Can drinking tea help mitigate against the effects of stress?
Probably all of us know that life events and ‘stress’ can change our mood, but there’s less acknowledgement, I think, that what we can have impact here too. One example relates to blood sugar imbalance: if blood sugar levels plummet it can switch on the body’s stress response, which in turn can induce feelings of [...]
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Adverse effects of drugs are “neglected, restricted, distorted and silenced”
When someone takes a medicine, it is generally in the hope that it will do some good. However, whether it does or doesn’t is only half of the story: even the seemingly most innocuous of drugs can have adverse effects on health. In an editorial in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Dr John Ioannidis of [...]
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Vitamin D associated with signficantly reduced risk of death from stroke
Regular readers will know that I have a particular interest in the role of sunlight in health, in large part due to its ability to stimulate vitamin D production in the body. Vitamin D, in turn, has been found to be association with a very wide variety of disease processes including cancer, diabetes, and multiple [...]
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World Health Organization study links mobile phone use with enhanced risk of brain and other tumours
Mobile phones are undeniably convenient, but that fat that they emit electromagnetic radiation means that they have at least some potential to affect individuals who use them. For a long time, the party line was that mobile phones are safe. This is a message the industry has been particularly keen to cultivate. However, at least [...]
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Could our ancient ancestors have given today’s champion athletes a run for their money?
Anyone familiar with my health ‘philosophy’ will know that I am a big believer in using our ancient past to inform our modern-day dietary and lifestyle habits. Logic dictates that, say, the foods we’ve eaten for longest in terms of our time on this planet are the foods that we’re generally going to be the [...]
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Is there such as thing as a ‘metabolic advantage’?
Last Friday my blog focused on a study which found that fat intake (total fat, as well as levels of, saturated, unsaturated and polyunsaturated fat) appeared to have no impact on change in body weight over a period of several years. Partly in an attempt to explain how this can be so, I outlined the [...]
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More evidence comes to light that fat is not fattening
We all know that fat is fattening right? (It is called fat, after all.) But not so fast, because as I detail here, for fat to get ‘fixed’ in the fat cells, a substance known as glycerol is required. Glycerol itself is supplied from a substance known as alpha glycerol phosphate (also known as glycerol-3-phosphate), [...]
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‘Blue’ light found to be most effective in combating seasonal affective disorder
I was out last night with a friend, and he mentioned his mother’s depression. Seeing as we’re now deep into the autumn here in the UK, I asked if there was any seasonal component to this. There is. Like a lot of people, his mother’s mood takes a distinct turn for the worse in the [...]
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Vitamin D supplementation found to improve insulin sensitivity
In a recent post I highlighted a study which has found that higher vitamin D levels are associated with a reduced risk of death. This evidence actually comes on the back of other studies showing the same thing, and while therefore strengthens the association between vitamin D and death risk, cannot be used to claim [...]
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Vitamin D shown to reduce risk of falls in the elderly
A month ago I wrote a blog describing some research which found that supplementing elderly individuals with vitamin D led to improvements in their muscular strength without any physical training. I made the point that this sort of effect is important because it means vitamin D may be able to prevent disability. I also mentioned [...]
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