Maggie Russell, 20, has stopped eating carbs and exercises twice a day in the lead up to the World Beauty, Fitness and Fashion competition on the Gold Coast on Saturday. The fitness model only consumes a paltry 1,100 calories a day. 'I train six days a week with weights and seven days a week cardio, twice a day,' Ms Russell said. 'It's very intense. I spend four hours a day in the gym. It's all strict dieting.' The 20-year-old is now at the end of her 'depletion week', which means she hasn't eaten any carbohydrates but has dramtically increased the time she spends in the gym.

Children as young as 18 months are undergoing major dental operations to have their rotting teeth removed (left, top and bottom right), with some cases so bad that they require a general anaesthetic. Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne dental surgeon Sophie Beaumont said it was not uncommon to do multiple extractions on young children. 'We're getting a lot of kids who are having Pepsi and Coca-Cola being put in their baby bottles,' dental specialist Dr Rob Beaglehole said.

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT: Jeffrey Ortega, 26, from Deerfield Beach, Florida, was born with Proteus syndrome, which causes the body's tissue to grow abnormally. The condition affects his hands, hips, legs, and especially his feet (pictured left and bottom right), and he must use a wheelchair as walking is painful and difficult. Currently his left foot is 17 inches in circumference and 14 inches long while his right foot is 14.5 inches in circumference and 12 inches long. He believes amputation of his left foot will relieve his pain and stop the growth. He is desperate for the operation (pictured top right), but doctors said he will have to fund the $40,000 [£25,811] cost himself. He said: 'Having the amputation would improve my life so much. It would help me walk again and I won't have to use a wheelchair anymore.'

One of Australia's leading chiropractors, Dr James Carter, has warned that 'text neck' - often brought on by staring at phones for several hours - is becoming an epidemic. He revealed he had seen an 'alarming increase' in the number of patients with abnormally curved spines over the past few years and said 50 per cent of them are school-age teenagers. Pictured left is a 17-year-old boy and in the centre a 16-year-old girl is developing a 'hunchback'. The chiropractor has even seen one seven-year-old patient, pictured right, with 'text neck.'

Catherine Keeney, from Newarthill, Scotland, underwent a bilateral mastectomy in March this year after learning she had a 97 per cent risk of getting breast cancer. The 30-year-old, who documented her recovery on Facebook, has since posted a photograph of her scars online. It has received more than 77,000 likes. Ms Keeney wrote: 'OK guys putting these pics up of my foobs I am in no way body beautiful as I'm not the fittest or best looking I'm just a normal woman but I want to show everyone that having a mastectomy is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.'

In a Nebraska town, with a population of just 14 people, four stores sold more than four million beer cans in a space of a year. The most frequent customers in Whiteclay are from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, across the border in South Dakota, where alcoholism is rampant, despite strict rules banning booze. Even when women get pregnant, they carry on drinking, and it leads to their children being born with deformities and blood alcohol levels. One in four children in the Native American community are born with fetal alcohol syndrome, which causes stunted growth, facial impairments and prevents the sufferer's mental ages from developing. Many have hyperactive or have attention disorders, suffer from learning disabilities, and can sometimes be smaller than other children.

Holli Gorveatt's babies were due in January next year, but baby Link (pictured top right) was born weighing just 1lb 2oz just 23 weeks into her pregnancy. And Gorveatt (left) remains pregnant with his brother Logan, who is not expected to be born until her 2016 due date. Doctors had expected to have both babies at the NICU (bottom right) at the Evergreen Medical Center in Kirkland, Washington. Dr Martin Walker had performed in-utero surgery to fix a complication - known as 'twin-twin transfusion syndrome' because the babies shared a placenta. Then, when Gorveatt went into labor a week later, Dr Walker was able to safely deliver Link while Logan stayed inside his mother's womb.

Richard McDonald, six and his brother Lennon, five, from Corby, Northhamptonshire, suffer from Ectodermal Dysplasia (ED), which causes their hair, teeth and nails to grow abnormally (Richard is pictured, left, in Red, and Lennon in green). The boys do not have any sweat glands meaning they cannot control their body temperature - something that risks them suffering fatal seizures if their bodies overheat or get too cold. They were born with no teeth and later developed malformed and pointy teeth which made eating difficult, as they also do not produce any saliva. Recently, they been fitted with dentures so they can eat without fear of choking (pictured right). Their mother, Zoe McDonald, 27, says they love their new false teeth. She said: 'Since having their new teeth they've been able to eat so much easier. They get really excited hearing their teeth grind together and are obsessed with hearing their food crunch because they've not had it before.'

Beau Jacobson, 23, from Colleyville, Texas, was 6'3" and weighed 285lbs when he was in high school (left). After losing 65lbs and developing an eating disorder in college that caused him to drop to 159lbs, Beau overcame his issues with food and is now 200lbs (right).

Two years after they tied the knot, Joel and Lauren Jackson, from Florida, have finally enjoyed their first dance as man and wife. Gazing into each other's eyes the 26 year olds the impromptu moment was one they never expected. Six years ago Joel cheated death, surviving a car crash that rendered him paralysed from the neck down. Such was the severity of his injuries, that Joel was effectively decapitated internally - his head separated from his spine. Lauren said: 'It is the little triumphs that are giant steps for us. And for the little things, I am grateful.'

Erika and Stephen Jones, from Jacksonville, were devastated when their daughter, Abigail, was diagnosed with deadly brain cancer in utero. Doctors in Florida said they couldn't save the baby, because any operation would be too dangerous - and they insisted that the tumor was aggressive. So the family, heartbroken, took the baby home to die. Luckily, Dr. Al Cohen from Boston Children's Hospital heard about Abigail's case and gave it a second look, discovering that he could actually save her. After safely removing the tumor, he learned that it wasn't malignant after all, but was, in fact, a rare type of tumor that looks very similar to a deadly one. Abigail is now home with her parents and her big sister, and the doctor says 'her prognosis is excellent'.

Jody Parcel, 30, from Rhondda Cynon Taf, went deaf at the age of two. She was given hearing aids, but they stopped working as she got older. In recent years, she found she could no longer hear her children. Four weeks ago, she underwent an operation to have cochlear implants fitted. These are surgically implanted electronic devices that provide a sense of sound to a person who is deaf. Here, a touching video shows the moment they are turned on, and she hears the voice of her fiancé Jeremy Carne, for the first time (Miss Parcel is pictured at this moment, left, centre and right). She is planning to marry Mr Carne (pictured, inset) next year, and hopes to be able to hear him speak at the wedding. She said: 'I will gradually introduced to this noisy, and I mean really noisy, world. I'm amazed at all the noises I hear even though it all sounds the same. We have our wedding booked for next September and I'm determined I'll be able to hear our vows.'

Nancy Binger, 40, of Illinois, was told that her baby would be born with Down syndrome when she was six months pregnant. The college administrator reveals that she completely shut down when she heard the news, and that she still feels terrified about how she is going to raise a child with special needs.

On Tuesday night's episode of E! reality series Botched, Leslie, 31, from North Hollywood asked Los Angeles-based surgeons Paul Nassif and Terry Dubrow to lift and reduce her 34DD breasts (left) after they determined that she suffered from 'grade four' droopiness - the most severe droopiness a person can have. The profession DJ was thrilled with the results of her procedure (right) and wore a black bandeau top to show off her new chest.

What constitutes proper hand washing, and are you doing enough to protect yourself? To find out Jennie Agg used a special UV camera to test different hand-washing techniques - from the typical 'rinse and shake' to the 30 seconds recommended by a leading authority on disease control. The whiter the hand, the more bugs left after washing. Six seconds is the average length of time people spend washing their hands, according to research. But this is not long enough to effectively remove bacteria. The NHS recommends we wash for at least 15 seconds - roughly the time it takes to sing Happy Birthday twice over at a fairly jaunty pace.

Nikki Black, of Los Angeles, told Daily Mail Online that her cancer surgery and the sexualization of her disease by some men made her feel like she didn't own her body, so she got the tattoos in an effort to reclaim her new identity and take back some of the control she had lost.

Ian Pettigrew, a 46-year-old photographer from Ontario, Canada, who is also battling cystic fibrosis, photographed 77 adult women who suffer from the disorder, which damages the lungs and digestive system, for his book Salty Girls , a limited edition publication which spotlights 'how beautiful those fighting CF truly are'.