Healthy Eating
One of the reasons I first became interested in nutrition was to deal with some health issues I had of my own. Throughout my time at medical school and once I was practising as a doctor I was, generally speaking, quite lethargic compared to how I feel now. I had, like a lot of people, […]
Healthy Eating
Celiac disease is a condition that is characterised by intolerance to the protein gluten found in grains such as wheat, oats, rye and barley. Sensitivity to gluten can cause ‘flattening’ of the finger-like projections in the bowel, which essentially reduce its surface area. The dramatically reduced surface area caused by the condition tends to cause […]
Brain and Behaviour
Alzheimer’s disease (a form of dementia) is characterized by the build-up in the brain of a protein known as ‘amyloid-beta’. Not surprisingly, amyloid-beta has been ‘targeted’ by drug companies, including Eli Lilli who produced the drug Semagacestat which did a nice job of retarding amyloid-beta synthesis. However, in trials, Semagacestat accelerated decline in brain function […]
Healthy Eating
‘Trans-fatty acids’ can be formed in the processing of fats. They usually start out life as a vegetable oil, which is then treated in a multi-stage process to, say, solidify it and extend its shelf life. The word ‘trans’ refers to the chemical shape of these molecules. In general terms, these fats are a different […]
Healthy Eating
If I were to try and condense what I regard as good nutritional advice into a soundbite, I’d say ‘Eat like a caveman (or cavewoman)’. The idea here being to emulate the diet we as a species evolved on, and are best adapted to. There is, I think, abundant research that strongly supports this as […]
Brain and Behaviour
We’ll probably all be familiar with the idea that raised cholesterol levels cause heart disease. The idea here is that high levels of cholesterol cause fatty deposits on the inside of the arteries around the heart. If one or more of vessels should block off completely, the heart muscle is starved of blood and, if […]
Healthy Eating
I was talking with a lady on Monday who told me that she had a ‘gluten intolerance’. Many doctors would assume this meant that the women had coeliac disease (a sensitivity to gluten in foodstuffs like wheat, rye and barley that causes bowel changes, bowel and abdominal symptoms, and may lead to malnourishment if left […]
Healthy Eating
It’s a widely recognised idea in nutrition that moderate drinking is ‘healthy’. This advice is based on evidence which links moderate drinking with improved health outcomes (notably a reduced risk of death from heart disease) compared to not drinking at all. However, I remember more than 10 years ago sitting in a presentation given by […]
Food and Medical Politics
My blog on Christmas eve (My nutritional Christmas wish list) detailed 14 things I feel should be more widely known including the facts that saturated fat is not linked in any meaningful way with heart disease and there’s no good evidence that margarine is healthier than butter. Another was that there’s no good evidence that […]
Healthy Eating
I was giving a presentation yesterday, during which the subject of mindless eating came up. The fact is, some of us can find ourselves eating food without thinking. Particularly when distracted, we can end up eating more than we need to, and we may not make the greatest choices either. I wrote about mindless eating […]