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Lots of time sitting, and very little spent moving around, may contribute to loss of the ability to walk in old age, a large US study suggests. 

Researchers found that older people who watched more than five hours of TV a day and were physically active for three hours or less each week were more likely than their more active peers to have developed trouble walking at the end of a 10-year follow-up. 

Reducing sedentary time along with increasing physical activity may be necessary to maintain function in older age, the authors write in Journals of Gerontology: Medical Sciences. 

“If you perform low-level physical activity, like less than three hours a week, and you sit, especially sit watching television more than five hours a day, your risk of mobility loss is over three times greater than people who report high levels of physical activity and very low levels of sitting,” lead author Loretta DiPietro told Reuters Health in a phone interview. 

“Now keep in mind, when I say physical activity, that doesn’t mean going to the gym and working out necessarily. We combined all levels of light, moderate and vigorous activity. It’s the whole volume,” said DiPietro, a researcher at the George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health in Washington, DC. 

Walking, doing errands and moving about, housework and walking the dog all count as physical activity, she said. 

The researchers analysed data from the nationwide NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study, which began in 1995, when participants were between 50 and 71 years old and filled out questionnaires about their medical histories, diet and physical activity. 

Roughly 10 years later, follow-up information was available for more than 134,000 participants who were healthy at baseline and answered another survey. 

At the end of the study period, about 30 per cent of the participants reported having some degree of mobility disability, such as having difficulty walking at a speed greater than 3.2km per hour or not being able to walk at all. 

People who were the most physically active at the beginning of the study period, defined as active more than 7 hours each week, and who sat for less than 6 hours per day, did not have any excess risk of mobility disability by the end of the study period. 

Among the most active adults, even those who sat for more than 7 hours per day also had a lower risk of mobility disability than the least-active adults who were also less sedentary. 

In all groups, as TV viewing time increased, so did the likelihood of a walking disability. People who watched five or more hours of TV per day at the start of the study period, for example, had a 65 per cent greater risk than those who watched the least TV of reporting a mobility disability by the end of the study. 

“You know, what we’ve done in our culture is replace light-intensity activities with automation,” DiPietro said. For instance, the Internet means we don’t need to go shopping anymore. “We can order from Amazon, we can order groceries, etc,” she said. “We don’t walk down the hallway anymore to talk to someone, we text them.” 

One strategy she and her colleagues propose is adding those things back. “Go down the hallway and talk. Climb up a flight of stairs to go talk to someone or to deliver something,” she said. 

“If you have to sit at a desk, every hour, you set a timer and you get up and you walk around.” DiPietro also recommends using a standing desk at work or for computer time. 

“If you’re watching TV for extended periods of time, stand up during commercials and march in place or walk around the house,” she said. 

This study adds encouraging evidence that as people spent more time being physically active, the lower the chance they experienced harmful effects from being sedentary,” said Dorothy Dunlap, a researcher at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago who was not involved in the research. 

Older adults who are physically active are less likely to develop serious conditions including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity, Dunlap said by e-mail. 

“People who are physically active are less likely to become depressed and are less likely to die prematurely,” she added.

Even though people are born with microbes in their mouth that they inherited from their parents, these bacteria are not associated with toothaches and cavities, a recent study suggests. 

Scientists and dentists have long understood that streptococcus bacteria in the mouth are linked to the formation of cavities. For the current study, researchers examined the so-called oral microbiome, or blend of bacteria, in the mouths of 485 pairs of twins and one set of triplets who were 5 to 11 years old. 

The researchers studied 250 identical twins and 280 fraternal twins. Overall, oral microbiomes were more similar between identical twins than between fraternal twins. This suggests that genetics play a role in the kind of bacteria in the mouth, the researchers conclude. 

“We do indeed inherit parts of our oral microbiome from our parents,” said study co-author Chris Dupont of the J. Craig Venter Institute in La Jolla, California. 

Older children in the study had fewer inherited strains of bacteria and more types of bacteria that are associated with what we eat, researchers report in Cell Host and Microbe. 

“Cavities are formed when specific microbes in your mouth degrade sugar, producing acid as a byproduct, which then dissolves our teeth,” Dupont said by e-mail. “We found that the microbes you inherit are not associated with cavities.” 

Bacteria that were associated with fewer cavities were in lower abundance in twins who had a lot of added sugar in their food and drinks, the study found. 

In contrast, bacteria that are more common in children who consume a lot of sugar were associated with having more cavities. 

The study was small and did not follow people over time to see how eating habits and hygiene might influence oral bacteria into adulthood. 

While the results offer fresh evidence that genetics can shape the oral microbiome in childhood, the findings also underscore the importance of good eating habits and oral hygiene, said Dr Natalia Chalmers, director of analytics and publication at DentaQuest Institute and a researcher at the University of Maryland School of Dentistry. 

“Parents know the whole idea of nature versus nurture, and many recognise that both the genetics and the environment play a role in how our children mature,” Chalmers, who was not involved in the study, said by e-mail. 

Cavities are preventable, and the best things parents can do for kids is have them brush twice daily with fluoridated toothpaste and see a dentist twice a year, Chalmers advised. 

“The less time we allow food or drink to stay in our mouths without a water rinse or brushing, the less likely we are to develop tooth decay,” Chalmers said. 

Brushing should start as soon as that first baby tooth comes in. 

And, parents also should pay attention to what children eat, avoiding sugary foods and drinks to lower the risk of cavities. 

With extra sweets, kids not only add bad bacteria that causes cavities, they also lose the good bacteria they were born with, Dupont said. 

“Eating lots of sugar speeds up the loss of your heritable microbes,” Dupont said. “Limit sugar consumption.” 

If you thought “empty calories” were bad for you, consider this: Plastic is ending up in the bellies of fish and other marine life — and it may not be an accident. A new study finds that anchovies were actually attracted to some kinds of plastic, mistaking it for a tasty meal.

The findings, described in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shed light on a worrisome reason that so much plastic could be ending up in the ocean’s delicate food web — which includes humans.

As plastic continues to accumulate in our oceans, scientists are looking at the long-term effects that the man-made material might have on the animals that eat it and on the animals that eat them. But lead author Matthew Savoca, a marine biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Monterey, California, wondered why the animals were eating it at all.

“The aspect of the problem that was most interesting to me was, why are these animals making this mistake in the first place?” Savoca said. After all, fish and other marine life have evolved to target specific kinds of food, which should mean they would avoid plastic entirely — unless the plastic was somehow “tricking” the animals into thinking it was edible.

“What we really wanted to do was actually think about this problem from the animal’s perspective,” Savoca said.

Some observers have speculated that sea turtles end up munching on plastic bags because they look so much like jellyfish, a regular meal for leatherbacks. But marine creatures often follow their noses rather than their eyes, Savoca said — which might be a counterintuitive concept for humans, who evolved as visual hunters.

Savoca and his colleagues tested different odours on wild schools of anchovies that had been caught off the California coast. They made the smells by soaking different substances in seawater: krill (very tiny crustaceans eaten by anchovies); “biofouled” plastic coated in algae and bacteria (which happens when plastic enters the ocean); and clean plastic.

“You can sort of think of it as steeping tea, or something, and then presenting the tea to the fish,” he said.

Savoca put each flavour of sea-tea into a syringe and injected it into a container holding the swimming anchovies, watching to see how they reacted. (The scientists also used actual krill, in addition to krill-flavoured water, in their experiment.)

When the fish sensed the krill-flavoured water, they quickly bunched up to focus on the potential food source. They did not react that way to the clean plastic, but they did cluster around the biofouled plastic, covered in algae and microbes.

So plastic in the ocean could indeed be attractive to fish because of the algae that live on it. Algae give off a sulphuric smell, Savoca said, and many birds and fish have learned this odour signals a tasty meal.

“It was surprising how obvious and dramatic their responses were,” Savoca said of the experiment.

What happens to fish that eat plastic? And what happens to humans who eat those fish? The effects on marine life of eating plastic are not fully known, although researchers have noted certain changes in fish behaviour: weakened schooling and a weakened ability to evade predators. 

Today, in the world of Information Technology (IT) more particularly, the evolution and progress pattern is significantly different from what it used to be generations ago. Things evolve almost daily, in hardly perceptible steps. It is only when you look five or ten years behind you that you realise how much things have changed and that a revolution really did take place.

Apparently the days are gone when scientists used make a sudden discovery, overnight, and amaze the world with it, in some kind of a breaking news frenzy. One of the most famous examples in history is that of Sir Isaac Newton who it is said, probably anecdotally, “understood” gravity in a snap, when a ripe apple fell on him from the tree he was sitting under. That was the seventeenth century!

Even in the nineteenth century, Thomas Edison, Alexander Bell, Louis Pasteur and Guglielmo Marconi were some of the scientists who also made sensational discoveries or brought truly breaking technical and scientific innovations.

Is nowadays’ slower progress pattern a bad thing?

It is not, of course. Except for the fact that the population is used as testing ground and is made to participate in the process, by having to buy, to watch and to experiment — did I say to suffer? — through all the little steps. It is not only costly, but also exhausting.

When you keep changing frequently your smartphone or laptop computer, your usage, your financial participation, and your feedback, intentional or not, help the industry to improve the various elements of the devices: memory, processor, hard disk and so forth. Your external USB disk drive may not be much better than the one you bought last year, but certainly is a far cry from the one you got five years ago.

The same applies to software updates. The new Windows 10 Creators is clearly more powerful, safer, faster and friendlier than Windows XP, for instance. However, Microsoft made you work through Windows XP, 7, 8 and 10, over a period of about 15 years. Slowly of course, so you help but do not feel the pain. In a dream world, the company would provide with a clearly improved system every 20 or 25 years.

Earlier this week Reuters published a story titled “YuMi the robot conducts Verdi with Italian orchestra”. All that the robot did was to mimic a conductor’s gestures. The article indicates that it would have been unable to follow eventual tempo change by the orchestra. In other words it is still far, very far, from being able to replace a real conductor. And yet, every year or so you read that robots have done this or that; that soon they will be the perfect home helper for the elderly, etc.

Instead of waking up one day with the nearly-perfect robot, we are made to live all the little steps that eventually would lead to the perfect thing. In the meantime, they would like you to buy the small home robot that, supposedly, can clean up your floor. Here again, you are asked to participate in the process.

Perhaps everything that can be discovered overnight has been discovered and that technical progress, from now on, can only be achieved in little steps, with the population’s implicit participation.

Still, would not it be nice to wake up tomorrow and have a software operating system that never crashes, starts and shuts off instantly, reports errors in plain language that everyone would understand, never catches a virus and issues pre-emptive warning before the hard disk fails on you? Do not you sometimes have the feeling that the world of IT is going mad?

To quote Sir Isaac Newton: “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.”

Adults who are inactive much of the day may be more likely to die prematurely than people who do not sit around a lot, regardless of their exercise habits, a US study suggests. 

People may also be less likely to die young if they break up sedentary time by moving around every half hour than if they remain seated for longer stretches of time without getting up, the study also suggests. 

“We think these findings suggest that it is simply not enough to be active or move at just one specific time of the day, that is, exercise,” said lead study author Keith Diaz of the Centre for Behavioural Cardiovascular Health at Columbia University Medical Centre in New York. 

“We need to be mindful of moving frequently throughout the day in addition to exercising,” Diaz said by e-mail. 

While previous research has linked excessive sedentary time to an increased risk of death, many of these studies relied on people to accurately recall and report how much they moved around and might not have painted a clear picture of the relationship between mortality and inactivity. 

For the current study, researchers examined data on 7,985 adults, age 45 and older, who were asked to wear accelerometers to measure activity levels for one week. 

Overall, sedentary behaviour accounted for 77 per cent of participants’ waking hours, or about 12 hours a day, researchers report in the Annals of Internal Medicine. 

On averages, bouts of sedentary time were about 11 minutes long, and more than half of the time people spent sitting and standing happened in bouts of less than 30 minutes, the study found. 

About 14 per cent of the people in the study typically had stretches of sedentary time lasting at least 90 minutes, however. 

During the study, 340 people died after an average follow-up of four years. 

Researchers sorted participants into four groups from the least sedentary people, who spent only about 11 hours total sitting and standing in a typical day, to the most sedentary people who were inactive for more than 13 hours a day. 

They also sorted participants into four groups based on how long typical bouts of sedentary time lasted before people took movement breaks, ranging from less than 7.7 minutes to at least 12.4 minutes. 

Compared to the least sedentary people with the briefest stretches of sitting time, the most sedentary people with the longest periods of sitting down were twice as likely to die of all cause during the study period. 

One limitation of the study, however, is that the accelerometers could not distinguish between sedentary time from sitting versus inactive periods when people were standing, the authors note. 

The study also was not a controlled experiment designed to prove how or whether sedentary time directly causes premature death. 

It is possible that prolonged sedentary stretches might hasten death by causing what is known as metabolic toxicity, said Dr David Alter, head of cardiovascular and metabolic research for the University Health Network-Toronto Rehabilitation Institute in Canada. 

“The lack of activity in our muscles affects our ability to metabolise our sugars efficiently,” Alter, author of an accompanying editorial, said by e-mail. “Over time, our body accumulates excess fat, which can lead to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and death.” 

One thing that might help, however, is a stopwatch, because it could remind people to get up and move around often throughout the day and avoid long stretches of sedentary time, Alter said. 

Even though standing desks have become increasingly popular as a possible fix to the problems caused by sedentary time, it is not clear if they help people live longer. 

“Anything that will facilitate movement would be better: treadmill desks, under desk steppers or cycles, or just plain old fashioned walking breaks that can be pretty easily implemented in an office setting,” Diaz said.

There comes a time in the life of every columnist when nothing seems to go right. I am not talking about the dreaded writer’s block, which happens often enough, but worse than that is if the tools of our trade give up on us. Before the advent of e-mail and computers, whenever the typewriter ribbon ran out, there was a shortage of writing paper or the fax machines got into a freeze mode, well, our blood ran cold too. We did not have many alternatives, other than picking up the phone and dictating the piece to our editors, which was neither a suitable nor a sustainable option. 

I am well aware that all of this could have happened to me at any juncture, but surprisingly I had quite a smooth run for over two decades. Despite knowing that I cannot have a lucky streak forever, when misfortune struck, I was taken completely unawares. My laptop crashed in a remote island country that I was visiting, and with that single unexpected calamity, all links to my writing kit were broken. 

We take our gadgets for granted and I personally treat my MacBook like a moody teenager. So, if it acts in a weird manner, I just ignore it for some time and put it on a sleep mode. Most often, after a good rest, it gets rejuvenated and responds positively to my requests. I basically utilise the same technique I used while raising our child and it works wonderfully. Well, most of the time anyway. 

But, at this instance, it does not and even after two days of nonstop resting, it refuses to wake-up. My deadline is fast approaching and I am beginning to get stressed. My husband suggests I use the computer in the business centre of the hotel we are staying in. I resist the idea because who wants to be caught working in a resort that is facing the sandy white beaches of the Indian Ocean? “In all probability they do not even have a business centre,” says the voice in my head. 

On day four my laptop also does not stop snoozing. I consider writing my article on my smartphone but after squinting at it for some time I drop the idea because the screen is too small and the auto correct setting installed in it, keeps distorting my words. I am horrified when I type “things” and it becomes “thongs” and “mother” becomes “mugger”. I don’t even want to contemplate what shape my column would finally take.

Ultimately I approach the hotel staff and ask them to take me to their business centre. They look at me in complete disbelief, as if I have demanded a private jet at my disposal. One of them leads me across the breezy sun drenched lobby with views to die for, towards the interior of the building. The room is dark and neglected, with dim lighting and there is a lone computer in the corner table. It looks like nobody has ever felt the need to use the services of the place. I request for some more light which is another gargantuan task for the beleaguered hotel manager.  

“Madam, why don’t you sit on the beach?” he tries to solve my problem. 

“I have work to do, my laptop crashed,” I inform him. 

“Do you know where the switches are?” he asks me. 

“I have never come here,” I answer.

“Neither has anybody else,” he confesses under his breath.

LOS ANGELES — “It” came; “It” saw; “It” conquered.

The New Line and Warner Bros. adaptation of Stephen King’s novel is officially shattering box office records during its opening weekend. The R-rated horror film made a whopping $123.4 million from 4,103 locations, far surpassing earlier expectations. That would give “It” the third largest opening weekend of 2017, higher than “Spider-Man: Homecoming”, which made $117 million. Only “Beauty and the Beast” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” earned more this year. $7.2 million of “It’s” domestic grosses are coming from 377 Imax screens.

“There’s something really special about the story itself, the way the movie was made, and the marketing,” said Jeff Goldstein, distribution chief at Warner Bros. “The stars aligned on this, and we still have some room to grow for the weekend.”

“It” earned a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes of 87 per cent and a B+ CinemaScore. Its gender breakdown is reportedly 51 per cent female and 49 per cent male. About two thirds of the audience has been over 25 years old.

“It’s” opening is mostly unprecedented, crushing the record for largest September opening set by “Hotel Transylvania 2” in 2015 with $48.5 million, and the biggest opening weekend banked by a horror or supernatural film — “Paranormal Activity 3” earned $52.6 million in 2011. When it comes to R-rated movie openings, “It” falls only to “Deadpool”, which changed the game in 2016 with a massive $132.4 million opening. This, during a weekend when Hurricane Irma threatens huge portions of Florida and Georgia, which could dent attendance by as much as 5 per cent.

In addition to its domestic grosses, the horror hit is expected to pull in $62 million from 46 markets overseas, giving “It” a $179 million global debut. That is a huge win for a movie with an estimated $35 million production budget.

Horror films often have lower budgets than other more CGI-dense blockbusters, so the return on investment has potential to be massive. Goldstein said the genre is one that New Line particularly excels in, and there is potential to see more horror in the future if the right story comes along. “If we were able to find more films in this genre, we’d be thrilled to make them,” he said.

The movie comes courtesy of Argentine director Andy Muschietti, who is known for the 2013 horror film “Mama”. Bill Skarsgard stars as Pennywise the Clown, which terrorises young children in Derry, Maine. The rest of the cast includes youngsters Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Nicholas Hamilton, and Jackson Robert Scott in supporting roles.

That leaves Open Road’s “Home Again” trailing far behind. The Reese Witherspoon-led romantic comedy earned $8.6 million this weekend from 2,940 locations. The $15 million project was directed by Hallie Meyer-Shyer, the daughter of Nancy Meyers, who also worked on the film as a producer. The story centres on Witherspoon’s character — a mother of two who unexpectedly has three young men come to live with her following a recent separation from her husband.

Lionsgate’s “Hitman’s Bodyguard” is landing in third with $4.8 million from 3,322 locations after winning the domestic box office for the past three weekends. “Annabelle: Creation” from Warner Bros. is next with $4 million from 3,003 spots. And “Wind River” caps the top five with an anticipated $3.1 million from 2,890 theatres.

For the movie business, “It” could not have come at a better time. Following a dismal summer box office that plunged 14.6 per cent from last summer to $3.8 billion, “It” serves in part as the pick-me-up the industry was desperately craving. After this weekend, the year to date box office will improve from 6.5 per cent behind 2016 to 5.5 per cent, according to data provided by ComScore.

Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at ComScore attributed the film’s success to the “universality of the fear of clowns”, which created an “event for fans who came out to be scared en masse in the communal environment of the movie theatre”.

He added, “The marketing campaign brilliantly evoked a sense of teenage wonderment, fear, and ultimately bravery in the face of the true evil as perfectly embodied by Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise. That, along with the great ensemble cast of young actors and a movie that delivered on the promise of that marketing, made the film an astonishing over-performer.”

A sequel is already in the works at New Line with Gary Dauberman attached to write the script, and Muschietti expected to return to the director’s chair.

Regarding plans for the next movie, Goldstein said, “It puts more pressure on us to come up with the best version of the story so we bring fans what they want to see. We’ve had a lot of history with franchises. Some are great, and some we wish we had a little bit more story. Fortunately, there’s a lot here in this story.”

People who are considered metabolically healthy may still have a higher risk of developing heart problems if they are obese than they would if they weighed less, a recent study suggests. 

Obesity on its own is a risk factor for heart disease. The study focused on the odds of heart problems for people at various weights who were considered metabolically healthy because they did not have three other risk factors for heart disease: diabetes, high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol. 

Metabolically healthy obese people were 49 per cent more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and almost twice as likely to develop heart failure as normal-weight people without any metabolic abnormalities, the study found. 

“Although those `metabolically healthy’ obese people may not have those risk factors we described – diabetes and high blood pressure and blood fats – being obese is already a metabolic abnormality,” said senior study author Neil Thomas of the University of Birmingham in the UK. 

“There is no such thing as `metabolically healthy’ and obese,” Thomas said by e-mail. 

Globally, 1.9 billion adults are overweight or obese, according to the World Health Organisation. Obesity increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes, joint disorders and certain cancers. 

For the study, researchers focused on one commonly used measure of obesity known as body-mass index (BMI), a measure of weight relative to height. 

A BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered healthy, 25 to 29.9 is overweight, 30 or above is obese. Anyone with a BMI below 18.5 is considered underweight. 

An adult who is 175cm tall and weighs from 57kg to 76kg would have a healthy weight and a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. An obese adult at that height would weigh at least 92kg and have a BMI of 30 or more.

For the current study, researchers examined data on 3.5 million adults who were at least initially free of heart disease. 

Overall, about 3 per cent of these people were underweight without any metabolic abnormalities, 38 per cent were metabolically healthy and at a normal weight, and 26 per cent were overweight without metabolic issues. Another 15 per cent were metabolically healthy and obese. 

Metabolic problems were rare, regardless of people’s weight. 

But like obese people in the study, individuals who were not obese but who were overweight without metabolic abnormalities still had a higher risk of heart disease than people who were metabolically healthy and also at a healthy weight, researchers report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 

Individuals who were underweight and without metabolic abnormalities had a higher risk of vascular disease than people who were a normal weight, the study also found. This might be at least partially explained by smoking, which can mean people are slimmer but also that they have a higher risk of vascular problems, the authors note. 

One limitation of the study is that BMI does not distinguish between weight from fat versus lean muscle mass, making it possible that at least some people classified as obese in the study were actually unusually muscular rather than fat, the authors also point out. The study might also include people who had undiagnosed risk factors for cardiovascular disease. 

People should not base their understanding of their own health and fitness on BMI alone, said Jennifer Bea, a researcher at the University of Arizona in Tucson. 

“You can have a normal BMI, but low muscle tone and low bone mass, thus by default, a high percentage of fat,” Bea said by e-mail. “Even normal weight individuals based on BMI can have metabolic dysfunction and be at risk.” 

Children who skip breakfast on a regular basis are likely to fall short for the day in getting all their recommended essential nutrients, a UK study suggests.

Kids who skipped breakfast every day were less likely to get enough iron, calcium, iodine and folate when compared to kids who ate breakfast every day, the research team found.

“A greater proportion of those children who ate breakfast met their recommended intakes of these micronutrients compared to breakfast skippers,” coauthors Gerda Pot and Janine Coulthard of Kings College London told Reuters Health in an e-mail interview.

“These findings suggest that eating breakfast could play an important role in ensuring that a child consumes enough of these key micronutrients,” Pot and Coulthard said.

Though older children were more likely to skip breakfast, the day’s nutrient shortfall was greater when younger children missed the morning meal.

“Our research indicated that although lower proportions of 4-to-10-year-olds skipped breakfast regularly compared to 11-to-18-year-olds, greater differences in micronutrient intakes were seen in the younger age group when comparing days on which they ate breakfast with days on which they skipped it. It may, therefore, be particularly important to ensure that this younger age group eats a healthy breakfast, either at home or at a school breakfast club.”

Researchers examined four-day food diaries for almost 1,700 children ages 4 to 18. The information was taken from a yearly national diet and nutrition survey between 2008 and 2012.

Breakfast was defined as consuming more than 100 calories between 6am and 9am.

Overall, about 31 per cent of kids ate breakfast daily, 17 per cent never ate breakfast, and the rest ate it some days and skipped it on others. In this group, the researchers also compared differences in nutrient intake by the same child on different days.

The team found that 6.5 per cent of kids aged 4 to 10 missed breakfast every day, compared with nearly 27 per cent of 11-to-18-year-olds.

Girls were more likely to miss breakfast than boys, and household income tended to be higher for families of children who ate breakfast every day.

More than 30 per cent of kids who skipped breakfast did not get enough iron during the day, compared to less than 5 per cent of kids who ate breakfast, the researchers report in British Journal of Nutrition.

Around 20 per cent of breakfast skippers were low on calcium and iodine, compared to roughly 3 per cent of kids who ate breakfast.

About 7 per cent of children who skipped breakfast were low in folate, compared to none in the groups that ate breakfast.

Fat intake went up when kids skipped breakfast, researchers found.

Kids who skipped breakfast did not seem to compensate by eating more calories later in the day. In fact, kids who did not eat breakfast ended up eating the same number or fewer total calories as kids who ate breakfast every day.

Making sure kids eat breakfast appears to be more difficult in the older age group, who are possibly less receptive to parental supervision, Pot and Coulthard said. 

“One tactic would be to get children involved in making breakfast, maybe even preparing something the night before if time is short in the morning.” 

The authors noted there are a wealth of healthy, simple and tasty recipe ideas available on social media that children can choose from, adding that kids might even like to post a picture of their creations online. 

Audi’s fastest production road car and winner of the 2017 Middle East Car of the Year accolade, the Audi R8 V10 is a sensational performer and is also as sensibly practical as a bona fide mid-engine supercar can be. Billed as the thinking man’s — or woman’s — supercar when it arrived in first iteration back in 2006, the second generation R8 even better delivers on this promise, but remains an intuitively visceral, rather than a clinically cerebral experience. 

Evolutionary in design and engineering, the cumulative effect is a far-reaching improvement in comfort, practicality, driving dynamic and performance, especially in the more powerful R8 V10 Plus version, as driven.

Launched globally as a 2016 model, the second generation R8 V10 is a tauter, tidier, sharper and more deliberate re-interpretation of its predecessor’s design expression. With a broader and seemingly lower-set single frame hexagonal honeycomb grille seemingly framed by side air inlets with vertical slats and sharply angled, slim and heavily browed LED headlights, the R8 V10 has a predatory and hungry visage.

A low bonnet and subtle yet sharply ridged fin-like character lines and discretely rising and bulging wheel-arches adds to its road-hugging stance, as does its width, and design emphasis on how it “sits” on all four wheels to allude to its Quattro four-wheel-drive. 

Eager and evolutionary

With larger curved windscreen, low bonnet, forward-set cabin and arcing roofline, the R8 radiates a sense of purpose and eagerness. Deeper more chiseled grooves along its flanks feed into its side air intakes and low-set mid-mounted engine. In R8 V10 Plus guise driven, carbon-fibre trim panels are finished in gloss and include a rear wing which — along with the rear diffuser — helps generate 140kg downforce at top speed. Also finished in carbon-fibre, the R8’s characteristic “sideblade” intake covers are now divided by a long uninterrupted waistline, with hidden lower door handles and strong broad but low-set rear shoulders and subtle Coke-bottle lines.

Marginally shorter and lower yet wider and with longer wheelbase, yet comparatively lighter than the car it replaces, the new R8 V10 is built on a lighter and stiffer version of the Audi Space Frame, incorporated a mix of aluminium and more carbon-fibre reinforced polymer. Externally, the R8’s body is almost entirely built from aluminium. Viewed by some as a high performance sports car rival to the likes of top-end Porsche 911s, the R8 V10 Plus, however, is very closely related to, yet more practical and slightly longer than the Lamborghini Huracan. In turn this makes it a more affordable and discrete supercar alternative to flashy and pricey exotics.

Urgent and exacting

Like its Lamborghini sister with which its shares mid-mounted engine, gearbox and more, the Audi R8 bucks the trend for smaller turbocharged engine supercars. Instead, it retains its charismatic, ultra-responsive, driver-engaging and stratospherically high-revving 8700rpm naturally-aspirated 5.2-litre V10 engine. Producing 70BHP more in the more powerful R8 V10 Plus of two versions — and same as the Huracan — it develops 602BHP at 8250rpm and 413lb/ft at 6500rpm, which allows for sensationally swift headline and real world performance. Rocketing through 0-100km/h in 3.2-seconds or less and through 0-200km/h in 9.9-seconds, the aerodynamic and relatively lightweight 1580kg R8 V10 Plus can attain 330km/h, and returns acceptably good 12.3l/100km combined efficiency when driven less enthusiastically.

Highly responsive to the slightest input from idling to redline, the R8 V10 Plus allows one to dial in exact increments of power through corners to not overpower grip and allow for precise driving finesse, while its engine also pulls hard from low rpm and through a broad mid-range. Responsive and quick to rev and wind down, its V10 engine builds power and torque with searing progression, as it races to redline. 

Meanwhile, an authentic, evocative and distinctly metallic staccato engine note crackles and hardens to urgent bellowing and wailing as revs rise, and is accompanied by a throaty exhaust note and gurgling at throttle lift-off.

Crisp and committed

Launching from standstill with startling alacrity as all four driven wheels dig in to the tarmac for enormous traction, the R8 V10 Plus accelerates with consistent urge against wind resistance, and remains planted at speed, with up to 100kg downforce at the rear and 40kg at the front, for meaty and precise steering, and reassuring directional stability. Unfortunately absent in this latest iteration is the option of a manual gearbox, as is the case with most rivals. However, the R8’s 7-speed dual-clutch gearbox is seamlessly quick, precise and decisive when shifting through different automatic modes, with escalating comfort-to-responsiveness settings, or through its steering wheel-mounted manual mode paddle shifters.

With rear-biased four-wheel-drive and weighting, and engine mounted low and behind the cabin for superb within-wheelbase weight distribution and low centre of gravity, the R8 V10 Plus feels neutral and nimble through corners.

Entering a corner with crisp immediacy and tight grip at a flick of its quick, direct and well-weighted electric-assisted steering, it is committed and agile through corners and switchbacks. And with stability controls in less interventionist mode and a heavy right foot, one can playfully kick out the rear to tighten a cornering line, before its four-wheel-drive swiftly reallocates more power frontward and its limited-slip differential redistributes power along the rear axle to find the necessary traction and grip.

Clarity and comfort

Blasting out of a corner with all four wheels tenaciously dug into tarmac and ready to assault a series of oncoming corners, the R8 V10 remains taut and flat owing to its optional adaptive magnetic dampers that stiffen for improved body control through corners, loosen for more supple ride comfort over straights and provide buttoned down vertical control and fluency over imperfections.

A scalpel sharp hill climb companion, the R8 V10 Plus’ is connected, agile and engaging, with long-legged rev-limit, highly responsive throttle control and chassis adjustability. Somewhat reminiscent of a Lotus Evora in handling and nimbleness, the R8 V10 Plus is, however, a flexible machine that also enjoys Nissan GT-R-like road-holding and commitment.

Highly capable and flattering, the R8 V10 Plus is in many respects a more practical Lamborghini Huracan LP610-4 with more cargo space, and more understated design and badge. However, for taller and larger drivers, its generous headroom, spacious cabin, excellent visibility, highly adjustable driving position and feeling of being at the centre of the action, lends an added and crucial layer of confidence, control and clarity.

Luxurious, well trimmed and with extensive infotainment, convenience and safety features and adjustable driving modes, the R8 feels manoeuvrable and manageable at speed, through switchbacks and on city streets, and even provides better rear visibility than some narrower front-engine sports cars with more rearwards cabins..

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 5.2-litre, mid-mounted, dry sump, V10-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 84.5 x 92.8mm

Compression ratio: 12.5:1

Valve-train: 40-valve, DOHC, direct injection

Gearbox: 7-speed automated dual clutch

Driveline: Four-wheel-drive, multi-plate clutch, limited-slip differential

Gear ratios: 1st 3.133; 2nd 2.588; 3rd 1.958; 4th 1.244; 5th 0.979; 6th 0.976; 7th 0.841; R 2.647

Final drive, 1st, 4th, 5th, R/2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th: 4.893/3.938

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 602 (610) [449] @8250rpm

Specific power: 115.7BHP/litre

Power-to-weight, unladen: 381BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 413 (560) @6500rpm

Specific torque: 107.6Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight, unladen: 354.4Nm/tonne

Rev limit: 8700rpm

0-100km/h: 3.2-seconds (3.1-seconds with sport tires)

0-200km/h: 9.9-seconds

Top speed: 330km/h

Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined: 17.5-/9.3-/12.3-litres/100km 

CO2 emissions, combined: 287g/km

Fuel capacity: 73-litres

Track, F/R: 1638/1599mm

Overhangs, F/R: 994/782mm

Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.36

Headroom: 977mm

Unladen/kerb weight: 1580kg/1655kg

Weight distribution, F/R: 42 per cent/58 per cent

Luggage capacity, boot/behind front seats: 112-/226-litres 

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Turning circle: 11.2-metres

Suspension: Double wishbones, adaptive magnetic dampers

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated, perforated ceramic discs

Brake callipers, F/R: 6-/4-piston callipers

Tyres: 245/30ZR20/305/30ZR20