Medicine

Lacking in pep? Looking for some extra zing as winter sets in? The Spectator recommends our energy conference on 1 December. Tickets are still available, sign up here. Society is changing fast because we live longer. But the NHS was designed for a different age where the gap between retirement and death was much smaller. The result is that the health service’s financial footings are fragile and require new ways of delivering health to keep spending at sustainable levels. A new roadmap for reform of the NHS has been produced by Sir Simon Stevens. But there is a large hole where herbal medicine should be. Sadly, it does not merit a single

Lacking in pep? Looking for some extra zing as winter sets in? The Spectator recommends our energy conference on 1 December. Tickets are still available, sign up here. I don’t want this to become the ‘Tom Tells You To Get High’ blog, so this will be the last time I write about cannabis for awhile, I promise. Unless there’s something interesting in the news about it again. Anyway, pass the dutchie on the left-hand side and all that. The Daily Mail, the BBC and the Telegraph report that teenagers who smoke cannabis regularly do worse in their exams. Per the Mail: ‘The findings. . . add to a growing weight of evidence

Who enjoys all that calorie counting? If you hate diets but love the idea of losing a bit of weight, these quick fixes might just help you shift a few pounds – or prevent you from putting on any more. Get enough shut-eye. Research has shown that people who are sleep-deprived eat a lot more the next day than those who are well rested. In one study it was an average 600 calories more. Why? Quite simply, if you stay awake for longer, you’re more likely to have the munchies. Down the dairy. A few studies have suggested that people who eat more dairy products when they’re trying to lose

Ebola clinics in many parts of West Africa are full, so more and more people are being told to stay at home and take Paracetamol and fluids if they become infected. It means if someone in your family gets Ebola, you all have to stay in the house, which is effectively a death sentence. At the moment, the disease is killing 70 per cent of the people it infects, but that’s likely to go up. People who need other medical treatment can’t get it, and in Sierra Leone 40 per cent of farmland has been abandoned. Western governments are building secure military encampments for health workers, fearing civil unrest and

Over in my day job, I recently wrote a piece about ‘superfoods’ and the myths that a particular kind of food can protect you from illnesses. The only food advice for which there is consistent evidence is that you should eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables; all this stuff about how you should eat pomegranate to make your liver healthy, or whatever, is complete nonsense. One of the items that keeps cropping up was broccoli. It contains a chemical called sulforaphane, which supposedly helps with diabetes, lung disease and breast cancer. Naturally, the evidence for all this is lacking: the tests were all carried out with

No one likes getting the flu and for some people, in particular the sick and elderly, the virus can prove deadly. So it’s worth taking a few simple steps in a bid to stave it off. 1. Wash your hands. Use soap and water to wash off the germs you pick up on all the surfaces you touch (and make sure you clean them too). Wash hands often and thoroughly – sing “Happy Birthday” or another short song to yourself while you’re doing it. And grasp the tap with a piece of loo paper when you turn it off. Overkill? Maybe. But who wants the flu? 2. Don’t smoke. You’re

Sometimes I read things that really get on my wick, and last week was one of those times. A new, ‘definitive’ 20-year study has ‘demolished the argument that the drug [cannabis] is safe’, according to the Daily Mail. Has it, though? There are various things wrong with that claim. One, no study is ‘definitive’; two, the research was not a ’20-year study’, but a review of other studies carried out over the last 20 years. There are lots other things wrong with the coverage, too, including the startlingly ridiculous claim that cannabis is ‘as addictive as heroin’. Even according to the research itself, less than one-tenth of people who try

‘There is now a deadly virus, which anyone can catch from sex with an infected person. If we’re not careful, the people who’ve died so far, will be just the tip of the iceberg… If you ignore Aids, it could be the death of you.’ It has been hailed as one of the most memorable health campaigns ever created. The message couldn’t have been clearer and people were petrified. For anyone over the age of 30, the ‘Iceberg’ and ‘Tombstone’ adverts — as they came to be known — with John Hurt’s menacing voice-over, still bring back a sense of crushing dread. The UK actually led the way with its

Because I’d like to have a child, and I’m getting on a bit, my husband and I have spent time recently with consultants. They’re an odd breed with distinct and shared characteristics. Invariably, after we’ve all sat down, their first move is to tilt their chair back, or give it a little twirl (design permitting), just to signal how free and easy it is at the top of the medical tree. When they speak it’s with a sort of hurried condescension, as if giving career advice to a hopeless niece. And they scribble as they go, on some scrap of paper. Ovary, ovary, arrow, hieroglyph, arrow, ‘Got that? Hmmm?’ Follicle,

Florence was in fog the day I arrived. Its buildings were bathed in white cloud, its people moved as though through steam. The Arno river was a dense strip of dew. At the Piazzale Michelangelo, the statue of David was etched by the surrounding murkiness to a stark silhouette, the renaissance defined by gothic cloud. I peered through a telescope that overlooked the city and saw nothing for miles. My friend Alessandro told me this was unusual for sunny Tuscany, which made me feel quite pleased. Perhaps with each day that passed I would see less of Florence — the ultimate tourist experience. At a nearby cemetery, the milky arms