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.
Brain and Behaviour
I came across this story earlier this week. It concerns a study presented at a Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Minneapolis in the US. The details are somewhat sketchy from the report, but here’s what I think the researchers did and what their findings were. 262 teenagers with an average age of 17 were rated […]
Brain and Behaviour
To mark the 1000th post on drbriffa.com, my personal 10 major health and wellbeing milestones… For RSS feeds, click on http://www.podcastmachine.com/podcasts/8966 and then the ‘RSS feeds’ button to the right. For help regarding the playing, downloading and subscribing of the podcasts, click here.
Brain and Behaviour
Today’s post on drbriffa.com is its 1000th. I’m marking the occasion with a personal account of my health and wellbeing transformation over my life. Many people who don’t know me imagine, given my profession, that I’m a naturally health-conscious and relatively clean-living individual. Actually, that’s not true at all. For long periods in my earlier […]
Food and Medical Politics
Reuters recently reported here that the US Government has added the chemical formaldehyde to its official list of cancer-causing agents. You’ll learn from the Reuters piece that formaldehyde is found in things like some plastics and embalming fluid. But what you won’t learn from the piece is that it can be derived from our diet […]
Healthy Eating
Yesterday I had a email from a friend alerting me to an interesting piece in the Sunday Times. I went out especially to buy a copy. The piece, entitled ‘Farmers, you’ve shrunk mankind’, is based around a presentation given at the Royal Society in London, last week. The lecture was delivered by Dr Marta Lahr […]
Brain and Behaviour
Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a flavour enhancer used liberally in processed foods and Asian cuisine. While MSG is a permitted ingredient in the food supply, there have in the past been questions asked about its potential role in weight gain and obesity. In 2008, I wrote a post about research linking MSG with increased body […]
Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome
I came across this interesting story the other day. It concerns an American, Bob Krause, who has just turned 90. Nothing to extraordinary about that, perhaps, in these days of enhanced longevity. What makes the story interesting is that when he was 5 years old, Bob was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. This is condition […]
Healthy Eating
While some see body weight as simply a function of the balance of the calories going into and out of the body, there is little doubt in my mind that this stance is becoming increasingly untenable. It is clear that body fat regulation is influenced by many factors, including levels of key hormones. A central […]
Brain and Behaviour
Red meat and colon cancer, melanoma doctor urges us to get out in the sun, could hunger and low blood sugar have something to do with disharmony in the home? For RSS feeds, click on http://www.podcastmachine.com/podcasts/8966 and then the ‘RSS feeds’ button to the right. For help regarding the playing, downloading and subscribing of the […]
Brain and Behaviour
Yesterday, my blog was based on a piece that appeared in the UK’s Daily Mail from melanoma specialist that urges us to get more sun (and quite right too). While reading this piece, my eye was caught by another article in the same publication with the headline High Court judge ‘beat up his wife because […]