Cooking ourselves to death

In northern climes over the festive season lots of well cooked, browned foods along with snack foods are commonly ingested in amounts unequalled at other times of the year. In the southern hemisphere, the BBQs get a solid workout. But what are we doing to our food when we expose it to so much heat? This is the theme of our lead story this week, which includes the release of a comprehensive database of acrylamide contents in processed foods. If you want to minimise your exposure to a probable human carcinogen, make yourself familiar with it and work out some swaps that will expose you to lower risks in the long-term. If you have kids, it’s even more important.

In the wake of the success of Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s recent 3-episode series on BBC1 television that showed the power of using lifestyle medicine to deal with chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes, obesity and musculoskeletal pain, we also report this week on the targeting of Professor Tim Noakes in South Africa. Prof Noakes has been among the leaders in the low carb movement there, as well as worldwide. The low carb, higher protein, anti-inflammatory dietary approach he advocates is inline in many respects with that adopted by Dr Chatterjee, ourselves and many others who are looking at outcomes and results. It’s a travesty in our view that Prof Noakes now finds himself having to fight for his professional reputation in the South African courts. Find out more.

In other news, we were relieved to see the collapse of the Global Energy Balance Network that was exposed by the New York Times after showing clear links to Coca-Cola. Some might interpret this as karma. Also, biotech giant Monsanto is going to be challenged next year in a human rights tribunal in The Hague — and a head of steam is again building behind the UK Association of HPV Vaccine Injured Daughters and its campaign for a moratorium on the HPV vaccine.

In health, naturally

Rob Verkerk, PhD

Founder, executive & scientific director