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
Earlier this month I wrote a post that focused on a trial involving the cholesterol-reducing drug ezetimibe. Ezetimibe works in a different way to statins (the most commonly prescribed cholesterol-reducing medication). While statins block cholesterol’s production in the liver, ezetimibe block its absorption from the gut. When you add ezetimibe to a statin (there’s a […]
Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome
I spied this report earlier this week. It concerns a study presented at a scientific meeting in Boston. Here’s what I can make out about the study according to the description. 69 overweight men and women were put on a controlled diet for 8 weeks. The diet was designed to maintain them at a stable […]
Healthy Eating
My folks came over today, fresh from a driving holiday in Ireland. When I came to make lunch, I realised that the cupboard was a bit bare on account of me being busier than normal and having neglected the food shopping a bit. A bit of improvisation was called for. I found half a dozen […]
Healthy Eating
Why sleepiness is not always due to lack of sleep, higher-protein, lower-carb diet best for weight loss, and fructose found to be more toxic than glucose. For RSS feeds, click on http://www.podcastmachine.com/podcasts/8966 and then the ‘RSS feeds’ button to the right. For help regarding the playing, downloading and subscribing of the podcasts, click here.
Healthy Eating
I am not an out-and-out fan of aerobic exercise for weight loss, on account of the fact that, well, it doesn’t work so well for this (though it is good for general health). In recent years I’ve grown more interested in resistance exercise, at least in part because it can make a big difference to […]
Healthy Eating
Table sugar, the form of sugar individuals generally spoon into their tea or coffee or use when making, say, cakes and puddings, is comprised of sucrose. Sucrose is technically termed a ‘disaccharide’, a term used to describe sugars which are comprised of two individual sugar molecules joined together. Those two sugars, in the case of […]
Brain and Behaviour
I came across this story earlier this week. It concerns a study presented at a Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Minneapolis in the US. The details are somewhat sketchy from the report, but here’s what I think the researchers did and what their findings were. 262 teenagers with an average age of 17 were rated […]
Brain and Behaviour
To mark the 1000th post on drbriffa.com, my personal 10 major health and wellbeing milestones… For RSS feeds, click on http://www.podcastmachine.com/podcasts/8966 and then the ‘RSS feeds’ button to the right. For help regarding the playing, downloading and subscribing of the podcasts, click here.
Brain and Behaviour
Today’s post on drbriffa.com is its 1000th. I’m marking the occasion with a personal account of my health and wellbeing transformation over my life. Many people who don’t know me imagine, given my profession, that I’m a naturally health-conscious and relatively clean-living individual. Actually, that’s not true at all. For long periods in my earlier […]
Food and Medical Politics
Reuters recently reported here that the US Government has added the chemical formaldehyde to its official list of cancer-causing agents. You’ll learn from the Reuters piece that formaldehyde is found in things like some plastics and embalming fluid. But what you won’t learn from the piece is that it can be derived from our diet […]