When you exercise may have more to say about your health. George Eliot wrote in Middlemarch (1): “It’s an uncommonly dangerous thing to be left without any padding against the shafts of disease.” In those days diseases such as tuberculosis caused weight loss, so there was a viewpoint that one needed to be voluptuous to […]
New cancer research reveals unknown facts about hairdressing and accounting! As someone who works in cutaneous oncology i.e., skin cancer, and has an interest in genomics and how our lifestyles affect our genes (my book, The Genetics of Health, is now translated into German, Italian and several other languages) we know that cancer risk is […]
The neuroscience of stress management. These days it seems everyone is stressed. Studies in most countries seem to (similarly) report that almost a third of populations report feeling stress. Covid restrictions, cost-of living crises, and crime appears to be taking its toll everywhere. Record number of people are also leaving healthcare workforces such as medicine […]
Aspirin has been long considered the proverbial magic pill—useful to treat headaches and fevers or used to prevent heart attacks and strokes. Not long ago were health systems—including in the UK and NZ—considering a polypill that included aspirin alongside statins and blood pressure pills that was to be given to everyone over 55! (The exclamation […]
Do cow products like dairy and beef increase the risk of cancers and MS? Almost 50 years ago, the prestigious Lancet journal asked if cervical cancer was a sexually transmitted infection? Medical professionals and the public knew that nuns rarely, if ever, developed cervical cancer and the risk of cervical cancer was increased in individuals […]
New genetic research lays bare the genius of Beethoven. Ludwig Van Beethoven breathed his last in 1827, almost 200 years ago. He was 56. The Ninth Symphony was Beethoven’s last work. It was completed and performed, together with movements from the Missa Solemnis and the overture from Opus 124, with great appreciation at the Kärntnertor […]
Crime seems to be everywhere in New Zealand – shootings, stabbings, ram raids that even made an embattled government declare the latter—essentially retail crime—a “special crime.” With elections imminent, we see the malice play out in parliament, and discussed in workplaces. A society that values blunt aggression in sport finds itself shattered by criminal activity […]
Myths and truths about nature’s own drink This week I had a patient ask me how much water we needed to drink a day for good health and skin. I told her that I would be writing this blog especially for her, so here it is: Firstly, almost everyone has heard that we need 8 […]
How does the internet and AI compare with a skin doctor? Obviously, Google—the biggest and best-known ubiquitous search engine—has revolutionized the internet. Everyone searches Google for something. Of course, now Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the new computer kid on the block, and everyone is talking about ChatGPT. Therefore, I thought I would look at both […]
The Hidden Health Risks of Food Labels and Wraps. Our societies are getting fatter. Some people see this adiposity as a health issue, some as a cosmetic one. But truth be told, our metabolic processes are more mysterious than we realise. Last year, the prestigious Nature Journal reported that plastic is still one of the […]