We all have days when you’re so hungry that you end up eating more than what your body allows. While it may seem satisfying at the moment, practically inhaling your food like that can cause you issues later on, like causing you bloating. You may have noticed how you get bloated after you eat food like ramen noodles and other processed snacks like chips etc., but what is that? Basically, you get bloated because there is a lot of air in your stomach. Bloating is that feeling of fullness or swelling in your abdomen, is often caused by gas buildup in your gut. While everyone swallows some air while eating and drinking, excessive air intake can lead to bloating, burping, and discomfort. Certain foods and drinks can also contribute to gas. Bloating can sometimes make your belly appear larger (distention) and can be uncomfortable or even painful. Though usually more of a nuisance than a serious medical issue, bloating after eating is often preventable.

The Best Way To Avoid Bloating

The most effective way to combat post-meal bloating is to eat slowly and thoroughly chew your food. This helps prevent swallowing excess air, a common culprit behind bloating, especially for those who frequently burp. Thorough chewing also aids digestion by breaking food into smaller particles, making it easier for your gut to process.

This simple change can involve taking smaller bites, using smaller utensils, chewing your food more times before swallowing, or taking short breaks between bites to sip water or put down your utensils.

This practice offers additional benefits. Eating slowly can help you feel full with less food, which can be beneficial for weight management. It takes approximately 20 minutes for your brain to register fullness. Eating too quickly, on the other hand, is associated with weight gain.

Slowing down also helps you eat more mindfully. While it is understandable that sometimes you are eating because you have had a long day or no proper meal, when you are eating too quickly, not only are you not giving your body time to understand the amount of food it is consuming, causing you to overeat, but you are also not chewing properly, aiding to the inevitable bloating. Chewing properly allows you to focus on the aroma, flavors, and textures of your food. Mindful eating involves minimizing distractions and paying attention to your body's hunger and fullness cues without judgment. This practice can reduce stress and support healthy digestion by promoting relaxation.

More Ways to Prevent and Treat Bloating

Beyond slowing down, several other strategies can help prevent bloating. Eating smaller, more frequent meals prevents overloading your gut and reduces gas production. Remember to sit down and eat, avoiding eating on the go, which often leads to rapid eating and overconsumption. Regular exercise can also improve digestion and prevent bloating. Gentle activities like walking can be particularly helpful when you're feeling bloated. Massaging your stomach from right to left can also help release trapped gas.

Over-the-counter (OTC) medications like simethicone or charcoal capsules can provide relief. If you're also experiencing constipation, consult your doctor. While fiber is generally beneficial, insoluble fiber (found in the outer layers of plant foods like whole grains, nuts, and seeds) can sometimes exacerbate bloating and gas. Soluble fiber supplements, such as psyllium, are often better tolerated.

Several habits can contribute to bloating and should be avoided or limited. These include chewing gum, sucking on hard candy, drinking carbonated beverages, using a straw, and talking while eating or drinking. All of these can increase the amount of air you swallow. Certain carbohydrates can also trigger gas production in some individuals. When these carbohydrates reach the large intestine, bacteria break them down, leading to gas. Consuming too much fiber or high-fat foods can also contribute to bloating. If you suspect specific foods are triggering your bloating, consult your healthcare provider or a registered dietitian for personalized advice.

Several recent studies suggest that older adults who receive the shingles vaccine may be less likely to develop dementia, a condition affecting more than 57 million people worldwide.

Shingles is a painful viral infection caused by the reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus (VZV), which can remain dormant after chickenpox and later trigger a blistering rash and severe nerve pain.

Shingrix Vaccine And Reduced Dementia Risk

A June 2026 study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that one in 17 dementia cases could potentially be prevented through shingles vaccination.

Researchers at Brown University found that older adults who received the recombinant shingles vaccine (Shingrix) after a stay in a skilled nursing facility had a 24% lower risk of being diagnosed with dementia over four years than those who were not vaccinated.

The study analyzed Medicare and health records from more than 500,000 adults aged 66 and older admitted to skilled nursing facilities. Researchers compared those who received at least one dose of Shingrix with those who remained unvaccinated.

“A lot of previous studies with similar results focused on an older vaccine,” said study author Kaley Hayes, an assistant professor at Brown University’s School of Public Health.

“This study looks at the newest vaccine only in an older, vulnerable adult population who were not up to date with shingles vaccination and are at a very clear clinical point in care: entering a skilled nursing facility.”

The findings add to growing evidence linking shingles vaccination with a lower risk of dementia.

Also read: How To Spot Leptospirosis, Dengue, Malaria During Monsoons? Early Symptoms Not To Neglect

How Does The Vaccine Protect The Brain?

Researchers believe the vaccine may help protect the brain by preventing shingles and the inflammation caused by the virus.

Shingles can cause a “war zone” of inflammation in the brain, said Dr. Jennifer Pauldurai, the medical director of the Inova Brain Health and Memory Disorders Program in Northern Virginia, NBC News reported.

It’s not that the shingles vaccine itself is a “magic pill,” Pauldurai said.

Rather, the vaccine guards against the disease, which is known to disrupt brain health.

Evidence from Wales, Australia, and Canada

The latest findings add to a growing body of international research.

A study involving more than 282,000 older adults in Wales, published in Nature in 2025, found shingles vaccination was associated with a 3.5% lower absolute risk of dementia over seven years.

Another study of more than 101,000 older adults in Australia, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2025, found vaccine eligibility was associated with a 1.8% lower dementia risk over 7.4 years.

Similarly, a study involving more than 232,000 older adults in Canada, published in The Lancet Neurology in 2026, linked shingles vaccine eligibility to a 2% lower dementia risk over 5.5 years.

Read More: Sepsis: India Joins Global Trial To Screen Newborns For Deadly Drug-Resistant Infections

Shingles: Early Warning Signs

After a person recovers from chickenpox, the VZV virus remains dormant in nerve cells and can become active again years or even decades later, particularly when the immune system weakens.

Older adults and people with weakened immune systems are at the highest risk of developing shingles.

According to the NHS, shingles often starts with:

• Burning, tingling, itching, or pain on one side of the body
• Headache or feeling generally unwell
• A blistering rash that develops within a few days, most commonly on the chest or abdomen

When To See A Doctor

Seek prompt medical attention if:

• The rash appears on or near the eye
• The pain is severe or rapidly spreading
• You have a weakened immune system
• You are pregnant
• Symptoms are worsening quickly

From bone smashing to black market peptides, the modern push to “optimize” the male body increasingly runs through human endocrinology, often without a doctor anywhere in the loop.

A Trend That Outgrew Its Origins

Looksmaxxing began on incel forums that blamed romantic failure on fixed facial geometry. That ideology has since spread to TikTok and Instagram, stripped of some of its uglier language but keeping its core premise: a man’s body can and should be engineered, whatever the cost. What started as a fringe belief system now functions as mainstream influencer content with millions of followers.

Clinicians split the practice into softmaxing (sleep, skincare, fitness, mostly harmless) and hardmaxxing, which branches into two wings: mechanical (bone smashing, jaw implants, leg lengthening) and pharmaceutical (unsupervised testosterone, anabolic steroids, SARMs, and peptides marketed as growth hormone substitutes). The pharmaceutical wing is growing fastest, and it sits squarely in endocrinology’s territory.

What These Drugs Actually Do

The body regulates testosterone through a feedback loop running from the hypothalamus to the pituitary to the testes. Flood that system with outside testosterone or anabolic steroids, and it shuts down its own production, taking fertility down with it. SARMs were built to act on muscle and bone while sparing the prostate, but none are approved for human use, and the versions sold online are unregulated and inconsistently dosed. Peptides like ibutamoren (MK-677) stimulate the body’s own growth hormone release. The mechanism sounds gentler, but few have completed real clinical trials for the uses they are marketed for.

The Documented Harms

Anabolic steroids:

● Testicular atrophy and infertility from HPG axis suppression

● Gynecomastia, from testosterone converting to estrogen

● Hepatotoxicity, especially with oral forms

● Psychiatric effects at high doses, including mood instability

SARMs:

● Liver injury, including cholestatic jaundice in black market cases

● Dose-dependent suppression of natural testosterone production

● Elevated liver enzymes, reduced HDL cholesterol

Across the board:

● Elevated hematocrit, raising clotting risk if unmonitored

● Adrenal suppression and disruption of corticosteroid and DHEAS production: exogenous androgens interfere with the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, blunting the adrenal gland’s output of cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEAS). The result is impaired stress response, fatigue, and hormonal dysregulation that persists well after the substance is stopped.

● Elevated blood pressure and increased cardiac sympathetic drive: anabolic agents raise systolic pressure and heighten sympathetic nervous system activity in the heart, accelerating resting heart rate and increasing myocardial oxygen demand. Over time, this contributes to left ventricular hypertrophy and raises the risk of arrhythmia.

● Unreliable contents: labels rarely match what is actually in the product, and contamination or substitution is common enough that toxicology reports periodically turn up drugs users never intended to take.

The Mechanical Risks

Bone smashing has no basis in orthopedic science. Bone remodels under sustained load, not blunt trauma, which produces fractures, hematomas, and sometimes permanent damage. Cosmetic jaw implants and leg lengthening are legitimate procedures in the right clinical context, but carry the same surgical risks, infection, nerve damage, long recovery, without the medical justification that normally accompanies them.

The pharmaceutical track carries its own structural toll: supraphysiological androgen levels accelerate calcification in tendons and menisci, reducing their elasticity and load-bearing capacity. Meniscal and tendon calcinosis increases the risk of tears and joint instability, often in the absence of any acute injury. Athletes who stop using these compounds may find the damage is already done.

A related danger runs alongside both tracks. Some men adopt extreme dieting, dehydration, or fasting protocols purely to sharpen jaw and cheekbone definition before photos. The behavior carries the same physical risks as any restrictive eating disorder, yet it rarely gets recognized or treated as one, since it is framed online as discipline rather than disorder.

Why Now

Gallup polling found that roughly a quarter of young American men report frequent loneliness, a notably higher rate than young women. Online communities built around appearance fill that gap with something that looks like belonging, even though the content itself runs on comparison and self-criticism.

TikTok’s own data illustrate how fast the trend has moved: searches for bone smashing and related terms ran in the hundreds of thousands per day in early 2026 and climbed into the millions within a month, before the platform restricted the content. Marketing has kept pace too: one UK survey found nearly a third of 16 to 25-year-olds see SARM ads on social media weekly.

What Legitimate Treatment Looks Like

TRT for confirmed hypogonadism, diagnosed through repeat morning bloodwork and monitored over time, is genuinely effective medicine. That is a different undertaking entirely from a eugonadal man sourcing hormones or peptides online to chase a feeling, with no diagnosis and no monitoring. The same distinction applies to surgery: a qualified surgeon’s evaluation is not the same as a procedure booked off a forum recommendation.

The Bottom Line

None of this is an argument against fitness or grooming, and most softmaxxing is harmless. The danger lies in a narrower set of behaviors: fracturing healthy bone, importing unregulated hormones, chasing a standard that keeps moving regardless of what is achieved.

Endocrinologists studying this are not against masculinity or ambition about one’s appearance. They are arguing that hormonal systems deserve the same evidence-based caution as any other organ system, and that distinction matters more now that these behaviors are still treated as cultural curiosities rather than the clinical concerns they actually are. A blood test and a doctor’s judgment remain better tools than a forum thread and a vial of unknown origin.

The United Kingdom is facing constant heatwaves. So far, the nation has witnessed two heatwaves, while the natural temperature increases usually during late July and August, thus creating fear and the possibility of more and more temperature rises. As the country has been going through a weather roller-coaster since May, there was a huge area of high pressure, commonly explained as a 'heat dome'. This resulted in dry, very warm, and sunny weather in the island nation.

Notably, the temperature soared up to 35.1 °C in London during the month of May. The temperature in the UK has been on a rising trend over the past few years, and the first time it touches 40C in July 2022. And according to the experts at the Met Office, if global warming continues at its current pace, temperatures in the mid-forties could be a serious possibility for the UK by 2050.

The World Health Organization advises people to drink plenty of water, avoid going outdoors during the hottest hours of the day, wear loose and light-coloured clothing, and keep homes as cool as possible as temperatures continue to spike across many parts of the world.

Indians are used to living with intense summer heat, and over the years, people have developed simple yet effective ways to cope with it. Many prefer to finish outdoor work during the cooler hours of the morning or after sunset. Drinking plenty of water and traditional cooling beverages, seeking shade whenever possible, and keeping a close eye on elderly family members, young children, and people with existing health problems are all common practices during extended spells of extreme heat.

Also Read: Why Thousands Of Black Men In The UK Are Now Being Invited For Prostate Cancer Screening?

Hospitals Under Pressure Throughout Western Europe And Strict Restrictions

The worsening conditions have disrupted healthcare services, with media reports saying hospitals have had to postpone critical imaging scans after sensitive equipment overheated. Cities have also opened emergency cooling centers to protect vulnerable residents.

In Paris, authorities have announced temporary bans on public alcohol consumption and takeaway alcohol sales to ease pressure on hospitals. Public drinking will be prohibited from noon to 7 a.m. over the weekend, while takeaway alcohol sales will be banned between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m.

The extreme temperatures have also reached the sporting world. Formula 1's governing body, the FIA, has declared another "heat hazard" ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix weekend at Spielberg's Red Bull Ring, triggering additional measures to protect drivers, teams, and spectators.

The June 2026 heatwave has triggered red alerts across France, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom, and killed dozens of people.

How Does Heat Impact Health?

Health experts warn that prolonged exposure to extreme heat can have serious and sometimes fatal consequences, particularly for older adults and people with underlying medical conditions.

According to the WHO, extreme heat can overwhelm the body's ability to regulate temperature, increasing the risk of heat exhaustion and heatstroke. As the body works harder to cool itself, it places added strain on the heart and kidneys, potentially worsening chronic conditions such as cardiovascular, respiratory, mental health, and diabetes-related illnesses, and increasing the risk of acute kidney injury.