Food and Medical Politics
Burgeoning rates of obesity and chronic disease here in the UK have caused our Government to consider and then implement a number of initiatives designed, we are led to believe, to assist us in our attaining and maintaining of a healthy weight. It is considering, for instance, putting a tax on fatty foods. The idea […]
Cholesterol and Statins
In my regular trawl through on-line newspapers this week I came across this story in the Telegraph (UK). Apparently, death rates in the UK are at a record low. This is, on the surface, a good thing. However, such statistics can belie the fact that while individuals may be living longer, the quality of the […]
Brain and Behaviour
If we were to want to work out if a drug (or another treatment) is any good, we’d do well to conduct some ‘randomised controlled trials’. Basically, this means randomly assigned individuals to the drug being tested or placebo (or another drug). Neither the researchers nor the study participants know what’s being taken. Symptoms or […]
Cholesterol and Statins
There is a well-established paradigm in medicine that ‘raised’ levels of cholesterol cause heart disease and that reducing cholesterol levels has broad benefits for health. Yet, despite how firmly these concepts are entrenched in the psyche of doctors and their patients, these assertions fail to tell the whole story regarding cholesterol and its management. One, […]
Food and Medical Politics
Mammography is a screening tool designed to diagnose breast cancer earlier than it other would be, which should lead to earlier, better and more effective treatment. Well, that’s the theory anyway. But as with the case with many things, theory does not always translate smoothly into practice. There has been for some years now growing […]
Food and Medical Politics
Variously, I have written about the now quite voluminous and ever-growing body of research which demonstrates that fructose has considerable potential to harm health. See here, here, here and here for examples of research which implicates fructose as a potential causative factor in a wide range of health issues including weight gain and cancer. So […]
Food and Medical Politics
There’s an increasing vogue in medicine to treat essentially healthy people. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is people with ‘raised’ cholesterol. You could be healthy, fit and active, of healthy weight, a non-smoker, eating a healthy diet, but that won’t necessarily mean you won’t wind up on a drug to reduce your cholesterol. […]
Food and Medical Politics
There’s been a lot of reporting of a study that came out on Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine [1], and it’s going to be the focus of today’s blog. Here, in brief, is the design of the study: almost 5000 men and women who had had a heart attack previously were randomised […]
Cholesterol and Statins
Many doctors and scientists have nearly unbridled enthusiasm for the class of cholesterol-reducing drugs known as statins. One example of this comes in the form of a study from a group of researchers which claims that taking a statin can counteract the potentially heart-stopping effects of fast food [1]. The researchers suggest that fast food […]
Food and Medical Politics
Back in June I wrote a blog piece about the World Health Organization. This supposedly august body has come in for some sharp criticism in the form of a couple of pieces on the British Medical Journal. Specifically, the WHO was accused of being influenced by financial conflicts of interest in the handling of the […]