Whenever I’m asked, ‘How are you?’, I have a stock reply, which I’ve had for decades: ‘If I were any better, I’d have to take a pill!’ It’s an inherited attitude, the O’Flynn/O’Leary (my mother’s side) approach to life: Embrace it, love it, live it. Be alive; not just head down and trudging through, but, … Read more
Gal pals Laurie, Jaclyn, and Kate in the hit series The White Lotus rewrite the script on how female friendships are typically shown on our screens. We’ve become accustomed to seeing the likes of Rachel, Monica, and Phoebe cheerfully popping in and out of each other’s apartments and being intimately involved in each other’s lives … Read more
Almost every smartphone, smartwatch, or wearable worth its salt now has a built-in step counter. With experts warning that ‘sitting is the new smoking’, and organisations such as the Health Service Executive (HSE) and Sport Ireland devising campaigns to encourage the public to be more active, monitoring our total number of daily steps has become … Read more
Could simply picking up the pace on your daily walk be the secret to a healthier heart? Research from the University of Glasgow suggests that walking briskly might do more than just boost your mood— it could significantly lower your risk of developing serious heart rhythm issues. The study, published in Heart, analysed data from … Read more
Sitting down with a colouring book and markers at 29 is not exactly how I imagined spending my evenings, if you asked me 10 years ago. However, opening a blank page in my Girl Moments colouring book and working on a colourful scene is sometimes the only thing that gets me through a stressful day. … Read more
It was only a matter of time before social media invented a “natural alternative” to the much-hyped weight-loss injectable drug semaglutide, best known by its brand name Ozempic. A new wellness trend, in the form of an oat-based drink, supposedly curbs the appetite, leading to dramatic weight loss. ‘Oatzempic’ is a DIY drink made by … Read more
Hollywood actor and author Stanley Tucci recently shared his experience with thyroid issues on David Tennant’s podcast. The 64-year-old underwent high-dose radiation and chemotherapy after a tumour was discovered at the base of his tongue in 2017. He spoke openly on the podcast about how several years after treatment, while filming in Italy in 2024, … Read more
Until recently, few outside the specialised world of ageing science had ever heard of senescent cells, the so-called “zombie cells”. These cells are located in organs and tissues throughout our bodies and stop dividing as normal but instead linger, refusing to die and perpetuating chronic inflammation. In the past decade, senescent cells have become an … Read more
As a consultant endocrinologist at Galway University Hospital who runs a publicly funded obesity clinic, Francis Finucane has long been frustrated by the limited and sometimes intermittent access to semaglutide — the blockbuster drug better known by the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy. “At the moment, they’re only funded for patients with type 2 diabetes … Read more
I like to think of myself as a yes person, so when the chance came up to try the assault course faced by many a fittest family for RTÉ, I was keen to give it a go. Though I wouldn’t consider myself a gym rat, I exercise regularly and can run a comfortable 10k, so … Read more