Ultra-processed food increases risk of early death, international study finds

Consuming large amounts of ultra-processed food (UPF) increases the risk of an early death, according to a international study that has reignited calls for a crackdown on UPF.Each 10% extra intake of UPF, such as bread, cakes and ready meals, increases someone’s risk of dying before they reach 75 by 3%, according to research in countries including the US and England.UPF is so damaging to health that it is implicated in as many as one in seven of all premature deaths that occur in some countries, according to a paper in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.They are associated with 124,107 early deaths in the US a year and 17,781 deaths every year in England, the review of dietary and mortality data from eight countries found.Eduardo Augusto Fernandes Nilson, the lead investigator of the study, from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Brazil, said that additives such as sweeteners and flavourings harm health not just UPFs’ high levels of fat, salt and sugar

Being shouted at by parents can alter child’s brain, experts tell UK MPs

Being shouted at by their parents reshapes children’s brains and makes them more likely to have mental ill-health and struggle to maintain friendships, MPs will hear on Monday.Verbal abuse by adults can leave children unable to enjoy pleasure and seeing the world as threatening, experts in child development and mental health will tell a meeting at Westminster.“As children we believe what we are told, deeply folding the words of adults into our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. When those words are hostile, demeaning or humiliating, they can have lifelong consequences,” said Prof Eamon McCrory, a clinical psychologist, chief executive of the mental health charity Anna Freud and a professor of developmental neuroscience and psychopathology at University College London (UCL).“They can profoundly shape our sense of self and whether we feel lovable and confident in navigating an unpredictable world

Stun guns won’t bring an end to violence in prisons | Letters

The decision to pilot the use of stun guns in prisons was inevitable, but terrible (I hate the idea of British prison officers carrying stun guns – but it may be our only option, 22 April). How to reduce violence in our jails? The response always seems to be some new piece of kit – be it Pava spray, which it appears has been authorised for use on children, and now stun guns.This doesn’t deal with the root causes of a service in perpetual crisis after a decade or more of austerity and a failed 30-year political race of longer sentences and locking more people up as the answer to reducing crime. If we hold people in squalid conditions, it’s hardly surprising more violence erupts. Prisoner assaults are at an all-time high, but so are deaths in prison custody, self-harm and overcrowding

How my father, Roger Altounyan, helped asthma sufferers | Letter

My father, Dr Roger Altounyan, discovered Intal (sodium cromoglicate) in the 1960s, at a time when many of his medical colleagues wrote off asthma sufferers as hypochondriacs (Letters, 18 April). He was an asthmatic and a doctor, and was determined to prove them wrong. He conducted experiments on himself and in a secret Cheshire laboratory over 10 years, testing about 500 compounds before finally declaring eureka.Then he researched how best to dispense his drug into the lungs of patients. Thanks to his time spent behind a propeller as a wartime fighter pilot, he hit on the idea of the Spinhaler

Private landlords and hotels ‘cashing in’ on England’s hidden homelessness crisis

Private landlords and hotel owners are charging councils far in excess of market rent to house people who would otherwise end up on the street, an investigation has found, laying bare the depth of England’s hidden homelessness crisis.Local authorities in England are paying 60% more for rooms in places such as bed and breakfasts and hostels than it would cost to rent similar-sized accommodation on the private market, with half of them spending double the local going rate.More than 100,000 households are living in temporary accommodation in England, and the UK now has the worst homelessness problem in the developed world when they are taken into account.Experts have warned the country has created a £2bn industry of underregulated providers of stopgap housing, some of which are supplying dirty, rat-infested and dangerous accommodation, according to those who live there.“Temporary accommodation is the shame of our society – families are stuck for months, even years, in often overcrowded, appalling conditions, and shunted from place to place with little to no notice,” said Mairi MacRae, the director of campaigns and policy at Shelter

‘It feels very much like a prison’: inside a cramped Birmingham homeless hostel

Three-year-old Ezaan has been homeless his entire life. Instead of making memories in a childhood home, he has spent his formative years stuck in hotels and a cramped student dorm.His mother, Sumaira Fareed, was made homeless more than three years ago. She was asked to leave her single persons hostel – where children were not allowed to live – after giving birth. She tended to her newborn for a month in hospital as the pair had nowhere else to go