Articles

As usual the world of health has thrown me several juicy topics to consider over the last week or so. There was yet another fake food scandal in the UK – further eroding trust in even the most basic foods that we buy. There was also the US recall of Uncle Ben’s Infused Rice products, sold in 5- […]

We call them persistent chemicals for a reason. Because they hang around in the environment and in our bodies for a very long time, breaking down, changing form and in some cases becoming even more toxic than when they were first used. Such is the case with DDT. Long banned in the West, this toxic […]

Soil Lives!: A Biography of the Uncelebrated Earth Beneath Our Feet by Martin Wood. Five Ways Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780957426603   Although described as “a book about science, culture and soil, viewed from the perspective of one family living in England in the Midlands over the past hundred years or so”, this book is so […]

So here we go again… In the UK the Environment Secretary Owen Paterson has once more demonstrated his breathtaking lack of understanding and sensitivity to the environment by suggesting that if we don’t start planting GM crops in the EU, and soon, the world of agricultural innovation will pass us by. In his thinly-veiled shilling […]

In the last week Cosmetics Europe – the body that represents the interests of cosmetics manufacturers in the EU – issued an urgent warning to its members and the media. Following discussions with the European Society of Contact Dermatitis (ESCD), a statement was issued that the use of methylisothiazolinone (MIT) in leave-on skin products such […]

Are multivitamin and mineral supplements just a waste of time and money? According to a recently published opinion medical journal that answer is yes. But don’t tip that bottle in the trash just yet. Writing in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine doctors from Johns Hopkins University, the University of Warwick and the American College […]

This week in the UK the RBS bank system crashed due – it is rumoured – to the online shopping activity of Cyber Monday. This followed Black Friday in the US where people stabbed, trampled, pepper-sprayed and punched each other in the pursuit of discounted goods. While this was happening, the news reported that, according […]

Rickets and scurvy. Just the mention of these diseases suggests we are talking about some point in history when things weren’t as good as they are now. And yet in the UK cases of rickets – a bone-softening disease due to too little vitamin D and calcium – have risen by 400%. Likewise cases of scurvy […]

It’s fair to say that our trust in healthy eating advice – whether from government or NGOs – has hit an all time low. Big Food has hijacked the world of nutrition advice both in the US (for an excellent précis see the report And Now a Word From our Sponsors) and in the UK (take a […]

Widely used pesticides are much more toxic to humans than previously thought, due to the combination of so-called ‘inactive ingredients they contain. That is the claim of French scientist Gilles-Eric Séralini and his colleagues in a new study due for publication in BioMed Research International. At heart the study questions how acceptable daily intakes (ADI) […]