It’s on the cards

Some patients can access cannabis legally on the NHS after medicinal use was made legal in the UK in 2018 for patients with severe epilepsy and multiple sclerosis, as well as adults suffering vomiting or nausea due to chemotherapy.

Only specialist hospital doctors can prescribe it and even then, solely as a last resort.

CONTRARY to popular belief, frozen fruit is as good for you as newlybought fresh produce.

Professor Gunter Kuhnle, a nutrition expert from the University of Reading, explained that levels of vitamin C in fruit, which is essential for maintaining healthy skin and bones, fall by 50 per cent in just a couple of days.

The interval between picking and consuming fruit is usually even longer, he pointed out, while natural enzymes found in fruit can also cause nutrient levels to drop, resulting in loss of colour and flavour.

Freezing, in contrast, can preserve nutrients almost immediately, Professor Kughnle said.

First, the fruit is blanched by briefly exposing it to boiling water or steam, which inactivates these enzymes, preventing nutrient loss.

Younger women following the same diet lost 8 per cent, while males aged under 45 lost more than the females.

The difference between sexes disappeared after 45, prompting the Edinburgh team to conclude that men found it harder to lose belly fat with age, hence their “beer bellies.”

Women, whose oestrogen levels steadily decline, probably lost more fat because they no longer needed to support a possible pregnancy, the research suggested.

Wrong message

A TOP nutritionist criticised the NHS’s “soup and shake” diet hailed by experts for reversing Type 2 diabetes.

Professor Tim Spector told the UK media that the extreme 800 calories per day diet would assist “'a very small number of highly­motivated individuals” in reversing their diabetes.

It sent the wrong message to tell people desperately trying to lose weight that they could do so with ultra­processed substitutes, Professor Spector said.