David Unwin is a primary care physician in the UK. For the last eight years he’s been running a long term cohort study in his clinic, in which he treats his diabetic patients with a low carb diet. The study has generated massive amounts of useful data on what happens when patients with type 2 diabetes switch to a low carb diet. And the results … Read more
Five christmas book recommendations
I’m taking a break from the blog until the new year, and in light of that I thought I’d recommend some books that have come out in 2021 and that I think are well worth a read over the christmas holidays.
- A hunter gatherer’s guide to the 21st century. This book, written by evolutionary biologists Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying (who also host the
Why medicine is broken, with Seamus O’Mahony
Seamus O’Mahony is an Irish physician who’s written a trilogy of books that explore the varied ways in which modern medicine is broken. The first book, “The way we die now”, discusses how the movement of death in to hospitals in the modern era and a culture of denial around mortality has resulted in horrendous overtreatment of dying patients up until the very moment … Read more
Is fluvoxamine effective against covid-19?
Fluvoxamine is an anti-depressant drug that belongs to the class of drugs known as SSRI’s (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). It’s normally used to treat depression and anxiety. Lately, there’s been a lot of discussion over whether fluvoxamine might be effective as a treatment for covid-19.
Wait, what?!
Yes, that was my initial reaction. Why would an anti-depressant have any role in treating covid-19?
Well, apart … Read more
Covid-19: a new look at vitamin D
I’ve written about vitamin D as a potential treatment for covid-19 a couple of times before. In September of 2020 I wrote about a Spanish randomized trial that showed a massive reduction in ICU admissions in hospitalized patients treated with 25-hydroxyvitamin D (a part-activated form of vitamin D). However, that study had some major weaknesses – it was completely unblinded and it was small. In … Read more
The true causes of heart disease, with Malcolm Kendrick
I’ve been thinking about starting a podcast of my own for a while now, where I talk to the most interesting and original thinkers in health and medicine. I listen to a lot of medical and health science podcasts, and there are some that are truly excellent, such as The Drive with Peter Attia, Ivor Cummins’ Fat Emperor podcast, and the Diet Doctor podcast with … Read more