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
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, […]
Food and Medical Politics
A commenter on this website yesterday made me aware of a Q and A session hosted by website netmums featuring nutritionist Fiona Hunter and sponsored by the bread manufacturer Warburton. If you’re a reasonably regular follower of this blog then you may know that I have featured Warburtons twice in recent times. First of all, […]
Cholesterol and Statins
There’s a widespread view in the scientific and medical communities that saturated fat is bad for the heart. In particular, this form of fat (found in, among other things, meat, eggs, dairy products, coconut and palm oil) is said to raise levels of cholesterol, which in turns increases our risk of heart disease by promoting […]
Food and Medical Politics
Last week one of my blog posts focused on a widely reported ‘news’ story which concerned the supposed value of bread in the diet. These reports appear to have followed the publication of an article in the Nutrition Bulletin, the ‘journal’ of an organisation called the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF). I admitted at the time […]
Healthy Eating
A lot of conventional medicine is about symptom suppression. For example, with someone with ‘cramping’ in the gut we may give a drug to reduce the cramping. A better (I think) though more alternative approach would be to attempt to find out what’s causing the cramping and sort that out. As an aside, cramping in […]
Cholesterol and Statins
Someone recently sent me a link to this report of a study which warns us of the supposed perils of eating eggs. The study on which the report is based [1] looked at the association between the amount of egg yolks people ate and the amount of ‘atherosclerotic plaque’ in the main arteries supplying blood to […]
Healthy Eating
I learned today that if you want to give a highly-processed, chemicalised, crappy gloop (margarine) a flavour that at approximates to that of butter (a food), then you can add something known as diacetyl. Apparently, this chemical has previously been linked to lung disorders and other health problems in individuals who work in factories where […]
Exercise and Activity
Obesity is essentially unknown in populations that live a traditional ‘hunter-gatherer’ way of life. As is well recognised, it’s different in Westernised populations. Why? Well, one theory, at least, is that hunter-gatherers are much more active, and are burning off more calories than their Western counterparts, which affords them the ability to maintain health weights. […]
Healthy Eating
Last week, one of my blog posts featured a letter which highlighted the relationship between television viewing, sleep and body weight. Television viewing is associated with increased risk of obesity, and this association may be due to the tendency for people to eat more as a result of falling prey to TV advertising as well […]
Food and Medical Politics
Over the last few years there has been something of a diet revolution going on in Sweden. It appears that increasing numbers of Swedes are eschewing the conventional advice to eat a low fat, high carbohydrate diet, and instead are opting for something altogether lower in carb and higher in fat – the so-called ‘low-carb/high-fat […]