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 […]

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 […]

The so-called omega-3 fats (found plentifully in ‘oily’ fish such as sardines, salmon and trout) have been said to have the potential to enhance health in a number of areas, including mental health. There is a fair body of evidence now that suggests that omega-3 fats are important in the functioning of the brain, […]

Back in October I wrote about the artificial sweetener aspartame. This food ingredient is perhaps the most controversial of all: its manufacturers and official bodies claim it’s safe, but a stack of anecdotal evidence and a fair degree of science says it’s not. Tellingly, whether a study finds for or against aspartame seems to […]

Previously on this site I have presented evidence that the traditional way of assessing body weight – the body mass index (BMI) – is pretty useless as a marker for health. Part of the explanation for this lies in the fact that the BMI tells us nothing about the composition of the body. Neither […]

I don’t know what health news stories were circulating in other parts of the globe, but here in the UK we have not been able to move for the ‘revelation’ that, for the majority of people who take them, popular antidepressants work no better than placebo.
This story was spawned from the results of […]

When it comes to healthy living, my tendency is to favour as natural a course as possible. The word ‘natural’ means different things to different people, but in the context of our diet I take it to mean food that is close as possible to the way it found in nature. This does not […]

News broke in the UK this week that prescriptions for obesity drugs topped 1 million in 2006 – an eight-fold increase in just seven years. No doubt some of this increase has come about as a result of the increasing dire statistics about the burgeoning rates of obesity. However, as I revealed here […]

Just like overweight individuals are often seen as greedy or lazy (that’s not a view I hold myself, I should add), prison inmates and young delinquents are generally seen as ‘bad’. But are they? Could, for instance, their errant behaviour and criminal ways be related to something more physiological than social or psychological? Say […]

Many individuals who work in healthcare, and perhaps quite a few who don’t, will have noticed a general thrust in the direction of what is known as ‘evidence-based medicine’. I have serious reservations about evidence-based medicine, myself. For a start, although evidence-based practice was originally billed as: ‘The practice of evidence based medicine means […]

I not so long ago wrote about the research which has found that hyperactivity in children can seemingly be triggered by certain food additives.
However, just like about any health issue one care’s to mention, hyperactivity (or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – ADHD – to give it it’s full name) is multifactorial in nature. […]

On Monday I reported on a couple of recently published studies which support the notion that fish fats are good for the brain. In particular, these studies assessed the potential impact fish-eating and higher levels of so-called omega-3 fats have on the ageing brain. And hot on the heals of this research has come […]

Previously on this site, for example here, I have written about the evidence which supports the idea that fish is what might be regarded as ‘brain food’. The study highlighted in that particular blog showed that high levels of DHA (docosahexaenoic acid - a so-called omega-3 fat found in certain species of fish) were […]

I’m often asked about my attitude to nutrient supplementation. Do we ‘need’ to supplement, is how it’s often put to me. My answer is that it is probably entirely possible to get all what we need to prevent overt nutritional deficiency diseases such as scurvy and beri-beri. However, less obvious deficiency states may occur […]

Very few of us will not have noticed that the last couple of decades have seen a concerted effort from health agencies and health professionals to persuade us that we should be driving our cholesterol levels to lower and lower levels. When I was at medical school the upper limit of cholesterol was 6.5 […]