiations.

“He continues to ask for more and more Nato, European Union assistance, defence packages, anything. But nothing about negotiations at all.”

Ukraine has made it clear the war is not over until it reclaims all of its land from Russia, including Crimea, which was annexed in 2014.

But Moscow says it will only end the war when it can officially claim the Ukrainian land it currently occupies.

When Kuenssberg pointed out that Zelenskyy has said he will not negotiate with the Kremlin, Kelin smiled and said: “Fine, then he will lose more and more terrain.”

Russia currently occupies around 18% of Ukraine’s entire territory.

Ukraine did turn the tables and seize a comparably small Russian region called Kursk in August, but its troops are now slowly losing ground.

Kuenssberg also asked the ambassador about growing speculation that Russia is leaning on authoritarian states to prop up the war.

She said: “Are you comfortable, as an experienced diplomat of many decades, with having to rely on support from pariah states like North Korea and Iran?”

He said: “For you perhaps, it is pariah states – for us, it is normal people.”

The ambassador added that just because those countries have “different views” should not stop Russia having a relationship with them.

Kuenssberg then suggested: “Isn’t the truth here that you and Vladimir Putin are both sitting in grand luxury refusing to budge while thousands of civilians – Russians and Ukrainians – are suffering as a result of this conflict, which your government could bring to an end and yet you persist with it?”

He said the UK and its allies could end the war if they stopped aiding Ukraine, adding: “Stop the armament supplies, do it!”

As Kelin insisted that the war was not putting a strain on Russia, Kuenssberg then changed tactic, and asked: “Does the suffering in this war ever keep you awake at night?”

He said: “No one likes the war, and we stand for the quickest diplomatic and political settlement.”

When she asked her question again, he said: “Yes, well, sometimes I feel like and I anticipate the end of it, the quickest end of it. And I hope it will end sometime.”

Kelin also used the interview to claim the UK is waging a proxy war against Russia by supporting Ukraine, even though Putin ordered the invasion of the neighbouring European country back in 2022.

“You think we’re at war with your country?” Kuenssberg pushed.

He replied: “I think you are aggressive, that you are waging a proxy war against Russia.”

He also claimed Zelenskyy is “desperate” and “losing the conflict”.

“The end of this phase will mean the end of Ukraine,” he said, adding: “Defeat, over the course, is in view.”

As expected, Kelin’s comments were quite at odds with the most recent message coming from the UK government about the war.

On Friday, PM Keir Starmer told journalists that while the war in Ukraine “is incredibly tough, it is also true that Russia is getting weaker”.

He claimed: “This war is soaking up 40% of their budget … Last month, Russia suffered the highest daily casualty rate so far.”

Speaking at the British Embassy, Starmer said: “We’re absolutely united in our resolve, and we’ll back Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

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