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In a study published this month in the Journal of Preventative Medicine, a team reported findings from their study on the DASH diet. The DASH eating plan is high in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, as well as beans, nuts, low-fat or fat-free dairy, poultry, fish, and vegetable oils. It is low in saturated fats,Read more

Diabetes can essentially be divided into Type 1 and Type 2. Type 1 diabetes results from failure of the insulin producing pancreas and patients requires insulin to survive. This blog refers only to type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is more complex. Most cases result from resistance to insulin, so patients with Type 2 diabetesRead more

The risks and benefits of statins.   An interesting if impenetrable paper this year looked at the risk/benefit profile of statins in different age groups and for four different statins.   The paper itself was scarcely readable unless you are familiar with advanced statistics and biomedical jargon but the conclusions bear discussion.   First, someRead more

The new shingles vaccine seems to be a huge success!   The shingles vaccine is proving to be very effective. A recent paper in the Lancet looked at uptake of the virus by patients between 2013 and 2016.   72% of eligible patients requested the vaccine in the first year and around 60% in theRead more

    BBC Horizons’ fascinating programme, ‘Can my brain cure my body’, looked at the impact of the placebo affect and that of longer consultations.   They looked at a population in Blackpool with backpain. Staggeringly, one in five people in Blackpool suffer disabling back pain. They set out to see if fake pills couldRead more

Marginal gains revisited As mentioned in another blog, I love Dave Brailsford, now Sir DB’s, idea of marginal gains. With British Cycling he took every aspect of cycling from biomechanics to diet to helmets and broke them down to their component parts. He then worked on each to develop a marginal improvement. It might onlyRead more

Insomnia Most of us have had problems sleeping at some time but a few of us have chronic or long-term insomnia. This can be quite disabling in some cases and naturally people often come to us for a solution. It is important first of all, to understand what is causing your insomnia. Common causes include;Read more

  My attention was drawn to a wonderful little youtube video this week, called 23 and a half hours, by Dr Mike Evans, a specialist in preventative medicine.   In it, he summarises the evidence for a wonder drug.   He stresses the importance of not losing sight of the benefits of weight loss, reducingRead more

Prostate Cancer and Stephen Fry’ Aggressive Little Bleep.   Steven Fry hit the headlines this week with a moving and informative podcast about his recent experiences (http://www.stephenfry.com/2018/02/mischievous/) . Stephen was recently diagnosed with a Gleason score 8 prostate cancer, subsequently upgraded to Gleason score 9 after his prostate was removed. Gleason scoring adds together twoRead more

Cough Cough is a normal reflex, something automatic that was ‘put in place’ to ensure the vital function of the lungs is unimpeded. There are numerous causes for cough, just as there are numerous irritants to our airways. The commonest by far is a viral cough, induced by irritation of the upper airways and theRead more