Healthy Eating
Some individuals, hard as they try, may still fine it difficult to moderate the quantity of food they eat. At least one reason for this can be that they are eating foods that aren’t particularly satisfying. Two factors that affect the sating effects of food are the glycaemic index (the speed and extent to which […]
Healthy Eating
Weight control receives a lot of attention from doctors and other health professionals, scientists and the media, a reflection of the fact that there are burgeoning rates of obesity in industrialised countries around the world. While a number of dietary approaches have been advocated for weight loss, my preference is for diets that are relatively […]
Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome
Our experience of health and disease will always be the result of an interplay between our genes and ‘environmental’ factors such as diet, exercise and exposure to potential toxins or health hazards. We hear a lot about the role of specific genes in specific conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. However, as Professor Steve […]
Healthy Eating
Last month I reported on a study which linked shorter sleep duration with an increased risk of diabetes. Other research has found an association between relatively curtailed sleep and an increased risk of overweight and obesity. Some of this research has found a potential explanation for this observation in the form of changes in appetite […]
Healthy Eating
On Monday I wrote about the nonsense of food labelling. Those entrusted to steer us to a healthier diet have contrived to propose and implement schemes which give, in my view, potentially distorted and misleading guidance regarding what is good and not-so-good to eat. Some of the comments that come after this blog post should […]
Food and Medical Politics
I’ve always thought that the health claims made by food manufacturers are largely meaningless. For example, a food product can be advertised as ‘low in saturated fat’ or ‘cholesterol free’ but there is no good evidence that eating less of these particular foodstuffs has broad benefits for health. The ‘benefits’ of eating a food low […]
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, […]
Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome
This week’s edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association contains a commentary entitled ‘Can Diabetes Be Cured’ [1]. It caught my eye, partly because I have some interest in diabetes as a condition, but also because the word ‘cure’ is not usually applied to a condition like diabetes. The conventional wisdom is that […]
Healthy Eating
I generally rate meat (including red meat) as a food for those who choose to eat it. However, I appreciate that not all health professionals share my enthusiasm for this food: often, individuals will remind us to eat ‘lean’ meat to avoid consuming so-called saturated fat that ’causes’ heart disease. Except, the evidence doesn’t really […]
Food and Medical Politics
Last week one of my blogs focused on mammography. My objection here, in a nutshell, is that it seems this practice has been presented to women as a no-brainer, when in reality it has a number of important downsides that put quite a dent in the arguments for mammography that many of us will be […]