More evidence that ‘normal’ thyroid function tests do not necessarily mean that all is well with the thyroid and health
Earlier this month, one of my blogs focused on thyroid function testing. The main point I wanted to make was that ‘normal’ thyroid function tests do not necessarily mean all is well with the thyroid and health. The blog focused on research that shows that even with the ‘normal’ range, higher levels of the hormone [...]
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Study links fruit juice consumption with increased risk of diabetes
While fruit juices have a healthy reputation, I don’t believe their as healthy as their image suggests. Some of the issues I have with them are detailed here. One key property of fruit juices that causes me to advise their consumption with caution is the fact that they tend to be very sugary indeed. Many [...]
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Review details why many carbs aren’t ‘harmless for the heart’
I don’t make any secret of the fact that I think the low-fat/high-carb paradigm that has seemingly shaped much nutritional advice for the last few decades is not founded in good science. And variously, on this site, I’ve presented the evidence that supports this stance. Some of this research has examined the distinct lack of [...]
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What can we learn from a man who undergoes an operation without anaesthetic?
When I was growing up, I was very interested in ‘unexplained’ phenomena like spontaneous human combustion and hypnosis. My interest in the former has waned somewhat, but my interest in the latter remains with me to this day. More than 20 years ago I went to see a stage hypnotism act while on holiday in [...]
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What are we to make of the recent warnings about antioxidant supplements?
Last week’s big ‘nutritional news’ was that taking certain nutritional supplements increases risk of death. Apparently. News headlines throughout the UK were awash with the reports of a study which found that the taking of ‘antioxidant’ nutrients (namely beta-carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E) in supplement form is associated with a statistically significant increase in [...]
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When is a ‘healthy’ food not a healthy food after all?
Some of you may have noticed that I don’t believe much conventional nutritional ‘wisdom’, including the notion that some highly processed, relatively new-fangled foods are somehow ‘healthy’, and perhaps ‘better’ for us than those we’ve been eating for, say, hundreds of thousands of years. One commonly-employed tactic used by the food industry to convince us [...]
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Review suggests that ‘ghost-writing’ and undeclared interests are common in medical publishing
Earlier this month one of my blogs was devoted to the seeming suppression of data from a study which showed that two cholesterol-reducing drugs were no better than one. It appears that the drug companies who make the drugs sat on these results for two years, before it was forced out of them by a [...]
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Doctors detail the benefits of carbohydrate restriction in diabetics
Something interesting came in the post today, though I’m not sure who it has come from because the person who sent it marked it with their email address only. The item is a photocopy from what I think is a book, that seems to be called ‘Diabetes for Beginners’. The page (page 36) has a [...]
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More evidence that insulin plays a role in the development of dementia
Last month one of my posts was devoted to some research which found a link between weight accumulation around the mid-riff (abdominal obesity) and an increased risk of dementia. In this post, I also explored some of the mechanisms which might explain this association. At the heart of these suggested mechanisms is the hormone insulin. [...]
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Multivitamin use associated with improved fertility in women
Here in the UK we are told that, generally speaking, women are electing to have children later and later in life. One obvious potential problem with this is that fertility generally falls off from about their mid 30s. So, by the time a woman decides she wants to have children, there is the risk that [...]
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