How bad is salt for your health?

“Try to cut down on the salt.”

I’m sure many people have gotten this well-meaning piece of advice from their doctor, especially if their blood pressure is a little bit high. It ranks up there with not smoking or drinking alcohol and avoiding red meat, saturated fat, and sugary drinks as one of those things we’re told to do if we don’t want to die … Read more

Do vitamin D supplements decrease the risk of depression?

A new study has just been published in JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association) that seeks to answer this question definitively. This subject has been somewhat controversial, because observational studies have tended to show a positive effect, while randomised clinical trials have failed to show any effect. Usually you would trust the trial data more than the observational data, but these trials were … Read more

Do vitamin D supplements protect against respiratory infections?

This question has actually been pretty thoroughly researched, so it should be possible to come up with a conclusive answer. A systematic review and meta-analysis of the collected data was published in the British Journal of Medicine in 2017. The review was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). No companies standing to benefit from the sale of vitamin D supplements were involved in … Read more