Recent research showed that almost half of bowel cancer cases happen among under-65s.

It wasn’t always that way. Since the ’80s, doctors have noticed that over-50s are getting the condition less, while younger people are seeing more and more cases.

We aren’t sure exactly why that is, though some doctors have shared some possible causes, like “ultra-processed diets, sedentary behaviour, stress, and disrupted sleep”, with HuffPost UK previously.

But now, bioengineers from the University of Texas, Dallas, have found a “distinctive feature of tissues from young patients diagnosed with colorectal [bowel] cancer, a disease that typically affects older patients”.

This research, published in the journal Advanced Science, found that a lot of younger people’s colon tissue is “stiffer” than their older counterparts’.

This was true regardless of whether the tissue itself had bowel cancer, though all participants had been diagnosed with either early-onset bowel cancer (under 50s; 14 patients) or average-onset bowel cancer (over 50s; 19 patients).

The colon is a tube-shaped part of the digestive system that uses some muscles to push stool out of your body. But sometimes, it’s “extracellular material”, which is a kind of mesh made from collagen, thickens ― e.g., when it’s inflamed.

Study author Dr Jacopo Ferruzzi said: “Our team brought an engineering mindset to the table to understand the physical mechanisms involved in early-onset colorectal cancer… We know from previous studies that cancers are usually stiffer than normal tissues.

“While this was true also in patients with early-onset colorectal cancer, we were surprised to find that both healthy and cancerous tissues from these younger patients were stiffer than those from older patients.

“This led our team to think that such stiffness could be creating a favourable environment for cancer to develop early in life.”

The researchers hope it could help us to provide better treatment for people with bowel cancer, especially younger people, down the line.

“If we can understand how physical forces fuel colorectal cancer progression, then we can actually think about early diagnosis and, possibly, therapy,” Dr Ferruzzi said.

“More importantly, we can ask the question: How do we stop people from developing cancer that early in life?”

Russia has blamed “British specialists” for helping Ukraine execute a deadly missile strike on a munitions factory.

Kyiv said it had struck one of Russia’s “most important military factories” on Tuesday, known as the Kremniy El plant, using British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.

The site is the second-largest microelectronics manufacturer in Russia.

According to Russian authorities, at least seven civilians were killed and 42 injured in what it called a “terrorist missile attack”.

The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters: “It is obvious that the launch of these missiles was impossible without British specialists.

“We are aware of this, we know it well, and we naturally take it into account.

“In order to prevent such barbaric actions by the Kyiv regime from continuing, the special military operation is being conducted.”

Russia’s foreign ministry also claimed the attack was premeditated.

It said: “Western states bear full responsibility for the consequences of this strike, which resulted in civilian casualties.

“Britain has gone beyond the norms of international law and is ready… to take the conflict to a fundamentally new level.”

But Ukrainians rejected that analysis, saying the strike targeted the facility itself not civilian infrastructure.

A UK official also told Ukrainian outlet, the Kyiv Independent, that Britain’s support for Kyiv reflects the country’s “clear right of self-defence against Russia’s illegal attacks”.

“We are clear that the equipment provided by the UK is intended for the defence of Ukraine. Ukraine has the right of self-defence,” the official said.

They also made it clear they do not “comment on operational details” when asked about Russia’s claim of direct UK involvement in that operation.

The UK has been sending missiles to Ukraine since May 2023 for use against Russia-occupied territories.

The criticism from Russia comes as Vladimir Putin continues to fight his war of attrition over Ukrainian land.

He already holds a fifth of the neighbouring European country but continues to push for more territory, even as the US attempts to negotiate new peace deals – efforts torpedoed by Putin’s refusal to compromise on his maximalist war aims.

Russia has consistently criticised the UK and other Ukrainian allies throughout the four-year war, even falsely blaming Britain for starting the war.

It’s worth remembering there is an international arrest warrant out for Putin himself for the alleged abduction of Ukrainian children.

You might already know that a person’s grip strength correlates strongly with their overall health, ageing status, strength, bone density, cognitive ability, sleep, and more.

A new paper published in JAMA Network Open, which involved over 5,000 women aged 63-99, looked at how both grip strength and a “sit-to-stand” chair rise correlated to mortality.

After eight years of follow-up, they found that women who did well in both tests were less likely to die in the years after the first tests.

The grip strength test was measured in kilograms. The more pressure you apply to an object – like a tool called a hand dynamometer – when you squeeze it, the higher that kilogram figure is.

For every seven extra kilograms in the grip test, participants had a 12% lower mortality risk on average.

The unassisted sit-to-stand chair raises involved getting up from a seated position in a chair to standing without assistance, eg, leaning on something or pushing against an object, as quickly as possible.

They tracked participants’ speed in seconds for five unassisted sit-to-stand chair raises.

“When it came to chair stands, moving from the slowest time to the fastest time in 6-second increments, researchers saw a 4% lower mortality rate,” the University of Buffalo, whose researchers were involved in the study, said.

“If you don’t have enough muscle strength to get up, it is going to be hard to do aerobic activities, such as walking, which is the most commonly reported recreational activity in U.S. adults ages 65 and older,” the study’s lead author, Dr Michael LaMonte, told the University of Buffalo.

“Muscular strength, in many ways, enables one to move their body from one point to another, particularly when moving against gravity… When we [can] no longer get out of the chair and move around, we are in trouble.”

Interestingly, the benefits of greater strength seemed to hold even when participants didn’t meet exercise guidelines for 150 minutes a week.

“We also showed that differences in body size did not explain the muscular strength relationship with death,” Dr LaMonte said. “When we scaled the strength measures to body weight and even to lean body mass, there remained significantly lower mortality.”

The research suggests that maintaining strength as we age is key to better health outcomes.

“Healthy ageing probably is best pursued through adequate amounts of both aerobic and muscle-strengthening physical activities,” the researcher said.

You don’t need to pump iron daily to reap the benefits, Dr LaMonte suggested: “Even using soup cans or books as a form of resistance provides stimulus to skeletal muscles and could be used by individuals for whom other options are not feasible”.

Expert comment provided by Dr Sophie Bostock, founder of The Sleep Scientist.

Want to hear something a little depressing? The average adult only gets three night’s good sleep a week, research from the Mental Health Foundation found.

In fact, 14% of those asked said they don’t get enough sleep to function normally on any day of the week.

But what is good sleep to begin with, and how can we improve ours?

HuffPost UK spoke to sleep expert Dr Sophie Bostock about what great sleep looks like, how to tell if you’re not well-rested, the mistakes too many of us make, and how to make it better.

A “normal” sleep range for healthy adults is anywhere from seven to nine hours a night.

But Dr Bostock said counting the hours isn’t the only way to tell if you’re sleeping well.

“The best measure of how well you’re sleeping is how you feel during the day,” she explained.

“For most adults, healthy sleep means around 7-9 hours of sleep, at a similar time each night, falling asleep within about 15–30 minutes, and waking up feeling reasonably refreshed.

“Good sleepers aren’t perfect sleepers. Brief awakenings during the night are normal – the key is whether your sleep leaves you feeling capable and alert during the day.”

Tiredness is such a common complaint among adults that it can be hard to tell when you’re truly poorly-rested.

But Dr Bostock told me there are signs.

“If you answer yes to two or more of the [below statements I’d suggest you’d benefit from more, or better quality sleep,” she said:

• Do you lie in at weekends or rest days?

• Do you press the snooze button multiple times?

• Do you rely on sugar or caffeine to get you through the day?

• Do you find yourself dozing off during the day in long meetings, on trains, or on the sofa?

• Do you struggle to concentrate or feel irritable for no reason?

The two most common sleep mistakes Dr Bostock sees are from “either ends of the ‘sleep worry’ spectrum,” she said.

The first issue is “not prioritising sleep enough,” or “treating sleep as optional – squeezing it around work, screens and social commitments”.

That can wear on your body and mind fast.

And in the other extreme, some people struggle with “worrying about sleep too much – trying too hard to sleep, which can trigger the stress response and keep the brain alert”.

Some sleep experts have warned against “orthosomnia,” an obsession with sleep that can paradoxically keep you up at night.

Luckily, Dr Bostock said that getting better sleep is usually easier than most of us imagine.

“Sleep thrives on consistency,” she said.

“The most powerful habits are surprisingly simple: keep your wake-up time fairly consistent, get out into natural light during the day, and build a short wind-down buffer before bed.

“Protecting a dark, cool, quiet sleep environment can also make a big difference – even something as simple as a sleep mask can help support deeper rest.”