Zoe Harcombe

Author, obesity researcher .

  • Home
  • Biography
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Media
  • The Knowledge

The Mediterranean Diet and heart disease

Written by Zoë on February 28, 2013 - 6 Comments
Categories: Conflict, Ingredients, Media comments, Obesity, Other Diets

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 [...]

Read more »

6 Comments

Egg yolk consumption, carotid plaque & bad science

Written by Zoë on August 8, 2012 - 60 Comments
Categories: Conflict, Media comments, Research

“Egg yolks linked to heart disease” screamed the headlines on Monday 6th August 2012.  The newspaper article came from a journal article called “Egg yolk consumption and carotid plaque“. I really have got better things to do than to continually dissect articles from so called scientists, but, when the item under attack is the super [...]

Read more »

60 Comments

Can Atkins diet raise heart attack risk for women?

Written by Zoë on June 28, 2012 - 17 Comments
Categories: Media comments, Other Diets, Research

So screamed the headlines on Wednesday 27th June 2012. This was the full article in the BMJ, which was behind the headlines. Another irresponsible article, more misleading headlines – both the article and headlines ignorant about nutrition and the composition of food. There seem to be one of these a day at the moment and [...]

Read more »

17 Comments

An apple a day does (not) keep the doctor away – more bad science

Written by Zoë on April 29, 2012 - 5 Comments
Categories: Media comments, Research

I love the Mail! I would have a fraction of the diet and obesity stories to comment on that I do without it. This blog post comes from today’s Mail on Sunday – from the health section in Review (29/4/2012). Described as “Why should we eat five a day? And is butter bad? A food [...]

Read more »

5 Comments

Five-a-day – is it enough?!

Written by Zoë on March 23, 2011 - 2 Comments
Categories: Gov. Policy

Five-a-day – is it enough?! Zoe Harcombe comments on an article in The Independent about 5-a-day and heart disease, cancer and bad science.

Read more »

2 Comments

Cholesterol & heart disease – there is a relationship, but it’s not what you think

Written by Zoë on November 23, 2010 - 35 Comments
Categories: Conflict, Research

I do a fortnightly newsletter called “Diet & Health Today” in our on line support club. The club is there to help people to lose weight by eating food – real food! Apparently that makes us radical and controversial. The main article in Diet & Health Today is called “The Big Issues” and we have [...]

Read more »

35 Comments

Third of heart deaths blamed on overweight

Written by Zoë on December 9, 2009 - 0 Comments
Categories: Media comments, Obesity

In a 10 year study of 20,000 men and women aged 20 to 65, Dutch scientists have found that being overweight accounted for half of fatal heart disease cases. The people in the study were more overweight than the average, so they allowed for this in their prediction that this meant  1 in 3 fatalities [...]

Read more »

Share your thoughts..

Heart attack rate rising for women

Written by Zoë on October 27, 2009 - 0 Comments
Categories: Media comments

This is a really interesting development. The heart attack rate in women is rising. A study of 8,000 people between 1988 – 1994 and then 1999-2004 showed that 2.5% of men and 0.7% of women experienced a heart attack in the first period and 2.2% of men and 1% of women had a heart attack [...]

Read more »

Share your thoughts..

Forget Cholesterol and statins – here’s how you really avoid heart disease

Written by Zoë on September 29, 2009 - 0 Comments
Categories: Media comments, Research

This is a great article by Jerome Burne. If you are interested in this area, I cannot recommend highly enough “The Great Cholesterol Con” by Dr Malcolm Kendrick – funny and extremely logical, it should be compulsory reading for every public health advisor and statin prescriber world-wide. Would it surprise you to know that it [...]

Read more »

Share your thoughts..

Chocolate twice a week ‘protects heart victims’

Written by Zoë on August 15, 2009 - 0 Comments
Categories: Ingredients, Media comments

No surprise that I liked this article! As a regular consumer of 85%+ cocoa dark chocolate… A Swedish study has shown that heart attack survivors, who eat dark (real) chocolate regularly are nearly 70% less likely to die from cardiac problems than those who rarely eat it. Even a weekly treat can help, almost halving [...]

Read more »

Share your thoughts..

  • Keep in touch

    Get Updates by RSS
  • My Books



    Can't wait for the post? Full versions of all books are available as instant downloads.
    Instant access now >> Click here for more info

    Intermittent Fasting. Free Special Report. Get the facts behind the claims.

    This is a free eBook for you to enjoy and to share freely with friends and colleagues.
  • Recent Posts

    • The 2 day diet
    • Meat consumption and mortality
    • Salt Awareness Week – 10 things to be aware of
    • The Mediterranean Diet and heart disease
    • Australian Dietary Guidelines (Feb 2013)
    • The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges obesity initiative – Stephanie Seneff’s submission
    • The medical profession’s prescription for the nation’s obesity crisis
    • The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges obesity initiative – my submission
    • Horsemeat Scandal – What’s all the fuss about?
    • American dietitians, big ‘food’ companies & conflict of interest
  • Post Categories

    • Conflict
    • Dieting
    • Exercise
    • Gov. Policy
    • Ingredients
    • Media comments
    • Obesity
    • Other Diets
    • Research

The Obesity Epidemic

© Zoe Harcombe


Copyright © 2013 Zoe Harcombe