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News18
19 hours ago
- Health
- News18
A to K of vitamins: what you need, where to get it
Agency: PTI Last Updated: Bristol (UK), Jul 23 (The Conversation) The late, great comedian Barry Humphries (of Dame Edna fame) once spoke whimsically about the health benefits of kale. Just one fistful, he joked, contained enough essential vitamins, minerals and trace elements to keep you in a sedentary position in the bathroom for two whole days. Apparently, it wasn't tasty enough to justify a second helping. In a world where 'superfoods" are relentlessly marketed for their supposed ability to deliver all the nutrients we need, it's worth asking: which vitamins really are essential? And aside from kale (which I actually rather like), what foods help us meet our daily needs? Vitamin A Let's start at the top. Vitamin A – also known as retinol – is found in foods like eggs, oily fish and dairy products. It plays a crucial role in keeping your skin and immune system healthy. But it's probably most famous for supporting vision. Vitamin A binds with light-sensitive pigments in the rod and cone cells of your retina, helping you to see, particularly in low light. A deficiency in vitamin A, though uncommon in wealthy countries, can lead to serious vision problems and even blindness. Another source of vitamin A is beta-carotene, found in colourful fruits and vegetables like carrots, peppers, spinach and pumpkin. Your body converts beta-carotene into vitamin A, which is why we associate carrots with seeing in the dark. Vitamin B The B vitamins are a family of eight different nutrients, each with its own number and role. B1 (thiamin) helps the nervous system and aids digestion. People with chronic alcoholism are especially at risk of deficiency, which can lead to Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, a serious neurological disorder that affects memory and movement. B2 (riboflavin) and B3 (niacin) support similar functions, while B9 (folate) and B12 (cobalamin) are essential for red blood cell production. A lack of either can lead to anaemia. Folate is especially important in early pregnancy, helping to prevent neural tube defects like spina bifida. That's why it's recommended for people who are pregnant or trying to conceive. You'll find B vitamins in everything from beans and legumes to meat, fish and dairy; a wide-ranging family of nutrients in a wide-ranging variety of foods. Vitamin C The go-to vitamin when we're under the weather, whether from a virus or a hangover, vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is known as the 'healing" vitamin for good reason. It promotes wound healing, supports tissue repair and helps maintain blood vessels and bones. A deficiency in vitamin C causes scurvy – a condition once common among sailors – with symptoms like fatigue, bruising, depression and gum disease. Fortunately, vitamin C is found in many different fruits and vegetables, especially citrus fruits. That's why 19th-century British sailors were given limes to prevent scurvy, earning them the nickname 'limeys". Vitamin D Vitamin D is essential for bones, teeth and muscles. It can be absorbed through diet, especially from oily fish, eggs and meat, but your body also makes it in the skin, thanks to sunlight. In the summer, most people get enough vitamin D from being outside. But in the winter months, diet and, if needed, supplementation become more important. Deficiency is more common, especially in areas with limited sun exposure. It can lead to soft, weakened bones and symptoms like bone pain, fractures and deformities – including the classic bow-legged appearance. In children, this condition is known as rickets; in adults, it's called osteomalacia. Vitamin E Often overlooked, vitamin E helps protect cells, supports vision and bolsters the immune system. You'll find it in nuts, seeds and plant oils and it's usually easy to get enough through a varied diet. Vitamin F (Sort of) Not actually a vitamin, 'vitamin F" is just a nickname for two omega fatty acids: alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) and linoleic acid (LA). These essential fats support brain function, reduce inflammation, and help maintain healthy skin and cell membranes. Since they're technically not vitamins, we'll let them quietly bow out. Vitamin K No, you didn't miss vitamins G through J: they were renamed over the years. But vitamin K is real, and crucial for blood clotting. Deficiencies are more common in children, and can lead to bruising and bleeding that's hard to stop. Supplements are effective and given after birth. Most adults get enough through foods like leafy greens and grains. top videos View all And the winner is… All these vitamins are important – and all are found in a wide range of everyday foods. But which single food provides the widest variety? Kale, oily fish and eggs come in strong at second, third and fourth. But number one is: liver. Yes, liver. The stuff of childhood dread and overcooked school dinners. But it's also rich in vitamins A, B, D and K. So rich in Vitamin A, in fact, that it's advised to eat it only once a week to avoid vitamin A toxicity, and not at all if you're pregnant. Sometimes, you just can't win. (The Conversation) NSA NSA (This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed - PTI) First Published: Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
The Age
03-06-2025
- Business
- The Age
‘Everyone wants a piece of Barry': Humphries' art hits auction highs
Two years after his death, the creator of Dame Edna and Sir Les Patterson can still pull a crowd and steal a show. Some 98 objects, mostly packed up from Barry Humphries' Sydney home, went under the hammer on Monday night in an Australian auction of his personal art which exceeded auction house Leonard Joel's most optimistic sale expectations. All up the Australian sale netted $477,112 including buyers' premium. 'He'd be saying, 'I told you I was good!', and he'd be planning an exhibition,' said son Oscar, from London as he watched the auction live. With his share of the proceeds, Oscar Humphries said he would frame works he held by his father and raised the idea of funding a comedy prize in Melbourne 'for people who are actually funny'. In 2019, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival stripped Barry Humphries's name from the festival's biggest award, following furore over the performer's comments about transgender people. 'If someone wants to match me we could talk,' said Oscar. 'We could recreate the Barry awards. I'm good for $50,000, but I have got to find a partner.' The opening lot at the auction was a framed watercolour and pen likeness by Humphries of his comic creation Dame Edna. It signalled the excitable buyer interest that was to come for works by the comic, selling for $17,000 under the hammer or $21,250 with buyers' premium. It had a top estimate before auction of $3000. Caricatures penned by Humphries while on the road in Australia, the US, Greece and elsewhere fetched several thousand dollars a piece.
Sydney Morning Herald
03-06-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘Everyone wants a piece of Barry': Humphries' art hits auction highs
Two years after his death, the creator of Dame Edna and Sir Les Patterson can still pull a crowd and steal a show. Some 98 objects, mostly packed up from Barry Humphries' Sydney home, went under the hammer on Monday night in an Australian auction of his personal art which exceeded auction house Leonard Joel's most optimistic sale expectations. All up the Australian sale netted $477,112 including buyers' premium. 'He'd be saying, 'I told you I was good!', and he'd be planning an exhibition,' said son Oscar, from London as he watched the auction live. With his share of the proceeds, Oscar Humphries said he would frame works he held by his father and raised the idea of funding a comedy prize in Melbourne 'for people who are actually funny'. In 2019, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival stripped Barry Humphries's name from the festival's biggest award, following furore over the performer's comments about transgender people. 'If someone wants to match me we could talk,' said Oscar. 'We could recreate the Barry awards. I'm good for $50,000, but I have got to find a partner.' The opening lot at the auction was a framed watercolour and pen likeness by Humphries of his comic creation Dame Edna. It signalled the excitable buyer interest that was to come for works by the comic, selling for $17,000 under the hammer or $21,250 with buyers' premium. It had a top estimate before auction of $3000. Caricatures penned by Humphries while on the road in Australia, the US, Greece and elsewhere fetched several thousand dollars a piece.
Telegraph
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
This might be the funniest TV show you'll ever see – and it's not Fawlty Towers
Last One Laughing, a series recently released on Amazon Prime, might be the funniest thing I've ever seen. The schtick, if you haven't seen it or its endless clips on Instagram, is simply this: ten comedians are stuck in a room for six hours, trying not to laugh. That's it. I mean, it can't be the funniest thing I've ever seen. I've seen Fawlty Towers. I've seen Some Like It Hot, Airplane! and Groundhog Day. I've seen Eddie Izzard doing live stand-up comedy in the 1990s, I've seen Dame Edna host a chat show. An anonymous media source of my acquaintance, often quoted in this column, is the funniest person I've ever met and he's not in this series – so how could it be? It's not painstakingly crafted; it's a studio show which covers a single day and is broken into six half-hour bits. And it's broadly improvised! How could any of that result in the funniest thing I've ever seen? And yet its bang-for-buck, laugh-per-minute rate seems unbetterable; I have laughed without cessation through every episode. And that's speaking as someone ageing, tired and sleep-deprived, juggling children and pets and National Insurance (which I really wasn't when I saw Eddie Izzard doing live stand-up comedy in the 1990s) with a global backdrop that is bleak and riddled with horror, and I'm still laughing without cessation through every episode. So it certainly feels like the funniest thing I've ever seen. I should make it clear: the comics assembled for the series aren't trying not to laugh as a collective. That would be too easy. They are in competition. If anyone chuckles, they're knocked out. So the job of the contestants is simultaneously to make each other laugh while remaining totally impassive themselves. It's a very, very funny idea for a programme. Even if the comedy bits weren't funny in themselves, the importance of their onlookers not laughing would immediately render them so. It brings a wave of the ghastly hilarity we feel when someone whispers a joke during a funeral, or passes you a secret cartoon of the maths teacher. It takes me back to my days at the Edinburgh Fringe (often in the company of some of the people who make this programme), when tickets for everything were about £3 so you could see ten shows a day, finding ourselves reasonably diverted by the comedy acts but only made helpless with painful, unconquerable merriment by amateur opera, or fiery political tub-thumping, or inexpert contemporary dance. The only thing in the world that's funnier than trying not to laugh, or watching someone else trying not to laugh, is someone who's genuinely unamused for reasons of disapproval. 'This is no laughing matter' is one of the funniest sentences in the English language. And that's why the cultural era we're living through, while no doubt the most puritanical and purse-lipped it's been for over a century, is also, in many ways, the funniest. With that in mind, the show is tremendously well cast. It's hosted by Jimmy Carr, the court jester of our age, who has survived attempted cancellation so often that his whole self is a counter-argument to 'This is no laughing matter'. He just stands and stands and stands for the principle that everything is. The contestants are perfect for the game in hand, including some (Daisy May Cooper, Richard Ayoade) whom you'd particularly credit with the ability to keep a straight face, and some (Bob Mortimer, Joe Wilkinson, Judi Love) who are so deeply, naturally hilarious that it's hard not to start giggling before they even speak. This makes for a magnificent tension as the competition gets underway. We see Bob Mortimer putting on a magic show, alive with patter and veils. Lou Sanders performs a piece of expressive mime with someone who may or may not be her mother. Rob Beckett explains the role of a proctologist ('Have you ever had a check up the bum?', he asks; 'A Czechoslovakian?' replies Bob Mortimer, puzzled). Each comedian in turn is obliged to sing Lovin' You by Minnie Riperton, with its high rippling falsetto – and all of it through the prism of fellow contestants twitching and fidgeting as they desperately try not to smile. And then, somehow, the funniest thing of all is Joe Wilkinson delivering an impromptu factual lecture on the 200th anniversary of the RNLI. We all know what it's like to try and quell a laugh that comes when it shouldn't. In a customs queue, just as you've been asked whether you packed your bag yourself. During a work meeting, as you're being told that everyone's being made redundant. In a school assembly, while a guest speaker describes the challenges of their disability. I don't think that comes from the bad part of us; quite the reverse, I think it's a physical reaction to an overdose of empathy. It requires full understanding of the gravity of the scenario; a sociopath wouldn't be tickled at all. It is the very confrontation with humanity that is, sometimes, our undoing. But this wonderful series has found a way to bottle that hilarious resource, the laugh-that-must-be-stifled, without having to lean on cruelty or bigotry or anything off-colour at all. It's not about 'saying the unsayable' or 'jokes you can't make any more'; in fact it demonstrates how the most powerful weapon in the comic armoury is simple silliness. Without spoilers, that is what must and does triumph in the end.
Sky News
14-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Sky News
Dame Edna's glasses sell for 25 times their expected value as auction smashes estimates
A pair of Dame Edna Everage's glasses have sold at auction for £37,800, 25 times their estimated value. The glasses were expected to sell for between £1,000-£1,500, according to Christie's auction house, who facilitated the sale. They were being sold as part of the personal collection of Barry Humphries. Dame Edna was one of Humphries' best-known characters and became a hit in the UK in the 1970s. The Australian star, who was known for his satirical characters including Dame Edna and the offensive Sir Les Patterson, died in April 2023 at the age of 89, following complications suffered during hip surgery. The yellow-lacquered possum spectacles were one of a number of items sold during the auction, which was opened to bidders with Dame Edna's much-loved phrase "Hello Possums". Christie's described the sale as evidence of "Edna's enduring appeal". A first edition of Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest, signed by Wilde to his publisher, sold for £138,600, and a Charles Conder painting sold for almost £240,000. Meanwhile, two dresses worn by Dame Edna sold for £21,420 each, eight times their pre-sale high estimates. A number of other pieces of art, books and highlights of Humphries' collection were also sold during the auction which saw bidders from 41 countries and lasted nine hours. The total sale value reached £4,627,224, exceeding the pre-sale estimate. "These fantastic results are a testament to Barry's unique vision and lifelong passion for collecting," Benedict Winter, head of sale, private & iconic collections at Christie's London said.
