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
One of my projects for 2009 has been to optimise my vitamin D levels. My first ever check was in April, which revealed a frankly low vitamin D level of 15 ng/ml (37 mmol/l). I subsequently set about correcting this by taking 3000 IU of vitamin D (in gel caps) a day. In July my […]
Healthy Eating
Conventional nutritional wisdom dictates that we eat a diet rich in ‘polyunsaturated’ fats. At least part of the rationale for this relates to the fact that we are told that these fats help to reduce the risk of heart disease (you will, for instance, often see or hear ‘polyunsaturates’ being referred to in adverts for […]
Food and Medical Politics
Most of us will be familiar with the H1N1 (‘swine flu’) pandemic that never was. At the height of the hysteria here in the UK, individuals could phone up a help-line, answer a few questions, and get sent the drug Tamiflu (oseltamivir). According to a news report here, it turns out that only about 20 […]
Healthy Eating
I am not a fan of refined sugar, generally speaking. But I’m most certainly not a fan of the ‘healthy’ alternatives ” artificial sweeteners ” either. One cause of concern is their safety. For example, aspartame (Nutrasweet, Equal, Canderel) has quite a body of research which demonstrates it has real potential to have adverse effects […]
Exercise and Activity
I had the radio on in the car this morning and was listening to a discussion involving a 32 stone (450 lb/200 kg) man who was complaining that he was not getting the medical care he needed (surgery, basically) to allow him to lose significant quantities of weight. Inevitably there was a backlash from listeners […]
Sunlight
I am writing this on a train, and as I look out of the window I can see the British West Country go by. It is bathed in sunlight. And this stunning day reminds me of the last few days we’ve had here in the UK that have been cold, wet and grey. The general […]
Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome
As a general rule, those seeking to achieve long-lasting health and vitality would do well to ensure that blood sugar levels do not rise too high. One reason for this is that high blood sugar levels increase ‘glycation’ in the body, when sugar binds to proteins to damage them. The complications of glycation can be […]
Healthy Eating
As a general rule, scientists, doctors and dieticians subscribe to the view that when it comes to weight management, ‘a calorie is a calorie’. Essentially, this means that weight loss is the aim, we need to consume fewer calories than we burn, and as long as we do, then the form that these calories come […]
Brain and Behaviour
Most of us have an ambition of living to a ripe old age. At the same time, many of fear the loss of our mental faculties as we age. For at least some of us, the spectre of dementia looms large in our minds. One potential modifiable risk factor for dementia concerns derangement in blood […]
Food and Medical Politics
Last month I wrote a blog post about how the information about the adverse effects of drugs can be neglected, restricted, distorted and silenced. Why is this important? Well, it can harm and kill people, for a start. Some of you may remember that in 2004 the drug company Merck pulled its painkiller Vioxx (rofecoxib) […]