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
British individuals may be aware that food labelling schemes have been recently introduced in the UK which are designed, we are told, to help us make healthier and more informed choices about what we put into our mouths each day. The most widely implemented scheme has been cooked up by the Government’s Food Standards Agency, […]
Food and Medical Politics
In previous blogs I have highlighted the sometimes malign influence industry can have on scientific research and the publications that publish it. In my post of 17th October 2006, for instance, I reported on one piece of research which found that studies sponsored by pharmaceutical companies were more than four times more likely to have […]
Food and Medical Politics
My blog of 6th December last year lamented the fact that much medical research focuses not on health itself, but supposed ‘markers’ for health such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels. The main point I was aiming to make here was that in assessing a medical treatment or drug, we all (doctors included) need to […]
Food and Medical Politics
I make no secret of the fact that I think a lot of health information and advice that comes at us is not just unsupported by the science, but also seems to have been contrived with profit in mind. For example, despite the fact that taking dietary steps to reduce cholesterol have not been shown […]
Food and Medical Politics
I don’t remember too many things from my time at my medical school, but one thing that has stuck in my mind were the names ‘Hill and Doll’. The reason being that Austin Bradford Hill and Richard Doll were the scientists who discovered the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Trust me when I […]
Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome
It’s been hard to miss the dire warning we’ve had about the burgeoning rates of diabetes we’re seeing in the World. Another came this week came out of Cape Town in South Africa during the World Diabetes Congress. It was announced at a news conference that by the year 2025, 380 million people will be […]
Cholesterol and Statins
What are doctors and medicine for? To help people achieve better health, and maybe even save some lives, right? Well, over the last decade or so I’ve noticed that certain factions within the medical establishment seem to have, largely, forgotten this. We doctors, it occurs to me, are being asked to put more and more […]
Food and Medical Politics
On 15th November my blog was dedicated to a very poorly interpreted piece of research which purported to show a link between red meat eating and an increased risk of breast cancer [click here]. Even the most cursory look at this study revealed a piece of research hardly worth the paper it was written on. […]
Food and Medical Politics
Those familiar with my work will know that, generally speaking, I am a relative fan of diets that are largely bereft of starchy carbohydrates such as bread, potatoes, rice, pasta and breakfast cereals. A combination of a generally fast-sugar-releasing nature and the fact that they tend to be eaten in quantity gives these foods considerable […]
Food and Medical Politics
Many of you will be aware that red meat has some bas press again, this time because of a supposed link with an increased risk of breast cancer. A study published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine has revealed, we are warned, that pre-menopausal women eating red meat are at an increased risk […]