There was an interesting review published in The Lancet about the placebo rate in use of antidepressants. The review found that that the placebo response rate had remained steady over the last 20 years – at around 40%. What was even more interesting was the way this...
Conflicting views have again emerged about statin medications in two leading British Medical Journals. Statins are used to lower cholesterol and have been the best selling drugs of the past 25 years with sales in the tens of billions of dollars. The Lancet published a...
Much work has been done over the last few years on the dangers of sitting. Whilst claims that sitting is the new smoking are way over blown, it is true that in modern western countries many of us spend too much time being sedentary. The human body is designed to be...
Another week, with another useless study, which gets lots of media airplay. This time though it might not fade away because the findings have been used a basis to change guidelines on treating high blood pressure. For a long time the “official” cut off for high blood...
There are inflection points in history when things change. After this it can be hard to remember why there was a change and what were things like before. I was thinking about this when grappling with the non-stick fry pan, which seems to “stick”. Some refuse to use...
Last week a major report released by the UK based Public Health Collaboration made the front page of British papers. It stated something, which lone voices (including mine) have been saying for many years. That is that, eating a low fat diet is not healthy. In fact a...
