Dr Briffa's Blog - A Good Look at Good Health
A health-focused blog that makes sense of science, and offers accurate, trustworthy and practical advice about all aspects of healthy living.
My eye was caught by the report of a study presented this week at the American Heart Association meeting in Atlanta in the US. In short, what this research found is that sleep deprivation led to increased eating (in the order of about 300 calories a day). This is not the first study to link [...]
I saw an individual in practice yesterday, who told me she’d recently had a bout of low mood that was ‘out of character’ and not for any obvious reason. The issue started around mid-December last year, but had recently appeared to lift. The first thing that occurred is perhaps this lady was suffering from seasonal [...]
The adrenal glands sit on top of the kidneys, and are the chief glands in the body responsible for the body’s response to stress. In short, when our brain senses stress it signals the adrenal glands to produce hormones such as adrenaline (ephinephrine) and cortisol. These hormones allow the body to respond to stress. Once [...]
Adequate length and depth of sleep appears to be important for optimal wellbeing and general health. The factors that affect sleep are many and varied, but centre stage here is the hormone melatonin, which is secreted by a structure called the pineal gland in the brain and essentially puts us to sleep at night (and [...]
As Christmas approaches, the bods at the British Medical Journal have a tradition of publishing an edition filled with more lighted-hearted fare than is usual. Perusing today’s copy my eye was caught by an article entitled ‘Beauty sleep: experimental study on the perceived health and attractiveness of sleep deprived people’ [1]. In this study, 23 [...]
Many individuals contend that weight control is all about diet and exercise. Of these, the research suggests that dietary change is likely to bring the lion’s share of benefits. However, body weight and fatness are not determined only by these lifestyle factors. Hormonal issues can play a part too. For example, if the thyroid gland [...]
In my blog yesterday I mentioned how a carbohydrate-rich diet can drive some people to overeat. High-carb foods tend to disrupt blood sugar levels in a way that can lead to episodes of low blood sugar that itself can trigger cravings for further carb-rich fare. Also, carbohydrate has relatively limited capacity to sate the appetite [...]
Sleep has important benefits for health and wellbeing, but not everyone is able to get as much sleep as they’d like. For some individuals, sleep does not come easy. One particular problem encountered by a few unfortunates is what is termed ‘delayed sleep phase syndrome’ (DSPS). Here, individuals can take hours (literally, hours) to get [...]
I believe that sleep is a much under-rated past-time. Two years ago, I wrote a blog post which punted getting more sleep as a worthwhile New Year resolution. And my recent post of 10 potential New Year resolutions also included one on getting adequate sleep. So, I was interested to see a recent study getting [...]
I read a report in the last week regarding New Year resolutions, the thrust of which was that setting the bar too high is more likely to lead to us not keeping to whatever resolutions we have made. In other words, opting for smaller, more manageable changes might be a better long-term strategy. I agree [...]
