Dr David Cox

From running up stairs, to rigorous gardening: these everyday activities could boost your health and help you live longer.
Everyone knows that the key to a healthy long life is to exercise and eat well. But what if you simply don't have the time to slog it out at the gym, or chalk up 10,000 steps a day? The good news is that doing everyday activities with more rigour and energy can achieve huge benefits.

Certain men face a far greater risk of prostate cancer – yet many will still not be routinely offered testing under new screening plans

From boosting the brain to reducing pain, joining others in song can bring some wide-ranging benefits.
It's that time of year when the air starts to tinkle with angelic voices – or ring with the occasional lusty hymn – as carol singers spread their own indomitable brand of festive joy. All that harking and heralding. It's joyful and triumphant.
But these bands of tinsel-draped singers may be on to something. Whether they realise it or not as they fill shopping centres, train stations, nursing...

In early 2023, Liana Shatova began taking low doses of an antidepressant to ease symptoms of a premenstrual disorder marked by mood swings, anxiety and depression. At first, the difference was remarkable for her.
“I felt full of energy and could juggle multiple things at once,” said Shatova, 40, a business development manager from the Greater Boston area.
Then, after around 18 months on the medication, she started to fear she was becoming emotionally numb.
“My best friend’s mom died unexpecte...

The winter is the most challenging season for our lungs, a time when they are bombarded with infections.
Ireland had a covid surge in September and October with more than 500 cases per week, says the Health Protection Surveillance Centre. And seasonal flu is on the rise, with 200 weekly infections and 53 hospitalisations.
People with persistent lung conditions, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), are particularly vulnerable to such infections, as their respiratory...

From a brisk 15-minute walk, to getting regular sleep – doing these things in your 30s could help you stay fit well into your 70s.

By the time you reach your eighth decade of life, the chances are that you'll probably be feeling weaker, stiffer, and perhaps a little less cognitively sharp than in your younger years. Your sleep patterns might have changed so that you feel drowsier in the evenings and then wake earlier. Most concerningly, going by population averages, it's likely that you wil...

If you’ve had a heart attack and lived to tell the tale, you’re probably somewhat traumatised, and understandably so. But you’re also not alone.
In September, a study from the American Heart Association (AHA) laid bare the psychological consequences of going through cardiac arrest, revealing that up to 50 per cent of heart attack survivors experience subsequent mental health problems ranging from post-traumatic stress disorder to depression.