A cheering and optimistic story about dementia at HealthInsightUK.org.When Obhi Chatterjee’s dad was diagnosed, Obhi set about researching the most plausible supplements and diets to help him. The piece tells you what they are and why they might work and also has useful advice for anyone wanting to follow his example. Two of the biggest […]
Statin critics cleared. Top statin advocate knuckles’ rapped
August 2, 2014 by 36 Comments
The long running spat between senior statin advocate Professor Sir Rory Collins and the British Medical Journal has come to a very satisfactory conclusion. His demand – that two papers challenging his claims about the safety and effectiveness of statins – be withdrawn, has been rejected by a committee specially set up to consider it. […]
Statin wars: an outbreak of medical transparency
June 13, 2014 by 10 Comments
Something remarkable happened earlier this week. Open warfare broke out between senior doctors over the benefits of a major government health policy. To prescribe or not to prescribe yet more statins to healthy people? That was the question. Details of the open letter to the head of NICE (the health value-for-money body) challenging its proposal […]
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 […]
What is wrong with randomised trials Part 2
May 5, 2013 by 4 Comments
Could alcohol get a licence as a drug for depression? How do you test for the safety of a drug that causes the same side effects as the disease it is used to treat? These are just two of the points I didn’t have room for in my post last week on randomised controlled trials (RCTs) […]
Silver Bullet Award for dangerous drug promotion
January 17, 2013 by 21 Comments
When I saw recently that Simon Singh, energetic “quack buster “ and scourge of homoeopaths, chiropractors and their ilk, had established an award called the Golden Duck to be presented to the person who had “supported or practised pseudoscience in the most dangerous or irresponsible manner” , my first thought was: How unfair! What […]
Antibiotics make you fat
August 7, 2012 by Leave a Comment
The eye-catching title of my article for the Daily Mail today on why frequent courses of antibiotics may not be such a good idea, highlights a new and emerging set of problem with these drugs. It’s not just weight gain that becomes more likely. There’s an increase in the risk of auto-immune disorders as well […]
Statins: worth it or not when you are healthy?
April 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment
If any preventative drug use had good evidence supporting it, you’d think cholesterol-lowering statins would. They are given out to around five million healthy people in the UK with the aim of lowering their risk of having a heart attack. For fifteen years or more there have been hundreds of large-scale double-blind, evidence-based-medicine gold-standard trials […]
Body of Evidence 
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