Last week I wrote a piece challenging prevailing nutritional wisdom about the role of dietary fat in the burgeoning rates of fatness seen in many countries [click here]. Of course, obesity is not the only condition usually put down to fat in the diet ” another is heart disease. In fact, health professionals often trot […]
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Big fat lies – why do health professionals continue to dish out advice about fat that is not supported by science?
Despite my leanings towards natural medicine, I still read conventional medical journals each week, including the British Medical Journal. Over the last few weeks this journal has been running a series of articles about obesity that will be published next year as a book geared towards the education of medical professionals. This week’s article focuses […]
Trans fat campaigner and lawyer takes aim at saturated fat too – but would it stand up in court?
On Monday, my blog featured mooted plans in New York to ban so-called ‘trans fats’ from restaurant and fast food joints. Later this week, I though I would check how this initiative is getting on, and one of the sites I checked for information on this was www.bantransfat.com. The folks at bantransfats have been instrumental […]
“NHS knuckles rapped for putting patients at risk ” and could modern medicine be killing more people than it cures?
Before I get into this story can I start by saying, as a doctor myself (albeit a very naturally leaning one), that I’m a huge fan of certain aspects of modern medicine. For instance, if someone who has their hip ravaged by osteoarthritis (and for whom medication or natural supplements just aren’t working) can have […]
Trans fat ban planned in New York – what we need to know to protect ourselves from this toxic food ingredient
Listening to the radio this morning I learned about plans in New York to ban heart-stopping ‘trans fats’ from foods served in restaurants and fast food outlets. Apparently, a voluntary scheme for the removal of these fats from food has not worked out so well, and now the city’s health commissioner, Thomas Frieden, is reigniting […]
Is moderate drinking genuinely good for our health?
It’s a near-constant refrain from cardiologists: moderate drinking reduces the risk of heart disease. We’ve recently had another dose of this advice following the publication of a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine which looked at the relationship between drinking habits and heart attack risk in healthy men [1]. The US researchers responsible for […]
Drug company accused of ‘disguised marketing’ – and why we all need to be aware of industry funding of patient advocacy groups
Last week’s blog and newsletter featured ‘a little bit of politics’. Here, I highlighted the evidence that the pharmaceutical industry can bias the results of ‘scientific’ endeavour, and I also drew attention to the conflict of interest that exists between this drug companies the medical journals that publish and help popularise their research. All of […]
Effluent to be turned into drinking water? No thanks – tap water is already a health hazard as it is!
Water is becoming an increasingly precious commodity. This week the Institute of Civil Engineers in the UK suggested that one way to help combat this is to recycle effluent to make drinking water. Doesn’t sound like a great idea, health-wise, does it? Actually, most of tap water is already comes from a sort of effluent […]
Exposed: the way drug companies can influence research and the medical journals that publish it
One of the aims of drbriffa.com is to expose the how the food and pharmaceutical industries can sometimes act as a barrier to you getting accurate health information and advice. My experience is that industry funding and involvement can seriously bias the ‘conclusions’ drawn from scientific studies. Sound cynical? Well, researchers and scientists have in […]
Why the only place Coca-Cola’s Enviga is likely to leave you lighter is in the pocket
You may have heard that the Coca-Cola Company has just launched a new drink that goes by the name of Enviga that, it is claimed, actually helps us to burn calories. The drink contains both caffeine and an extract of green tea that, we are told, stimulate the metabolism. Apparently, drinking three cans of Enviga […]
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