Dr John Briffa's blog, A Good Look at Good Health — writing on food, cholesterol, weight, energy and the science behind everyday health, from the drbriffa.com archive. Filter by topic, browse by category, or search the library.
Food and Medical Politics
For some time now there has been debate in some nutritional circles about the relative merits of different ‘diets’. Certainly, there has been at least two factions here. One argues for a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet which usually includes plenty of starchy carbohydrates such as bread, potato, rice, breakfast cereals and pasta. Others (including me) argue […]
Food and Medical Politics
If you’re British you’ll likely remember the flu ‘pandemic’ of 2009/10. Government-sponsored television adverts and a media awash with stories about the perils of flu led to the dishing out of 800,000 packets of an anti-viral drug (Tamiflu) over the phone and about half the populations dutifully had their ‘flu jab. At one point, the […]
Cholesterol and Statins
In the UK, the most popular ‘drugs bible’ goes by the name of the British National Formulary (BNF). Within its pages is found a wealth of information about pills and potions that are available over-the-counter and by prescription, including indications and advice of dosages. A significant proportion of the pages in the BNF are taken […]
Food and Medical Politics
I came across this report today, which concerns childhood vaccination against influenza. Normally, vaccines contain three strains of flu virus (trivalent vaccine). In theory, a quadrivalent (four-strain) vaccine might provide better protection again flu. In the study referred to in the report, children and adolescents were randomised to receive either a quadrivalent vaccine or one […]
Food and Medical Politics
Influenza vaccination is widely promoted, particularly the elderly. One argument for flu vaccination in the elderly is that it is said to reduce their risk of dying – primarily through its ability to prevent flu (which can be deadly) or a potentially deadly complication of flu such as pneumonia. Some evidence appears to show flu […]
Cholesterol and Statins
Earlier this week saw the holding of the American College of Cardiology’s annual meeting in Chicago. Quite a lot of media interest in this scientific meeting centred on the drug currently going by the name of REGN727. It’s an injectable drug, and it lowers levels of supposedly unhealthy ‘LDL’ cholesterol. It does this, apparently, by […]
Food and Medical Politics
The ‘gold standard’ method for testing the effectiveness of a treatment is the ‘randomised, placebo-controlled’ trial. Here, a group of individuals are randomly allocated to received an active treatment (e.g. a drug) or placebo (inactive pill). If the drug leads to benefits that are statistically more significant than any achieved with the placebo, the drug […]
Food and Medical Politics
Tom Naughton used to be a full time stand-up comedian but, although he’s still funny, he’s spending more time these days spreading the word about what truly healthy eating is. He also produced the movie Fat Head (a revealing and entertaining watch if you haven’t seen it yet). Tom has a blog here. It’s one […]
Food and Medical Politics
This week the media has been awash with news about the perilous dangers of eating red meat, and processed meat in particular. The cause of this consternation was a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine which analysed data from two large ‘epidemiological’ studies [1]. These studies basically followed people over many years monitoring […]
Food and Medical Politics
Here in the UK the on-going ‘Leveson inquiry’ has been investigating the practices of the press, as well as its relationship with the police and politicians. It is alleged to have revealed illegal undisclosed payments made by the press to public officials. This is clearly intolerable and wrong but results from a cultural change. In […]