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.
Children's Health
Pregnancy is a time when many women become a bit more focused on what they are eating. I recently had a conversation with a newly-pregnant women who was also a type 1 diabetic (a condition in which natural production of insulin is inadequate, necessitating the injection of insulin). She has found her way to a […]
Children's Health
One of the emerging themes in nutrition over the last decade has been just how toxic the sugar fructose can be to the body. This sugar, originally touted as ‘healthy’ as a result of the fact that it was found in fruit and did not raise blood sugar levels in the short term, has been […]
Brain and Behaviour
A couple of weeks ago one of my blog posts focused on a study which suggests that getting adequate sleep can have beneficial effects on body composition. While the mechanism that may be responsible here is not known, I speculated that it might have something to do with cortisol – lack of sleep can cause […]
Healthy Eating
There’s no shortage of awareness about the burgeoning rates of overweight and obesity afflicting Westernised countries. There are two principle theories about what causes obesity: 1. It’s all about calories in/calories out Proponents of this theory state that body weight is simply a function of the calories we put into our body (food and drink) […]
Healthy Eating
I usually eat breakfast, but sometimes I drink it. If I’m short on time and it’s too early to eat I might whizz up a ‘smoothie’ with a range of ingredients that cover a number of nutritional bases. Typical ingredients include berries, plain, raw egg, full-fat yoghurt, coconut milk and/or cream, water and a little […]
Healthy Eating
I came across this post recently, on the website of a Tom Naughton – a comedian and now nutritional commentator based in the US. Now I should imagine that comedians don’t necessarily make for the best nutritional commentators ordinarily. But Tom is an exception to this rule – he does a great job, in my […]
Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome
Back in December I wrote this post which explored the apparent ability of cinnamon to reduce blood sugar levels, particularly in diabetics. One of the studies mentioned in this post showed that cinnamon added to normal diabetic care led to improved outcomes compared to standard diabetic care alone. While this result was certainly promising, the […]
Healthy Eating
Conventional dictates that to lose weight we need to eat less and/or exercise more. Traditionally, this leads people to cutting back on what they eat and perhaps upping their exercise too. Studies show that exercise, however, is not particularly effective for the purposes of weight. See here for a recent blog post about this. And […]
Healthy Eating
The idea that eating more saturated fat will increases our risk of heart disease is claimed to be ‘well-established’ according to most nutritional commentators. The fact is, as I disclosed here, there really isn’t any good evidence to support this assertion. Three major reviews in recent times have failed to find evidence demonstrating that saturated […]
Healthy Eating
Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer in men in the Western world. However, many of these cancers are slow growing, and do not prove to be fatal. Many men, actually, will die with prostate cancer that never showed itself when they were alive. However, prostate cancer can and does kill with enough […]