Cholesterol and Statins
Last year, I wrote a blog post about an advertorial which appeared in the Telegraph newspaper which featured the apparent effects Flora pro-activ drinks had on supposed ‘journalist’ Chris Jones’ cholesterol levels. I couldn’t trace Chris Jones, and although I was promised that her identity would be verified, this never happened. I did get an […]
Brain and Behaviour
Last week I was aboard a cruise liner in the Caribbean. I had a lot of fun but was primarily there to participate in a kinda conference organised by low-carb advocate Jimmy Moore. I was privileged to share the stage with some very lovely and inspiration speakers, among them the US cardiologist Dr William (Bill) […]
Healthy Eating
The need for regular meals are a regularly-occurring feature in healthy eating and weight loss advice. I used to believe this myself. But in the last year or two I’ve had to reconsider my thinking on this on this on the basis of my own personal experience as well as people I’ve worked with clinically. […]
Food and Medical Politics
For some time now there has been debate in some nutritional circles about the relative merits of different ‘diets’. Certainly, there has been at least two factions here. One argues for a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet which usually includes plenty of starchy carbohydrates such as bread, potato, rice, breakfast cereals and pasta. Others (including me) argue […]
Brain and Behaviour
The last few decades have seen a rise in rates of overweight and obesity. Average duration of sleep has declined in the Western world too. Could the two be connected? Actually, yes. There are a number of mechanisms through which reduced sleep time might be somehow contributing to the obesity ‘epidemic’, and these were summarised […]
Brain and Behaviour
Dementia is an issue many of us would rather avoid as we age, and in recent years there has been considerable interest in specific dietary strategies that might help here. Seeing as about 70 per cent of the dry weight of the brain is fat (much of it saturated), I’m inclined to think a diet […]
Food and Medical Politics
Tom Naughton used to be a full time stand-up comedian but, although he’s still funny, he’s spending more time these days spreading the word about what truly healthy eating is. He also produced the movie Fat Head (a revealing and entertaining watch if you haven’t seen it yet). Tom has a blog here. It’s one […]
Healthy Eating
I came across this report yesterday. It concerns a study presented at the American Heart Association meeting in San Diego this week. From the report it appears that overweight individuals were randomised to one of two diets for 6 months (along with moderate exercise). ‘low-carb’: 30, 40, 30 per cent of calories from carbohydrate, fat […]
Food and Medical Politics
This week the media has been awash with news about the perilous dangers of eating red meat, and processed meat in particular. The cause of this consternation was a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine which analysed data from two large ‘epidemiological’ studies [1]. These studies basically followed people over many years monitoring […]
Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome
While coffee does not enjoy the healthiest of reputations, it has been consistently linked with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes in the scientific literature. Back in February, for instance, a German study was published which found that individuals drinking 4 or more cups of caffeinated coffee each day had a 23 per cent […]