Nutrients and Supplements
I was interested to read yesterday a report regarding a recommendation coming out of the Skin Cancer Foundation in the USA. The Foundation has recommended that adults increase their intake of vitamin D from 400 IU (the recommended daily amount) to 1000 IU. This is good news, I think, because there’s abundant and continuing to […]
Specific conditions
Some of you will have noticed that there has been some focus, of late, on the beneficial properties of vitamin D within the body. For example, recently on this blog I have written pieces exploring the potential for sunlight/vitamin D to help moderate body weight and enhance muscle strength, fitness, balance and reaction time. And […]
Nutrients and Supplements
Back in April 2008 one of my blogs focused on the nutrients which might help prevent the development of age-related macular degeneration (the most common cause of visual loss in the elderly). The blog highlights the potential of omega-3 fats and zinc to be or particular value here. However, more recently, evidence has emerged which […]
Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome
I believe that lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise have potentially profound impact on health and wellbeing, and this is certainly reflected in the voluminous recommendations that come at us regarding what we should and shouldn’t be doing in these areas. However, I also take the view that another key lifestyle factor ” sleep […]
Food and Medical Politics
Many individuals will be familiar with the almost-constant recommendations that come at us with regard to what we should be eating to reduce our risk of heart disease. A central theme in this advice, though not everyone would agree with it, is that the diet should be low in fat and high in carbohydrate. Sometimes, […]
Food and Medical Politics
This morning, I saw this piece of news on the BBC website which reports on the accusation some doctors (endocrinologists) have leveled that some doctors are misdiagnosing and mistreating thyroid disease. The main gripe appears to be the fact that some doctors are willing to entertain the diagnosis of low thyroid function (hypothyroidism), even when […]
Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome
I noticed a few reports last week (an example here) regarding a study that was presented at a diabetes conference. Apparently, the research shows that individuals taking naps in the afternoon is associated with a significantly enhanced risk of developing diabetes. When such studies are reported there’s a tendency for journalists (and sometimes the originators […]
Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome
Conventional nutritional wisdom dictates that heart disease risk can be influenced through our intake of fat. Specifically, saturated fat (found in foods such as meat, dairy products, eggs and coconut) promotes heart disease, while certain foods (for example, omega-3 fats found in oily fish) do the reverse. I do think there’s a good deal of […]
Brain and Behaviour
For a beverage that doesn’t enjoy the healthiest of reputations, coffee has been the subject of quite a few studies that link its consumption with benefits for health. Specifically, there has been several studies now that link coffee drinking with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease (e.g. heart disease) or diabetes. Now there is some […]
Nutrients and Supplements
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a condition characterised by symptoms such as abdominal discomfort, bloating, wind and altered bowel habit. In conventional medicine, there is no real consensus on what causes IBS. IBS is what might be termed a diagnosis of exclusion. In other words, it’s the diagnosis that individuals end up with when tests […]