Articles
So you’ve survived cancer – that’s only the beginning
11Like returning soldiers cancer survivors are usually given some sort of victory celebration. But as with soldiers for far too many that is just the beginning of a new and much more lonely set of personal battles. About a quarter of cancer survivors – 500.000 people in the UK – are dealing with the long term fall out from their treatment. (Read more…)
Statins: just say no. Sensible reasons why they are stupid medicine
10Increasingly people are questioning whether it’s worth taking statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs that are supposed to cut your risk of developing heart disease. We think they are a really bad idea, unless you’ve already got heart disease, and have explained why… (Read more…)
Drug killing 10,000 in UK every year. How could you tell?
3Last week an email containing what looked like a great story arrived in my inbox – drug kills 800,000 in Europe in 5 years! A quick check revealed that that this was no wild or dodgy claim. It was based on research by a cardiologist at Imperial College Professor Darryl Francis, just published in the European Heart Journal.(Read more…)
How the TV bout Sugar vs. Fat was rigged
41Just how accurate and informative was BBC2’s Horizon program on Wednesday that aimed at scientifically answering the question: which is more deadly: Eating lots of sugar or lots of fat? The format was to feed two doctors who were also identical twins – Alex and Chris – unlimited amounts of one or the other. Alex got a low carb/high fat diet while Chris followed the traditional low fat/high carb diet with added the sugar. (Read more…)
Science and the great biomedical lottery
6Unfortunately for the rest of us today’s medical research is not driven by an abstract search for objective truth but by the need to produce a product. Unless there is a drug at the end of promising new line of research it’s unlikely to attract funding from the biggest payers – the drug companies. Instead it will be parked with the comment that it needs more research, the funding for which will be virtually impossible to obtain, however effective it is. (Read more…)
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