Worldwide health authorities are being urged to rethink official guidance around vitamin D following the publication of a ground breaking study from the University of Surrey, which dispels the myth that vitamin D2 and D3 have the same nutritional value. In the first ever study of its kind, published in the American Journal of Clinical […]
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Scientists have found another crucial piece of the puzzle in how the microbiome – the ecosystem of bacteria living in our digestive tracts – helps to shape our health. According to a study published in the journal, Cell Reports, chemical signatures from gut bacteria which show up in urine can be used to predict how the […]
Physical Education (PE) is not a ‘silver bullet’ to solve the inactivity crisis among the young, according to researchers from Leeds Beckett University. In fact, their latest research suggests physical education (PE) in the United and United States may be failing both teachers and children. Published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the research […]
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Last week I delivered a keynote lecture at the Public Health Collaboration annual conference in Manchester where I explained to an audience of over 200 made up of doctors and healthcare professionals that we have a complete healthcare systems failure. This failure is rooted in an epidemic of misinformed doctors and misinformed patients relying on biased research and biased […]
As a public health physician who has previously worked with Medicins Sans Frontieres in Sierra Leone and Turkey, I’ve just finished an assignment setting up an emergency community health surveillance system in Palorinya refugee settlement, northern Uganda. Approximately 147,000 South Sudanese refugees have settled in Palorinya over the last few months, fleeing conflict and violence. […]
Altering your meal times could be the key to minimising disruption to the body clock caused by shift work or jet lag, according to new research published in the journal, Current Biology. In the first human study of its kind, researchers from the University of Surrey discovered that delaying meal times delays the circadian rhythm […]
Magnesium is one of the electrolytes that plays a role in the heart’s electrical functioning. Research seems to support this conclusion, since studies show that it can relieve atrial fibrillation. ‘Heart arrhythmia is associated with magnesium deficiency,’ explains Dr Sarah Myhill, a GP based in Powys. ‘In the heart muscle and elsewhere in the body, […]
More people than ever are buying into the gluten-free trend – not necessarily because they are suffering from coeliac disease, but because it has achieved a bit of a ‘health halo’ status. Just the mention of ‘gluten-free’ on a packet seems to endow some mystical health benefit to it. There has been an explosion in […]
Many of us, myself included, struggle to control our weight. Unlike many of the generations that preceded us most of the people in the UK struggle to control our urge to eat. Previous generations may have had similar urges but, certainly for my grandparents and their forbearers overeating just wasn’t an option; there was barely […]
Doctors often find it challenging to make a positive diagnosis of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), which affects at least one in five people at some point in their lives. The symptoms of IBS, including pain, bloating and altered bowel habits, have significant overlap with a number of other conditions including Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and […]