I know a lot of people who read my blog are themselves bloggers. If you are, well now is the time to enjoy a brief moment of smugness. As most of us know blogging is not a lucrative thing to do. The monetary rewards barely cover the costs of the coffee to keep you awake late at night looking for spelling errors in your latest opus. So it is quite nice to discover that writing regularly does have some health benefits. Continue reading
Doctors in arms race with antibiotic resistant superbugs
As I write this, this news isn’t being widely reported. A bacteria has been found in the United States that is resistant to the last antibiotic left in the arsenal. There is now no longer any antibiotic available that bacteria can’t survive. This is certainly bad news – though not unexpected bad news. Resistance to antibiotics has been a problem since antibiotics came into use. The more widely antibiotics are used, the bigger the problem becomes. While this is an unpleasant milestone to pass, it doesn’t actually mean that the problem is suddenly bigger than it was. The laws of natural selection are hard to dodge, and bacteria have many tricks up their sleeves to defend themselves. Continue reading
I get a steady stream of enquiries from journalists. Their questions are usually fairly similar. They ask about the safety of cosmetics, and lose interest quite rapidly when I tell them that they are in fact safe. “Stuff you’ve never worried about before is still nothing to worry about” is not really the makings of a great headline. But I did get one that was a bit more interesting than most the other day. Who does the research on cosmetic safety? Obviously, there might be a story if all the research on cosmetic ingredients is carried out by cosmetic companies, or paid for by them, then maybe something sinister is being hidden. Who doesn’t love a good conspiracy? Continue reading
It’s tasty, but is it healthy?
A pair of groups of whom I have never heard before called the the National Obesity Forum and the Public Health Collaboration have made a bit of a stir in today’s newspapers by attacking government health advice. The official line is that obesity is caused by eating too much fat, so we should avoid it and go for low fat options. These activists claim that it is the other way around. We should eat plenty of fat and avoid processed carbohydrates. Who is right? Continue reading
Most people like nuts
There has been a big increase in the number of people suffering from allergies of all kinds, and although there is a perception that the problem is bigger than it actually is it still remains a problem. Nut allergies are one of the biggest categories and we have all become used to pervasive labelling of foods including ones that don’t even contain nuts as regular ingredients. Traces of nuts are enough. So should you be worried about allergies to cosmetics containing nuts? Here are my observations. Continue reading
Candelilla wax often used to give a shiny coat
A paper in the most recent International Journal of Cosmetic Science has just drawn attention to a little noticed issue that has been bubbling away in the background of the cosmetic science world for a while. The issue is the use of long chain hydrocarbons in lip products. This sounds pretty formidable, but it is not really that complicated. Mineral oil is largely composed of long molecules that are composed of nothing more than chains of carbon atoms surrounded by hydrogen atoms. This is about as simple as chemistry gets, and the chemistry of hydrocarbons has few surprises. The most interesting thing about them is that they make a good source of fuel. And the biggest use we put them to is to put them into cars and aeroplanes. Continue reading
In July 2014 I decided it was about time to do something about being overweight. I weighed in the region of 91Kg, but for my height the NHS recommended range only goes up to 84Kg. I had 7 more kilograms than I wanted. But how should I go about it? Continue reading
I have written several times on this blog that I can’t make sense of all the diverse and often contradictory information out there about health. I am a great believer in the scientific method, but it has to be admitted that it isn’t good for everything you would like to know. A good example is ‘healthy’ food and beneficial exercise. What do these terms even mean? Eating a salad is supposed to be healthy, but if you ate nothing but salad it would kill you. Exercise is generally regarded as a good thing. But you can definitely overdo it. If I were to set out to run a marathon this morning I would probably end up in hospital. Okay if I got into shape so I could run a marathon, I would probably be healthier than I am now by most measures. But even that wouldn’t necessarily mean that the actual running of the marathon was a necessary part of the process. The first person who ever ran a marathon, just after the battle of Marathon, famously died shortly afterwards. Continue reading
There have always been people out to separate you from your money and prepared to say almost anything that will work to do so. Since the internet has been widespread there have been many more opportunities for small companies and simply unscrupulous individuals to sell stuff that just doesn’t do what it says. Continue reading
There is so much contradictory advice around in the health field, even if you stick to the stuff that has some science behind it, that it is impossible to know what the best thing to do is. My approach is to give things a try and see how they work for me. When I started on the 2:5 diet I didn’t have any particular expectations. It didn’t seem like it was especially different to any other strategy and I was basically just trying to find the optimum one that enabled me to shed some weight with the minimum of fuss. Continue reading