Mollycoddling children who are allowed to become picky eaters could make them more prone to allergies later in life scientists have warned.

Mothers have traditionally been told to “mollycoddle” their youngsters by avoiding high risk foods during pregnancy and while breastfeeding to protect them from potentially dangerous reactions.

But now there is a growing belief that the best way to avoid allergic reactions is to meet the problem head on and expose children to foods like peanuts in infancy.

Three large studies are under way at King’s College London, Cambridge University and Duke University in North Carolina to determine once and for all the best way of protecting against harmful reactions to food.

Prof Gideon Lack, of King’s College, said that until recently the nanny state had told mothers to breastfeed for up to six months before introducing their babies to other food, and keep them away from possible allergens until the age of two or three.

The idea, he said, was to “wrap the infant up in a sort of immunological cocoon and not expose them to proteins that could launch allergic reactions.

“There is a possibility that we were achieving the reverse of our intentions through this avoidance policy,” he told the Nature journal.

A 2008 study which Prof Lack co-authored suggested exactly the opposite, showing that Jewish children in Britain are ten times more likely to have a peanut allergy than those living in Israel, who eat more foods containing peanuts.

The following year the Department of Health revised its guidelines on allergies to clarify that there is not enough evidence to prove a benefit of restricting the diet of either mother or child from pregnancy to infancy.

The study into peanut allergy being conducted by Prof Lack, along with those in Cambridge and North Carolina, could help explain whether giving children controlled but increasing amounts of peanut-containing foods over time could desensitise them.

Starting in 2006, researchers began following 640 babies, half of whom are judged to be at high risk of food allergies, to see if exposing them to traces of peanuts in their early years causes them to develop adverse reactions.

Previous research at Cambridge has suggested that feeding small doses of peanut flour to allergic children every day for 30 weeks could raise their tolerance to safe levels, enabling most of the group to eat 32 peanuts with no reaction by the end of the trial.

NHS weight loss programmes are more expensive and less effective than WeightWatchers, a study has found.Diet programmes such as Weight Watchers, Slimming World and Rosemary Conley are cheaper and far more effective than those run by the NHS’s nanny state, according to new research.

Dieters lost more weight and kept it off for longer by joining a slimming club than after having counselling from specially trained staff in GP surgeries or pharmacies, it was found.

Experts said money would be better spent on encouraging people to attend classes run by commercial companies.

The study, Comparison of range of commercial or primary care led weight reduction programmes with minimal intervention control for weight loss in obesity is published online in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), involved 740 obese or overweight men and women recruited from one NHS trust in Birmingham.

They were divided into six groups and attended either Weight Watchers, Slimming World, Rosemary Conley, a group-based NHS programme run by advisers and dieticians called Size Down, one-to-one counselling sessions in GP surgeries, or one-to-one counselling in pharmacies.

Another group was provided with 12 vouchers for free entrance to a local fitness centre.

At 12 weeks, data was available for 658 of the participants and 522 after one year.

All programmes achieved weight loss at 12 weeks – from an average of 1.37kg in the GP group to 4.43kg in the Weight Watchers group.

But the NHS programmes were found to be no better than the people exercising at a local fitness centre at this point.

At the one year mark, all the programmes except the GP and pharmacy groups had resulted in “significant weight loss”.

However, Weight Watchers was the only programme to achieve significantly greater weight loss than the control group – and was the best attended group.

Compared to the NHS programmes, commercially-run ones meant people typically lost an extra 2.3kg.

The authors, from the University of Birmingham, the Nursing and Midwifery Council and NHS South Birmingham concluded: “Commercially provided weight management services are more effective and cheaper than primary care based services led by specially trained staff, which are ineffective.”

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “Weight management programmes can be very cost-effective and make losing weight easier for some people, but the best way to lose weight will be different for everyone.

“The local NHS must think about which weight management service will work best based on an individual patient’s needs.”

In September, another study conducted in the UK, Germany and Australia showed that a year-long Weight Watchers programme was far more beneficial than helpful doctor’s advice.

That study was published in The Lancet medical journal.

Are women being over examined by an over cautious health nanny state?In an uncertain world, we want to believe in the certainty of medicine: that it is omniscient and operates in absolutes. In reality, this is far from the truth. The world of medicine reflects the world we live in; constantly in flux with multifarious contradictions.

Scientists relish this fact. However, for those on the outside, this can be bewildering. We are told one thing one minute, only for it to be ridiculed the next. With its definitions and protocols, medicine serves to give the illusion of stability when, in truth, doctors are all too often unsure.

The furore around breast screening perfectly illustrates this. It began when the Government’s cancer “tsar”, Prof Sir Mike Richards, announced that he is setting up an independent review of the NHS programme.

He has also ordered that patient leaflets, which explain the screening programme, be rewritten to take into account claims by some experts that the benefits have been exaggerated.

Understandably, this has prompted widespread confusion. The issue of breast cancer is always emotive. When I worked in breast surgery, I saw first hand the horrors of this disease on sufferers and their families, and it is vital that we do everything we can to treat and prevent it. But the debate over screening has been raging for some time within the medical community. I remember attending a lecture on this issue when I was at medical school more than 10 years ago.

The NHS screening programme was introduced by the Thatcher government following the 1987 Forrest Report, which recommended a national screening programme for breast cancer for women aged between 50 and 74. The report was based on the most up-to-date research.

But, since then, by comparing countries that have a screening programme with those that don’t, evidence has emerged suggesting that the steady fall in mortality in Western countries is not due to the screening programme, but to improved treatment and service provision.

If this is shown to be true – and it’s still a big if – then this would mean we are needlessly screening thousands of women. And there is an argument that many of the tumours detected by screening would not actually have developed into a life-threatening cancer.

For every screening test, whatever the disease, there is a margin of error. How good a test is can boil down to two things. The first is sensitivity, which measures how good the test is at giving a positive result in those who have the disease. The second is specificity, which refers to how many of those tested are disease-free and test negative.

Now, if you act on the results every time a test records a positive – in the case of breast cancer by doing invasive surgery or giving radiotherapy or chemotherapy – the sensitivity and specificity has to be very high (as near to 100 per cent as possible) to warrant a national screening programme. If it’s not sensitive enough, you’ll be giving women false reassurance when, in fact, tumours are being missed. Similarly, if it’s not specific enough, you’ll be needlessly treating people, with all the associated risks that treatment brings. It is this that is concerning some experts.

They argue that women are being over-diagnosed and over-treated because screening is not specific enough. It can pick up breast abnormalities that may look worrying when biopsied but are actually harmless. It’s a balancing act between saving lives and not causing harm by needless treatment. While doctors are used to adapting to changes in evidence, this is little consolation to women who worry about the disease.

It is perfectly sensible to have an independent review of the research, but I can’t help but think of the women who have had treatment,or are facing treatment, or those who are deciding if they should go for screening. The fact that the current debate waging in the medical establishment is part of the reflexive process that underpins science is of little comfort to them.

Let’s deal firmly with those who fail in patient care

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley should be congratulated – and it’s not often I say that – for his announcement last week that widespread spot checks on hospitals and care homes will be introduced in a drive to improve standards.

The checks will be undertaken by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). It comes after the Government reviewed the findings of the first wave of unannounced visits to care of the elderly wards in the summer. Over half the hospitals inspected had problems, particularly in relation to issues around patient dignity.

Spot checks are the way to tackle this and weed out bad practice and serious failings. But, they will only have any meaning if the CQC – often felt by those campaigning for improved standards as toothless – act on what they find. We don’t need endless reports and bureaucratic stalling. If it will work, the CQC will have to use its muscle. Those in charge of wards and hospitals found to be failing must be held accountable and dealt with firmly.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/the-ifs-and-buts-of-breast-screening

Single women are being offered fertility treatment by almost a fifth of NHS trusts casting doubt on the Government’s family friendly credentials.Women not in relationships are receiving publicly funded IVF despite official guidance that suggests support should go to couples who have been trying without success to have a baby for several years.

Meanwhile in other parts of the country married couples are being denied help in starting a family, forcing them to spend thousands of pounds on private treatment.

It comes after a Labour nanny state law removed the requirement for fertility doctors to consider a child’s need to have a male role model before going ahead with IVF.

Critics say the Government, which David Cameron promised would be “the most family friendly we’ve ever had in this country”, should tackle the postcode lottery of IVF provision and ensure that the needs of children are put first.

Frank Field, the Labour MP who carried out a high-profile review into poverty and life chances last year, said: “It’s clearly wrong that while couples in stable relationships can’t get IVF and in other areas, single women can.

“It’s really important that Government ministers speak up for children who are the ones left out of this. It needs someone in a position of authority to reflect what most taxpayers think.”

The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester who once chaired the ethics committee of Britain’s fertility watchdog, said: “The irony is that at the very time research is showing the need for both parents, we are writing fathers out of the legislation.

“It’s one thing for a mother to find herself a single parent because of tragic circumstances. It’s quite another to plan for a situation where the child comes into the world without having a father or any possibility of having a father.”

Most local health authorities stipulate that couples must have been in a relationship for two or three years to qualify for IVF treatment.

That requirement is based on guidance issued in 2004 by the National Institute for Curbing Expenditure (Nice), the NHS rationing body,.

It states: “Couples in which the woman is aged 23–39 years at the time of treatment and who have an identified cause for their fertility problems … or who have infertility of at least three years’ duration, should be offered up to three stimulated cycles of in vitro fertilisation treatment.”

The document does note that the guidelines do not address social criteria “for example, whether it is single women or same-sex couples who are seeking treatment”.

However the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 removed the reference to “the need for a father” when considering the welfare of the child when considering fertility treatment, replacing it with “the need for supportive parenting”.

Gareth Johnson MP, who chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Infertility, said that trusts offering the service to single women were going against one of the guiding principles of IVF, “that you are treating an infertile couple, not an infertile individual”.

Mr Johnson, the Conservative MP for Dartford, said: “Speaking in a personal capacity, if you are going for IVF, you are trying to create a baby, so there should be some evidence of a stable background, which you would expect to be a couple.”

Earlier this year he led an APPG report that found startling differences between what health authorities offered in terms of IVF.

It found three-quarters of Primary Care Trusts were failing to offer three cycles of IVF, as stipulated by Nice. Each cycle comprises a woman’s ovaries being stimulated to produce eggs, which are then fertilised in vitro and implanted in the womb. Spare eggs should be frozen for use if the first attempt fails.

The report found five trusts offered no IVF at all – Warrington, West Sussex, Stockport, North Staffordshire and North Yorkshire and York. Since then, NHS West Sussex has decided to start funding IVF again.

Many trusts have also started putting in place further barriers to IVF funding – for example demanding obese women lose weight – in part to limit demand as health budgets tighten.

Against a background of increasingly scarce provision, as the NHS tries to save £20billion by 2015, Mr Johnson said the decision to offer IVF to single women was misplaced.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Single-women-being-offered-IVF-on-the-NHS

An advisory committee has concluded that the recommended daily calorie limits to maintain a healthy weight, laid down 20 years ago, have been slightly on the low side.In 1991 the Committee on the Medical Aspects of Food Policy (COMA) set out that the average man should be eating 2,550 calories daily, and the average woman 1,940.

After lengthy consultation, those have now been raised slightly – by a frugal 55 calories for men, but a comparatively generous 139 calories for women.

Which means 2,605 calories a day for men and 2,079 calories a day for women.

Prof Alan Jackman, chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), explained that the old figures were based on “limited available evidence”.

They have been updated to take into account advances in science and better understanding of the physical activity people took.

Sadly, that is where the good news ends.

Speaking at a briefing to launch the Government’s new “ambition” to see obesity levels falling by 2020, Prof Jackman; Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary; and Prof Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer for England, emphasised that this was “not a licence to eat more”.

Prof Jackman said “the majority of adults” already ate much more than the new guideline amounts.

“We estimate that on average the population is eating 10 per cent more than they require,” he said.

Thus, as little over a third of the adult population is now not overweight or obese, only that minority is really entitled to an extra guilt-free indulgence.

Mr Lansley decided to unveil the Government’s new anti-obesity ambition the same day, leading to accusations of mixed messages.

The Health Secretary said Britain had to become a nation of calorie counters.

“People should have a pretty good sense of how many calories they are consuming,” he said.

Department of Health policy officers have calculated that England needs to consume five billion fewer calories daily, to ensure average weights fall to healthy levels.

That equates to enough cheeseburgers to cover 20 football pitches, or enough cafe lattes to fill four Olympic swimming pools, said a spokesman.

But Prof Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said it amounted to “peanuts”.

He added: “Sixteen dry roasted peanuts per person, per day to be precise.”

Like others, he attacked the Health Secretary’s reluctance to use stronger measures to tackle obesity, which already costs the NHS one pound in every 20 it spends.

The Prime Minister last week said a ‘fat tax’ on some foods was “something we should look at”, but yesterday Mr Lansley would only say that while taxes might have “a part to play”, they were not a “first resort”.

But Jamie Oliver, the chef and healthy eatign campaigner, dismissed the whole strategy as a “farce” and a “cop-out”, saying it was “worthless, regurgitated, patronising rubbish”.

He said: “Simply telling people what they already know – that they need to eat less and move more – is a complete cop out.  The country’s bill of health is shocking, and it’s not going to get any better over the next 30 years if a clearly defined plan isn’t put into place soon.”

“We simply can’t afford the financial or health costs of doing nothing. This Government might be able to navigate us slowly out of a recession, but it has no clue about how to make sustainable change in the short or long term, or how to inspire, enforce or empower public health.”

Dr David Haslam, a GP and chair of the National Obesity Forum, said issuing the new calorie guidelines alongside the updated anti-obesity drive was “really unhelpful”.

“It gives out entirely the wrong message,” he said. “People are going to think that they can eat that little bit more. If anything, that will add to the obesity problem.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8825271/Green-light-to-eat-a-little-more-if-you-are-thin.html

‘Nudging’ people to lose weight by thinking about their lifestyle shows little evidence of success, an analysis of published data suggests.It showed the step by step “nanny state” behavioural approach used in hospitals and clinics led to an average weight loss of 2kg or less.

The report, by The Cochrane Library, looked at studies involving nearly 4,000 people around the world.

The method, known as the transtheoretical model (TTM) stages of change, is used to encourage people to move towards more healthy forms of behaviour.

The five step process encourages people to see the need to change and then give it a go.

It has been shown to be successful in helping people quit smoking, and has also been used in alcohol and drug addiction.

The analysis looked at five trials – in the UK, US, Netherlands, Canada, and Australia – involving 1,834 overweight or obese patients, and 2,076 people of normal weight.

The authors, led by Professor Azeem Majeed and Dr Nik Tuah of Imperial College London, found no convincing evidence of any sustained or significant weight loss.

Professor Majeed: “Changing people’s dietary patterns is very difficult – that’s why we’ve got such a problem with obesity.”

Dr Tuah added: “This review does not necessarily challenge the notion that diet and exercise are effective weight loss strategies, but instead raises questions about how to approach lifestyle changes for individuals who want to adopt them.”

The report concluded: ” The use of TTM SOC resulted in minimal weight loss (about 2 kg or less) and there was no conclusive evidence for sustainable weight loss amongst participants.”

The report’s abstract is at: Transtheoretical model for dietary and physical exercise modification in weight loss management for overweight and obese adults

Parents are failing to put enough fruit and veg into their children’s packed lunches, health experts have warnedThe School Food Trust, which examined 3,500 packed lunches in England in 2009, says about 40% of lunchboxes do not contain any fruit or vegetables, compared with 10% of school dinners.

It said parents should consider switching to school meals.

Meanwhile, the World Cancer Research Fund has set up a website to give parents advice on healthier lunchboxes.

It says the same sort of changes as those made when TV chef Jamie Oliver championed school dinners are now needed.

It wants parents to ensure their children’s packed lunches always contain at least two portions of fruits and vegetables.

WCRF head of education Kate Mendoza said: “There is no doubt Jamie Oliver helped achieve great things for the food served in school canteens. But as the nutritional content of school canteen meals has improved, the healthiness of the content of lunchboxes has been left behind.

“It is disappointing that children are going to school with lunchboxes that are not playing their part in helping to encourage the kind of healthy diet that is so important for their future.”

“This is why we want to get across the message to parents that including a piece of fruit or using a portion of salad as a filling for a sandwich are positive things they can do for their children’s health.”

“It can sometimes be difficult for parents to control what their children eat, particularly if they are passing shops on the way home from school or visiting their friends. But parents can influence what is in their packed lunches and the fact that not all of them are doing so is a missed opportunity.”

She said they were aiming to advise parents about healthy options – rather than telling them what not to put in as has happened in the past.

Patricia Mucavele, research and nutrition manager at the School Food Trust, which offers its own advice on packed lunches, said, “School lunches are now the most nutritious choice for children and young people.

“Packed lunches aren’t as nutritious as school meals – they are typically higher in saturated fat, sugar and salt, and often contain foods that can’t be provided in schools, such as sweets and salted snacks.”

HEALTHY LUNCH OPTIONS

Butternut squash soup with wholegrain bread
Cous cous with roasted vegetables and chickpeas
Wholegrain pasta salad with tomatoes, green beans and sweetcorn in green pesto sauce
Low-fat cream cheese on wholegrain cracker with grapes
Carrot and cucumber sticks
Dried fruits

“Making healthy packed lunches that give children the variety they need in their diet takes a lot of time and effort. We have previously estimated that parents could spend almost eight days a year making packed lunches that meet the national standards for school food.”

“And when you look at how the prices compare, it gives parents wanting to give their children good food, and save time and money, something to think about.”

The trust’s 2009 Primary School Food Survey, included an in-depth look at the contents of almost 3,500 packed lunches across 135 schools in England.

It found 58% of those with packed lunches had items that could count towards their “five a day” fruit and vegetable target, compared with over 90% of those eating school meals.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15123065

The nanny state banned in England cigarette vending machines over the weekend.The Department of Health said the ban had been introduced to prevent under-age sales to children and to support adults who were trying to quit.

The rest of the UK is expected to implement a similar ban next year.

Some pub landlords say it is a further threat to a livelihood that has already been damaged by the smoking ban.

But Cancer Research and the British Heart Foundation have welcomed the move.

According to the Department of Health, nearly all adult smokers started smoking before they turned 18.  Of the children who regularly smoke, 11% buy their cigarettes from vending machines.

It is also estimated that 35 million cigarettes are sold illegally through vending machines to children every year.

Under the new rules, pub landlords will still be able to sell cigarettes from behind the bar but they must ensure all tobacco advertising on vending machines is removed. Any person found guilty of displaying cigarette adverts on a vending machine could face imprisonment for up to six months, a fine of £5,000, or both.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said smoking was “one of the biggest and most stubborn challenges in public health”, with more than eight million people in England still smoking, causing more than 80,000 deaths each year.

He said: “Cigarette vending machines are often unsupervised, making it easy for children to purchase cigarettes from them.

“The ban on cigarette sales from vending machines will protect children by making cigarettes less accessible to them – we want to do everything we can to encourage young people not to start smoking in the first place.”

Jo Butcher, the National Children’s Bureau’s programme director of health and wellbeing, welcomed the ban and said a person’s lifetime smoking or non-smoking behaviour was “heavily influenced” by decisions in their adolescence.

“Children and young people tell us that external influences make it even more difficult for them to choose healthier lifestyles.

“It’s essential that we create environments that improve health and tobacco legislation is an important part of public health protection and promotion,” she said.
Protection

Charities have also welcomed the ban.

Betty McBride, director of policy and communications at the British Heart Foundation, said thousands of children at risk of this “deadly addiction” regularly got tobacco from vending machines, “which conveniently don’t ask them to prove their age”.

“These children are often blissfully unaware of the damage smoking does to their health and, by the time they realise, they’re hooked.

“Scrapping these machines cuts off an easy source of tobacco for existing young smokers and makes it harder for a new generation to start.

“We’re encouraging landlords to remove machines completely now so they – and any left-over branding – don’t act as dusty old adverts for tobacco,” she said.

Eileen Streets, director of tobacco control at the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, said she hoped the ban would play a “significant part in stopping many children becoming the next generation of lung cancer victims”.

Jean King, of Cancer Research UK, added: “Tobacco kills half of all long-term users and is responsible for one in four cancer deaths.

“Cancer Research UK is determined to protect children from tobacco marketing and through our Out of Sight Out of Mind campaign we are continuing to work for legislation to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes.”

But the British Beer and Pub Association described the ban as “an unnecessary measure”.

A spokesman said the machines were there for the convenience of adult customers, and that the association did not believe they played a role in childhood smoking.

Although cigarettes can be sold by bar staff, the spokesman said many pubs would not opt to introduce that, as it raised issues about having a “high-value” item behind the bar and interfered with serving drinks.

Other measures to protect young people from the dangers of smoking are also on the way.

In April 2012, large retailers in England and Scotland will have to get rid of all tobacco displays. Small shops will be expected to comply from April 2015.

Wales and Northern Ireland plan to implement similar regulations.

The government is also due to begin a public consultation before the end of the year on whether to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes in order to lessen their marketing appeal to young people, help make health warnings more effective and help reduce the number of smokers.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15132529

Nanny state government targets are putting the great British Breakfast under threat.For many, a plate of bacon, sausage and eggs makes the perfect start to a buzy day.

But Government nanny state targets are about to put the great British breakfast under threat.

Butchers and other food retailers say health diktats to reduce salt levels could ruin the taste of some of our favourite dishes, with producers of bacon and sausages facing the greatest difficulties.

More than 60 food firms and supermarkets have pledged to meet salt reduction targets agreed by the Coalition.

But as the deadline grows closer, they fear compromising the familiar tastes valued by customers unless extra additives are introduced. They also fear risking safety, because of the role of salt as a preservative.

Some independent butchers have said they have no intention of changing cherished recipes to meet the demands of the “salt police”.

At least 80 per cent of sausages sold in Britain currently fall short of the government’s 2012 target, which allows 1.13g of salt per 100g of food. Popular brands such as Richmond contain twice that amount.

Own brand packs of bacon on sale at Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose all contain more salt than the future 2.88g per 100g limit for bacon.

Andrea Martinez-Inchausti, Deputy Food Director for the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said it was “pointless” to put huge efforts into reducing salt if only left consumers adding large amounts themselves at the dinner table.

“Our members have made fantastic progress reducing the levels of salt in food in recent years,” she said. “In some cases we’ve come as far as we can without help from science. If salt is reduced further there’s a danger that products will no longer taste the way customers want them to.”

The BRC and the Food and Drink Federation have drawn up a list of eight foods for which it is proving difficult to reduce salt content without losing flavour or risking safety. In addition to bacon and sausages, the list also includes soft cheeses, cakes, and sauces such as pesto.

Research will be conducted from next month to see if any new processes or ingredients can be found to overcome the problems.

In total, 62 retailers and manufacturers, including Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and Asda have pledged to meet dozens of salt reduction targets by next year.

Their promises were part of a ‘public health responsibility deal’ set by the Coalition before it handed responsibility for nutrition policies from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to the Department of Health.

It is aimed at helping consumers follow health advice to limit their salt intake to 6g a day, in order to prevent high blood pressure that can lead to strokes and heart disease.

Previous targets, brought in last year, have provoked a backlash from fans of HP sauce who said their favourite brand had been left tasting “bland” and “disgusting” after a drastic cut in salt content.

The sauce used to contain 2.1g of salt per 100g, as well as malt vinegar, molasses, dates and tamarind, but the content was reduced to 1.3g to meet last year’s targets.

Internal FSA documents, dated May 2009, state: “Maintaining product binding and succulence in sausages has proved challenging whilst reducing levels of sodium.”

It says some reductions had been achieved, though they fell well short of next year’s commitment.

The same analysis warns of the difficulties of attaining an even dispersal of salt in bacon, and the impact of laws restricting the use of nitrates as a preservative.

Maureen Strong, nutrition manager for the British Pig Executive, said: “When the work first started on these targets, it was led by statisticians, not microbiologists.

“Research showed that the initial targets they drew up would have caused a rise in salmonella, botulism and E.coli.

“They have been altered since then, and we have all tried to work together, but some of the targets for next year are nigh on impossible – at least without too great a compromise.”

She added: “If you want to reduce the salt in sausages, that often means a whole lot more additives. I don’t know if that is what customers are asking for.”

Those most affected by the changes are food suppliers to major retailers. Independent butchers not signed up to the responsibility deal do not have to meet hit the targets, but some feel failure to meet the new standards could be viewed badly by health-conscious customers.

Mick Norkett, founder of the East London Sausage Company, based in Walthamstow, said he would try to meet next year’s targets.

“We do our best to keep the levels low, but salt is a preservative, and in sausages, it is in the skins as well as the sausage meat,” he said.

“If you are having a fry up, and trying to be keep salt levels down, I think the best thing is to stop adding salt at the table, and to avoid slathering on ketchups and beans that are packed full of the stuff.”

Mr Norkett, a butcher for almost 40 years, said reaching the targets would be more difficult for supermarkets that need a long shelf life for their products.

Stuart Higginson, from Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, has run his butchers with his wife Pauline for 28 years.

His sausages meet current Government limits of 1.4g per 100g, which came in last year, but he is not prepared to sacrifice flavour in order to meet next year’s demands.

Mr Higginson, 61, from said: “I’ve never had anyone come in and ask for sausages or bacon with less salt in them.

“I think the government are overdoing this; most of us don’t have bacon and sausages every day, and we want to get some enjoyment from our food when we eat it, not just eat to live.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Whitehall-targets-threaten-the-Great-British-Breakfast

In a blow to the nanny state’s view of fatherdom, new research has found that there is a biological reason why so many men suddenly discover their caring side when they become fathers.A study found that men’s testosterone levels fell by around a third in the days and months after their partner gave birth.

The more caring side of a man’s character emerged as levels of the hormones fell, said scientists, who believe that the process is nature’s way of trying to ensure that fathers stay for the long  haul of child–rearing.

They found that men with higher testosterone levels – associated with dominant and aggressive behaviour – were both more likely to secure a partner and father children.

But after the birth itself  testosterone levels in these men dropped.

“Humans are unusual among mammals in that our offspring are dependent upon older individuals for feeding and protection for more than a decade,” said Christopher Kuzawa, a faculty fellow at the  Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University in Chicago, and a coauthor of the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Raising human offspring  is such an effort that it is cooperative by necessity, and our study shows that human fathers are biologically wired to help with the job.”

Lee Gettler, an anthropology doctoral student who also worked on the study, added: “It’s not the case that men with lower testosterone are simply more likely to become fathers.  On the contrary, the men who started with high testosterone were more likely to become fathers, but once they did, their testosterone went down substantially.”

It was the act of child care that seemed to reduce testosterone, he explained.

“Our findings suggest that this is especially true for fathers who become the most involved with child care.”

The biggest effect appears to be temporary, in the period immediately after bringing home the baby, with levels rising slowly after that, although not returning to pre–fatherhood levels.

The team studied 624 men in their twenties in the Philippines and followed them for four–and–a–half years. Dr Allan Pacey, a male sexual health expert at Sheffield University, commented: “To see  dramatic changes in response to family life is intriguing. The observations could make some evolutionary sense if we accept the idea that men with lower testosterone levels are more likely to be monogamous with their partner and care for children.

“However, it would be important to check that link between testosterone levels and behaviour to be certain.”

The study found that testosterone levels fell on average by 34 per cent when men became fathers, with the biggest falls in those most involved in childcare.

Dr Pacey added that, as high levels of testosterone were also associated with a strong sex drive, lower levels could reduce the chances of a man ‘straying’. However, he cautioned that the paper did  not prove that.

He added: ‘Testosterone is the key hormone that defines male physiology. We know that levels correlate with a man’s sex drive, his risk–taking behaviour and social dominance. It has also been suggested that it may increase his attractiveness to women and help him find a mate.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Men-biologically-wired-to-care-for-children