The world's best diet

Bryan Hubbard — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:38:00 GMT

There seem to be as many diets as sub-optimal mortgages - but which one is the best?

The accolade has to go to the low-GI (glycaemic-index) diet because not only does it help you lose weight, it is also great for your health, and may well help you live longer.

Every week a new study seems to support the diet, and this week scientists have discovered that a diet that's high in processed foods - such as white bread and standard breakfast cereals - can cause fatty liver, a life-threatening condition where large globules of fat collect in the liver.

People on the GI diet would be avoiding these foods, because it is based on low-glycaemic foods that produce only small fluctuations in blood sugar and insulin levels. These include pulses and most vegetables, whereas high-GI foods include white rice, fried and processed foods.

The GI diet has already been vindicated by the prestigious Cochrane Review, which compared the diet with six others. The GI outperformed all the others, and was especially appropriate for obese people as it still allowed them to eat a wide variety of different foods.

Those who stayed on the diet also saw a reduction in their BMI (body-mass index), and in total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels.

And the participants didn't get fatty liver, either.

Why it's wrong to take a statin a day

Bryan Hubbard — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 11:29:00 GMT

Take a statin a day if you're male and over 50, a health expert has told us this week. Prof Robert Boyle, the UK's adviser on heart and stroke health, reckons the drug should be taken along with the morning Corn Flakes in order to keep in check high cholesterol levels.

He's right to be concerned: heart disease and stroke is the major killer in the West. But he's wrong about the remedy.

Statins such as Zocor, Zocord and Lipitor do indeed reduce levels of the 'bad' LDL cholesterol, but scientists are beginning to see cholesterol as the big red herring of modern medicine. At best, a high cholesterol level seems to be nothing more than a marker of a heart problem, not the cause of one.

Even if you don't buy that, there are more effective ways of keeping cholesterol levels down, such as through exercise and diet, and without the need for drug dependency. Statins are also not quite as safe as everyone at first believed. A recent report has found that they can increase the chance of cancer, but more common effects include liver toxicity and hepatitis, inflammation and pain in the muscles, blurred vision, headache, nausea and skin rash.

The truth is that medicine still doesn't fully understand the subtle and complex mechanisms of heart health, and the role that cholesterol plays. Until we do, use statins only with caution, and certainly not every day with the Corn Flakes.

And, while you're about it, drop the Corn Flakes too and try some fruit instead.

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The world's best diet

Why it's wrong to take a statin a day