Abdominal obesity again linked with increased risk of dementia
Most of us have an ambition of living to a ripe old age. At the same time, many of fear the loss of our mental faculties as we age. For at least some of us, the spectre of dementia looms large in our minds. One potential modifiable risk factor for dementia concerns derangement in blood [...]
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The deadly consequences of drug side-effects being ‘neglected, restricted, distorted and silenced’
Last month I wrote a blog post about how the information about the adverse effects of drugs can be neglected, restricted, distorted and silenced. Why is this important? Well, it can harm and kill people, for a start. Some of you may remember that in 2004 the drug company Merck pulled its painkiller Vioxx (rofecoxib) [...]
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Gastroenterologist disses the value of chewing
Perusing on-line newspapers yesterday I came across this. According to the national newspaper the Observer (UK), Professor Chris Hawkey, president of the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG), is set to debunk more than a dozen ‘fad’ diets when he addresses Gastro 2009 conference for doctors. Locked in his crosshairs, apparently, are the concepts of chewing [...]
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Do regular exercisers really benefit by eating a load of bread and pasta?
I have been doing some lecturing this week, and part of the information I imparted concerned the potential advantages of eating a diet relatively low in carbohydrate. It’s not uncommon for individuals to ask about the potential effect of low-carb eating on sporting performance. This question is usually rooted in the notion that those engaging [...]
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Low vitamin D levels linked with increased risk of type 1 diabetes (again)
Type 1 diabetes is a condition characterised by raised levels of sugar in the bloodstream, and it’s underlying cause is a lack of insulin (usually secreted by the pancreas). The condition is ‘auto-immune’ in nature, which means that it is caused by the body’s immune system reacting to and damaging it’s own tissues (in this [...]
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More bad news for the makers (and takers) of cholesterol-reducing drug ezetimibe (Zetia)
Previously, I have written about the drug combination of simvastatin and ezetimibe (sold as Vytorin in the US). Both of these drugs reduce cholesterol, but through different mechanisms. Taken together, these drugs do do a good job of reducing cholesterol levels And we all know that the lower we get the cholesterol levels down the [...]
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Faster walking associated with reduced risk of death
Exercise is generally good for health, and one form of exercise that I advocate strongly is walking. Regular walking has been associated with protection from chronic diseases such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. It also is an activity that tends to take people outdoors. This may have spin-off benefits in terms of, say, [...]
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Statin side-effects that the pharmaceutical industry appears not to want you to know about
There is generally unbridled enthusiasm in the medical establishment for cholesterol-reducing drugs known as statins. While they do have the ability to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attacks and strokes, they don’t appear to reduce overall risk of death in individuals who have no history of cardiovascular disease when they start [...]
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Slower eating leads to higher levels of appetite-sating hormones
There’s a fair chance that at least once in your life you’ve been advised to eat slowly. I think this is good advice, at least in part because slower eating generally means more thorough of chewing of food (which aids digestion and reduces the risk of symptoms such as indigestion, reflux and heartburn). However, another [...]
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Chocolate found to protect skin from light damage
I generally advise against eating refined sugar. I, personally, eat hardly any, but I do eat some. Practically all of this comes in the form of 85 per cent cocoa chocolate. I, for quite some time now, have been recommending dark chocolate as a sweet treat of choice. Firstly, dark chocolate is generally lower in [...]
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