Leading scientist in the field of nutrition
A time to be born, and a time to die. Epigenetic clocks, which count down age-related changes in DNA methylation, are coming up to speed. These are not the only biological clocks, but they appear to be the most promising tools for measuring biological age and vulnerability (1,...
Things don’t go better with Coca Cola. At all. A growing body of evidence puts the Atlanta-based ‘total beverage company’, and rivals PepsiCo and Keurig Dr Pepper, close to the centre of global declining health. Even the CDC, a conservative body currently under timely revision by Bobby Kennedy’s...
In Swedish folklore, Frukt and Grönt were the most feared of all trolls. They hunted down children who misbehaved at table, and forced them to eat salad (101). Frukt lives on as a death sandbox in Steam, where you can maim and kill voxel-based humanoids at will (2)....
Piblokto, aka Arctic hysteria, is an Inuit syndrome where the afflicted dance wildly, tear off their clothing and roll naked on the ice; followed by amnesia. Some say it is caused by vitamin A overdose, others favour social stress. I suspect it may be caused by over-indulgence in...
It’s getting harder to breathe. Two of the main degenerative conditions which make breathing difficult, namely chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD) and pulmonary hypertension (PH), appear to be trending upwards (1, 2), and are certainly becoming an increasing global burden (1-3). If you have COPD you are more...
The previous post glossed over the history of magic bullets, their inherent limitations and the way they have distorted the practice of medicine. In an unexpected plot twist, it now appears that due to over-reliance on magic bullets to treat the non-communicable diseases, while allowing public nutrition and...
Why are so many doctors so resistant to nutrition, let alone pharmaconutrition, when diet-related disease is the leading cause of death in the world (1, 2)? Is it the continuing failure of the biggest sellers, fish oil and multivitamins, to show material benefits (3)? The persistent problems with...
Sir Roger Penrose has a remarkable mind, whatever that is. His contributions to math and physics lead to, among other things, a shared Nobel prize for his work on the inevitability of black holes. He subsequently became interested in the question of consciousness, and in his 1994 book...
In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter (an alleged victim of mercury poisoning) asks the koan ‘Why is a raven like a writing desk?’ The best answer I’ve seen (better than Carroll’s own) is that Poe wrote on both of them. My question is, why are cod...
Racoons, rats and pigs are opportunistic omnivores. Insects, grubs, birds, fish, plants, reptiles and carrion are all on the menu, as are humans when available. We are opportunistic omnivores too. Humans eat a huge variety of things, which is one reason for our evolutionary success. Nothing prepared us,...