Articles

Britons spend millions on dubious acne treatments every year. By Pat Thomas. The social stigma attached to pimples has meant that for years manufacturers have had a ready-made market of anxious and not very savvy young consumers willing to shell out vast sums of cash on products that promise to get rid of them. In […]

Aspartame should never have reached the marketplace. But even if the authorities were to remove it from sale tomorrow, how much faith should consumers place in the other artificial sweeteners on the market? There is not a single artificial sweetener on the market that can claim, beyond all reasonable doubt, to be safe for humans […]

Aspartame is the most controversial food additive in history. The most recent evidence, linking it to leukaemia and lymphoma, has added substantial fuel to the ongoing protests of doctors, scientists and consumer groups who allege that this artificial sweetener should never have been released onto the market and that allowing it to remain in the […]

Panicked into avoiding sunlight by the experts, we are now at unprecedented risk of diseases linked to deficiencies of vitamin D, including cancers, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, depression and high blood pressure. The time has come to let the sunshine in, says Pat Thomas Slip. Slap. Slop. We all know the drill. Avoid the dangers of […]

Don’t give germs a helping hand by Pat Thomas Nobody washes their hands anymore – the escalation of MRSA in hospitals is just one testimony to that fact. Instead, when we are feeling a little grimy, in a car or on a plane, during a summer picnic or at the office, we reach for a […]

The huge popularity of antibacterial household cleaners is encouraging superbugs, allergies, immune-system failure and dangerous environmental pollution. It’s time to stop cleaning ourselves to death. Superbugs don’t just appear out of nowhere. They aren’t invaders from Mars or the result of some mysterious process that science can’t fathom. They’re the consequence of human behaviour, and […]

Why pay £60 for an almost barefoot experience, when you can kick off your shoes and get it for free? The human foot was described by Leonardo da Vinci as ‘a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art’. Containing 26 bones and 33 different joints, feet are a miracle of biomechanical engineering. Today, because […]

Are we being naïve about nivea? By Pat Thomas It’s a name we all grew up with. In some form or another Nivea – the world’s first water-in-oil cream – has been the most popular and trusted hand and body lotion since it first emerged in 1911. In recent years the range has expanded to […]

The US Food and Drug Administration has issued a hefty warning to the cosmetics industry – clean up your act or else. The question is: will the agency follow through? If the FDA follows through, it would mean that more than 99 per cent of personal care products on the US market could be forced […]

Skin has a life of its own that most of us know nothing about. Getting in touch with its natural rhythms, rather than bullying it with creams and potions, is the most reliable path to a better complexion. Flip through any woman’s magazine or browse in any chemist and you will be confronted with a […]