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
While there is a general move to have us lose some of our collective weight, regular readers may have noticed that I’m a less exercised regarding this than most health professionals. Just last week, one of my posts included several links to articles which appear to show that individuals in the ‘overweight’ category have health […]
Food and Medical Politics
When I’m lecturing, one of the most common questions that comes up is whether organic food is better than food produced non-organically. There is actually some evidence that organic food tends to offer more in the way of what the body needs (e.g. nutrients). And of course, it offers less of what the body most […]
Healthy Eating
Earlier this month I focused one of my blogs on the apparently beneficial role of fish/omega-3 consumption during pregnancy [1]. The omega-3 fats found abundantly in certain fish have been linked with a variety of potential benefits including better neurological development of the foetus and reduced risk of post-natal depression. Other research has linked inadequate […]
Brain and Behaviour
I’m often asked about my attitude to nutrient supplementation. Do we ‘need’ to supplement, is how it’s often put to me. My answer is that it is probably entirely possible to get all what we need to prevent overt nutritional deficiency diseases such as scurvy and beri-beri. However, less obvious deficiency states may occur quite […]
Food and Medical Politics
Perhaps more than any other disease, breast cancer has received a helluva lot of social and political attention over the last decade. And a big part of the trust around raising awareness of the disease is the ‘need’ for women to be screened for breast cancer. The most commonly used technique for this is mammography […]
Food and Medical Politics
Previously on drbriffa.com I have written about the limitations of the body mass index (BMI) as a marker of health. This measurement (calculated by dividing weight in Kg by the square of one’s height in metres) takes no account of body composition, nor where any addition fat is aggregated in the body. Nevertheless, we are […]
Healthy Eating
‘Eat fewer calories than you burn’ has been the weight loss mantra for decades now. The problem is, cutting back on food and taking more exercise almost inevitably makes people hungry, which can make changes quite unsustainable in the long term. In this article, I offer some practical solutions to this, by outlining several approaches […]
Children's Health
Today in the UK, the news is awash with a story about how we appear to be sleep-walking into an obesity epidemic. The recently-completed largest ever study into the obesity in the UK, compiled by 250 experts in the field, has concluded that obesity is not rooted in individual gluttony and laziness, but in our […]
Healthy Eating
While I think it’s possible to give nutrition advice that can be applied broadly to a population, there is no doubt in my mind that fine-tuning is required for those who are seeking to consume something close to their ideal diet. That’s because, are nutritional needs differ. Physiological studies show, for instance, that some individuals […]
Men's Health
Here in the UK the weather has turned distinctly autumnal, and the drop in temperature will no doubt herald an upsurge in the risk infections including those affecting the ‘respiratory tract’. There is some thought in natural medicine that certain nutrients have a particular part to play in ensuring a healthy immune response, and may […]