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
Last week one of my blog posts highlighted a piece I had written for the Times on the relative merits of butter and margarine from a health perspective. I was limited to 1,300 words, and in the space allowed attempted to summarise all the most important prevailing nutritional themes here. I came out heavily in […]
Cholesterol and Statins
Last Saturday, The Times newspaper here in the UK carried a piece I wrote about the relative merits of butter, margarine and cholesterol-reducing spreads. I think it’s great we have got to the point where a major, ‘serious’ newspaper is commissioning and publishing pieces that challenge nutritional orthodoxy and do not swallow food industry misinformation […]
Cholesterol and Statins
The ‘Cochrane Collaboration’ is an international collective of researchers whose self-proclaimed role is to provide accurate and robust assessments of health interventions. The group specialises in ‘meta-analyses’: the grouping together of several similar studies on interventions including drug therapies. In 2011, Cochrane researchers assessed the evidence relating to statin use in individuals at low risk […]
Brain and Behaviour
I suspect many individuals dread the idea of losing their mental faculties as they age. I think nutrition probably plays a very important role in how well the brain ages and how well its functioning is preserved. This week saw the on-line publication of a study that suggests that a key factor here may be […]
Cholesterol and Statins
‘Heart disease’ is a term usually used to describe the gradual ‘furring up’ of the arteries around the heart due to a process known as atherosclerosis (or arteriosclerosis). Eventually, one or more artery may become completely blocked, starving some of the heart muscle of blood. If this persists, heart muscle will die, and this is […]
Food and Medical Politics
This week, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the UK issued directive about how doctors should go about managing and advising their overweight patients. Among other things, it recommends as ‘respectful and non-blaming’ approach, and avoiding use of the word ‘obese’. I actually broadly agree with NICE’s recommendations. I have all […]
Cholesterol and Statins
Earlier this week, someone sent me a link this article that reports on a recent decision made by the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK regarding two television adverts for the cholesterol-reducing margarine Flora pr.activ. The television adverts included text and a voiceover informing us that: “No other food lowers cholesterol more”. Two people complained […]
Cholesterol and Statins
What do you think when you hear the words ‘raised cholesterol’? For many people, these words are synonymous with ‘heart disease’ and an early demise. It is this reaction that underpins the idea that putting downward pressure on blood cholesterol levels is inherently good for us. There are many potential flaws in this thinking, though. […]
Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome
Much of our thinking about weight control has been dictated by the calorie principle – the idea that our body weight is determined by the balance of calories taken into and burned by our bodies. Within this overarching concept, calorific foods tend not to be favoured. One food that falls foul here is nuts. Just […]
Healthy Eating
I had an interesting email this week on the subject of skipping breakfast. Here it is: Inconversation with my mother and on the subject of diets, she reminded me (as she always does) that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”. Now my mother is a large lady who has dieted all her […]