I love self-testing: I regularly test my blood pressure and cholesterol. And, as many of you will know by now, I was once diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and while I reversed it, I also still check my blood sugar levels.

It’s something more of us should do — millions of Brits have an abnormally high blood sugar level but many are blissfully unaware of the damage this is doing to their arteries and nerves.

An estimated seven million people in the UK have prediabetes (i.e. raised blood sugar levels that can be a precursor to full-blown type 2 diabetes) — but a good proportion won’t know it.

And even if you don’t go on to develop type 2 diabetes, simply having prediabetes increases your risk of premature death by more than 60 per cent.

You can check your blood sugar levels using a standard DIY fingerprick test (for around £20) from the High Street or online. These kits are reliable; if the result suggests you have a problem then do talk to your GP.

Many people with diabetes now use a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) — the coin-sized device, which sticks to your arm and has a tiny needle that measures your blood sugar levels: you then link it to your smartphone, and within an hour it will start giving readings, updated every 15 minutes. Theresa May, who has type 1 diabetes, wears one.

But while these devices are intended for people with diabetes, anyone can buy one (they cost around £60 and last for two weeks), and they’re increasingly being used by people — including TV presenter Davina McCall — who want to see what foods (and activities) push their blood sugar levels up.

The idea being the fewer the big glucose spikes, the better.

I decided to try this out myself, not least to put some popular social media ‘hacks’ to the test.

So two weeks ago I bought myself a type of CGM called Freestyle Libre. So what did I learn?

Well, first, that the device takes a while to settle down — for the initial couple of days it suggested my blood sugar levels were far higher than the readings from my fingerprick monitor (which is more reliable). If I hadn’t known this, I might have been very worried.

After that — and not surprisingly — I found that anything sweet or carb-heavy (such as cake or breakfast cereal) soon pumped my blood sugar very high, followed by a crash which left me hungry — and irritable. Sadly this was also true of one of my favourite treats, dark chocolate, which contains a fair amount of sugar, around 4g (one teaspoon) per square.

More tragically, I discovered that coffee — even black and without sugar — led to big blood sugar spikes, particularly consumed first thing in the morning.

This is because a couple of hours before you wake up, your body releases a big shot of the stress hormone cortisol to get you ready for the day ahead.

If you introduce caffeine while your cortisol is high, you get a big blood sugar spike.

The advice I got from James Betts, a professor of metabolic physiology at the University of Bath, is to delay having coffee until at least an hour after waking, when your cortisol levels are falling. And that trick certainly seems to help control my blood sugar response. I also found that a brisk walk soon after eating was a good way to bring my blood sugar levels down — this is because my muscles were using up some of the surplus sugar.

Recent research by the University of Limerick showed that a brisk walk 60 to 90 minutes after eating is best, as that’s when your blood sugar levels will be peaking.

Ideally you should walk for at least 15 minutes, but even something is better than nothing.

Oddly, more vigorous exercise had the opposite effect: after a lengthy bike ride I was horrified to see my blood sugars go up.

This was probably because more vigorous cycling led to the release of adrenaline, which made my body release sugar into my blood to cope with the extra workout.

Of course, this doesn’t mean vigorous exercise is bad, but it can be disconcerting if you are looking at your monitor and see blood sugar going up, rather than down.

So what about those internet hacks for avoiding blood sugar spikes?

One of the most popular is to drink a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in water before having a sugary snack or carb-heavy meal.

This is based on the idea that the acetic acid in the vinegar slows down the breakdown of the carbs into sugar. It seemed to work for me, but it didn’t taste great.

Another hack I tested was the claim that cooking, cooling and reheating carb-heavy foods such as rice, pasta or potatoes changes their structure, so they become ‘resistant’ to gut enzymes that break them down, causing a smaller blood sugar surge.

On two consecutive days I ate pasta for lunch, but on the second day, I used leftover pasta that had been in the fridge, and then reheated. This time my blood sugar spike was half what it had been.

This, too, has been confirmed in studies, including one in 2021 by the University of Surrey which found that cooking, cooling and reheating pasta made a significant difference to the blood sugar spike.

Despite these positives, there are serious limitations to bear in mind if you’re using a CGM and don’t have diabetes.

Looking at what foods cause my blood sugar to spike was interesting, but I became a bit obsessed, even checking my readings in the middle of the night, which is clearly not healthy.

And it’s important to note that blood sugar levels don’t tell the full story.

Lentils and a bar of chocolate both made mine soar, but that doesn’t make them equivalent nutritionally — lentils have significant benefits, including the fact that they’re prebiotics, so nourish the ‘good’ bacteria in your gut.

A recent study by the National Institutes of Health in the U.S. also showed that you can get very different results to eating the same meal on two consecutive days, for all sorts of reasons, including how stressed you are and how well you slept.

So don’t rely on a CGM as a way of shaping your future diet.

And if all you really want to know is whether you have prediabetes or not, then a trip to your GP, or a fingerprick test, is a cheaper and simpler way to find out.

At last, a clampdown on the lip filler cowboys 

An awful lot of young — and not so young — people these days seem to have large, pouty lips, thanks to fillers.

While many people are delighted with the results, thousands are left every year traumatised by botched procedures.

If you are having injections into your face, it is clearly a good idea to have it done by someone who knows something about the underlying anatomy.

That’s because underneath the skin there’s a complex network of arteries and veins, and if you inject filler into one of these, it could obstruct blood flow and cause permanent tissue damage.

Amazingly, this industry is almost entirely unregulated, so pretty much anyone can pick up a needle and start advertising — there’s no guarantee that the person at the other end of the needle knows what they are doing. A couple of years ago I made a TV series about tweakments and was horrified by some of the stories I heard, including people who’d been blinded by fillers inserted too close to arteries that feed the eye.

In light of these disasters, the Department of Health and Social Care has recently announced a consultation on tweakments, to make them safer and curb the cowboys (and cowgirls). About time.

Autumn is on the horizon but pesky mosquitoes and other flying insects are still out looking for me — I seem to be a magnet for them.

But the good news is that scientists at the University of California may have found a solution. They’ve isolated a species of bacteria, found on some people’s skin, that is good at keeping mosquitoes at bay. These bacteria produce a range of chemicals, including butyric acid, which mosquitoes find repulsive.

The researchers hope to test this effect by spraying animals with the bacteria, before moving on to human trials.

We know that people in their 60s or 70s who develop new skills (such as painting) experience big improvements in memory and other cognitive abilities.

Now a major study of ageing Brits has found that adult education classes can significantly lower your risk of dementia. One theory is that being mentally active boosts your brain’s ability to cope with damage or decline in later life — or it may be that learning something forges new neural pathways. The bottom line is that the benefits of learning continue well into old age.

Supposedly eco-friendly paper cups may be just as toxic to the environment and human body as plastic ones, a study suggests.

Scientists in Sweden found the thin-film of plastic coated onto the surfaces of disposable paper cups to keep their contents from seeping into the paper emit toxic substances.

In experiments that involved insects caused birth defects and other developmental damage, both when the paper cup was left to biodegrade in water as well as when left in sediment or dirt. 

The news comes just weeks after similar results from researchers in Belgium, who found that paper straws tested high in concentrations of the group of toxic synthetic ‘forever chemicals’.

Now, the Swedish researchers are calling for ‘transparency requirements within the plastics industry’ hoping to force ‘clear reporting of what chemicals all products contain, much like in the pharmaceutical industry.’ 

Because paper easily absorbs water, other liquids, oils and fats from all kinds of food and beverages, manufacturers treat the paper used in food packaging with resistant plastic surface coatings. 

Today those plastics are frequently a type of renewable, biodegradable bioplastic called polylactide or PLA, which is made from corn, cassava or sugarcane instead of the fossil fuels used to make traditional plastics.

Although, PLA breaks down faster than these more common petroleum-based plastics, the researchers at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg were able to show that chemicals embedded in the plastic could harm the larvae of harlequin flies. 

The species, a type of mosquito technically known as Chironomus riparius, has long been a standard candidate for preliminary toxicology and developmental genetic studies of this kind.

‘We left paper cups and plastic cups in wet sediment and water for a few weeks and followed how the leached chemicals affected the larvae,’ eco-toxicologist Bethanie Carney Almroth, a professor of environmental science at the University of Gothenburg, said in a statement. 

‘All of the mugs negatively affected the growth of mosquito larvae,’ Almroth said.  

In addition to the PLA-coasted paper cups, the researchers also tested plastic cups made of polypropylene (PP), black lids of polystyrene for the sake of comparison.

For some of their PP cases, the researchers found developmental damage in harlequin larvae — but for many of plastic-coated paper cups the larvae did not even reach a state of maturity where developmental genetic damage could be found.

‘The low number of individuals reaching the 4th instar [phase],’ the scientists wrote in their study for the journal Environmental Pollution,  ‘in itself is important.’ 

Some of the chemicals found in these PLA and PP plastics include ultra-violet-(UV)-light stabilizers, flame retardants, plasticizers, and the detergent-like substance nonylphenol, which the US Environmental Protection Agency considers toxic.

As with the paper straws, PFAS was again a concerning presence, as were, the researchers said, ‘hundreds of different chemicals that can migrate into foodstuffs.’

Theses chemicals, they report, could including endocrine disrupters that could effect sexual reproduction, growth and other bodily functions; as well as chemicals that can accumulate in the body, cause cancer and other toxic effects.

‘Some chemicals in plastics are known to be toxic,’ Almroth stressed in her statement, ‘others we lack knowledge about.’  

Paper packaging also presents ‘a potential health hazard,’ given its own plastic content, she noted, ‘and it’s becoming more common.’   

‘When disposable products arrived on the market after the Second World War,’ Almroth said, ‘large campaigns were conducted to teach people to throw the products away, it was unnatural to us!’ 

She and her co-authors hope that similar public awareness training can return society to the older, less wasteful habits. 

‘We need to shift back and move away from disposable life styles,’ Almroth said. ‘It is better if you bring your own mug when buying take away coffee.’ 

‘Or by all means, take a few minutes, sit down and drink your coffee from a porcelain mug,’ she said.

It’s set to be one of the hottest days of the year, with the mercury expected to hit 33C (91F) in parts of the UK today.

But while many welcome the six-day heatwave, which began yesterday and is set to run until Sunday night, others struggle to cope with the extreme weather.

Drinking plenty of water, staying in the shade and avoiding exercise and direct sunlight at the hottest points of the day are common tips to avoid overheating.

Here, MailOnline shares expert-backed ways to stay cool during the hot weather.  

Avoid drinking coffee

Coffee may provide a much-needed boost of energy, but it’s not the best drink during hot weather. 

The pick me up suppress the hormone ADH, which usually causes the kidneys to retain water when your body is low on stores.

This causes you to urinate more frequently than normal, resulting in dehydration.

So experts say it’s best to stick to water in hot weather.

Dehydration — when the body loses more fluids than it takes in — can trigger splitting headaches, dizziness and tiredness.

It can even result in hospitalisation if it becomes severe — causing a weak or rapid pulse, fits or low levels of consciousness.

Feeling thirsty, dark yellow pee, feeling dizzy and having sunken eyes are all signs of dehydration in children and adults, according to the NHS.

The NHS advises people to drink caffeine in moderation during a heatwave. It suggests checking the label for drinks that are high in caffeine.

However, some experts have questioned coffee’s dehydrating effect, suggesting the loss of fluids it causes is replaced by the drink itself.

Eat spicy food

While a cooling ice cream may be most appetising in hot weather, tucking into a spicy curry may actually be the best way to cool down. 

That’s because spicy food raises the body’s internal temperature, mirroring the weather, and causes it to sweat. 

The active chemical in chili peppers, called capsaicin, can trigger the body to sweat and induce thermogenesis — the process by which cells convert energy into heat.

US researchers say this chemical stimulates a receptor found in sensory neurons, creating the sensation of heat and subsequent reactions like redness and sweating.

The body’s heat causes sweat to evaporate, which has a long-lasting cooling effect. 

For comparison, downing a cold drink or having an ice cream raises the body’s temperature in response to being cold, leaving people feeling warmer. 

Take a warm bath before bed

Staying cool when trying to sleep can be one of the biggest struggles during spells of hot weather.

And while it may seem, counterintuitive, running a hot bath could do the trick. 

Sleep and core body temperature are both controlled by the brain’s circadian clock, which drives 24-hour patterns of sleep and wakefulness. 

At night, body temperature drops by about 2C. This helps with conserving energy and directing energy to organs that need it.  

But this cycle can be disrupted during periods of hot weather, potentially causing a miserable night’s sleep.

However, the science says hot baths can help you cool down rapidly.

Researchers at the University of Texas found that taking a warm bath before going to bed will help your body cool down. 

That’s because the warm water causes the blood vessels in the surface of the skin to dilate, encouraging blood to flow from the internal core of the body to the hands and feet.

So, once you get out the bath, this causes the body to cool down rapidly.

This method works best when taking a 10-minute warm bath or shower an hour or two before going to bed, according to the report published in Sleep Medical Reviews Journal in 2019.

Put your bedding in the freezer 

Fresh, cool sheets are the perfect way to get a good night’s sleep after spending the day in the sun. 

And, though it may sound strange, putting bedding in the freezer can work wonders for lowering body temperature before bed. 

As with the hot bath trick before bed, relaxing into cool sheets helps allow the body’s temperature to drop by the required 2C needed for good sleep.

But rather than causing your body to radiate heat away, this directly cools you from the outside in, preventing your internal temperature jumping back up as it readjusts to the outside.

Dr Mike Farquhar, a consultant in sleep medicine at Evelina London Children’s Hospital, said putting bedding in the freezer for a couple of minutes at night will help you stay cool throughout your sleep. 

However, remember to put your bedding in a plastic bag to prevent dirty bedding contaminating your food or vice versa.

Jason Derulo reveals whether Australia or American have better coffee as he films the local edition of The Voice Down Under

By Marta Jary For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 08:41 EDT, 12 August 2023 | Updated: 08:49 EDT, 12 August 2023

How that summer coffee shop frappe can be worse for you than eating FIVE KitKats: Eye-watering levels of sugar in drinks sold by Costa, Starbucks, Caffe Nero and McDonald’s revealed

• EXCLUSIVE: Campaigners warn the drinks will add to Britain’s obesity epidemic

By Dominik Lemanski For Mailonline

Updated: 13:00 EDT, 25 June 2023