Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2026 i Top Sante

‘Listen to your heart’ is the line that first sprang to mind when I sat down to type this for our February issue, which, as regular readers will know, often has a bit of a heart/Valentine’s theme (yes, the Top Picks are pink and red, too!). We often focus primarily on physical health – and we’re ticking that box for heart health with our features on raw cacao (page 30), dietary advice on cholesterol (page 36), and with food and fitness advice from two of our three wise women, Pauline and Kate (pages 27 and 28). But when was the last time you checked in with yourself and listened to what your heart wanted? Or showed yourself some self-love or self-care? Our third wise woman, Suzy, helps you do that…

I have been fascinated by the power of food to heal for as long as I can remember. It started with an interest in biology at school, I suppose, and then I got really interested in endocrinology, which is the study of hormones. I developed a real interest in the nutritional value of food after that because, one, I’m a foodie and I love food – I love a strawberry tart as much as I love a protein-packed sandwich – but two, I’m just obsessed with the fact that we can make ourselves better through the food that we eat, or not, and the role that nutrition plays in our health and wellbeing, beneficially or otherwise. For me, looking after my health and wellbeing is about being strong. And it’s…

Keith’s Cacao (£25, keithscacao.com). This is 100 per cent pure ceremonial-grade cacao from Guatemala with nothing added. It’s recommended to break off around 30g, chopped up, to melt into warm nut milk (not dairy). Sweeten with agave or cinnamon. HOLY CACAO Nourish Blend (£54.99, w-wellness.co.uk). A rich, nourishing blend crafted with only four ingredients: grass-fed bone broth, ceremonial-grade cacao, maca and Celtic salt. Each cup is naturally rich in collagen, gelatine, minerals and amino acids, helping to restore from within and bring balance to body and mind. Ancient + Brave Cacao + Collagen (from £22, ancientandbrave.earth). A smooth blend of raw South American cacao upgraded with generous amounts of highly absorbable, hydrolysed bovine collagen peptides to nourish your skin from within. DIRTEA Cacao (£43, dirteaworld.com). Enhance focus, boost calm and…

THE FESTIVE SEASON apart, winter can sometimes feel like it will last forever – all grey days, freezing temperatures and endless dark nights. We all need something to look forward to. A seasonal reboot, if you like. So, instead of enduring the cruel winter months hibernating at home, at the start of the year my friends and I planned a trip that would do just that. To be specific, a girls’ weekend in Bath during the ReBalance Festival, which takes place in this Georgian gem of a city each February. It’s a month-long celebration of wellness and wellbeing that offers everything from hormone-balancing nutrition talks to yoga sessions, wellness workshops, cold water dipping, spa treatments, steam room experiences and saunas. Having taken the GWR train from London’s Paddington station, it…

WHILE MOST PEOPLE recognise rosacea from flushing, sensitivity and visible broken capillaries across the cheeks and nose, far fewer realise that it can quietly inflame the eyes as well. Up to 80 per cent of rosacea patients develop ocular symptoms, often without understanding the connection, leading to burning, gritty, bloodshot eyes that feel sore, dry and constantly irritated. Rosacea affects adults of all ages but is especially common in women over age 30. Triggers such as heat, sun, alcohol, spicy foods, stress and poor sleep often drive both skin and eye flare-ups. As inflammation builds, the tiny oil-producing meibomian glands in the eyelids can become blocked. The oils (meibum) prevent tears from evaporating too quickly; when they thicken or clog, the result is burning, stinging and episodes of blurred vision.…

JANUARY 2026 COVER STORY Gabby Logan INSIDE Feel healthy and happy for 2026 with expert advice and wellbeing tips DECEMBER 2025 COVER STORY Caprice Bourret INSIDE Feel cool, calm and healthy with ways to thrive through the cold season NOVEMBER 2025 COVER STORY Gaby Roslin INSIDE Boost your energy through winter with workouts, recipes and expert advice OCTOBER 2025 COVER STORY Kelly Hoppen INSIDE The menopause issue! All you need to manage symptoms and thrive SEPTEMBER 2025 COVER STORY Julia Bradbury INSIDE Expert advice to reduce stress, banish migraines and live well for longer AUGUST 2025 COVER STORY Davinia Taylor INSIDE Manage your weight, boost your energy and improve your wellbeing SUMMER 2025 COVER STORY Tess Daly MBE INSIDE Midlife advice on sleeping better, eating well and boosting confidence JULY…

Subscriptions FROM £15 Reasons to subscribe: • Save on the shop price • Never miss an issue • Delivered directly to your door OVER 45 TITLES TO CHOOSE FROM GO TO SHOP.KELSEY.CO.UK/NY26AD SCAN THE QR CODE AND GO DIRECTLY CALL 01959 543 747 AND QUOTE ‘NY26AD’ Terms & Conditions: Lines are open Mon-Fri 8.30am to 5pm. Calls are charged at your standard network rate UK customers only. Offers end 31st March 2026…

CANDLE CORNER Crafted with a sustainable blend of rapeseed and coconut oil, Sana Jardin Luxury Scented Candles (from £22, sanajardin.com) will fill your home with inviting, sensual and exotic aromas without any nasty chemicals or toxins. Championing female empowerment, social impact and sustainability, the brand works directly with the female flower harvesters in Morocco to provide entrepreneurial opportunities while crafting unique scents that celebrate each hand-picked bloom. UPCYCLING UPGRADE Give old furniture a new lease of life with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint™ (from £7.95, anniesloan.com). Perfect for upcycling second-hand finds, colour-matching your furniture or refreshing your kitchen cupboards, the chalk-finish paint glides on to wood, metal, laminate and concrete without any sanding or priming needed. Good for you and the planet, the 100 per cent water-based paints are made in…

PAULINESAYS… Pauline Cox is a functional nutritionist, author and founder of keto delicatessen Sow & Arrow (sowandarrow.com) near Bristol. Her latest book is Hungry Woman: Eating for Good Health, Happiness + Hormones. Follow her at instagram.com/paulinejcox. HEART HEALTH IS AN area that women often overlook and yet heart disease remains the leading cause of death in postmenopausal women. As oestrogen levels drop, women can be more prone to rising inflammatory levels, insulin resistance and weight changes. However, dietary and lifestyle habits can play a powerful role in protecting your heart, reducing inflammation, and supporting your cardiovascular system. Below are the top foods and nutrients that work together to strengthen cardiovascular and heart health as well as support metabolic balance. PROTEIN & AMINO ACIDS High-quality proteins, such as eggs, lean meats,…

My first experience with ceremonial-grade cacao didn’t arrive with fanfare or some dramatic epiphany. It was subtle. A feeling of my body letting go in a way I hadn’t felt for years. For the first time in a long time, I felt present: not rushing, not planning, not performing – just still, just me. What started as a single cup became a practice I returned to every day. And with each day came a little more clarity and a little more space to breathe. Unlike coffee, which had always pushed me to go faster, cacao slowed me down in the most nourishing way. It grounded me. It helped me lead from a steadier place. It opened a gentleness in me that I didn’t realise I’d been missing. Health, exercise and…

Knowing the science is helpful, but long-term change comes from practical habits that fit neatly into your everyday life, so try to make the following into habits: ● MAKE HIGH-FIBRE FOODS VISIBLE Keeping nuts, seeds, oats, fruit or wholegrain crackers somewhere visible increases the chance they will be used. Simple visual cues encourage better daily choices. ● CREATE A HEART-HEALTH CUPBOARD Stocking tinned beans and lentils, wholegrains, dried fruit, nuts and seeds together in one easy-to-access place helps remove barriers to cooking balanced meals. Having core staples available encourages healthier decisions on busy days. ● USE CONVENIENCE FOODS WISELY Convenience does not need to mean unhealthy. Tinned pulses, microwave wholegrain pouches, frozen vegetables, tinned oily fish and ready chopped vegetables reduce preparation time without reducing nutritional value. Draining a tin of lentils…

SEASONAL SHIFT As winter starts making way for spring, be prepared for all seasons in a day with the Dare 2b Women’s Torrek Breathe Easy Jacket (£160, dare2b.com). Lightweight and breathable – while being fully waterproof and windproof – it’s ideal for shielding against the elements without causing you to overheat on sweaty hikes. PEDALLING POWER Sustainably built from the ground up, Revolt Cycling (from £150 per month, revolt-cycling.com) is London’s first energy-generating spin studio, where every pedal converts kinetic energy into electricity and helps to power the studio’s lights, showers and operations. By attending just one cycling class in the High Holborn studio, your personal energy output could generate up to 5.2kWh, turning every spin into measurable climate action. MORNING BOOST The Organic Protein Co. Coffee Protein Powder (from…

• Discover more about the latest health trackers • How to move well to stay supple and flexible for life! • The secret to satiety – what to eat to feel full and stay healthy • Why Korean skincare could be the key to fresher, younger skin …plus lots more! DON’T MISS IT! The March issue – on sale Feb 13 4WAYSTOGET YOUR COPY… 1 Visit frontline-group.co.uk/store-finder. Select Top Santé from the drop-down menu, then input your postcode. 2 Ask your local newsagent to reserve you a copy – they’d be happy to do so. 3 Subscribe so you never miss an issue! See page 24 for details. 4 Buy single issues at shop.kelsey.co.uk/TSA – scroll down to “Buy single issue”.…

Walk to cut heartrisk Walking for 10-15 minutes significantly lowers cardiovascular disease risk by up to two-thirds, compared to shorter strolls. The University of Sydney scientists tracked 33,560 adults between the ages of 40 and 79. They found that even if you take fewer than 8,000 steps daily, there are big heart health benefits simply by changing how you walk. Participants taking their steps in one or two continuous sessions had lower rates of heart attacks, strokes and death. Meaning longer, uninterrupted walks appear to have greater benefits for your heart than shorter walks spread throughout the day. So keep going! APPY AND YOU KNOW IT Get instant answers to your health questions from healthwords.ai. Whether you’re worried, embarrassed or don’t have time to call your doctor, the conversational chat…

WE’VE MADE IT THROUGH January and maybe made some wonderful habit changes or set some exciting plans in motion – huzzah! So, this feels like the perfect moment to talk about how to handle things, when things don’t go to plan. For many of us, life has already thrown us a few curve balls. You might feel as though you’ve earned a black belt in chaos management and you’ve probably done it while multitasking, caring for others, and quietly wondering whether the strange new feeling you’re experiencing is stress, hormones – or simply Tuesday. So, when your beautifully crafted plans fall apart, it’s not because you’re failing; it’s because sometimes life has absolutely no respect for vision boards and calendars – and sometimes that’s because there is an even better…

Christine, 71, a retired local government officer, with three children and six grandchildren can’t praise plant sterols enough. “I have an underactive thyroid and take regular medication for it, which means I have a regular full blood count to monitor my health. Back in September 2022 following my routine blood test I was called back to my GP because my cholesterol readings were high. The doctor said they wanted me to go on statins immediately1, but I wasn’t keen on the idea. I’ve always had a good balanced diet - I’m not one for junk food or takeaways – so I wanted to try and get my cholesterol levels down without the risk of side effects. The doctor agreed to give me three months. I was already taking a Healthspan…

MANY WILD SAUNAS PERCH – sometimes literally – on Britain’s untamed fringes; they battle unpredictable elements to offer a healthy hit of outdoors and an exhilarating blast of hot and cold – with the latter coming from sea, lake, river, ice bath or outdoor shower. Often honed out of horseboxes or trailers, wild saunas are novel sanctuaries where you can while away an hour, semi-naked and sweaty, watching nature perform in glorious technicolour. The wild sauna “movement” – we can call it that now that there are more than 200 such saunas around the UK – takes most of its cues from Nordic bathing cultures, from Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, where sauna is a way of life, and steam, or löyly, is the nations’ lifeblood. At the helm is…

WHY HAVE ONE WHEN YOU CAN HAVE TWO? I think it goes without saying that I’m a massive fan of this brand – everything Sacheu makes actually stays on your face… hence the name Stay-N! The Sacheu Brow & Freckle STAY-N (£14, boots.com) is a brilliant little two-in-one that does double duty in the best way. Whether you like your brows big and fluffy or soft and naturally defined, this shapes them perfectly – and once it’s on, it’s totally transfer - and smudge-proof, which is exactly what we need on those long workdays that somehow turn into spontaneous nights out. And because all the best things come in pairs, it doubles up as a freckle pen too. Filled with lovely peptides and antioxidants, it’s a hardworking all-rounder that really…