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
Influenza vaccination is widely promoted, particularly the elderly. One argument for flu vaccination in the elderly is that it is said to reduce their risk of dying – primarily through its ability to prevent flu (which can be deadly) or a potentially deadly complication of flu such as pneumonia. Some evidence appears to show flu […]
Cholesterol and Statins
Earlier this week saw the holding of the American College of Cardiology’s annual meeting in Chicago. Quite a lot of media interest in this scientific meeting centred on the drug currently going by the name of REGN727. It’s an injectable drug, and it lowers levels of supposedly unhealthy ‘LDL’ cholesterol. It does this, apparently, by […]
Food and Medical Politics
The ‘gold standard’ method for testing the effectiveness of a treatment is the ‘randomised, placebo-controlled’ trial. Here, a group of individuals are randomly allocated to received an active treatment (e.g. a drug) or placebo (inactive pill). If the drug leads to benefits that are statistically more significant than any achieved with the placebo, the drug […]
Nutrients and Supplements
I was talking with someone yesterday about his vitamin D levels. He had these tested recently and found these came in at 15 ng/ml (about 38 nmol/l). Personally, I like vitamin D levels to be maintained in the region of 50 ng/ml. So, I suggested he take 5,000 IU of vitamin D3 for three months […]
Uncategorized
Acne is unheard of in populations eating a ‘primal’ or ‘paleolithic’ diet. This has caused some researchers, for example Loren Cordain (author of The Paleo Diet), to question what factors might be at play here. One prominent theory concerns the impact of eating carbohydrates that tend to be disruptive for blood sugar levels. These foods […]
Food and Medical Politics
Tom Naughton used to be a full time stand-up comedian but, although he’s still funny, he’s spending more time these days spreading the word about what truly healthy eating is. He also produced the movie Fat Head (a revealing and entertaining watch if you haven’t seen it yet). Tom has a blog here. It’s one […]
Healthy Eating
I came across this report yesterday. It concerns a study presented at the American Heart Association meeting in San Diego this week. From the report it appears that overweight individuals were randomised to one of two diets for 6 months (along with moderate exercise). ‘low-carb’: 30, 40, 30 per cent of calories from carbohydrate, fat […]
Food and Medical Politics
This week the media has been awash with news about the perilous dangers of eating red meat, and processed meat in particular. The cause of this consternation was a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine which analysed data from two large ‘epidemiological’ studies [1]. These studies basically followed people over many years monitoring […]
Food and Medical Politics
Here in the UK the on-going ‘Leveson inquiry’ has been investigating the practices of the press, as well as its relationship with the police and politicians. It is alleged to have revealed illegal undisclosed payments made by the press to public officials. This is clearly intolerable and wrong but results from a cultural change. In […]
Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome
While coffee does not enjoy the healthiest of reputations, it has been consistently linked with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes in the scientific literature. Back in February, for instance, a German study was published which found that individuals drinking 4 or more cups of caffeinated coffee each day had a 23 per cent […]