Why does the UK Government’s obesity advisor dish out useless advice?
Woman’s Hour is an hour-long radio show on the BBC’s Radio 4 station. On Tuesday, I was invited onto the show to discuss weight loss. The item centred around the plight of Sue Lyons – an obese lady who has (like millions of others) failed to control her weight through ‘dieting’. Sue recounts a commonly-heard [...]
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Taking vitamin D may assist fat loss and reduce risk of chronic disease
There is a ton of research which links higher levels of vitamin D (and/or increased sun exposure) with reduced risk of a range of conditions including diabetes, multiple sclerosis, several forms of cancer and heart disease. These studies are voluminous, and tend to be quite consistent, but they still can’t tell us for sure that [...]
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Interview with Matt Edmundson about Escape the Diet Trap and other things
Matt Edmundson emailed me awhile back relaying the story of what happened when he read and applied the principles laid out in my book Waist Disposal. His daughter, it turns out, used to call him ‘baggy belly’, but not anymore! After Escape the Diet Trap was released, Matt kindly asked to interview me about the [...]
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Photo reminds us of the fattening effects of insulin
The New England Journal of Medicine recently published the photograph below. It is of a 55-year-old man with Type 1 diabetes who has been injecting insulin under the skin of his belly for more than 30 years. Those who inject insulin regularly are often advised to ‘rotate’ (vary) the site of injections. One reason for [...]
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Can shining a light into the ears combat ‘winter blues’?
The shorter days and general lack of sunlight in the winter can leave some of us prone to low mood and lack of vitality or even full-blown depression in the form of ‘seasonal affective disorder’ (SAD). A reasonable and often-effective strategy for overcoming these issues is light therapy, delivered by devices which simulate sunlight. However, [...]
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Can lack of sleep contribute to obesity?
I don’t believe that the best way for people to lose weight is to consciously restrict how much they eat. I have no issue with people eating less, I just believe that, for the best results, it needs to be done in a way that is both easy and sustainable. For the most part an [...]
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Do health charities lobby on behalf of drug companies?
Whether a drug is available on the National Health Service (NHS) here in the UK is essentially decided by an organisation known as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). NICE makes its decisions on drugs based on the cost per ‘quality adjusted life year‘ (QALY). A year in perfect health is 1 [...]
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How hunger can weaken willpower
I do a lot of work with groups in within businesses and organisations designed to help people lead healthier, more balanced and sustainable lives, and improve their energy, vitality and effectiveness as they do this. Early on during a programme, I’ll usually ask people what they’d like to get out of it, and non-uncommonly delegates [...]
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Manuka honey research reveals its potential to promote wound healing
Honey has for a long time been used as a traditional remedy in the treatment of wounds, particularly for the prevention and treatment of infection. Any potential here has real significance these days, at least in part because we’re seeing the emergence of more strains of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. And also because [...]
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Vitamin D deficiency major problem in the UK and is linked with ‘sudden infant death’
The BBC here in the UK has had a recent blitz on stories relating to vitamin D, particularly vitamin D deficiency in children and its potential to cause rickets (and the characteristic weakened, deformed bones prone to fracture). However, some doctors are suspicious that vitamin D deficiency may be an underlying factor in ‘sudden infant [...]
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