Physical activity is promoted for its benefit on fitness and helping burn up excess kilojoules. Now scientists are beginning to unravel secondary benefits it could have by dampening activation of brain regions that drive our desire for less-healthy high-kilojoule foods. Physical activity has many health benefits and is a cornerstone of lifestyle advice to help […]
Category Archives: Health and Well-being
The evidence linking sugar-sweetened drinks and weight gain has been growing for many years. Now the most comprehensive review to date has firmly laid the blame for these drinks as being a major culprit for weight gain. Drinking too many drinks high in sugar is clearly not a good thing to do if someone was […]
Cinnamon is a popular spice, promoted for its ability to control blood sugar levels in diabetes. Clinical trials using cinnamon in diabetes though have mostly been small in number and haven’t always shown a positive benefit. With more clinical trials recently published, a new scientific review is painting a more positive picture of how this […]
Eating more fruits and vegetables is the foundation stone of any healthy diet, with the national dietary guidelines recommending adults eat two pieces of fruit and five to six serves of veggies and legumes a day. Juices can be a convenient and tasty way to get some of the health benefits of these foods – but […]
Weight gain through adult life is a slow insidious process. Rather than being a gradual weight gain over the year, obesity researchers have now pinpointed the danger zone periods of the year. These shorter danger zone times explain the majority of weight gained by adults each year. For the majority of adults, weight gain throughout […]
A viewpoint article recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, calling for an end to the ‘diet debate’ has certainly resonated with me. Promoting, discrediting, or debating any dietary approach to weight loss serves little benefit. Let me explain why. The scientific jury is now firmly in, with dozens of high-quality, randomised […]
Juicing fruit and vegetables is a popular way to get a get a quick ‘health fix’, but does come with the downside that they are less filling than eating the solid foods in the first place. Eating more fruit and vegetables is the foundation stone of any healthy diet. One popular way to consume them […]
Popular wisdom and well meaning advice recommends that people with the digestive system problem of diverticular disease should avoid small, sharp and hard foods such as nuts, seeds and corn for the risk of inflaming the condition. Research studies now say otherwise, and these foods shouldn’t be excluded from the diet, except for when experiencing […]
A recent review of the research field on body fatness and pre-eclampsia risk has added more evidence for how these two factors are linked together. Pre-eclampsia is a serious complication of pregnancy seen as high maternal blood pressure, protein in the urine and severe fluid retention. Pre-eclampsia is the most common complication of pregnancy, affecting […]
There is much we know about how diet and lifestyle can influence the risk of a person developing cancer. Now, for the first time, the effectiveness of cancer prevention guidelines has been applied to cancer survivors with promising results that should make any cancer survivor sit up and take note. In the most important report […]