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
Alzheimer’s disease (a form of dementia) is characterized by the build-up in the brain of a protein known as ‘amyloid-beta’. Not surprisingly, amyloid-beta has been ‘targeted’ by drug companies, including Eli Lilli who produced the drug Semagacestat which did a nice job of retarding amyloid-beta synthesis. However, in trials, Semagacestat accelerated decline in brain function […]
Brain and Behaviour
I’ve written before about the fact that many people in the area of obesity research have the opinion that obesity is simply the result of eating more calories than the body burns through metabolism and activity. My position, and that of a growing number of researchers, is that there’s more to obesity than calorie balance, […]
Brain and Behaviour
We’ll probably all be familiar with the idea that raised cholesterol levels cause heart disease. The idea here is that high levels of cholesterol cause fatty deposits on the inside of the arteries around the heart. If one or more of vessels should block off completely, the heart muscle is starved of blood and, if […]
Brain and Behaviour
I saw an individual in practice yesterday, who told me she’d recently had a bout of low mood that was ‘out of character’ and not for any obvious reason. The issue started around mid-December last year, but had recently appeared to lift. The first thing that occurred is perhaps this lady was suffering from seasonal […]
Brain and Behaviour
The adrenal glands sit on top of the kidneys, and are the chief glands in the body responsible for the body’s response to stress. In short, when our brain senses stress it signals the adrenal glands to produce hormones such as adrenaline (ephinephrine) and cortisol. These hormones allow the body to respond to stress. Once […]
Brain and Behaviour
In December, one of my blogs focused on research linking walking with relatively protection from dementia in later life. As I pointed out in the blog, so-called ‘epidemiological’ studies of this nature are good for discerning associations between things, but can’t be used to determine that one thing is actually causing another. In other words, […]
Brain and Behaviour
I am a fan of low-carbohydrate eating, and my position is based on the science (showing it to be usually effective for weight loss and improvements in disease markers) and my experience with it in practice. However, not everyone shares my enthusiasm for this way of eating. Many people like to paint carbohydrate restriction as […]
Brain and Behaviour
While, in my experience, many individuals believe they have quite a degree of control over their physical function as they age, I’m not sure the same can be said for our general attitude to the functioning of the brain. My sense is most individuals believe that how well they maintain their mental faculties as they […]
Brain and Behaviour
Suck the water out of the brain and what’s left is mainly fat. Fat, one could argue, is ‘brain food’, and one particular fat that has received attention with regard to this is DHA (docosahexaenoic acid). DHA is one of the two main types of ‘omega-3’ fat found abundantly in fish such as sardines, mackerel, […]
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 […]