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.
Weight Loss
The standard way of gauging body size is the body mass index (BMI) – calculated by dividing an individual’s weight in kilograms by the square of their height in metres. According to conventional wisdom, a BMI of 18.5 ” 24.9 is regarded as ‘healthy’, while BMIs of 25-29.9 are considered ‘overweight’ and those of 30 […]
Food and Medical Politics
Many of you will be aware that red meat has some bas press again, this time because of a supposed link with an increased risk of breast cancer. A study published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine has revealed, we are warned, that pre-menopausal women eating red meat are at an increased risk […]
Food and Medical Politics
Last week I wrote a piece challenging prevailing nutritional wisdom about the role of dietary fat in the burgeoning rates of fatness seen in many countries [click here]. Of course, obesity is not the only condition usually put down to fat in the diet ” another is heart disease. In fact, health professionals often trot […]
Children's Health
Fruit juices generally have a healthy reputation, and a lot of people see them as a decent swap for whole fruit. However, for a variety of reasons, fruit juice actually bears only a passing relationship to the from whence it came. One reason for this relates to the fact that many nutritious elements in the […]
Food and Medical Politics
Despite my leanings towards natural medicine, I still read conventional medical journals each week, including the British Medical Journal. Over the last few weeks this journal has been running a series of articles about obesity that will be published next year as a book geared towards the education of medical professionals. This week’s article focuses […]
Healthy Eating
It was hard to miss the story recently which trumpeted the miraculous, health-preserving properties of a plant chemical in red wine known as resveratrol. Recent research conducted at Harvard Medical School in the USA found that feeding mice with resveratrol helped counteract the ill effects of a fatty, calorie-laden diet. Unfortunately, the results of studies […]
Food and Medical Politics
On Monday, my blog featured mooted plans in New York to ban so-called ‘trans fats’ from restaurant and fast food joints. Later this week, I though I would check how this initiative is getting on, and one of the sites I checked for information on this was www.bantransfat.com. The folks at bantransfats have been instrumental […]
Food and Medical Politics
Before I get into this story can I start by saying, as a doctor myself (albeit a very naturally leaning one), that I’m a huge fan of certain aspects of modern medicine. For instance, if someone who has their hip ravaged by osteoarthritis (and for whom medication or natural supplements just aren’t working) can have […]
Food and Medical Politics
Listening to the radio this morning I learned about plans in New York to ban heart-stopping ‘trans fats’ from foods served in restaurants and fast food outlets. Apparently, a voluntary scheme for the removal of these fats from food has not worked out so well, and now the city’s health commissioner, Thomas Frieden, is reigniting […]
Food and Medical Politics
It’s a near-constant refrain from cardiologists: moderate drinking reduces the risk of heart disease. We’ve recently had another dose of this advice following the publication of a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine which looked at the relationship between drinking habits and heart attack risk in healthy men [1]. The US researchers responsible for […]