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.
Nutrients and Supplements
Sometimes symptoms or medical conditions can have complex causes and cures, but sometimes they’re dead simple. For example, if someone is suffering from a tendency to cramping in their muscles, there’s a pretty good chance they’re low on magnesium and upping magnesium levels in the body will really help to alleviate or even stop their […]
Children's Health
Pregnancy is a time when many women become a bit more focused on what they are eating. I recently had a conversation with a newly-pregnant women who was also a type 1 diabetic (a condition in which natural production of insulin is inadequate, necessitating the injection of insulin). She has found her way to a […]
Children's Health
One of the emerging themes in nutrition over the last decade has been just how toxic the sugar fructose can be to the body. This sugar, originally touted as ‘healthy’ as a result of the fact that it was found in fruit and did not raise blood sugar levels in the short term, has been […]
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 […]
Brain and Behaviour
If we were to want to work out if a drug (or another treatment) is any good, we’d do well to conduct some ‘randomised controlled trials’. Basically, this means randomly assigned individuals to the drug being tested or placebo (or another drug). Neither the researchers nor the study participants know what’s being taken. Symptoms or […]
Healthy Eating
There’s no shortage of awareness about the burgeoning rates of overweight and obesity afflicting Westernised countries. There are two principle theories about what causes obesity: 1. It’s all about calories in/calories out Proponents of this theory state that body weight is simply a function of the calories we put into our body (food and drink) […]
Brain and Behaviour
Here in the UK many of us will be acutely aware that the days are already noticeably shorter. One of the risks associated with shorter days is lowered mood or full-blown ‘seasonal affective disorder’ (SAD – also known as the ‘winter blues’. For sure, some people are more susceptible to this than others. For those […]
Healthy Eating
I usually eat breakfast, but sometimes I drink it. If I’m short on time and it’s too early to eat I might whizz up a ‘smoothie’ with a range of ingredients that cover a number of nutritional bases. Typical ingredients include berries, plain, raw egg, full-fat yoghurt, coconut milk and/or cream, water and a little […]
Cholesterol and Statins
There is a well-established paradigm in medicine that ‘raised’ levels of cholesterol cause heart disease and that reducing cholesterol levels has broad benefits for health. Yet, despite how firmly these concepts are entrenched in the psyche of doctors and their patients, these assertions fail to tell the whole story regarding cholesterol and its management. One, […]
Sleep
Many individuals contend that weight control is all about diet and exercise. Of these, the research suggests that dietary change is likely to bring the lion’s share of benefits. However, body weight and fatness are not determined only by these lifestyle factors. Hormonal issues can play a part too. For example, if the thyroid gland […]