Type 1 Diabetes & Inability To Produce Insulin: Straight Forward, Yes?

So you think type 1 diabetes is simple – an autoimmune disease that usually starts in the first two decades of life and causes complete inability to produce insulin? Two new studies challenge the familiar paradigm. One is outlined below the other can be found in the references at the end. Research Paper Title Most… Read More

The Evidence Base for Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine

According to Stefan Lohmander and Ewa Roos, writing in an editorial in the British Medical Journal, the evidence base for orthopaedics and sports medicine is ‘scandalously poor in parts’. This is what they found: Medicine rests on an uneven evidence base. Some interventions are supported by large multicentre randomised controlled trials that have a low… Read More

Sales of Sports Drinks Overtaken by E-Cigarettes

Electronic cigarettes overtook sports ‘nutrition’ drinks to become the UKs fastest growing supermarket product sold last year, by both volume and value. Data from the the consumer spending analyst Neilsen highlights that supermarket sales of the devices rose by 50% to 17.3 million units during 2013-2014. In contrast, the sales of other nicotine replacement products,… Read More

Everyone Knows That Alcohol Makes The Truth Come Out More Easily, Right?

Research Paper Title In Vino Veritas? Alcohol, Response Inhibition and Lying. Background Despite the widespread belief that alcohol makes the truth come out more easily, we know very little on how alcohol impacts deception. Given that alcohol impairs response inhibition, and that response inhibition may be critically involved in deception, we expected that alcohol intake… Read More

Is Being Sedentary in Leisure Time a Risk Factor for Developing an Alcohol Use Disorder?

Research Paper Title Physical Activity and Risk of Alcohol Use Disorders: Results from a Prospective Cohort Study. Background To examine the effect of physical activity on risk of developing alcohol use disorders in a large prospective cohort study with focus on leisure-time physical activity. Methods Data came from the four examinations of the Copenhagen City… Read More

Is There a Link between Blood Glucose Concentrations & Pancreatic Cancer?

Research Paper Title Blood Glucose Concentration and Risk of Pancreatic Cancer: Systematic Review and Dose-Response Meta-Analysis. Study Question Does pre-diabetes, the precursor of type 2 diabetes, increase the risk of pancreatic cancer? Summary Answer There is a linear doe-response relation between fasting blood glucose concentration and the rate of pancreatic cancer for both pre-diabetes and… Read More