Posts tagged with 'dietary supplements'
COVID & dietary supplements: maybe clutching at straws?
5th April 2020
It's hard ... very hard. COVID-19 is burning through communities & nations and we currently don't have a vaccine or other obvious medical protection against it. Interestingly age makes a difference. Older people ... like me (I'm due to be 70 in a couple of weeks time) ... are more …
Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA): a well-tolerated dietary supplement with helpful anti-inflammatory & anti-depressive properties
16th June 2018
I was intrigued to see the recent paper by Ghazizadeh-Hashemi et al - "Palmitoylethanolamide as adjunctive therapy in major depressive disorder: A double-blind, randomized and placebo-controlled trial" - with its abstract reading: "Experimental studies provide evidence for antidepressant effects of Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) in animal models of depression. We aimed to …
Biological treatments update for psychotherapists: introduction & medication
20th November 2016
I'm running a workshop today on "Biological treatments for psychological disorders: an overview & update for therapists". You can download the 100 plus slides by clicking here. The overall outline of the day is illustrated in this slide: After introducing both myself and the seminar's aims, I did an exercise …
Zinc and depression
9th December 2014
Last year I was intrigued by a paper - "Zinc in depression: A meta-analysis" - from Toronto University's "Neuropsychopharmacology Research Group" where the authors brought together 17 relevant studies and concluded "Depression is associated with a lower concentration of zinc in peripheral blood. The pathophysiological relationships between zinc status and …
Are dietary supplements a dangerous waste of money?
9th January 2014
"The truth is rarely pure and never simple" Oscar Wilde Being a doctor, I tend to get occasional health queries from family members. Recently my brother emailed me saying "I have been taking multivitamin supplements for a while (also fish oil). Does the (linked) article mean that I am wasting …
Twelve recent research studies on diet, psychological symptoms & wellbeing (2nd post): magnesium, zinc, folate, fish & selenium
24th March 2013
I wrote a post a couple of days ago entitled "Twelve recent research studies on diet, psychological symptoms & wellbeing (1st post): overall dietary quality & depression". I said that glancing back over recent research studies that I have noticed & downloaded to my personal database, I was struck by …
Twelve recent research studies on diet, psychological symptoms & wellbeing (1st post): overall dietary quality & depression
22nd March 2013
Glancing back over recent research studies that I have noticed & downloaded to my personal database, I was struck by a whole series on the effects of diet on psychological state. I've listed twelve that caught my eye in the last several months - this first of two posts details …
Vitamin D deficiency - again!
11th February 2010
This blog post is also downloadable as a Word format handout. The cover picture on January 16th's British Medical Journal is of a blazing sun with the words "Vitamin D deficiency" underneath it. Inside there is a major review by Pearce and Cheetham entitled "Diagnosis and management of vitamin D …
Recent research: articles from January journals
4th February 2010
I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - EndNote - which currently contains nearly 14,000 abstracts. Every few weeks I scan through all the articles I've found interesting in the previous month (in the general areas …
Recent research: articles from December journals
7th January 2010
I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - EndNote - which currently contains over 13,800 abstracts. Every few weeks I scan through all the articles I've found interesting in the previous month (in the general areas …