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
Even if you have only a passing interest in nutrition and the subject of ‘healthy eating’, you’re likely to have picked up a change of wind in recent times regarding the dietary cause of obesity. For three or four decades, conventional wisdom has had it that dietary fat is the true villain of the peace. […]
Cholesterol and Statins
I had an email recently from a journalist friend of mine this week which included a communication he’d had from a reader. The reader had been refused health insurance on the basis of his ‘raised’ cholesterol. It was suggested to him that he would be eligible for insurance once his cholesterol ‘problem’ was ‘under control’. […]
Cholesterol and Statins
Ezetimibe is an effective cholesterol-reducing drug (it works by blocking cholesterol absorption from the gut). I came across a study this week from a group of researchers based in Michigan in the US which concluded that ezetimibe appeared to have a ‘protective effect on major AD [atherosclerotic disease] events and all-cause mortality…’ [1]. In other […]
Food and Medical Politics
Two weeks ago I wrote about an article in the British Medical Journal which recognised the fact that it’s possible for someone to suffer from a sensitivity to gluten (a protein found in wheat and other grains) even if coeliac disease (a form of gluten sensitivity) has been eliminated as a diagnosis. This recognition is […]
Cholesterol and Statins
I rarely meet someone who has not heard of cholesterol and does not believe it to be a largely dangerous substance. And increasing number of people seem to be aware of the conventional wisdom regarding the different forms of cholesterol, specifically low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C). Actually, these names […]
Cholesterol and Statins
The preoccupation the medical and scientific communities have with cholesterol have convinced many of us, doctors included, that ‘cholesterol is bad’ so ‘cholesterol reduction is good’. But, as I’ve pointed out before, even if cholesterol does jeopardise health, the fact that something reduces cholesterol does not make it inherently healthy. Even if arsenic and cyanide […]
Cholesterol and Statins
Aspartame and cancer, flu vaccination and ask me what my cholesterol level is.
Cholesterol and Statins
Recently, a brief article appeared in the British Medical Journal about how to manage the muscle pain (myalgia) that can occur in takers of the cholesterol-reducing drugs known as statins. The article itself describes this symptom as ‘common’, quoting an incidence of 5-10 per cent in published studies. However, my experience in practice is that […]
Food and Medical Politics
I, for a long time, have been suspicious of artificial sweeteners. At least some of my scepticism has been focused on the sweetening agent aspartame (Nutrasweet, Candarel, Equal). While studies with industry funding give aspartame a clean bill of health, independently-funded work generally does not. And we know that the constituents of aspartame (aspartic acid, […]
Cholesterol and Statins
Yesterday saw the on-line publication of a study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that concerns statins and is getting more than its fair share of media attention. The study, conducted in Denmark, analysed the rates of death from cancer in individuals taking statins, and compared them to those in individuals not taking […]