A few years ago at the age of 67, Sarah (not her real name) was planning suicide because she was starting to have the same problems her mother suffered from as she developed Alzheimer’s. She couldn’t remember phone numbers or what she had just read and even finding her way around the familiar roads near her […]
Benzos: Beware the baddest drugs in a doctor’s armoury.
August 28, 2013 by 2 Comments
Benzodiazepines are the serial offenders of the drugs’ cabinet with a cluster of pharmaceuticals ASBOs to their name. They’ve been around since the 1960s and are generally given if you are complaining of the likes of insomnia or anxiety – family names include temazepam (for sleep) and the tranquillizer valium. They have a charge sheet that […]
Alzheimer’s: we want a cure but please don’t mention B vitamins
May 21, 2013 by 54 Comments
The article in today’s Daily Mail about B vitamins and Alzheimer’s is the story of the triumph of dogged scientific persistence – do read it first if you can because this blog would become impossibly long if I repeated all the details. But behind it is another story of indifference and prejudice that is preventing […]
Ten top tips to boost your disease free survival
March 7, 2013 by 5 Comments
In quieter moments, pondering the end of your life, how many years to you think you might be effectively house-bound with a number of chronic diseases before you pop off? The jargon for describing this unappealing state is YLD (Years of Living with Disability) and according to a big report in the Lancet earlier this […]
Alzheimer’s: another reason to be sceptical about statins
November 5, 2012 by 7 Comments
The front page of the Daily Express on Friday led with a new warning about statins – combining them with certain blood pressure pills could raise your risk of muscle pains, lung disorders and kidney damage. Hmm yes well. Even as a cholesterol/statin sceptic I thought that was remarkably over-hyped – statin side effects are massively […]
Heroes and Villains. Fat and insulin swapping places
October 18, 2012 by 3 Comments
Like the movies, medicine has its roster of heroes and villains – fat for instance is a hard-core offender while insulin is a valued member of the community. But they could be swapping places. The campaign to rehabilitate fat has been gathering support for some years but putting insulin in the dock is a startling […]
Drugs: just say no. The hidden dangers
September 4, 2012 by 2 Comments
Blowing you own trumpet is briefly satisfying, like another solitary activity, but not very cool. However I’ve decided to succumb to the urge as its now six months since “10 Secrets of Health Ageing” was published and in a couple of weeks (Sunday 16th of November I’m going to be talking about it at the […]
Yet more reasons to get sweaty
September 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Even the most determined couch potato no longer has an excuse. It is possible to get the recommended amount of exercise you need to fend off chronic diseases simply by walking around the sofa during the ad breaks. This remarkable tip for improving the nation’s health comes from the August 25th edition of the New […]
Can fasting for two days each week stop dementia?
August 10, 2012 by 1 Comment
This is an article I wrote about fasting in the Daily Mail back in February. It features top American fasting researcher Dr Mark Mattson who was just about to publish a review of the evidence that, in animals at least, cutting right back on calories a couple of days a week can protect brain cells. […]
Easier ways to stay slim and healthy
August 9, 2012 by Leave a Comment
The Horizon program I blogged about yesterday explored some cutting edge ideas about what really makes us fat – the big surprise was that a major player is one of the genes that controls insulin. It also tested a radical new idea that fasting could be an effective way of turning off that gene. Both […]
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