Headlines: Birnbeck Pier, cannabis arrests, wheelchair 'attack'
What have been the big stories in the West this week?
Swindon Advertiser reported on a 14-year-old child with disabilities who was pulled from his wheelchair by a student and then kicked and punched in the head. His mother said she was "heartbroken" after the incident at Commonweal School. A spokesperson for the school said they were taking the incident "very seriously".A six-year-old boy from Burnham-on-Sea was said to be "cured" of epileptic seizures by pioneering neurosurgery, according to ITV West Country. Since having brain surgery at Bristol Children's Hospital six months ago, Finley hasn't had "a single seizure". A video of the moment three men were arrested for running a same-day cannabis delivery service was a top post for Bristol Live. The RNLI's decision to pull out of Birnbeck Pier restoration project has been a strong talking point this week, with significant negative reaction to the decision.Two rare Roman cavalry swords found near Chipping Camden - which led to the discovery of a settlement - was popular for Stroud News. According to Historic England the new evidence "will help us understand more about what happened around the period of the Roman conquest, which must have been a tumultuous time".
Top five local stories for the BBC in the West
Something longer to read
Bristol 24/7 has taken an in-depth look at the difficulties experienced by people affected by brain injury. Feature writer, Hannah Massoudi, talked to the Barton Hill based charity, Headway, which has been supporting survivors of brain injuries for more than 40 years. She spoke to Lindsay Forbes, whose partner Colin suffered a brain injury 19 years ago as a result of an unmotivated attack.Ms Forbes first approached Headway as she said there was "very little information about what to expect during the recovery process".She says "one of the biggest reasons that those living with brain injuries are misunderstood is because many of the effects of brain injury are invisible and often stigmatised".
Explore more with our daily roundups
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Scientists reveal foolproof formula for a lifetime of happiness - and it takes just five minutes to perform
It's often said that happiness is about finding joy in the little things in life - and now scientists appear to have found proof in that. Just five minutes a day performing 'micro-acts of joy' that foster positive emotions is enough to banish stress, boost health, and improve sleep quality, experts found. According to stress expert Dr Elissa Epel, listening to laughter, admiring a flower on a local walk or doing something nice for a friend can measurably improve people's emotional well-being and attitudes toward life. Epel, an expert on stress and ageing who oversaw the new research, said: 'We were quite taken aback by the size of the improvements to people's emotional well-being.' Epel's team at the University of California San Francisco studied almost 18,000 people, mainly from the U.S., UK, and Canada, for the web-based 'Big Joy Project' over a two-year period to 2024. It was the first study to look at whether small, easy-to-do acts that take minimal time could have measurable and lasting effects on people. Participants were asked to perform five-ten minute acts of joy for a week. Prof Epel said the thousands of people who took part in her project matched the positive results achieved by programs that required months of classes, for hours at a time. The study, published in the Journal Of Medical Internet Research, asked participants to perform seven acts over seven days, such as sharing a moment of celebration with someone else, doing something kind for another person, making a gratitude list or watching an awe-inspiring video about nature. Prof Epel said her team picked tasks that were focused on promoting feelings of hope and optimism, wonder and awe, or fun and silliness. Each task took under ten minutes, including answering short questions. Participants were quizzed about their emotional and physical health at the start and end of the week-long project, providing a measure of their emotional well-being, positive emotions, and 'happiness agency', along with their stress and sleep quality. The psychologists explained that emotional well-being includes how satisfied people are with their lives and whether they have purpose and meaning. Happiness agency is how much control they feel they have over their emotions. The team found improvements in all areas, and the benefits increased depending on how fully people participated in the program, meaning those who completed all seven days saw greater benefits than those who only managed two or three. While further research was needed, according to Epel, it's clear that a daily dose of joy could help people in trying times: 'All of this well-being stuff, it's not a luxury. 'We often say that we'll let ourselves be happy once we've reached some point or finished some task. Well, we want to flip that – we need the energy of joy to get through the hard parts. These are really necessary skills.'
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
I'm a longevity doctor. These are my daily habits to stay young
Dr Mohammed Enayat is a London-based GP and the Founder of HUM2N Longevity Clinic. Here, he walks us through how he structures his day, making simple tweaks to his diet and lifestyle, to ensure he lives a longer, healthier life. Wake up I'm up at 6am every day and the first thing I do is take myself out to the garden to do some breathing. I live with my parents in their house in north-east London at the moment, and they're lucky enough to have a lovely garden. I moved in with them 18 months ago just as I was opening my longevity clinic HUM2N. It made sense financially for me as I was setting up my business, but they're also in their mid-70s now and being there means I can spend more quality time with them. I'm getting married this summer and then I'll split my time between my parents' and my future wife's, who lives on the Kent coast. Once I'm outside, I'll do breathing exercises or pray for a few minutes, but just putting my bare feet on the ground helps me to wake up. Even when it's been raining! Then, I'll brush my teeth and hop in the shower. Only then do I switch my mind to work, looking at my phone and checking emails and messages. Breakfast: 0 calories I rarely eat breakfast because I've worked out I feel more energised when I do intermittent fasting. So I'll have my last meal of the day by 8.30pm, and then my first meal at lunch. It means I'm carbohydrate free for the whole morning, so biologically, I'm in a fasted state five days a week. When you haven't eaten for 10-12 hours, glycogen stores in the liver become depleted, and so your body begins breaking down protein and fat stores for energy. Before I leave for work, I'll take my morning supplements with some water. I'm always adjusting the amount and the ones I take depending on what my body needs. I take up to eight some days, but others I don't take any at all. I have annual blood tests taken at my own clinic that help me decide on which supplements to take. These tests aren't typically available on the NHS, but will look at an extensive list of 120 biomarkers that indicate what's going on in our bodies – from our immune system to our hormones and digestive health – and identify areas of health that need attention. I'm 41 now, and I do think your 40s can be a slippery slope in terms of health, which is why the annual blood test is worth doing. People don't become sick overnight. There are silent things that can accumulate in the body and if you can catch these as early as possible, you can do something about it. This turns medicine on its head a bit, because we're not looking to treat an individual symptom or organ, we're looking to treat a whole human. As a doctor, I find I can improve people's health much better when I'm looking at all of their systems together, rather than in bits and pieces. Annual blood tests inform my morning supplements The last time I had my blood tests taken, I discovered elevated levels of the protein zonulin in my blood, indicating I have a leaky gut at the moment. That's where the lining of the small intestine becomes damaged, allowing bacteria, toxins, and undigested food particles to leak into the bloodstream. So now I'm on a supplement plan that contains L-glutamine, digestive enzymes, and probiotics. I've also removed dairy from my diet for now as it was flagged as one of the leaky gut drivers for me. I've noticed that my bloating has gone down and the dry skin I was also experiencing has gone away. The blood test also showed that I have adrenal fatigue too, and that my stress responding hormones aren't working as well as they should be. Symptoms that people can look out for are feeling 'wired but tired', getting colds and flus more often, and feeling generally run down. As well as taking supplements to help with this, I'm being more mindful of my workload, and making sure I'm bringing down my cortisol levels in the evening with a few minutes of meditation or deep breathing. I'm also taking peptides to support tissue repair and recovery as I'm doing a lot of strength training ahead of my wedding. One of these peptides is called BPC 157, and the other is called Ipamorelin. My commute I commute on the Central Line from my parent's home to my clinic in South Kensington and it takes about an hour. I'll listen to podcasts on the way. At the moment I've been listening to Robin Sharma, humanitarian, author of The Wealth Money Can't Buy, which I enjoyed a lot. I'll also plan for the day ahead by taking notes or journaling. I have my first coffee at around 9am, before starting my day at work. Every day is different, and I have some days where I'm seeing back-to-back clinical patients, and then some that are full of management meetings with my team. I try to take some of those meetings as walking meetings so that I can get my steps up, and get some more daylight and fresh air. I love my patient time because I love working with people. I do a day a week as a GP with the NHS, so most weeks I'm working six days. Within the week, I also spend about 20 per cent of time educating my team and leading in-house learning with different specialists and building out our team of experts. It's full on, but I feel like I have important work to do that will hopefully help people. How I make time to exercise At lunchtime, I take an hour and a half break and go for strength and conditioning training at a nearby gym which, at the moment, is focused on my core and posterior strength development. I'd started to get some back pain from being quite sedentary. It's not too bad yet, but I wanted to prevent it from becoming a bigger issue. I'm getting married in August, which is really motivating me to get fitter and healthier, because that can slip when you're busy. I've got my sights set on a really nicely-fitted suit. I also do boxing once or twice a week, and that's my cardio. My training regime does tend to vary. I love to be outside when I can, so in the warmer months I'll do my boxing and circuits outdoors. On the days that I'm not commuting, I try to go for a run outside or do some skipping. You should always make time to move your body, it's one of the most important things you can do for your mental and physical health. Snack: 185 calories If I feel like I need something to keep me going until lunchtime, I'll have a smoothie with blueberries, a scoop of almond butter, 22g of collagen protein, greens powder, oat milk and water. Lunch: 800 calories Once my training is done, I have my first meal of the day. Usually that's something with good, clean protein – like a salmon fillet or tuna steak – with lots of vegetables. Because I'm doing strength training at the moment I want to make sure my protein levels are extra high, so I'll have that along with a protein shake. I change the protein source in the shake, and go through periods of using a pea-based protein or a beef collagen protein, sometimes a whey protein. I'm using a collagen peptide protein at the moment. I'll have lunch in the eating area at my clinic and chat to whoever's around. I'll take 25 minutes there without my phone before heading back to work. Then I work through until around 7pm and try to miss rush hour if I can. On the way home I'll be journaling again, emptying my thoughts before I get home. I use this time to reflect on work, relationships, home, finances, and check-in on what's coming up. Dinner: 1000 calories Once I'm home I have my final meal of the day. I do two or three days a week vegetarian, and only eat red meat once a week. Otherwise, I have a good portion of chicken or fish with a nice two-thirds of my plate as vegetables, depending on what's seasonal. I vary these throughout the week to make sure I'm getting a good mix of fibre and micronutrients. I'll have broccoli, potatoes, squash, turnips, cabbage, peas, courgettes, asparagus. I really enjoy cooking. I'll do meal prep for the week ahead on Sundays, and cook dinner at least twice a week for my family. One of my favourites at the moment is a nice oven-roasted chicken with ras el hanout, an Algerian spice mix. It's got turmeric in it, which is a great anti-inflammatory. I love extra virgin olive oil too, so I usually drizzle that over my dinner, with a bit of Himalayan salt. The oil is rich in heart-healthy monounsaturated fats and antioxidants, and the salt is less processed than standard table salt. I'm from the Indian subcontinent – and if mum's cooked, it's usually a nice curry. I'm not a big rice eater, but if I do have rice it'll be wild rice, because it's better for the digestive tract. My parents taught me the importance of working hard. If your relationship with work is unhealthy, that can be ageing. But if you develop a healthy relationship with your work, and find purpose and mission in it, it can improve longevity. My mum and dad showed me that work can give you your get up and go. I also inherited meditation and prayer from my parents, which is a big part of their approach to longevity and managing life's stresses. They've passed me so much wisdom throughout my life, so it's great to have an opportunity to share some of my own wisdom with them and support them as they get older. Tea: 20 calories Caffeine doesn't affect me too much so I have a cup of tea with unsweetened oat milk in the evening before bed. I aim to be in bed around 10.30pm, and keep my bedroom slightly cooler by leaving my windows open. I've always been a decent sleeper but I do still track my sleep, aiming to get two hours of deep sleep a night. I won't watch TV before bed, and I keep my room a phone-free zone. I strongly believe deep sleep supports regeneration and healing and helps to balance your immune system. A lot of other good stuff happens during deep sleep, like cell and tissue repair, memory consolidation, and hormone regulation. Self-care for a doctor can be hard Living in a city like London where everyone is go, go, go all the time, you absorb people's energy and momentum. It's easy to get caught up in that to the detriment of your own health, and your goals. Getting out of that environment from time to time is super important, so I head to the coast when I can. To help regulate my nervous system in the city, learning to tolerate cold exposure has been really helpful. I have cold showers a few times a week, and three times a week at home I use a large bowl of cold water with some ice cubes in. It needs to be deep enough for me to submerge my head in, and I keep it in for about 10-20 seconds. I find this to be a really good challenge that helps to teach me to control my stress response as I come out of the cold water.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Douglas Chamberlain obituary
If you had a cardiac arrest before the 1970s, an ambulance might arrive quickly, but almost all its crew could do was transport you to hospital, where your treatment would begin – if indeed you survived the journey. The cardiologist Douglas Chamberlain, who has died aged 94, realised that in order to start resuscitation in the vital five-minute window after the heart stopped beating, the ambulance crew needed the tools and skills to do it themselves. Chamberlain's initiative laid the foundations for the paramedic profession nationally and internationally. Working from a district general hospital in Brighton, he set up an intensive training programme for ambulance crews, equipped ambulances with defibrillators and electrocardiogram (ECG) machines, and demonstrated through a series of rigorously documented studies that the service saved lives. The only other city in the world where non-medical professionals were using defibrillators at the time was Seattle in the US. Not content with training health professionals, he taught cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to more than 100,000 volunteers from his community in East Sussex, and deployed them to carry out tests of the automatic defibrillators that became available from the 1980s. He was the principal consultant to the Department of Health when it rolled out its first experimental programme of defibrillators in public places between 2000 and 2002. It showed that members of the public could respond as fast as healthcare professionals, and that they saved many lives. In 1971, soon after taking up his first consultant post as the sole cardiologist at the Royal Sussex County hospital, Brighton, Chamberlain had the experience of losing a patient even though the ambulance had arrived in good time. In the face of scepticism from his medical colleagues, he decided to take responsibility for resuscitation away from doctors and give it to the people who would reach a patient first – the ambulance crews. He trained them to intubate patients and give intravenous injections as well as take ECGs and administer shocks from a defibrillator. In his hospital he created the role of resuscitation training officer, who ensured that nurses and other hospital staff were equally able to respond to a cardiac emergency. Every hospital now has at least one. From 1973, ambulance services in the UK were transferred from local authorities to the NHS, and Chamberlain was instrumental in ensuring that what were first known as 'extended trained ambulance staff' were high on the agenda. In 1984 the University of York published a report, commissioned by the Department of Health, showing that there was a compelling case for a national paramedic service, with standard training packages delivered by regional ambulance training schools. Piloted in various regions, the service was gradually rolled out across the country. Paramedics were officially recognised as allied health professionals in 1999. Chamberlain went on to develop the further training of paramedics as practitioners in emergency care, who would carry out tasks such as taking histories and prescribing that were previously in the hands of doctors only. He combined a powerful drive to get things done with an ability to build coalitions to take his ideas forward. In the 1970s he found that training in resuscitation in the community was a piecemeal affair, with organisations such as the Red Cross, St John's Ambulance and the British Heart Foundation setting their own standards. Over a drink, he brought together colleagues from other specialties, including anaesthetics and emergency medicine, to found the Community Resuscitation Council, later Resuscitation Council UK. The council ran conferences and published guidelines that achieved consensus across the specialities on how to approach patients who had collapsed. He went on to do the same for Europe, recruiting like-minded colleagues to set up the European Resuscitation Council. His anaesthetist colleague and friend the late Peter Baskett credited him with 'masterly persuasion and diplomacy' in finally bringing the world together through the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (Ilcor). Born in Cardiff, Douglas was the eldest of three children of Roland Chamberlain, a coal merchant, and his wife May (nee Meredith), who looked after the home. He had two sisters, Liz and Polly. Douglas's profound dyslexia (then unrecognised) caused him to fail at school until the sympathetic guidance of a teacher at Ratcliffe college in Leicester, where his parents had sent him as a boarder, enabled him to win a place to study medicine at the University of Cambridge. He went on to qualify in medicine at St Bartholomew's hospital in London in 1956. There he met a fellow student, Jennifer Ellison, and they married in 1958. After some short-term training posts, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1959 to do his national service and was posted to Germany, his service ending in December 1960 with the rank of acting major. He and Jennifer had four children in four years, the family settling initially in Highgate, north London. Between 1962 and 1970 he returned to Barts and began a programme of research on heart rate and rhythm, investigating pacemakers and drugs. During this time he spent a year as a research assistant at the Massachusetts General hospital in Boston, a formative period in developing his interest in innovative treatments. Chamberlain was among the first to test the effects of beta blockers on heart rate in both healthy volunteers and cardiac patients, and to conduct trials of the drug amiodarone in patients with heart arrhythmias. Both classes of drug are now in regular use in heart patients. In 1970 Chamberlain took up his consultancy in cardiology at the Royal Sussex, where he continued in an honorary post after his retirement in 2000, and remained honorary medical adviser to the South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS foundation trust. In 1996 he also accepted an honorary professorship of resuscitation medicine at the University of Cardiff, where he led a research team, continuing to publish prolifically and tour the world to give lectures. The book Cardiac Arrest: The Science and Practice of Resuscitation Medicine, a massive tome that he co-edited with four colleagues, won the 2008 British Medical Association prize in cardiology. Chamberlain received many other awards, being appointed CBE in 1988. His work ethic was legendary. Equally committed to patient care, research and teaching, he regularly worked till past midnight. His 'good citizen' roles included chairing the governors of his local primary school as well as numerous professional committees. Yet he always had time to offer wise advice to anyone who asked him for help. He is survived by Jennifer, his four children, Mary, Frances, Peter and David, nine grandchildren and his sisters. Douglas Anthony Chamberlain, cardiologist, born 4 April 1931; died 22 May 2025
