They are everywhere – and they may be messing with your body more than you realise. They’re linked to obesity, gut issues, even chronic disease. But how exactly are UPFs making us sick?

Neelam Tailor speaks to the food philosopher and former industry insider Prof Barry Smith, who breaks down what UPFs do inside your body, how food companies keep us hooked, and how you can reduce how much UPF you eat

Product known as Adam implanted in sperm ducts could offer a reversible alternative to condoms and vasectomies

An implantable, non-hormonal male contraceptive has been shown in trials to last for at least two years.

The contraceptive, known as Adam, is a water-soluble hydrogel that is implanted in the sperm ducts, preventing sperm from mixing with semen.

Is it possible to make a country healthier one slice of rye bread at a time? If the rocketing wholegrain consumption of the Danes is anything to go by, absolutely

Lunchtime in Copenhagen, Denmark. The place is packed and staff are talking customers through the menu. Would we like the slow-roasted pork with pearl barley and mushrooms? How about the rye pancakes with salmon, cream cheese and avocado? I decide on the beetroot tartare with horseradish and rye toasts, and a spelt side salad.

This isn’t a fancy new Nordic restaurant – it’s a work canteen. These chefs feed 900 workers from DSB (Danish State Railways) every weekday. As well as looking and tasting great, each dish served here contains fuldkorn (wholegrains), from breakfast smoothies with oats to afternoon treats such as today’s wholemeal scones. There’s a good reason for this: DSB recently signed up to a national programme that aims to get more wholegrains into employees.

Wines produced after 2010 showed steep rise in contamination of trifluoroacetic acid, analysis finds

Levels of a little-known forever chemical known as TFA in European wines have risen “alarmingly” in recent decades, according to analysis, prompting fears that contamination will breach a planetary boundary.

Researchers from Pesticide Action Network Europe tested 49 bottles of commercial wine to see how TFA contamination in food and drink had progressed. They found levels of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), a breakdown product of long-lasting Pfas chemicals that carries possible fertility risks, far above those previously measured in water.

As the UK Pandemic Sciences Network conference kicks off in Glasgow, virus expert Prof Emma Thomson says new technologies are boosting science’s ability to fight novel strains of infectious diseases

Prof Emma Thomson is someone who knows a thing or two about pandemics. As the recently appointed director of the Medical Research Council, University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR) and a World Heath Organization consultant, Thomson is one of the country’s leading virus experts.

“We used to think that pandemics would occur maybe once in our lifetimes. Now, it’s definitely within the next few years. It could even be tomorrow,” she says.

Mohammed Mustafa, who worked at al-Ahli Arab hospital before it was bombed, says ministers are wrong to say Australia is ‘not a major player’

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When Israel shattered the ceasefire in Gaza last month and resumed its large-scale bombardment, the British-Australian doctor Mohammed Mustafa had just clocked off at the emergency department of what was the last fully functioning hospital in Gaza City.

“It was so intense that the windows blew off their hinges and I had fallen out of my bed,” he tells Guardian Australia’s Full Story podcast.

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Small increase amounts to 3.6 million births and an increase in the women aged 40-44 giving birth

The number of births in the US increased slightly in 2024 to roughly 3.6 million, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The small increase of 1% in the number of births comes amid a long-term decline that began during the Great Recession, in about 2008. The provisional data was released on Wednesday.

US health secretary says Americans should eat ‘zero’ sugar and announces plans to eliminate eight synthetic food dyes

The US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr on Tuesday called sugar “poison” and recommended that Americans eat “zero” added sugar in their food, while acknowledging that the federal government was unlikely to be able to eliminate it from products.

Kennedy, however, said that better labeling was needed for foods and that new government guidelines on nutrition would recommend people avoid sugar completely.

Effective Monday, the agency suspends its proficiency testing program for grade ‘A’ raw milk and finished products

The Food and Drug Administration is suspending a quality-control program for testing fluid milk and other dairy products due to reduced capacity in its food safety and nutrition division, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.

The suspension is another disruption to the nation’s food-safety programs after the termination and departure of 20,000 employees of the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the FDA, as part of Donald Trump’s effort to shrink the federal workforce.

Researchers surprised at impact that even small differences in sleep make to adolescents’ cognitive abilities

Teenagers who go to bed earlier and sleep for longer than their peers tend to have sharper mental skills and score better on cognitive tests, researchers have said.

A study of more than 3,000 adolescents showed that those who turned in earliest, slept the longest, and had the lowest sleeping heart rates outperformed others on reading, vocabulary, problem solving and other mental tests.

Research into myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome also reveals diagnosis ‘postcode lottery’

More than 150,000 more people in England are living with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) than was previously estimated, according to a study that highlights the “postcode lottery” of diagnosis.

The research, published in the peer-reviewed journal BMC Public Health, involved researchers from the University of Edinburgh analysing NHS data from more than 62 million people in England to identify people who had been diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)/chronic fatigue syndrome or post-viral fatigue syndrome.

The co-founder of the family-run frozen food maker says ethical practices pay dividends on top of financial returns for her business

Rosie Brown, the boss of Cook, never planned to be a chief executive. First, she trained as a nurse, then tried her hand at politics; then banking. But having struggled at first to find her niche, Brown now leads a ready-meal business ranked as the country’s best place to work in food and drink, and is looking to help others find their way in the world of work.

Last year, the co-CEO of the ethical frozen food business took over from shoe-mending-chain boss James Timpson as chair of the Employment Advisory Board network, a government-backed programme started by Timpson which works with more than 90 prisons.

A Mancunian in supported housing uses heroin to manage his intrusive thoughts in this well-researched but horribly violent examination of mental health issues

Gino Evans makes his feature debut with this painful and disturbing drama which has some unwatchably horrible and violent moments. It’s set in Manchester and tells the story of a heroin user fresh out of prison and struggling to sort himself out. That might sound like a pretty standard beginning for gritty British social-realism, but with maturity and what looks like solid research, Evans turns his film into an examination of mental health issues. It’s not for the faint-hearted though, with some scenes in which people hurt other people very realistically.

Ex-Emmerdale actor Joe Gill plays Danny, who is released from prison into supported living after a short stretch for theft. Danny starts using again immediately, and he says in voiceover that he takes heroin to feel normal; it manages his OCD and intrusive thoughts (“I feel fucked up for even thinking them”). We are shown the intrusive thoughts that pop into his head: sitting opposite the manager of his supported housing, out of nowhere Danny pictures himself punching her repeatedly in the face. It’s brutal, and there are more scenes like this – realistic-looking and photographed with cold intensity by cinematographer Sam Cronin. I watched it clenched and tense – which is presumably the point, to show what it feels like to live like Danny, uncomfortably alert with adrenaline.

Exclusive: Family doctors have switched to providing far fewer in-person appointments

• GPs in poor parts of England are paid £5,500 less a year than in wealthy areas, study finds

Patients’ satisfaction with GP services has collapsed in recent years as family doctors have switched to providing far fewer face-to-face appointments, new research has revealed.

The proportion of patients seeing a GP in person has plummeted from more than four-fifths (80.7%) in 2019 to just under two-thirds (66.2%) last year.

Report analysed data from 8,500 doctors over 2015-21 and also found pressures on GPs were higher in deprived areas

• Patient satisfaction with GP services in England has collapsed, research finds

GPs working in the most deprived areas in England are paid an average salary £5,525 less a year than their counterparts working in wealthier areas, according to a study.

The report, by researchers at the University of Manchester and published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, analysed data from more than 8,500 GPs between 2015 and 2021 in the GP work life survey.

State’s only clinic stopped operations in February after state laws sought to control licensing and requirements

Wyoming’s only abortion clinic is resuming abortions after a judge on Monday suspended two state laws.

One suspended law would require clinics providing surgical abortions to be licensed as outpatient surgical centers. The other would require patients to get an ultrasound before a medication abortion.

Exclusive: Leaked report says high visa costs also derailing clinical trials and research, denying NHS life-saving drugs

• NHS cancer patients denied life-saving drugs ‘due to Brexit costs’

• Children with cancer cannot wait’: human cost of clinical trial delays

The world’s best cancer doctors, scientists and researchers are being put off moving to or staying in the UK by politicians’ rhetoric on immigration, a leaked report reveals.

Recruiting and retaining “global talent” to treat NHS patients and find new ways to cure cancer is vital, amid an acute British workforce crisis and rising numbers being diagnosed with the disease.

Lifestyle changes and medications found to reduce risk of cognitive disease by about 15%

People given intensive help to reduce their high blood pressure such as medication and coaching have a lower risk of dementia, researchers have found.

According to the World Health Organization, 57 million people around the world had dementia in 2021.

Physician and researcher who dedicated his life to the study of sickle cell disease and its variants

The British doctor Graham Serjeant, who has died aged 86, lived and worked in Jamaica for more than 50 years, researching sickle cell disease and treating patients with the genetic condition. His long-running research study and publications helped transform doctors’ understanding of the disease, as demonstrated by two contrasting experiences.

At the beginning of his career in 1968, Serjeant found it difficult to get a medical journal to publish an article about Jamaicans aged 30 with sickle cell. The journal editors were sceptical because the textbooks of the day said few people with the condition survived beyond childhood.

Burying our heads in the sand won’t stop the climate crisis or pandemics. We’re taking action to preserve government tools

United States science has propelled the country into its current position as a powerhouse of biomedical advancements, technological innovation and scientific research. The data US government agencies produce is a crown jewel – it helps us track how the climate is changing, visualize air pollution in our communities, identify challenges to our health and provide a panoply of other essential uses. Climate change, pandemics and novel risks are coming for all of us – whether we bury our heads in the sand or not – and government data is critical to our understanding of the risks these challenges bring and how to address them.

Much of this data remains out of sight to those who don’t use it, even though they benefit us all. Over the past few months, the Trump administration has brazenly attacked our scientific establishment through agency firings, censorship and funding cuts, and it has explicitly targeted data the American taxpayers have paid for. They’re stealing from us and putting our health and wellbeing in danger – so now we must advocate for these federal resources.