Short bursts of high intensity activity found to improve body’s ability to handle sugar
Most people understand and appreciate that physical activity is generally a good thing for health and wellbeing. The reality is, though, that many of us are quite sedentary. And a big reason for this relates to time, and specifically our sometimes perception that that there are, really, not enough hours in the day. However, there [...]
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Omega-3 fats found to improve the psychological wellbeing of menopausal women
Women who are in the throes of menopause can experience a range of debilitating symptoms which can be psychological (e.g. anxiety and/or depression) and/or physical (e.g. hot flushes and night sweats) in nature. Standard conventional medical treatment for the menopause is centred around hormone replacement therapy (HRT). However, concerns about the safety of HRT (it’s
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More recommendations come to cut our cholesterol to levels that may hasten our demise
You don’t have to wait too long before yet another study is published which is used to persuade us that cholesterol is a killer and cholesterol-reducing drugs are essential for keeping us from the mortal spectre of heart disease. The focus, for some time, has been on controlling so-called ‘low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol’ ” [...]
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Protein-supplemented diet found to be more effective than carb-supplemented one for maintenance of weight loss
Of the many different dietary strategies that can be used to lose weight, I favour a relatively low-carbohydrate, protein-rich diet. Some of the rationale about the low-carb element of such a regime is that carbohydrate (say from sugary and starchy foods) is the dietary element that most disrupts blood sugar, which tends to knock on [...]
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Evidence suggests that one way to lose fat is to drink more water
I was out of the UK two weeks of January, but if I’d been here I have a feeling I’d have witnessed a fair few magazines touting healthy regimes for the New Year on the ‘detox’ theme. A key element of such regimes is usually a good intake of water. This, it is often said, [...]
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Deep sleep found to be important for memory function
Variously on this site I have extolled the virtues of sleep. Only last week I reported on a study which showed that shorter sleep duration and lower sleep efficiency (percentage time spent asleep as a percentage of time spent in bed) were associated with significantly advanced risk of the exposure to the cold virus leading [...]
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BMJ letter reminds doctors of limitations of science and the importance of clinical experience
Last November I reported on a review of treatments for irritable bowel syndrome that had recently been published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). The review showed that, of the treatments it assessed, peppermint oil was the most effective. One of the other treatments that was the subject of this review was fibre. As the [...]
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Research suggests good sleep habits can help improve resistance to viral infection
Variously on this site I have reported on the health benefits of getting enough sleep (see here for a relevant article). My attention was drawn to a study published this week which assessed the relationship between sleep time and susceptibility to the common cold in a group of about 150 male and female adults [1]. [...]
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Calcium supplementation found to reduce risk of serious pregnancy-related condition
Pre-eclampsia is a condition that can develop in the 2nd half of pregnancy. It is characterised by high blood pressure in the mother, along with protein in the urine. Late in pregnancy the condition can cause fitting, which can have serious (and even fatal) consequences for the mother and her baby. I was interested to [...]
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Why are individuals with melanoma at much higher risk of other cancers?
I was reading this morning about a study which assessed the relationship between skin cancer risk and risk of other cancers [1]. There are three main forms of skin cancer; squamus cell carcinoma (SCC), basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and malignant melanoma. This study found that having SCC or BCC was associated with an increased risk [...]
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