book

In Belgium, prime minister's wife shares anorexia struggle

BY MATTHIEU DEMEESTERE

  • De Wever's Flemish conservatives had just won the national election, and he was tipped for prime minister.
  • Just weeks after her husband won Belgium's national elections in 2024, Veerle Hegge found herself in hospital for an eating disorder that almost claimed her life.
  • De Wever's Flemish conservatives had just won the national election, and he was tipped for prime minister.
Just weeks after her husband won Belgium's national elections in 2024, Veerle Hegge found herself in hospital for an eating disorder that almost claimed her life.
Nearly two years later -- including six months of full-time treatment -- Prime Minister Bart De Wever's wife shared with AFP why she chose to take her anorexia struggle public in a book that delves deep into her personal life.
"Mental illness is still surrounded by taboo," the 53-year-old schoolteacher said in an interview at her home in the port city of Antwerp. "It's something people feel uneasy, awkward even, to talk about."
"It's so important to get care early on when you are sick," she says, to avoid "falling in deeper."
"But you can only do that with help from the people around you."
Hegge has been De Wever's partner for three decades, through his longtime tenure as mayor of Antwerp and since he became prime minister last year, raising four children now aged 18 to 24.
Entitled "The weight of silence", her book focuses largely on the months she spent in hospital treatment in 2024 -- the time she needed to get back on her feet from a near-fatal battle with anorexia.
A striking scene recounts her hour-long car journey to a clinic in eastern Belgium -- with De Wever in stony silence at the wheel -- after it became clear getting full-time specialist help had become a matter of "survival."
De Wever's Flemish conservatives had just won the national election, and he was tipped for prime minister.
His wife remembers thinking he must be "disappointed" in her -- but not daring to ask. At home, she says, everyone used to "tiptoe around" the matter of her illness.
She describes a "rushed" arrival at the clinic -- and the shock of finding herself alone, with a psychiatric patient tag around her wrist.
"Bart couldn't stay long -- he had to get back to work as always," she writes in the book's opening pages. "We hugged briefly, and agreed to call one another. That was all. And Bart left."
Hegge speaks candidly of her loneliness and guilt at being away from home -- after so many years keeping family life ticking over while De Wever pursued his career -- although soon enough she was able to leave the hospital at weekends.
Later in the book, she writes that her husband had seemed "helpless" faced with her ordeal, and thanks him for sticking by her side.

Buried trauma

Much of Hegge's story is devoted to her childhood -- where her earliest memories are dominated by a mother prey to bouts of deep depression, whose fits of anger she grew to fear and second-guess.
Home life was often marred by silence and simmering conflict -- but that was not the hardest part of growing up.
From the age of five or six, she reveals she was sexually abused by an older boy over a period of several years -- a trauma she now realises she repressed until just a few years ago.
"Accepting that truth opened the floodgates," she writes. "It had a huge impact on my body, my sense of internal balance."
"Eighteen months later I was admitted to intensive care for an advanced eating disorder," she says -- the first of two episodes that would culminate with her hospitalisation the year of the election.
Hosting AFP's team in her family living room, in a comfy pullover and sneakers, Hegge says she is doing better.
Since her book hit the shelves -- in French last month, after an initial release in Dutch last year -- she says she has received countless messages of support.
Among those reaching out are people battling eating disorders themselves, or supporting loved ones as they struggle, who thank her for tackling the painful topic head-on.
"Some of the people I see cling on to me, or start to cry," she told AFP. "There is so much pain and suffering."
mad/ec/del/yad/ane

women

France makes reusable period products free for young women

  • Women under 26 with a state health insurance card, as well as women of all ages who benefit from special healthcare support due to their limited income, will be able to get their money back after buying these products in a pharmacy.
  • France's social security is to reimburse the cost of reusable menstrual cups and underwear for women under the age of 26 or battling poverty, the government said Thursday.
  • Women under 26 with a state health insurance card, as well as women of all ages who benefit from special healthcare support due to their limited income, will be able to get their money back after buying these products in a pharmacy.
France's social security is to reimburse the cost of reusable menstrual cups and underwear for women under the age of 26 or battling poverty, the government said Thursday.
The move to tackle period poverty is expected to help 6.7 million people -- almost a tenth of France's population of 69 million -- from the start of the next academic year in the autumn, it says.
Women under 26 with a state health insurance card, as well as women of all ages who benefit from special healthcare support due to their limited income, will be able to get their money back after buying these products in a pharmacy.
Parliament approved the measure as part of the country's social security budget for 2024.
But there was no decree to order implementation, causing anger among feminist groups and companies making the sustainable sanitary items.
A survey of 4,000 women in France in November showed one in ten used alternatives to mainstream period products such as ripped up clothes due to tight budgets, according to French charity Dons Solidaires.
France in 2016 reduced sales tax on period products from 20 percent to 5.5 percent.
In 2020, Scotland became the first country in the world to sign into law free universal access to period products in public buildings.
vac/ah/giv

US

In Lebanon shelters, women care for tiny babies, face pregnancy

BY LISA GOLDEN

  • Zein fled with her husband, their baby and other relatives when war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah on March 2, drawing Lebanon into the Middle East conflict.
  • Mariam Zein cradled her 11-week-old son on a mattress on the floor where she and her family have sheltered near Beirut since the Israel-Hezbollah war upended her young family's life.
  • Zein fled with her husband, their baby and other relatives when war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah on March 2, drawing Lebanon into the Middle East conflict.
Mariam Zein cradled her 11-week-old son on a mattress on the floor where she and her family have sheltered near Beirut since the Israel-Hezbollah war upended her young family's life.
"I was really excited when I was in my ninth month of pregnancy... I never thought he'd be born and there'd be war," said Zein, 26, clutching baby Hussein.
"I haven't been able to enjoy my son -- my first child... to see him getting bigger in his own bed, in his own home."
"I was very sad, and I'm still sad," she told AFP, nappies and baby formula wedged near a photocopier, clothes hanging on an improvised line.
Zein fled with her husband, their baby and other relatives when war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah on March 2, drawing Lebanon into the Middle East conflict.
She does not know if her home in south Lebanon is still standing.
Israel has kept up strikes despite a fragile US-Iran ceasefire, a landmark meeting this week between Israeli and Lebanese officials in Washington, and reports that leaders from both countries would talk for the first time in decades.
Lebanese authorities say the war has killed more than 2,100 people and displaced more than one million others.
Some 140,000 people are in overcrowded shelters like the centre in Beirut's suburbs housing Zein's family and around 500 other people, among them five pregnant women and others with young babies.
Zein said she stopped breastfeeding because there was no privacy, and now struggles to buy baby formula, while Hussein is outgrowing his clothes.
"Whatever happens I just want my son near me," she said.

Pregnancy

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), an estimated 620,000 women and girls are displaced, including some 13,500 pregnant women, of whom "1,500 are expected to give birth within the next 30 days". 
The agency and other organisations have sought to support women as the authorities struggled to cope.
In a small tent containing a portable ultrasound, obstetrician and gynaecologist Theresia Nassar has checked on women including Zein as part of a mobile health clinic run by charity Caritas Lebanon with support from UNFPA.
Displaced pregnant women risk missing important tests and scans, she said, and they are trying to fill the gaps.
"We're not just worried about physical health but also their mental health," she said.
"They don't know if they can go home, they don't have their medication, they're not being properly followed."
Elsewhere, at a school-turned-shelter in central Beirut, heavily pregnant Ghada Issa, 36, is due to deliver a baby girl in a few weeks.
But "this place, this environment, is not for pregnant women", said Issa, who was displaced from south Lebanon with her husband, their daughter Siham, five, and son Ali, four.
They live in a cramped tent, and she said even the basics are a problem, like having to make frequent trips to crowded, far-away communal toilets.

Twins

Her husband set up an improvised bed so she doesn't have to sleep on the floor.
Underneath are precious donated items like tiny socks and little blankets. A worker from charity Amel Association International brought then a "baby kit" including nappies and baby powder.
Without donations and other support, "there wouldn't be anything" for the baby, Issa said, as people playing football yelled, children squealed and washing hung on improvised lines.
The shelter's administration said some 20 pregnant women and two who had recently given birth were among more than 2,600 people staying there.
"I haven't got my head around the idea of having a baby here," Issa said.
"I'm still hoping that one day they'll tell me, let's go to the village, and I'll have the baby at home."
In a university classroom in south Lebanon's city of Sidon, Ghada Fadel, 36, cares for her tiny twin sons. Mohammed and Mehdi are just over one month old, and in blue jumpsuits and matching beanies.
The family has been there since she was eight months' pregnant, after fleeing their border village.
"After we left the house, they (Israel) bombed it. The house is gone" along with everything they had prepared for the twins, Fadel said.
"I was hoping to give birth and come home," she said sadly.
"Every mum hopes to take her kids home... no matter the circumstances."
lg-str/srm

drugs

Much-hyped Alzheimer's drugs do not help patients, review finds

BY DANIEL LAWLER

  • After decades of costly yet unsuccessful research, two anti-amyloid drugs called lecanemab and donanemab were initially hailed as gamechangers that finally offered a way to slow the progress of the debilitating disease.
  • Drugs once hailed as a breakthrough in the fight against Alzheimer's disease do not meaningfully help patients, a major review found Thursday, however some experts criticised the research.
  • After decades of costly yet unsuccessful research, two anti-amyloid drugs called lecanemab and donanemab were initially hailed as gamechangers that finally offered a way to slow the progress of the debilitating disease.
Drugs once hailed as a breakthrough in the fight against Alzheimer's disease do not meaningfully help patients, a major review found Thursday, however some experts criticised the research.
The review by the Cochrane organisation -- which is considered the gold standard for analysing existing evidence -- looked at drugs that target a plaque called amyloids which builds up in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.
Researchers have long sought a way to eliminate this plaque, believing it could be the cause of the most common form of dementia which affects millions of elderly people every year.
After decades of costly yet unsuccessful research, two anti-amyloid drugs called lecanemab and donanemab were initially hailed as gamechangers that finally offered a way to slow the progress of the debilitating disease.
Both drugs were approved by the United States and European Union over the last few years.
However concerns about their effectiveness, cost and side effects including an increased risk of brain swelling and bleeding have since prompted caution. State-run health services in the UK and France have refused to cover the drugs.
The new Cochrane review combined data from 17 clinical trials that included a total of more than 20,000 people with mild cognitive impairment or early dementia.
The trials, which took place over roughly 18 months, studied seven different anti-amyloid drugs.
Only one of the trials examined donanemab -- sold under the name Kisunla by US pharma giant Eli Lilly -- while one studied lecanemab, sold as Leqembi by Biogen and Eisai.
While early trials suggested these drugs made a statistically significant difference, this did not translate into "something clinically meaningful for patients," lead study author Francesco Nonino of Italy's IRCCS institute told a press conference.
Brain scans showed that the drugs successfully removed amyloids, the researchers emphasised.
This means "the idea that removing amyloids will benefit patients was refuted by our results," said study co-author Edo Richard of Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands.

'Not delivering on promise'

Richard, who has previously expressed scepticism about anti-amyloid drugs, said he hopes efforts targeting other mechanisms that potentially cause Alzheimer's lead to more effective drugs in the future.
British biologist John Hardy, who first developed the amyloid hypothesis in the 1990s, criticised the review for lumping together data about lecanemab and donanemab along with drugs that are known to be ineffective, therefore dragging down the overall average.
"This is a silly paper which should not have been published," Hardy told AFP, disclosing that he has consulted for Eli Lilly, Biogen and Eisai.
In response to such questions, Richard said that while the drugs included in the study may work in different ways, they all have the same target: amyloid beta proteins.
Australian neuroscientist Bryce Vissel, who was not involved in the research, said it "does not prove amyloid has no role in Alzheimer's, and it does not rule out future amyloid-directed therapies that may yet help patients".
"But it does show that the current generation of anti-amyloid drugs is not delivering the promise that has surrounded it."
dl/giv

lifestyle

Chinese slimmers trade lost fat for beef

BY EMILY WANG

  • "This opportunity just came at the right time, so I signed up," Shu said.
  • In a community centre in eastern China, Shu Fangqiang shrugged off his jacket and stepped onto a scale, one of hundreds of locals signing up for an unusual weight loss programme -- "Trade Fat for Beef".
  • "This opportunity just came at the right time, so I signed up," Shu said.
In a community centre in eastern China, Shu Fangqiang shrugged off his jacket and stepped onto a scale, one of hundreds of locals signing up for an unusual weight loss programme -- "Trade Fat for Beef".
The rules are straightforward: for every half kilogram he loses, Shu will receive the same weight in boneless beef, or 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds) of beef on the bone.
The programme is one of many springing up across China, backed by local authorities anxious to tackle rising obesity rates, which are fast becoming a pressing public health issue.
Participants who are already keen to lose weight say the initiative is an added bonus.
"Even without the beef, I wanted to lose weight for my health," said Shu, whose body mass index (BMI) of 30 is classified as obese.
More than a third of Chinese adults were overweight in 2022, and around 8.3 percent were obese, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), compared with the United States, where 72.4 percent of adults are overweight and 42 percent are obese.
However, the number of obese people in China has tripled between 2004 and 2018, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
If current trends continue, the share of overweight and obese Chinese adults could reach 70.5 percent by 2030, the National Health Commission (NHC) says, whose obesity criteria is stricter than the WHO's.
"This opportunity just came at the right time, so I signed up," Shu said.
Participants of the campaign in the city of Wuxi were weighed once in March, and will return in January 2027 for a second and final weigh-in.
They will then be rewarded with expensive cuts like oxtail if they lose more weight -- though the total amount of free meat available is capped at 10 kilograms (22 pounds).
Organisers say more than 1,000 people have registered since the Wuxi campaign started in March -- with thousands more turned away for not meeting local community residence requirements.
Queues for weigh-ins reached up to a dozen people at a time in both the men and women's sections, an AFP journalist saw.
At the front of the queues, participants stepped on weighing scales which displayed their height, weight and BMI.
Staff members then measured their waists, logged their data on a form and used an encouraging stamp to mark it and to cheer participants on.
An on-site doctor offered personalised medical advice.

 'Flab for potatoes'

Similar grassroots initiatives have also surfaced in other localities across the country, with many shared widely on social media.
In the southwestern province of Yunnan, slimmers can take part in the "Flab for Potatoes" programme and if they shrink their waistlines considerably, can upgrade to chicken.
Countrywide, popular supermarket chain Yonghui has invited customers to register their losses over 10 days by weighing themselves in-store.
They can then trade every 1.5 kilograms lost for half a kilogram of beef, crayfish or kiwi.
When AFP visited the Wuxi community centre, banners at the weigh-in urged participants to slim down steadily rather than quickly, and to aim for health over thinness.
Organisers also posted warnings against weight-loss drugs, self-induced vomiting and extreme fasting, with doctors on hand to offer guidance.
Participant Shu told AFP he wanted to lose 20 kilograms.
"Being obese affects your mental state, your work performance and your overall well-being," he said.
"Sometimes when I'm heavier, I don't sleep well at night."
As of 2021, there were 402 million overweight or obese adults over 25 in China -- the world's largest population, according to a study published in The Lancet medical journal.
Another study, published in The Lancet in 2021, attributed the problem to rapid urbanisation and a shift toward processed, high-sugar and high-fat foods, as well as increasingly sedentary lifestyles.

 'Hard to resist'

In Wuxi, 44-year-old Zheng Haihua said she was signing up to encourage her to "move more and eat less", and to commit to exercising. 
"The biggest challenge for me is... controlling my appetite, because when you see delicious food, it's hard to resist," Zheng laughed. 
Local physician Wu Changyan sympathised, adding "there's life pressure, and the convenience of modern life makes it easy to eat more and eat too much."
The NHC and other authorities have launched national initiatives in an effort to counter the trend, concerned about links with chronic disease and increased healthcare costs.  
Local efforts like the Wuxi one are "a fun way to get people motivated", Wu told AFP. 
But Li Sheyu, a clinical professor at Sichuan University's West China Hospital, said the campaigns might have limited impact. 
"I would not consider it a gamechanger in the big picture," he said, noting they were essentially just a traditional incentive method for weight loss. 
"But (they are) a good example of disseminating weight-loss ideas to the public."
em/reb/dhw/ane/cms

research

Norwegian effectively cured of HIV after transplant from brother

BY DANIEL LAWLER

  • However, on the day of the transplant in 2020, the doctors were stunned to discover that the brother carried the CCR5 mutation. 
  • A Norwegian man has been effectively cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant from his brother, doctors announced on Monday. 
  • However, on the day of the transplant in 2020, the doctors were stunned to discover that the brother carried the CCR5 mutation. 
A Norwegian man has been effectively cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant from his brother, doctors announced on Monday. 
The patient's brother happened to carry a rare, virus-blocking genetic mutation.
The 63-year-old man, dubbed the "Oslo patient", is the latest in around 10 people worldwide who have gone into long-term remission from HIV after receiving a transplant to treat unrelated blood cancer.
The high-risk procedure normally requires a donor to have a specific mutation of their CCR5 gene, which blocks HIV from entering the body's cells. 
Only around one percent of people in northern Europe have the necessary mutation.
The Oslo patient, who had been living with HIV since 2006, was diagnosed with a fatal blood cancer called myelodysplastic syndrome in 2017.
His doctors searched for a donor who would help treat both. When they couldn't find one, they chose the man's elder brother.
However, on the day of the transplant in 2020, the doctors were stunned to discover that the brother carried the CCR5 mutation. 
"We had no idea... That was amazing," doctor Anders Eivind Myhre of the Oslo University Hospital told AFP. 
 

'Winning the lottery twice'

 
The patient said "it was like winning the lottery twice", added Myhre, who was also the lead author of a study describing the case in Nature Microbiology.
Two years after the transplant, the patient stopped taking the anti-retroviral drugs which had been reducing the level of HIV in his body.
The researchers found no trace of the virus in samples of the man's blood, gut and bone marrow.
"For all practical purposes, we are quite certain that he is cured," Myhre said.
Now the Oslo patient, whose name was not revealed, is "having a great time" and has more energy than he knows what to do with, Myhre said.
The painful and potentially dangerous transplant procedure is for people who have both HIV and deadly blood cancer so is not a feasible option for the millions of people living with the virus across the world.
However, researchers believe that studying these rare cases will reveal more about how HIV works in the hope of finding a cure for all patients.
 
 

'No longer a patient'

The Oslo patient is the first person to receive a transplant from a family member.
The patient's immune system had been "completely replaced" by the donor's, sqaid study co-author Marius Troseid of the University of Oslo.
It was the first time this had been observed in a cured patient's bone marrow and gut, he told AFP.
Even before the researchers found out the brother had a CCR5 mutation, they had some hope that the Oslo patient's HIV could be cured.
That is because in 2024 it was revealed that the so-called "next Berlin patient" entered long-term remission despite receiving a transplant that did not have two copies of the mutated gene.
The original Berlin patient, Timothy Ray Brown, was the first person declared cured of HIV back in 2008. Patients in London, New York, Geneva, Duesseldorf and elsewhere followed.
Given the Oslo patient's robust health, Troseid suggested that his nickname was no longer suitable.
"The Oslo patient is perhaps no longer a patient. At least he doesn't feel like it," Troseid said.
dl/gil

chemicals

'No fun': French hospital confronts laughing gas abuse

BY MARINE LAOUCHEZ AND JADE LEVIN

  • The 21-year-old man said inhaling laughing gas made him noticeably weaker, particularly in his legs, and he struggled to keep his balance while walking.
  • A 21-year-old man scrolls through Snapchat ads on his phone promoting nitrous oxide, a sedative gas increasingly used by young people in France to get high.
  • The 21-year-old man said inhaling laughing gas made him noticeably weaker, particularly in his legs, and he struggled to keep his balance while walking.
A 21-year-old man scrolls through Snapchat ads on his phone promoting nitrous oxide, a sedative gas increasingly used by young people in France to get high.
"Honestly, in France it's way too easy to get hold of," he said. 
The young man, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity due to stigma surrounding drug use, said he "got hooked" on the colourless and odourless substance commonly known as laughing gas when he tried it in 2021.
"I was doing it every day, every evening," he said in Bron, just outside the southeastern city of Lyon.
"After two or three years of using, I told myself I needed to get help, because of the after-effects."
The Lyon resident, who has complained of muscle weakness, is a patient at the Hospices Civils de Lyon (HCL), one of France's leading university hospitals.
The hospital is home to France's pioneering teleconsultation programme which is helping healthcare providers to better understand and treat the gas's toxic effects.
Nitrous oxide is used for pain relief in dentistry and medicine, as well as in catering.
In recent years, misuse of the inexpensive gas has become widespread in France among teenagers and young adults, who often use it as a party drug and inhale it via balloons filled from metal canisters.
A 2021 law prohibits the sale of laughing gas to minors, but it is still legal in France for individual adults to buy the gas. 

'Complicated to drive'

Recreational use produces feelings of euphoria, relaxation and dissociation from reality.
But long-term misuse can cause damage to the nervous system, impair cognitive functions, and lead to problems with balance and reflexes. 
Apart from life-threatening health problems, the gas has caused fatal traffic accidents in France in recent years.
Reports of intoxication tripled between 2022 and 2023, according to the interior ministry.
Now the government has launched an awareness campaign, and Interior Minister Laurent Nunez advocates criminalising the inappropriate consumption of the gas, which would be punishable by one year in prison and a fine of 3,750 euros.
Doctors at HCL treat former and current users who might be experiencing long-term cognitive and other effects.
One of the users said she sought treatment when she began to worry about experiencing pins and needles in her legs and arms.
"It's becoming very complicated, even just to drive. When it hits me, the tingling -- it hurts a lot," said the 23-year-old woman, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. 
After having been hospitalised for her pain, she went for a follow-up appointment at the HCL.
The woman said the treatment -- including with B12 vitamin -- was helping.
"I remember more things -- the B12 really helps me a lot," she said.
Since the service was launched in November 2024, addiction specialist Christophe Riou has conducted 150 telemedicine consultations and 60 in-person consultations with patients aged 15 to 31.
The service aims to take care of patients as soon as possible after their first symptoms appear, with doctors paying particular attention to pinprick sensations, loss of balance and muscle weakness.
"We're trying to bring patients together under a single care pathway. That makes it easier to understand and coordinate care," Riou said, a nitrous oxide cylinder sitting on his desk.
- 'Eternal regret' - 
He said doctors were learning more about the neurological effects of the misuse of the gas, particularly leg paralysis.
"We are also beginning to see that this neurotoxic effect acts at the level of the brain," he said, adding this helped explain changes in behaviour, even outside episodes of acute use.
Riou also said that introducing legal consequences for the consumption of the gas may encourage users to seek treatment.
"This may help people realise that it poses a problem, and this could in turn encourage them to seek care," he said.
Citing test results of the heavy users, Yara Malaeb, a neuropsychology trainee, said such patients show memory and attention difficulties.
"These are young people who, for their age, are not functioning normally," she said.
The 23-year-old woman patient called nitrous oxide "the worst drug ever".
"I really wish I could tell young people not to do this. But the problem is, they already know," she added.
The 21-year-old man said inhaling laughing gas made him noticeably weaker, particularly in his legs, and he struggled to keep his balance while walking.
"It's no fun," he said, adding misuse of the drug can destroy a life. "It's a fleeting pleasure for eternal regret."
vid-mla-as/ah/giv