Healthy Eating
Dietetic dogma tells us that we should eat three meals a day, but resist the urge to feed our faces with anything else in between. Like doner kebabs and deep-fried Mars bars, snacking is something that the nutritional fraternity tends to frown upon. Despite its sullied reputation, recent evidence suggests that eating between meals mightn’t […]
Food and Medical Politics
Whilst I am an ardent advocate of nutritional medicine, my career in the area was almost snuffed out before it began. Just as my interest in the subject was burgeoning, I found myself aghast at what seemed to be the excessive quantities of nutrients recommended by many natural health experts. Compared to the gold standard […]
Healthy Eating
I was never very interested in food as a child, but I do remember being encouraged to eat plenty of carrots to help me see in the dark. Not all nutritional folklore is supported by sound science, but this one is: carrots are loaded with the nutrient beta-carotene, and the vitamin A this may convert […]
Healthy Eating
For me, eating healthily doesn’t necessarily mean giving up all our little treats. My personal dietary vice is coffee, and I indulge myself with a cafetière of organic Guatemalan brew most mornings. From a purist’s point of view, drinking coffee is nutritional heresy: there’s a stack of research linking caffeine consumption with all manner of […]
Healthy Eating
Last week garlic was thrust into the spotlight following the publication of a study which suggests that regular consumption of this herb could halve the risk of stomach cancer and cut the incidence of colon cancer by two-thirds. Actually, garlic has long had a reputation as a bit of a cure-all. With references to its […]
Brain and Behaviour
Migraine is one of the most common conditions that I see in practice, and the vast majority of sufferers have it affect their daily lives to some degree. As a result, I’m always on the lookout for potential solutions to this problem. Reading this month’s edition of the medical journal Cephalalgia, I discovered that that […]
Healthy Eating
For centuries, salt has been revered as a flavour-enhancer and food preservative across the globe. Our appetite for salt has not diminished either: many of us add salt during cooking or at the table, and salt has a ubuiquitous presence in pretty much every processed food. Some salt in the diet appears to be important […]
Food and Medical Politics
Diabetes is not the most sexy of conditions, but it’s an important one. Characterised by raised levels of sugar in the blood stream, it can ultimately lead to diverse problems including blindness, gangrene, kidney disease, nerve damage and impotence, and is the third leading cause of death after cardiovascular disease and cancer. What is more, […]
Brain and Behaviour
My big brother Joe has a famously bad memory. At a relatively youthful 38, he often forgets conversations I have had with him only a few days before. Regularly, he regales me with stories and anecdotes that I find very amusing, but only the first time round. A couple of months ago, I was recounting […]
Observer Archive
Most of us will not be relishing the near-arctic temperatures we have had of late. Colder climes are often of particular concern to those who tend to suffer with abnormally cold hands and feet. From a traditional perspective, treatment options for those prone to a sluggish circulation are pretty limited: the stock advice given to […]