21st August 2018 One of the most common diseases in the world is type II diabetes, and it seems to be increasing inexorably. I feel I should quickly mention that I have a problem with calling a high blood sugar measurement a ‘disease’ but that is an issue for another time. Anyway, because type II […]
Last year I was asked if I would contribute to a book on diabetes. Any money made from royalties would go to The Noakes Foundation in South Africa, a non-profit organisation which aims to advance understanding of the low carb high fat (LCHF) diet, in order to help people eat more healthily. Mainly in South […]
I have written about diabetes quite a few times. Thus far, I must admit, I have kept the discussion relatively conventional. Anyone who has read my previous blogs may not think so, but compared to what I really believe, everything has taken place close to the middle ground. Time, I believe, to start turning diabetes […]
I suppose I should start this particular blog by stating that my interest in diabetes (type II) first came about as an extension of my interest in heart disease. This means that I approached diabetes in a different direction from most people. I was not looking at type II diabetes as an isolated condition; I […]
When Banting and Macleod won the Nobel Prize for the discovery and purification of insulin in 1923, a very great thing had been achieved. Many, many lives have since been saved, and there is no doubt that the prize was justified. Even if Banting and Best did their furious best to write Macleod (A Scotsman, […]
Outside of heart disease and statins, another area I have been studying for many years is diabetes. Not type I diabetes (caused by destruction of beta-cells in the pancreas and a lack of insulin), but type II diabetes. Type II diabetes has nothing to do with a lack of insulin, it is generally considered to […]
17th January 2020 I thought I should write a blog on coronary artery calcification (CAC), as it has become the latest hot topic. CAC scans, and CAC scoring are now increasingly popular, and the results are worrying lots of people who wonder what they mean, and exactly how worried they should be. I get many […]
11th December 2019 Several people have asked me to comment on a recent Lancet paper ‘Application of non-HDL cholesterol for population-based cardiovascular risk stratification: results from the Multinational Cardiovascular Risk Consortium.’ which made headlines around the world. Here – for example – from the BBC website: What did the researchers find? People should have their […]
5th October 2019 How does lead cause CVD? Following my last blog, several people asked the question. How does lead cause CVD – or atherosclerotic plaques? What is the mechanism of action? It’s a good question, one that I think I have answered before, at least in part. However, I think there is real value […]
April 25th 2019 Thank you to those of you enquiring after my health. I have had a horrible cough and cold and proper ‘man flu’ for the last couple of weeks, now settling. Before that, skiing, before that lecturing. But enough about me. Over the last few weeks I have watched a flurry of activity […]
17th March 2019 [Is stress the most important cause of cardiovascular disease?] Forgetting for a moment attacks by various people, and newspapers, that shalI remain nameless [Mail on Sunday UK], I thought I would return to the more interesting topic of what actually does cause cardiovascular disease and. As I have done several times before, […]
3rd March 2019 Mahatma Gandhi. ‘First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.’ A few days ago, the health editor of the Daily Mail wrote to me [and Zoe Harcombe and Aseem Malhotra]. I was informed that the Mail on Sunday was gong to attack us for daring to question the cholesterol hypothesis and the […]
19th January 2019 I suppose it is gratifying to see things I write very strongly supported a few days later. After telling everyone that a high cholesterol level is not a risk for stroke, out comes a study almost straight away, demonstrating that a low cholesterol level increases mortality in patients who have already had […]
15th January 2019 In this never-ending story on heart disease, I have tended to use the terms “heart disease” and “cardiovascular disease” almost interchangeably. Well, everyone else does it, so why not me? However, in this blog I shall be splitting cardiovascular disease into its two main components, heart attacks and strokes, and concentrating mainly […]
2 January 2019 ‘It is difficult to make predictions, particularly about the future.’ Old Danish proverb The hallmark of a great scientific hypothesis is prediction. Einstein’s theory of special relativity predicted that gravitational fields could be demonstrated to bend light – and he was proven right during observations made during a total eclipse of the […]
27th November 2018 A number of people have written to me asking how to read all the articles I have written on cardiovascular disease. I understand it is not exactly easy to do this. So, here I am going to attempt a short summary of everything I have written up to now. Thrombogenic theory vs. […]
17th September 2018 I have headed off into different areas from time to time, but to be frank I never thought I would start looking more closely at albumin. This is a substance that almost always ends up getting measured when you do a general blood screening test for patients – for some reason or […]
23rd July 2018 Trying to work out what causes any disease is tricky, very tricky, although in some cases it has been relatively straightforward – at least in retrospect. Scurvy, for example, has a single cause. A lack of vitamin C. If you replace the vitamin C, all the signs and symptoms of scurvy will […]
3rd July 2018 “Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.’ H.L. Mencken. Of all the flaws of the human mind, the number one must be the overwhelming desire to find simple, easy to understand answers – to everything. I […]
15th June 2018 Many years ago, whilst I was at University, a doctor called Elspeth Smith was giving a small group tutorial on cardiovascular disease. I did not know it at the time, but she was doing detailed research into the process of atherosclerosis itself. During the tutorial she made this statement ‘cholesterol cannot get […]
