Eating an apple a day is as effective (almost) at fending off heart disease as taking a statin. That was the catchy claim of an article in the BMJ last week reported by most of the papers. On the surface it was a light, good news Christmassy tale but dig a little deeper and it looks […]
Time to get serious about prevention. Remove a pump handle.
December 10, 2013 by 10 Comments
Like transparency, equality and democracy in politics, prevention of disease is a motherhood and apple pie issue in medicine– everyone is in favour of it, so long as it doesn’t involve actually doing anything as committed as mounting a serious public health programme or spending millions on research. This truism takes on a new urgency […]
Secret Carbs committee that could cause a disaster
November 28, 2013 by 6 Comments
If you’re familiar with the low carbohydrate, Atkins-type diet – variously known as the paleo diet, the Zone diet, the South Beach diet or the ketogenic diet- you are probably also aware that it is pretty controversial. So is it a great way to lose weight and improve your metabolism or is it lacking in […]
Vampires get ill in the sun: we don’t
November 22, 2013 by 1 Comment
For years the official advice put out by Cancer Research UK for preventing skin cancer more closely resembled a deeply eccentric project to turn us into a nation of vampires rather than a sensible evidence-based public health policy. Their SunSmart advice used to recommend that sunny days in Britain posed such a threat that they […]
New post-statin drug doesn’t need proof it works
November 17, 2013 by 1 Comment
There has long been a surreal quality to cholesterol lowering drugs; prescriptions in the millions, earnings in the billions and yet a growing evidence that if you are taking them to prevent your first heart attack, unless you are one of the lucky ones – one in 1/300, 1/500, 1/700; the figures vary – they […]
Official advice onlow fat diet and statins under fire
October 31, 2013 by 1 Comment
It’s been a great week if you don’t believe that eating a low fat diet is the way to stay healthy and protect your heart. It’s also been good if you are sceptical about statins being a sensible way of cutting your risk of a heart attack when you haven’t had one. Each of these radical […]
Cardiologist: time to stop demonising saturated fat
October 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment
At first sight geology and nutrition have little in common but a major shift in thinking about the surface of earth is a handy way of highlighting a major change in ideas about how to cut the risk of heart disease with diet. Back in the 1920’s a meteorologist called Alfred Wegener came up with […]
Could cutting carbs boost cancer treatment?
October 21, 2013 by 2 Comments
Could you improve your cancer treatment by following a very low carbohydrate diet? Do statin studies really show they are more likely to harm than help you, if you haven’t already had a heart attack? These are just two of the questions raised by two articles in a new blog I’ve helped to create, which has just […]
Confused about calories? No wonder
October 15, 2013 by 1 Comment
What would make you put on the most weight – eating 5000 calories a day on a high fat/low carb diet or 5000 calories on a high carb/low fat diet? To a conventional nutritionist this will sound like dietary version of the old school-days trick question: Which is heavier a ton of bricks or a ton […]
Antipsychotics: firmly on the wall of shame for quackery and woo.
September 24, 2013 by 6 Comments
Quackery and woo are among the favourite insults directed at anyone who practices most forms of CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) – and especially those who use of homeopathy, herbs or vitamins – by staunch and vocal supporters of evidence based medicine. However a feature in the Daily Mail today describes a class of drugs […]
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