Healthy Eating
I came across a video today (posted below). It’s an Associated Press news report regarding an anti-soft-drink/soda video made by the New York City Department of Health. It portrays a man drinking the contents of a soda-can. Except that the contents aren’t the fizzy, sugary liquid one is anticipating, but what looks likes globs of […]
Healthy Eating
Conventional nutritional wisdom dictates that we eat a diet rich in ‘polyunsaturated’ fats. At least part of the rationale for this relates to the fact that we are told that these fats help to reduce the risk of heart disease (you will, for instance, often see or hear ‘polyunsaturates’ being referred to in adverts for […]
Healthy Eating
I am not a fan of refined sugar, generally speaking. But I’m most certainly not a fan of the ‘healthy’ alternatives ” artificial sweeteners ” either. One cause of concern is their safety. For example, aspartame (Nutrasweet, Equal, Canderel) has quite a body of research which demonstrates it has real potential to have adverse effects […]
Healthy Eating
As a general rule, scientists, doctors and dieticians subscribe to the view that when it comes to weight management, ‘a calorie is a calorie’. Essentially, this means that weight loss is the aim, we need to consume fewer calories than we burn, and as long as we do, then the form that these calories come […]
Brain and Behaviour
Most of us have an ambition of living to a ripe old age. At the same time, many of fear the loss of our mental faculties as we age. For at least some of us, the spectre of dementia looms large in our minds. One potential modifiable risk factor for dementia concerns derangement in blood […]
Food and Medical Politics
Perusing on-line newspapers yesterday I came across this. According to the national newspaper the Observer (UK), Professor Chris Hawkey, president of the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG), is set to debunk more than a dozen ‘fad’ diets when he addresses Gastro 2009 conference for doctors. Locked in his crosshairs, apparently, are the concepts of chewing […]
Healthy Eating
There is generally unbridled enthusiasm in the medical establishment for cholesterol-reducing drugs known as statins. While they do have the ability to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attacks and strokes, they don’t appear to reduce overall risk of death in individuals who have no history of cardiovascular disease when they start […]
Healthy Eating
There’s a fair chance that at least once in your life you’ve been advised to eat slowly. I think this is good advice, at least in part because slower eating generally means more thorough of chewing of food (which aids digestion and reduces the risk of symptoms such as indigestion, reflux and heartburn). However, another […]
Healthy Eating
I generally advise against eating refined sugar. I, personally, eat hardly any, but I do eat some. Practically all of this comes in the form of 85 per cent cocoa chocolate. I, for quite some time now, have been recommending dark chocolate as a sweet treat of choice. Firstly, dark chocolate is generally lower in […]
Brain and Behaviour
I make no secret of my leaning towards high-protein, relatively low-carb diets. I am well aware of the relatively unhealthy reputation that such diets have. However, when one looks at the research one generally finds that the criticisms of such diet are based on theoretical and ideological concerns. They are not, generally speaking, based on […]