Your Body

The gut is a foreign country. No really, there’s a whole microbe population living in there, known now as the gut microbiota, formerly called gut flora. These gut microbiota contains tens of trillions of microorganisms, including at least 1000 different species of known bacteria with more than three million genes, which are, fascinatingly enough, totally…

It’s Valentines Day soon and as exercise enthusiasts we can’t stop thinking about the heart – how it works for us day and night to not only stay alive, but live well. It’s therefore only right that we pay tribute to the heart, who as a small heart cell at a mere age of four…

Do you wake up with a zealous urgency to eat breakfast, the most important meal of the day – even when you don’t feel like it? We all wolf down our toast or cereal, because we’re told that it can make us lose weight, strengthen our immune system, our metabolism and give us that brain…

Besides becoming a vegetarian for concerns about animal welfare and the use of antibiotics and hormones in livestock, or a desire to eat in a way that avoids the exploitation of environmental resources, it also has some wondrous benefits for your body. Almost everyone with healthy urges has contemplated the meatless life at one time…

They’ve called sitting “the new smoking”, and hunched up behind our desks daily we can feel the toll it takes on our body. An Australian study done in 2012 found that adults who sat for 11 hours or more a day had a 40% increased risk of dying in the next three years compared to…

With plenty of sunsets ahead to toast to, the weather making an icy chenin irresistible, and of course the festive season ahead, it’s inevitable that alcohol will affect your health this summer. For this reason it’s good to know what science has to say about how alcohol and exercise mingle in your body. According to…

We’ve been celebrating all things South African thanks to Heritage Day, and what better product to write an ode to, than our homegrown rooibos? We asked Monique Ethelston, marketing director and co-founder of Red Espresso, why it’s so fabulously healthy. #1 You can enjoy rooibos tea all day long with no negative side effects You…

Holding yourself high and proud is not just a matter of confidence; it’s a matter of good health. A good or bad posture can mean the difference between a happy, energised you, or a moody, achey you. This is because your posture can affect different aspects of your health, mood and fitness. Often we don’t…

Our air is generally quite irritating, with a million allergens floating about that affect our ability to breathe pleasantly. Air irritants do not just exist wherever we are, they also travel with us wherever we go, and this can be especially dire if you have asthmatic or allergic tendencies already. According to one of SA’s…

Some of you may be lucky enough to be on holiday still, but for those grinding away at work, squeezing in an exercise session can be a challenge. We scouted out the best quickie workouts you can do from the comfort of your hotel room, guesthouse or even the boardroom!  The prop: a towel The…

The flu virus is ruthless and smart. It evolves each season in an antigenic shift that attacks our bodies, hoping that we won’t have the necessary antibodies to protect ourselves against the new strain. This constant change enables the virus to evade the immune system so that people are susceptible to the flu throughout life.…

There’s nothing worse than going in to have all your aches and pains ironed out and you encounter a masseur who surrounds you with Enya and gives you such a gentle rub that you doze off. Sure, it’s relaxing, but a true sports massage should involve vigorous and deep muscle stimulation – so basically a…