People have long claimed it can help with weight loss and digestive issues. But what does the science say?

The popular new Netflix show Apple Cider Vinegar isn’t about the titular vinegar – it’s about the influencer Belle Gibson claiming she cured brain cancer by adopting a whole food diet.

Yet apple cider vinegar is a fitting symbol for society’s obsession with miracle health cures.

It’s unknown whether Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has promoted anti-vaccine views, is involved in study

• US politics live – latest updates

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is planning a large study into potential connections between vaccines and autism, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, despite extensive scientific research that has disproved or failed to find evidence of such links.

It is unclear whether the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has long promoted anti-vaccine views, is involved in the planned CDC study or how it would be carried out. The CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services were not immediately available for comment.

Inquiry looks at contracts worth £50m awarded to company linked to Lord Chadlington after he emailed DHSC adviser

A Conservative peer introduced a company he was involved in to the government to supply PPE after he first contacted David Cameron by text message, the Covid-19 public inquiry has heard.

The inquiry is hearing evidence this week about the government’s multibillion-pound spending on medical supplies during the crisis, including its use of the “VIP lane”, which gave high priority to companies with political connections and awarded them £3.8bn PPE contracts.

People snacked at home on more than 15% fewer occasions in 2024 than in 2020 and are choosing healthier options

Hold the biscuits, popcorn and chocolate and hand out the rice cakes, apples and halloumi, the UK is cutting back on snacks and shifting to healthier options amid tighter budgets and bulging waistlines.

Britons had a snack at home on more than 15% fewer occasions in 2024 than in 2020 – as a boom in self-treating during the pandemic lockdowns subsided, according to the retail market analysts Kantar. Even when snacking on the go is included, we are munching about 2% less than during the pandemic and even a bit less than before Covid reshaped our lives.

Spouses of deceased Medicaid recipients report repayment demands for medical costs, trapping them in a cycle of debt

After her husband of 44 years died two years ago from Covid-19-related respiratory complications, Susan thought she could begin to grieve the loss of her best friend.

The cost of the medical care her husband incurred before he died, she was told, was not something she had to think about.

Extra-width spectator seating, bariatric ambulances and oversized coffins are in growing demand

• More than half of adults will be overweight or obese by 2050 – report

With a study predicting that by 2050 more than half of adults and a third of children and young people worldwide will be overweight or obese, a swathe of industries are adapting to accommodate larger bodies. From hospitals to transport, stadiums to crematoriums, here are some of the adjustments being made.

Exclusive: Nursing union says it continues to receive complaints about low pay, unfit housing and illegal fees

Ministers are dragging their heels on an investigation into the mistreatment of migrant carers, the country’s largest nursing union has said, as it continues to receive complaints about low pay, substandard accommodation and illegal fees.

Nicola Ranger, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has written to Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, to urge her to speed up her promised investigation into the abuse of foreign care workers.

Person from Lea county had been unvaccinated and did not seek care but virus not yet confirmed as cause of death

An adult who was infected with measles has died in New Mexico, state health officials announced Thursday, though the virus has not been confirmed as the cause of death.

The person who died had been unvaccinated and did not seek medical care, a state health department spokesperson said in a statement. The person’s exact age and other details were not immediately released.

Exclusive: Jim Mackey plans ‘big clearout’ as he steers NHS England towards closer relationship with health secretary

The next boss of NHS England is preparing a wide-ranging purge of its senior leadership team as he steers it into a much closer relationship with the health secretary, Wes Streeting.

Sir Jim Mackey, NHS England’s chief executive, is finalising plans for “a big clearout” of the top executives who were mainly hired by his immediate predecessor, Amanda Pritchard, who will leave the post in April.

Join Wes Streeting in conversation with Pippa Crerar discussing England’s health and social care system and how Labour plans to turn it around. On Tuesday 25 March 2025, 7pm-8.15pm (GMT). Book tickets here or at guardianlive.com

Plastics are everywhere, but their smallest fragments – nanoplastics – are making their way into the deepest parts of our bodies, including our brains and breast milk.

Scientists have now captured the first visual evidence of these particles inside human cells, raising urgent questions about their impact on our health. From the food we eat to the air we breathe, how are nanoplastics infiltrating our systems?

Neelam Tailor looks into the invisible invasion happening inside us all

Given recent history and the state of the world now, perhaps the thing that makes older people happiest is not being under 45

So there are two studies, one commissioned by Weetabix, one by the UN, but we don’t need to decide which one is likely to be the more reliable because, praise be, they both say the same thing: 45 is now the age of peak happiness. A massive 77% are more content with their lives after they hit 40, with two-thirds saying they no longer cared what other people thought, and 59% having attained self-actualisation – or, at least, they say they “now know what really matters in life”. Which is probably about as self-actualised as it gets. That data is all from the high-fibre breakfast treat funded study.

The UN, meanwhile, has survey results from the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and kicks off cheerfully enough – happiness used to be conceived in a U-shape, when it was bliss to be alive in youth, miserable in middle age, and then picked up again as you got older. Now it’s more of a straight upward trajectory, although that can’t literally be true as it would make babies the saddest people on Earth. Fair play, they do cry a lot.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

Madeleine Finlay and Ian Sample discuss three intriguing science stories from the week. From two private moon landings to the controversy over Elon Musk’s continued membership of the Royal Society, and a new study making a link between men’s health and their sperm quality

Striking images show Blue Ghost Mission 1’s successful moon landing

Elon Musk survives as fellow of Royal Society despite anger among scientists

Women and ethnic minorities now in the majority and evidence shows diversity benefits patient outcomes

• Female doctors outnumber male peers in UK for first time

Since Elizabeth Garrett Anderson became the first woman in Britain to qualify to practise medicine in 1865, it has been a long road to gender parity. Now, for the first time, female doctors outnumber their male counterparts in the UK, according to figures from the General Medical Council, which also reveal that black and minority ethnic doctors are now in the majority.

The shift in demographics is welcome, not least in a profession that has frequently fallen short of meeting the needs of female and minority ethnic patients. There have been a series of scandals in women’s health, from failing maternity units to harm caused by vaginal mesh and the anti-epilepsy drug sodium valproate.

Joe was a gifted musician who struggled with addiction and poor mental health. When he got a place at an award-winning ‘sanctuary’ in London, it sounded perfect. The reality was shockingly different

Jude Black was delighted when her son, Joe, moved into Holmes Road Studios in Camden, north London. This wasn’t any old homelessness hostel. It had just won an award from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and it looked gorgeous.

The 59 refurbished studio flats had en suite bathrooms and were designed around a courtyard garden. Joe was allocated No 21. Each studio was distinguished by a colourful front door – blue, brown, orange, green, red, turquoise. The rustic-looking brickwork gleamed in the sun and a stylish porthole window lit up the mezzanine bed space.

Exclusive: Sequencing will help doctors identify bacteria that cause infections and offer effective treatments faster and more accurately

Scientists have developed a rapid DNA sequencing system to stem the rise of superbugs by identifying bacterial infections faster and more accurately.

Currently, hospital labs can take as long as seven days to specify bacterial infections, while for some infections a definitive diagnosis may take eight weeks.

Study suggests infection is sexually transmitted and opens up new way to reduce recurrence by treating male partners

Bacterial vaginosis can be passed to women by male sexual partners, researchers have said, challenging the longstanding view that it is not a sexually transmitted infection.

Experts say the study offers a new way to reduce the risk of the infection returning in women, with another scientist saying it showed up the UK’s NHS website as “outdated and misleading”.

Exclusive: Marie Tidball tells of her experiences with NHS as report finds 44% higher risk of stillbirth for disabled women

When doctors tried to work out whether Marie Tidball would need a specially designed birth plan, one asked her to lie fully clothed on the bed and spread her legs in the air so they could see how far they could open.

The incident was one of several occasions when Tidball, now a Labour MP, felt neglected during her pregnancy and early motherhood because of the NHS’s failure to adapt on account of her physical disabilities. Tidball has physical impairments affecting all four of her limbs and had major surgeries on both her hips and legs as a child.

Plaintiffs say Florida Crystals’ farming method that blights minority neighborhoods belies its climate-friendly claims

A major sugar company has been accused of harmful environmental practices while claiming to be a leader in the fight against the climate crisis, in a class-action lawsuit filed on Wednesday.

Florida Crystals, one of the US’s biggest sugar firms, and its parent company, the Fanjul Corporation, are accused of deceiving consumers and endangering public health by continuing to use environmentally harmful pre-harvest burning.

The ruling marks a victory for abortion rights months after a ballot measure added protections to the state constitution

A court permanently blocked Arizona’s 15-week abortion ban from taking effect on Wednesday, months after Arizona residents voted to pass a ballot measure adding abortion rights into the state constitution.

“For two years, I’ve seen firsthand how our state’s abortion ban has harmed my patients, with countless lives and futures changed because politicians thought their views of the right healthcare was more important than pregnant people and their medical providers,” Dr Eric M Reuss, one of the healthcare providers who brought the lawsuit over Arizona’s 15-week ban, said in a statement.

Chair of Danish wellbeing commission says whole continent should halt digitalisation of children’s lives

The whole of Europe should follow Denmark’s lead by banning mobile phones from schools to stop them from being “colonised by digital platforms”, the chair of the country’s wellbeing commission has said.

Removing mobile phones from schools gave young people a “pause” from online life, teaching them how to be part of analogue communities and train their attention spans, said Rasmus Meyer, who led the government commission to investigate growing dissatisfaction among children and young people.