Are criminals ‘bad’ or just malnourished?
Just like overweight individuals are often seen as greedy or lazy (that’s not a view I hold myself, I should add), prison inmates and young delinquents are generally seen as ‘bad’. But are they? Could, for instance, their errant behaviour and criminal ways be related to something more physiological than social or psychological? Say if [...]
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Trial results forced out of drug company support the concept that cholesterol may not ’cause’ cardiovascular disease
Last Monday’s blog featured an article which revealed evidence of ‘publication bias’ (basically, the publication of positive studies and the junking of negative ones) in the area of antidepressant therapy. Not only that, but this study revealed that many negative studies are reported by their authors in a way that makes them look positive. The [...]
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Scientists claim that conventional ‘healthy eating’ messages may be doing more harm than good
Those of you familiar with my nutritional beliefs will know that I don’t have too many good things to say about the ‘low-fat’ paradigm that has pervaded nutritional advice for some 30 years. Not only do I believe that there is not much to be feared in naturally-occurring fats in the diet, but the fat-phobia [...]
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Research shows that protein-rich, low-carb diets are most effective for sating the appetite
You don’t have to wait too long before reading some statistic or other that tells us about how rates of obesity are soaring left, right and centre. As ever, though, the advice to ‘eat less and exercise more’ remains the same. That’s a shame, seeing as there is abundant evidence that neither of these approaches [...]
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Review finds data on antidepressants biased and misleading
Many individuals who work in healthcare, and perhaps quite a few who don’t, will have noticed a general thrust in the direction of what is known as ‘evidence-based medicine’. I have serious reservations about evidence-based medicine, myself. For a start, although evidence-based practice was originally billed as: ‘The practice of evidence based medicine means integrating [...]
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Children no longer seeing junk food as a ‘treat’. Why not?
I think they’d be few people who will not have noticed that children’s diets have deteriorated significantly over the last few decades. More and more, it seems, children are eating less real food, and way more rubbish stuff such as processed foods high in refined sugar, processed fats and other unwanted additives including salt, colourings, [...]
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Walking exercise programme found to improve measures of health and function
Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a big advocate of walking, and have attempted to highlight the evidence which suggests that this most natural and relatively gentle form of exercise can bring significant benefits for health. I was therefore interested this week to read about the results of a study from [...]
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Why ‘experts’ are sometimes not to be trusted
My last post on Friday discussed some science which demonstrates the superiority of carbohydrate restricted diets in the management of diabetes. Yes, the authors of this study call for more research to be done before we can confidently recommend such diets. It occurs to me that at least some of the reticence that is apparent [...]
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Meta-analysis show superiority of lower-carb diets in diabetes, but further studies said to be needed. Why?
The primary problem sufferers of diabetes have is that their bodies don’t handle sugar (glucose) well. Part of the problem here is that ‘excess’ sugar in the body can attach itself to tissues, which damages them. As a result, diabetics are at an increased risk of a variety of conditions including nerve damage, blood vessel [...]
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Get some sun (or die)
For almost as long as I can remember, we have been cautioned about the need to avoid excess sunlight exposure lest it trigger potentially lethal skin cancer, particularly what is known as ‘malignant melanoma’. Yet, there as for some time been amassing evidence that sunlight exposure is also associated with a decreased risk of several [...]
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