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Open wide for a sweet spoonful of today’s health news

By Nigel Praities

Let us take the strain out of sifting through the morning's papers, with our roundup of the health news headlines on Tuesday 22 March

The last weekend seems like a world away, but here at Daily Digest we try to keep chipper no matter what.

Sifting through Tuesday's papers – avoiding all mention of Libya, human shields and military splits – we alight upon the uplifting story of the 76 stone family that has cost the NHS £1.2m in slimming treatments and weight-loss surgery.

According to the Daily Mail, the family of three say that ‘going on a diet isn't an option'. Great to see them subverting society's expectations of the body beautiful, I say.

Moving swiftly on, we have the news that a glass of wine a day during the first three months of pregnancy ‘increases the risk of violent children'. Great news mothers-to-be, the next six months of pregnancy there is no risk whatsoever, so break out the campari and soda in celebration of your docile offspring!

Next, the kidney transplant patient given cancer by his donor. Oh goodness, I give up trying to be positive about this horrible story. If you must, The Guardian covers this story in all its grisly detail.

At last a happy health story provided by our friends at The Telegraph. A new technique will help monitor how well lung cancer patients are responding to chemotherapy.

It seems deceptively simple – counting the number of tumour cells in blood samples before and after chemotherapy – but the researchers say that by identifying the rarer tumour cells in the blood they can start to look at the genetic ‘faults' that are behind the disease and start to develop drugs to target them. Hurrah let the good times roll!

Spotted a story we've missed? Let us know in the comments and we'll update the digest throughout the day...

Daily Digest