Author, obesity researcher .

The 2 day diet

The Michael Mosley August 2012 Horizon programme started a significant interest in intermittent fasting. As my special report (free) explains here, the programme looked at a number of different restricted eating options (eating less all the time, fasting for 4 days, alternate day fasting). The option that Mosley found the most tolerable was eating ‘normally’ [...]

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Meat consumption and mortality

An article entitled “Meat consumption and mortality – results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer [EPIC] and Nutrition” was published on 7 March 2013 in the BMC Medicine Journal. The full PDF is available here. The article led to the usual sensational headlines across the world – the BBC; CBC News Canada; The Herald [...]

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The Mediterranean Diet and heart disease

The last week in February (2013) saw headlines all over the world: “Mediterranean diet shown to ward off heart attack and stroke.” The Guardian ran with “Mediterranean diet ‘cuts strokes and heart attacks in at-risk groups‘.”  The Sydney Morning Herald announced “Mediterranean diet cuts risk of first heart attack by 30%”. The world headlines were [...]

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Australian Dietary Guidelines (Feb 2013)

New Australian Dietary Guidelines were published on February 18th 2013. Hundreds of pages of information are available here. The main “Eat for health: Australian Dietary Guidelines” document alone is 226 pages. The latest guidelines acknowledge the extent of the problem: “If current trends continue in Australia, it is estimated that by 2025, 83% of men [...]

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The medical profession’s prescription for the nation’s obesity crisis

Back in April 2012, The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges announced that they were launching a review into the UK obesity crisis. The initiative was launched in a front page article in The Observer 15th April 2012. The idea was that the body that represents 220,000 doctors in the UK would seek evidence from any [...]

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Horsemeat Scandal – What’s all the fuss about?

The UK is in the midst of a horsemeat scandal. The jokes are set to run and run (ha ha) but, in reality, this is no laughing matter. The story first broke in the middle of January 2013 with horse meat having been found in Tesco burgers. Other supermarket burgers were soon found to contain [...]

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Coca-Cola, Obesity and Conflict

Coca-Cola launched an advert about obesity. You can see the advert here as part of a short clip on ABC news. The ABC news item had an interesting factoid in it: “Sugary sodas are the number one source of calories in the American diet.” The Coca-cola advert has a female voice over – that kind [...]

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The British Heart Foundation & Flora pro.activ – an unhealthy relationship

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) describes itself as “a charity that aims to prevent people dying from heart diseases”. Until now, the BHF has remained relatively conflict free – a paragon of virtue in fact when compared with some other ‘heart charities’. Heart UK, for example, calls itself the cholesterol charity (cholesterol should have a [...]

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High intake of saturated fat & sperm quality in Danish men

“Eating a fatty diet could reduce a man’s sperm count by 40%” said the Daily Mail – enough to put every man off his bacon & egg. The Globe and Mail warned similarly: “Eating too much saturated fat may decrease sperm counts.” The headlines came from a study published in the American Journal of Clinical [...]

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Just cut fat to cut fat?!

An article was published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on Thursday 6th December 2012. It led to a few articles in the media on Friday 7th December. The BMJ article was called: “Effect of reducing total fat intake on body weight: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials and cohort studies“. It wasn’t [...]

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