There’s something very unusual about diabetics – they tend to wear the wrong-sized shoes. Researchers from Dundee University, led by diabetes expert Graham Leese, reckon that around 60 per cent of sufferers are walking around in ill-fitting shoes.

Aside from the discomfort, the habit could also cause serious health problems, from ulcers, infections – which could lead even to amputation of the foot or leg if the problems are left untreated.

MRSA, the bug that thrives in hospitals, is now a bigger killer in the USA than AIDS.

It killed 18,650 people in American hospitals in 2005, the latest year when figures were available. In the same year, 18,000 people died from AIDS in North America, including Canada.

Experts believe the MRSA rate has increased dramatically since then.

Reflexology has taken a great leap into the 21st century by utilizing the largest computer software in the world - known as the EPFX. It works in harmony with your body's electrical system collecting data with extreme precision and processing it into a user friendly computer screen. Utilizing the principle of biofeedback (using a thermometer to discover your body's temperature is the simplest form of biofeedback that most people know and understand.)

The computer system used is the 21st century version of discovering how the body is functioning in real time. In a four minute equivalent of an electrical handshake, the EPFX scans the body for over 10,000 frequencies, each associated with a different compound, much as anti-virus software would do for a computer.

Surgeons are being urged to apply honey to the patient’s wounds after surgery. A new study suggests that it is one of the most effective methods for fast wound-healing, and may be every bit as good as antibiotics.

Wounds that are treated with honey regularly – either hourly or daily, depending on the severity of the wound – usually become sterile within three to 10 days. It’s especially effective for treating wounds that become infected or fail to close or heal.

Foot Reflexology or the firm but gentle manipulation of reflex points or areas in both feet, has been passed on from generation to generation for centuries. When humans first placed their feet on the earth's surface, they were naturally stimulated by walking and running over the uneven ground, but the introduction of sandals and shoes has reduced the feet's inborn sensitivity.

• Feet may come in pairs, but they are frequently unmatched, sometimes differing as much as a full shoe size. Unfortunately, shoes are sold in pairs, not mix-n-match.  Always buy shoes to fit the larger foot

• Sherlock Holmes was the master of discerning limps, gender, social standing and foot disorders from footprints.

• People take an average of 10,000 steps in a day, adding up to about 115,000 miles in a lifetime - enough to go around the planet more than four times.

Many Reflexology books mention the possibility of a healing crisis occuring after a refelxology session. What is a healing crisis?

What may seem like indulgent maintenance also has therapeutic benefits for diabetics and arthritics.

Our feet have more than 250,000 sweat glands under skin 20 times thicker than that on the rest of our body, and 25 per cent of our most tiny and fragile bones carrying our entire weight.

And if yours are anything like mine, the half-pint of moisture sweated through your feet each day seeps into stinky, suffocating shoes, creating a gnarly, callused and sore mess.

This is why we have pedicures. Pedicures are not cure-alls, but rather indulgent maintenance -- a feet retreat you might say. With any pedicure treatment you can expect to have your feet soaked, buffed, exfoliated, massaged and moisturized, and your cuticles and nails trimmed. Polish is often, but not always, included.

BANGALORE: Of the many things that I had visualized I would do in Singapore and especially in Sentosa, putting my feet in a pool of Turkish spa fish was definitely not one.

For pedicure fanatics, who’ve done to death the routine of feet cleansing at various parlours, this experience of Fish Reflexology is a must. Though it sounds bizarre, it was extremely effective. Here’s how its works: You are led to a warm pool of water into which you submerge your feet and in a minute, Turkish spa fish swarm towards your feet and proceed to nibble at areas of dead skin!

Yes, definitely intimidating for the first few minutes as it feel a wee bit itchy as well as the ticklish sensation can be overpowering, but after awhile the fish nibbling actually begins to feel like fun. After about fifteen minutes, you are guided to another pool, with larger fish.

The annual rates of serious adverse reactions and deaths from a prescribed drug have almost tripled since 1998.

Just 51 drugs – including painkillers and immune system-modifying agents – were responsible for the vast majority of reactions, new figures reveal.

In 2005 – the most recent year when figures have been made available - 15,107 people in America died as the result of taking a prescription drug, while 89,842 people suffered a serious adverse reaction, which resulted in disability, hospital care or a birth defect.