What is back pain?

Your back is engineered from small bones stacked up in a column (with shock-absorbing discs between them) to protect the nerves in the spinal cord, and with muscles and ligaments binding it all together. Muscular damage can improve quickly (a few days to three weeks), but discs degenerating with age (ie slipped discs), can become chronic; and if a nerve in your lower back gets pinched (usually from the disc pressing on it) you may feel a nasty pain in one side of your buttocks and one of your thighs. This is called sciatica.

I've had restless legs syndrome on and off for years. At the moment it's very persistent, day and night. My GP says the circulation in my legs is good. Does it have a nervous origin?

Has brain surgery made me forget people's names?

I had brain surgery in 2007 to stem and clip a burst aneurysm. Since then my ability to recall the names of people and places has been dramatically reduced. I forget the names of even close friends and of places I have just visited. Did my surgery do this? Will it improve?

An ambitious study in Newcastle has recruited a thousand 85-year-olds to help solve the puzzle of why our cells age

First the good news. Average life expectancy increases by five hours every single day in the UK and other developed countries, according to Professor Tom Kirkwood, director of the Institute for Ageing and Health at Newcastle University. Just yesterday the Department of Health released figures suggesting that the life expectancy of boys born in England between 2007 and 2009 is 78, and 82 for girls – an increase from 75 and 80 respectively 10 years ago.