Post Archive by Year

I’m highly sceptical about any diet that claims to boost fertility especially when it’s simply a healthy diet we should all be eating anyway, even though a couple of Harvard professors have written a book stating you can up your … Read More

Our childhood vaccinations schemes have been so ­successful over the years that many people have never seen a child with diphtheria, polio, measles or mumps. These adults are fortunately ­ignorant to the suffering a child ­experiences with any of these … Read More

Years ago I filmed a ­documentary in Singapore where the number of organ ­donations was higher than anywhere else in the world, and the difficulty in procuring transplant ­organs had evaporated. Why? The Singaporean government had declared an opt-out scheme … Read More

Here’s a new approach to ­treating Alzheimer’s – sound and light therapy. Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US, have shown that this method can relieve Alzheimer’s in animals and a clinical trial in human patients has already started. The study by … Read More

Recently I attended a Mirror rally in ­support of protecting free TV licences for the over-75s. I heard many stories of how TV is a lifeline for older people and keeps them in touch with what’s going on globally as … Read More

When I read the Royal College of General ­Practitioners was backing calls to ­remove abortion from criminal law, I confess I was ­gobsmacked. Wasn’t it already legal? Wasn’t a law passed in 1967 legalising it? Have I been labouring under … Read More

Tessa Jowell, always a champion of worthy causes and who died last May, campaigned to the bitter end for patients to gain better access to new treatments. Her last campaign is already bearing fruit. Patients with the same deadly brain … Read More

We’re seeing a frightening ­upswing in depression among teenagers. There are several ­factors behind it, including social media use and post-traumatic stress ­disorder. But could cannabis use be part of the picture too? It seems so, according to the first … Read More

Do you remember when Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister, was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AF)? I remember AF being described as a not very worrying heart condition where the upper left chamber, instead of beating regularly, has runs of … Read More

My old dad had a lot of back trouble, and when it “went”, he’d take to his bed lying on an old door under the mattress to keep his back in line. It took about six weeks to get better. … Read More