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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.

All articles Healthy Eating Food and Medical Politics Unhealthy Eating! Weight Loss Nutrients and Supplements Specific conditions Brain and Behaviour Observer Archive
Higher protein diet plus resistance exercise aids weight and fat loss in type 2 diabetics Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome

Higher protein diet plus resistance exercise aids weight and fat loss in type 2 diabetics

Where weight and fat loss is concerned, I favour a relatively low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet on the basis that such diets generally outperform low-fat, carb-rich diets traditionally advocated for weight loss. A lower-carb diet I think may have particular advantages for diabetics because, well, they have difficulty handling carbohydrate as a result of impaired insulin function […]

February 16, 2010· 4 min read· Dr Briffa
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Low-carb diet pitted against low-fat PLUS medication (low-carb still wins) Healthy Eating

Low-carb diet pitted against low-fat PLUS medication (low-carb still wins)

I suspect there’s always going to be a raging debate about the best way to go about losing weight. From a dietary perspective, a myriad of suggested approaches exist, though within these the two most popular and well-known ‘diets’ are those low in carbohydrate and fat respectively. Both of these approaches have their advocates. I’m […]

January 26, 2010· 3 min read· Dr Briffa
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Heart surgeon waging war on saturated fat seems seriously short on science to support his claims Food and Medical Politics

Heart surgeon waging war on saturated fat seems seriously short on science to support his claims

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that the commonly-held belief that saturated fat cause heart disease appears to be waning. In the last few weeks alone we have seen the publication of two significant and weighty studies which have found no link between sat fat and heart disease. These come hot on the heels of another […]

January 21, 2010· 8 min read· Dr Briffa
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Two major studies conclude that saturated fat does NOT cause heart disease Cholesterol and Statins

Two major studies conclude that saturated fat does NOT cause heart disease

One of things I try and do on this blog is right what I see as nutritional wrongs. So, if there’s a common perception that artificial sweeteners are better than sugar for weight loss, but there’s really no evidence for that, then I’m inclined to write about it. If the evidence suggests that margarine is […]

January 15, 2010· 6 min read· Dr Briffa
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Artificial sweeteners fail to fool the brain Brain and Behaviour

Artificial sweeteners fail to fool the brain

I’ve been attempting to catch up on some reading over the last few days, and this included skimming through the last couple of copies of New Scientist magazine. One article that caught my eye from the late December/early January issue concerned the effect of artificial sweeteners. In particular, the piece (by San Francisco-based writer Douglas […]

January 14, 2010· 3 min read· Dr Briffa
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Editorial reminds us of the importance of looking to our nutritional past to improve our future health Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome

Editorial reminds us of the importance of looking to our nutritional past to improve our future health

My last post here detailed just a few relatively easy-to-apply lifestyle changes that might make good New Year resolutions. One of them, was to eat a ‘primal’ diet ” essentially a diet based on the foods we’ve been eating the longest in terms of our time on this planet. The record suggests that for the […]

January 1, 2010· 3 min read· Dr Briffa
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Getting control of food binges is not necessarily just for Christmas Healthy Eating

Getting control of food binges is not necessarily just for Christmas

At this time of year many of us will come across messages which warn of the hazards of consuming excessive quantities of food and drink. For example, a week or so ago I read a report which maintained that children can get through 6000-odd calories on Christmas day. And last week I wrote a piece […]

December 22, 2009· 5 min read· Dr Briffa
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On-line advert depicts the fattening effects of carbohydrate Healthy Eating

On-line advert depicts the fattening effects of carbohydrate

I came across a video today (posted below). It’s an Associated Press news report regarding an anti-soft-drink/soda video made by the New York City Department of Health. It portrays a man drinking the contents of a soda-can. Except that the contents aren’t the fizzy, sugary liquid one is anticipating, but what looks likes globs of […]

December 17, 2009· 4 min read· Dr Briffa
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Why eating a lot of ‘polyunsaturates’ is not necessarily healthy Healthy Eating

Why eating a lot of ‘polyunsaturates’ is not necessarily healthy

Conventional nutritional wisdom dictates that we eat a diet rich in ‘polyunsaturated’ fats. At least part of the rationale for this relates to the fact that we are told that these fats help to reduce the risk of heart disease (you will, for instance, often see or hear ‘polyunsaturates’ being referred to in adverts for […]

December 15, 2009· 3 min read· Dr Briffa
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